Building strong and powerful glutes is pretty important if you want to be a good athlete, reduce the risk for injury, or simply fill out your backside (hey, some people just want to look good in jeans, I get it…)

Here are 4 mistakes people make when trying to build up their glute muscles.

1. Overemphasizing squats

– Squats are a fantastic exercise for developing lower body strength, but they are not the end-all, be-all for glute development. It’s important to make sure you’re also folding in deadlifts, heavy hip bridges, and reverse hypers, just to name a few. All three of these aforementioned exercises target the glutes more directly than squats.

2. High rep, bodyweight and band only exercises

– It’s not that these exercises are inherently bad, but they are better served as warm-up exercises and or auxiliary exercises to help supplement your main lifts. If you want to build muscle you have to load more.

3. Not focusing on hip mobility

– Limited movement at the hip joint can prevent you from developing your glutes. For example, if your hip flexors are tight, it can prevent you from getting full hip extension which in turn limits the stimulus you can place on the glutes. Typically in this scenario, people compensate and overextend through their spine, thus effectively bypassing max glute contraction.

4. Failing to incorporate single leg lifts

– Single leg lifts require a ton of glute and hip stability. Lunges, step ups, and split squats are all fantastic exercises to help further support glute development. If you challenge yourself with these exercises you will definitely feel it in your glutes the next day.

Now that you know these mistakes, start tweaking your program and enjoy the results that will follow!