5 Best Glute Toning, Lifting & Shaping Exercises

Squeeze in a quick workout, and I promise you'll feel unstoppable after.

This quick series of 5 glute exercises will leave your 🍑 toned, lifted, and strong while also lengthening your hip flexors. Not only will you look & feel better, these exercises improve posture and will help relieve your low back if you spend most of the day sitting.

1 side lying tabletop sweep back

This exercise is fantastic at targeting the muscles of your peach because you have the comfort of relaxing the weight of your head and neck on your arm like a little pillow. Bring the knees stacked right in front of your hips with a 90 degree bend on the mat. Lift your top leg to hip height creating about a fist distance between the knees and your feet. Flex your top foot and sweep your thigh back as far as you can keep your low back still. Once you’ve felt your glute turn on you’ve gone far enough! Sweep back to your starting position & repeat.

2 knee to knee toe to toe on forearm

Prop yourself up on your forearm to add some work for the shoulders and obliques to this one. We are creating internal and external rotation at the hip joint, so can you think about your thigh bone driving the movement. Open the top knee, but keep the toes connected creating a diamond shape. Then close the top knee while opening your feet. Try to keep your hips totally still while doing so. You will feel the burn in that peach right away!

3 quadruped straight leg rainbows

We’re heading to all fours. Switching up where gravity is taking your body will change the exercise lots! Straighten one leg back behind you but try to keep the shoulders and hips square to your mat. Just like before, can you keep your low back totally still by engaging your center? Imagine you are trying to balance a teacup on your tailbone and tap the back right corner then back left corner of the mat drawing an arc shape with your foot. Feel the work in the peach of course, but also in those outer & inner thighs.

4 plank prep open close

With that teacup still nice and steady, hover the knees about 4 inches off of the mat using your deepest layers of abdominal muscle. Once hovering, exhale to open the knees connecting the heels in a pilates V. Rotate the knees back under the hips and repeat. Really feel the work coming from your outer hips on this one. Shaping the outer part of your glutes will come from moving with purpose ad opposed to letting momentum take over.

5 bridge

Ahhh doesn’t it feel nice to be lying down on your back after those burners? Go ahead and glue your feet and inner thighs together for this one. Use that intentional connection to turn on the muscles that support your spine. Start by drawing the back of your belly button down imprinting your spine into the mat. Move your sits bones closer to one another and peel one bone at a time starting with your tailbone up away from the mat until you’ve got a nice diagonal line from your ribs to your hips and out over your knees. Take a breath and lower down starting with the heart like you are aiming to put velcro back down in its place. Keep those glutes and hamstrings engaged until the very last second relaxing back to a nice and neutral spine.