The many advantages of exercising your glutes – the largest and strongest muscles in your body – are immense. Strengthening them can increase flexibility and agility. Moreover, the substantial caloric expenditure from these workouts aids in weight loss.
Toned glutes help you look better in clothing and they help to support the back and spine, reducing your risk of lower back injuries. Developing your glute muscles can also help your overall workout as it helps to improve running times and makes you stronger ready to lift more weights.
Strengthening and toning your glutes brings a whole host of benefits so let’s take a look at some dumbbell and kettlebell glute exercises.
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Dumbbell Glute Exercises
Lunge Walking
Hold a dumbbell in each hand and keep your hands down by your sides. You will need space to perform this exercise. Stand straight with your feet at hip-width apart. Keep your body upright, and step forward with your left leg to start the lunge.
Make sure your left knee is over your left ankle. Next, push off with your right leg to step that leg forward into a lunge. Repeat this motion on both sides so you are walking forward.
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Steps
For this exercise, you need a step of some kind that you can step up onto. Take a dumbbell in each hand and step up with your right foot only. Push up to put your left foot onto the step, so you are standing, and then lower your left foot back to the ground. Then lower your right foot back down, and repeat the movement.
Kick
Move into a hands and knees pose on a mat. Put a single dumbbell into your inner right knee and hold it in position with your knee bent. Keeping in this position, gradually lift the weighted leg back and as high as possible while maintaining balance. Lower back down and repeat evenly on both legs.
Lift
Stand straight with a dumbbell in each hand. Bend at the hips and lower the dumbbells towards the ground by bending your knees. Lift back up into the start position. Keep your core strong and back straight.
Squat
Hold one dumbbell in both hands, under your chin. Then do a regular squat holding the weight in this position, making sure you don’t bend your back or move your knees forward. Stand back upright again after, and repeat.
Kick 2
Hold your dumbbells out in front of you at shoulder height as you stand straight. Then step your right leg back and across to your left foot, while you lunge downward. Use your left leg to push back up, swinging your right leg out and back into a standing position. Do this again on the other side.
Kettlebell Glute Exercises
Arm Deadlift
When carrying out an arm deadlift with your kettlebell, increasing the weight will help to make it more effective and it provides good cardio exercise as well. Make sure to drive the movement with your hips and not your knees.
Leg Deadlift
Be sure to keep your back flat and use your hips to bend forward and backward while making the lifting movement.
The Swing
When doing a traditional kettlebell swing you can really work your glutes. Don’t use a 90-degree knee bend to do the swing. It should be your hips doing all of the work, helping to strengthen the glutes.
The Squat
When doing a kettlebell squat, you need to make sure your knees are fully bent, so that you focus the workout on your glutes and not your thighs. Hold the kettlebell to your chest and keep your back straight.
The Lunge
Hold your kettlebell over your head as you perform a regular lunge action and make sure you shift your weight onto your heels. If you perform lunges correctly they will have a really strong impact on your glute muscles.
Conclusion
Exercising your glute muscles provides a world of benefits from looking better in your clothes, to adding strength to your overall body and taking the pressure off of your lower back. It’s also a great way to help lose weight.
The glutes are the biggest muscle group in the body so working them hard with any of these exercises, helps to burn a lot of calories which leaves you with an improved figure all ways around, with minimum effort.
Whether you have dumbbells or kettlebells at home, or you don’t have any equipment at all, you can work on your glutes regularly and you will soon see a marked difference in the way your body looks and feels. Better glutes can help to make other workouts like running and weight lifting, more effective and easier as well.
