10 Amazing Hip Dip Exercises You Should Definitely Try!

You’ve been putting in all the hard work to perfect your glutes, you’re eating right but there’s one area that needs a little more attention just below your hip bone… Time for hip dip exercises!

The hip dip is actually quite a common area of annoyance for many women in the gym, and can be identified by an indentation on the side of your body, just below the hip bone, rather than a smooth, rounded curve. 

And, with it being such a small area of muscle, it’s often left untouched in workouts, and can lead to weaknesses that might affect your overall physical performance on legs days. So, by regularly working hip dip exercises into your lower body workouts, you can target this specific area, firm up your physical performance and smooth out the hip dip. 

In our minds, you already look fab hip dips or not! But if you want to give this area a little extra TLC, then take a look at these hip dip exercises!

[Related Article: Hip Abduction Machine – Do You Need One?]

How to get rid of hip dips

The hip dip is  an indentation caused by the shape of your hip bones, along with your distribution of muscle and fat on your body. To minimize the appearance of hip dips, you can combine weight loss with hip dip exercises to strengthen the muscles in this area. 

By building muscle in this area and reducing fat, it should help to minimize the indentations and fill out the dips. Win win – you just learned how to get rid of hip dips! In theory anyway, because there is a but…

Let’s not forget, your body is your body and you can’t alter the shape of it completely. A lot of the around your hips is defined by your skeleton below. So while you might know how to get rid of hip dips, this may be a case of minimizing rather than completely eliminating them.

So, by all means work on your hip dips if you think you could make them stronger, but please don’t worry if you can’t get rid of them all together. You’re already doing amazing work in the gym and you look incredible! And, if you’re strong and blowing everyone away with your squats, then you’re a total girl boss anyway! 

Hip Dips Workout

If you want to see results with your training, it’s important to consider putting a hip dip workout into your routine. It doesn’t have to be super long and could be tagged on to the end of your normal lower body session.

But by regularly including a hip dip workout into your routine, you can ensure that you are specifically targeting this weaker area of muscle.

The following hip dip exercises will help you to strengthen up your thighs, glutes, abs and hips, making for a more stable and rounded physique. 

Perform a couple of these exercises whenever you’re doing a leg’s day and aim to perform about three or four sets at 10-12 reps each time to make up your hip dip workout. That should help build muscle and strengthen up your hips and glutes! 

Oh, and for a lot of these movements you’ll need a really good resistance band. Check out the Heckin Fit Resistance band.  

We performed a review of the best resistance bands for women, and the Heckin Fit band came out on top! So we think it will be the perfect option for your hip dip exercises!

10 Amazing Hip Dip Exercises

Banded Squats

By adding a band to your normal squats, you can continue to push your knees outwards throughout the movement, adding additional strain to the muscles on the outside of your thighs and hips, really building shape in that problem area! On top of that, this hip dip exercise will work your legs and butt too – perfect!

1. Place the resistance band just above your knees
2. Stand with your feet at shoulder width apart
3. Push your butt back and down, keeping your chest high
4. As you move through the movement, keep your knees pushed outwards against the pull of the resistance band
5. Ensure your hip crease is below the knee, before pushing up again to standing position

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Banded Side Leg Lifts

This is one of those hip dip exercises that’s often neglected, but really works the muscles all down the side of the hip and glute, ensuring you’re focussing right on those dips. What could be better!?

1. Place the band just above your ankles
2. Stand side on to a wall with your feet hip width apart and hold on to the wall to steady yourself
3. Keeping your upper body tight and your leg straight, push the leg furthest from the wall out to the side in a smooth sweeping motion
4. Return the leg back to the floor to begin the next rep
5. Swap sides to work the other side 

Fire hydrants

A classic glute-focussed movement, this puts the emphasis right on the muscles along the side of the hip and glute, ensuring you’re building strength in this key area. It’s one of the most popular hip dip exercises out there. 

1. Begin on all fours with hands under shoulders and knees under hips
2. Maintaining the bend at the knee, raise one leg out to the side until the knee is almost aligned with the hip joint
3. Lower the knee back down to the floor to return to the starting position

[Related Article: Resistance Band Butt Workout]

Reverse lunges

One of the best ways to strengthen up your glute is to include lunges in your leg workouts. And, reverse lunges help you to focus on the stabilizing muscles in your hip, helping to strengthen up those hip dip muscles. 

1. Stand with your feet at hip width apart
2. Step back about one and a half strides with one leg
3. Bend your back knee until it’s about an inch from the floor
4. Check that you have a 90 degree angle at the front knee, without your knee tracking over your toes
5. Push up from the back leg and step forward until you’re standing once again

Banded monster walk

It might sound a bit scary, but it’s super good for those outer glute muscles! The monster walk is the perfect hip dip exercise for focussing right in on that infamous indentation. What’s more, including this in your workouts will help to strengthen up your squats too! 

1. Place your resistance band just above the knees and stand with your feet at shoulder width apart
2. Drop down into the bottom of a squat
3. Hold this position and step out to the side with one leg, then bring the second leg in back to shoulder width
4. Continue to step out in the same direction for the next rep
5. When you’ve completed your reps on one side, step in the other direction 

Side lunges

Take a lunge and turn it’s focus on the side of the hip and you’ve got yourself one of the best hip dip exercises out there. It’s a fantastic way to build a rounded butt and a stronger hip. 

1. Stand with your feet at hip width apart 
2. Step out to the side to shoulder width and drop into the bottom of a squat
3. Step the other leg in to hip width as you stand up back into standing position
4. Step out to the other side to work on the other side

Note: Once you’ve mastered the side lunge as part of your hip dips workout and you’re feeling strong, there are a couple of things you can do to up the intensity and keep the gains coming. Think about holding a light barbell across the back of your shoulders, or consider a resistance band.

Curtsy lunges

This is another great variation on the lunge that will help you to focus on the muscles around your hip, strengthen the side of the glute and build up power in the side of your body. Aka, it’s another one of our winning hip dip exercises. Just take it easy to start with – you don’t want to fall over!

1. Stand with your feet at shoulder width apart
2. Bring your left foot back and to the other side of the right foot so you’re in a curtsy position
3. Bend at the back knee until it almost touches the floor – this is your lunge
4. Push up and forward with your back leg until you’re back in a neutral standing position

Note: This is a brilliant movement, but because it takes you off that central line we use in our normal lunge, it can take a bit of getting used to when it comes to balance. As you start to get stronger with your hip dip workout, you can add dumbbells to the movement to make it more challenging and increase your gains.

Banded glute bridges

This is a classic glute exercise that is transformed into one of the best hip dip exercises with the use of the resistance band. By putting the strain on the outer muscles of the thighs, hips and glutes, you’re really focussing in on that weak area. 

1. Place the band above your knees
2. Lie on your back with your feet flat on the ground about a foot away from your butt
3. Ensure your feet are about hip width apart, then push your hips upwards until you’re in a straight, diagonal line from your shoulders on the floor to your knees
4. Throughout this movement, keep your knees strong without letting the band pull them inwards. This will put the focus on the hip dip muscles
5. Lower your hips to the floor to return to the starting position

Note: To make this a little more challenging and to really emphasize the push on the outer hip, when you get to the top of each movement, pause and push your knees outward against the resistance band before returning to the normal knee position. Only when you’re ready though! Get used to the movement before you start making it more challenging for yourself!

Banded clams

Put the focus right on those hip dip muscles with a banded clam. The band adds extra resistance while this movement puts the heat on the glute and hip muscles – ideal!

1. Lie on your side with the band just above your knees
2. Bend slightly at the knees, keeping the knees and ankles together
3. Maintaining the bend at the knee and your ankles together, raise the top knee up and out, opening up your hip
4. Don’t move your hips in this movement, as it will make it easier!
5. Lower your knee back down to the starting position
6. Turn over to focus on the other side

Banded lying side raises 

Put the magnifying glass right on your hip and upper thigh muscles with a lying side raise. By adding the extra resistance of a band, you’ll really feel the burn on those important muscles. 

1. Lie on your side with your legs straight and the resistance band just above the knees
2. Keeping your hips in line and your upper body still, raise the top leg up to around a 60 degree angle
3. Make sure you keep this leg straight throughout and don’t lift your other leg off the floor
4. Lower the leg back down to the other leg
5. Lie on the other side to work your other side.

Hip Dip Exercises – GymGirlFit final word

There you have it! A full hip dip workout that you can start to include in your training sessions to target this difficult-to-reach area of muscle. Not only will it help to get rid of hip dips, it should give you a stronger, more well rounded physique too.

Hip dips can be a frustrating area for women, especially if you’re smashing it on lower leg days. By including these hip dip exercises in your normal routine, you’ll be able to strengthen up this weaker area and hopefully take one step closer to achieving the physique you’re aiming for – it’s a win win! 

Let us know how you get on with these hip dip exercises and post in the comments below.