To add muscle mass to your glutes you need to ensure you are progressively overloading the muscles as well as using a combination of training techniques and equipment that place large amounts of stress on the target areas.
This article looks at the effects of booty or glute bands on the butt muscles, how you can use them to stimulate booty growth and what level bands to buy.
What are booty bands?
Hip circles, glute bands, mini bands, peach bands and loop bands are all used to describe the loop resistance bands that come under the umbrella 'booty bands'. Our bands are made of fabric material and when placed around the lower thighs or ankles, provide extra resistance in hip abduction movements. This means that whenever your legs are moved away from the midline of your body, the band will make this harder for your hip abductors, leading to stronger and bigger glutes.
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Why are bands good at growing your glutes?
It's no secret that big compound leg exercises such as squats, stimulate large amounts of muscle growth known as 'hypertrophy' in the hips and glutes. But what if you don't have access to the gym? Or perhaps you have plateaued? Further still, you may be completing these big lifts but not actually activating your glutes in the exercise. In all of these situations, here's how using a glute band can help:
1. Glute bands increase the amount of muscle fibres used as the gluteals contract during a rep. This is apparent in isolation exercises and compound lifts. As the band tension pushes your legs together, you must counteract this force by driving the legs away from the body against the band tension. This greatly utilises the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus which improve the fullness and sides of your butt.
2. Glute activation is often used to describe how the glutes are fired up and ready for a workout, by using a pre-activation routine before the main lifts. Booty bands do this really well and they also force the glutes to work harder while you are actually completing a compound lift such as a deadlift, hip thrust or glute bridge. For example, placing a band around the lower thighs when performing Romanian deadlifts, recruits more of the gluteals during that set because the band's resistance, places greater stress on the glutes and pushes more blood into the butt muscles.
3. Training at home with minimum equipment or completing your 'regular' legs routine will cause your body to adapt quickly. Only by using the method of progressive overload can we continuously grow new muscle mass. This means adding factors like; new exercises, more weight, less rest times and glute resistance bands to make workouts harder and thus promote hypertrophy. Adding a booty band is a simple way of making exercises harder, whether they are bodyweight glute exercises or weighted.
Which booty bands should you buy?
Our range of fabric glute resistance bands are non-slip and soft on your skin. With a variety of levels and models, you can take a look at the list below to get the best glute bands to grow your booty.
Level 1 Glute Band - for beginners and glute activation exercises. Also suitable for those in recovery or for use with rehabilitation exercise
Level 2 Glute Band - Our best selling glute band is 13" in length and is suitable for those already training or at intermediate level. Promotes growth when used with squats, deadlifts and abduction exercises.
Level 3 Glute Band - X-Treme. The toughest glute band on the market, for serious glute gains. 13" in length and 10-20kgs of resistance it builds serious mass when accompanying compound/bodyweight exercises such as the hip thrust or glute bridge.
Glute band packs - The Athlete Pack contains all three levels of our bands and is a popular choice for intermediate users. The Perfect Peach Pack contains a Level 1 & a Level 2 band, this is the best choice for those newer to glute training.
How to add size using bands and bodyweight
Before we can start growing our booty, there are two things we need to understand in greater detail, the anatomy of the gluteals and the movements of each of the glute muscles.
Glutes anatomy and functionality
The three gluteal muscles are, the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus. The maximus is the largest of the three and makes up the majority of the mass of the butt. It provides hip extension, abduction and external rotation. The gluteus medius is found under the maximus and gives shape to the side and upper butt. It aids with hip abduction and external rotation. The gluteus minimus is the deepest region and abducts the leg when it is straight.
Exercise choice
Understanding how the gluteals function will help you get the best results from your training. As you can see, only using hip extension exercises like squats and deadlifts, will develop your butt in a specific area. It is so important to use a variety of movements and implement booty band exercises so you can build a bigger butt from all angles. Here are our top booty building exercises, showing the focus area on the glutes.
Note: Whether or not you have access to weights, notice that these workouts include isolation exercises and larger compound exercises which place the maximum amount of stress on the target muscle. The bodyweight examples in routine 2, include single leg variations. These are very useful when weights are not available to complete big lifts, as they place more load onto one side of of your glutes.
Routine 1: Band & Bodyweight Exercises
Complete 4-5 sets for each exercise. Perform 12-15 reps per set.
1. Glute Kickbacks With Band - Anchor the band between knee and the floor. The other leg should have the band around the lower thigh. Kick your heel upward with the leg at a 90 degree angle. squeeze your glute hard at the top of the movement and hold for a count of 1-2 seconds.
2. Bodyweight Glute Bridge with band around lower thighs - Lie on your back, bend knees and place feet at shoulder width apart. Push through your heels until hips are fully extended, keeping tension on the band throughout the rep. Your legs should be at a 90 degree angle at the top of the exercise. If you feel tension in your quads or knees, adjust the foot position by placing feet slightly further away from your butt. Allow your head to rest on the floor to take stress off your neck.
3. Curtsy Lunges - Stand with feet at shoulder width apart. Step backward and across the midline of your body with your left foot. The foot should land at a point about 45 degrees from the standing position. Drop down into a lunge here, keeping the pressure through your right heel. Drive through your right heel and glutes to return to the start position. If you cannot feel this in the glutes, you will need to step back further so that you drop into a lower and longer lunge position.
4. Pulse squat with band around lower thighs or ankles - With your feet just wider than shoulder width, drop your hips into a low squat. From here stand up half-way, squat down again to the low squat position and then stand all the way up. This 'double' or 'pulse rep' is one repetition. Greater flexibility is required to get into a low squat with the band around the thighs so If you cannot achieve this, place band around ankles. The goal is to always push your knees/ankles out against the band tension.
5. Reverse Hyperextension with band around ankles or lower thighs - Lie face down and raise your legs off the floor until you feel a contraction in your butt muscles. This should be a small movement of about 4 inches. Now abduct (pull apart) your legs against the resistance of the band. Return legs to shoulder width and then lower them. This is one repetition. The aim here is to hold each portion of the rep for a count of 1-2 seconds.
6. Standing Single Leg Abduction with band around lower thighs - Keep a slight bend in both legs and lift your right foot off the floor and directly to the side. The left leg should be focused on stabilising your body here. Return right leg to the start position so the toe touches the left heel briefly. This is very effective due to the engagement of the glute medius of the standing leg being used to stabilise your body, while the glute medius of the moving leg is contracting in hip abduction.
Routine 2: Band & Weighted Exercises
Complete 4 sets for each exercise. Perform 12 reps per set for weighted exercises, 15 reps per set for band only movements.
Barbell Hip Thrust with band around lower thighs
Barbell Squat with band around ankles
Clamshell with band around lower thighs
Romanian Deadlift with band around lower thighs
Bodyweight Glute bridge with band around lower thighs
How long does it take to see results?
Progressing exercises by using booty bands will cause our muscle fibres to adapt stronger and thicker. Muscular adaption to new stimuli, typically takes between 3-4 weeks depending on the athlete's level. This means you should include different glute band and resistance band exercises in your training, every 3-4 weeks to continuously promote booty growth.
Add booty mass and shape with our Bigger Glutes In 8 Weeks GVT Training Plan. With 8 weeks of training, video demos, personal training support and effective butt building workouts, you will pack on glutes mass and shape. To read more about volume training and the German Volume Training method, follow the link here for the full article.
2022 Offer! Use the code GYM50 for 50% off any of our training plans.