Glute Activation – What it is and Must-Know Exercises

Ever feel like your booty progress is at a standstill?

Or have you been drilling squats, but you’ve plateaued when it comes to the weight you can lift?

If any of this sounds familiar, it might be time to start taking a look at glute activation exercises.

In the modern world, we all spend a lot of time sitting down. While it’s a big part of our days for many of us who work in offices and sit at a computer most of the time, it can actually do some really bad things to your muscle development – even if you are a regular gym bunny.

If you’re sat not using your butt, it can actually switch off the muscle fibres in your glutes as they become used less and less. They kind of fall asleep.

So that means when you head to the gym to smash out a fire booty workout, you may not be getting the best out of those muscles, as they might be asleep for quite a while until they’re fully warmed up. This makes building size and strength very difficult.

Luckily, we’re here with some tips, tricks and some of the best exercises for glute activation, that are proven to heighten muscle contractions in glutes, which can help support your goals and accelerate your progress [1].

Check it out.

What is glute activation?

For so many of us, especially those who sit at a desk all day, our glute muscles remain ‘switched off’ or inactive.

This means they’re weak, they go unused and they aren’t easy to recruit during exercise. Even if you go ahead and start squatting, without the right wakeup routine, it’s very unlikely you’re getting the most out of these muscles.

And if you’re not using them properly when you’re exercising, you’ll find it very hard to build size and strength in these areas.

To get them working well, you need to give them a little TLC with some glute activation.

Glute activation is the process of utilizing targeted exercises specifically to ‘wake-up’ the fibres in your butt. By focussing in on your glute muscles before you head out to do your squats or hip thrusts, your muscles will be active, ready to go and working harder for you.

Think of glute activation like a warmup for your butt. So many of us stretch and work our muscles to get them going before we start lifting, but often the booty goes neglected. That’s because this is the biggest muscle in your body and it needs extra special attention to get it working.

And the harder they work the easier it is to strengthen and grow them.

[Related Article: Best Butt Workout for Women]

Do you need a glute activation workout?

Sitting down for long periods of time is the mortal enemy of any well-developed glute. The more you sit, the less your glutes are used or needed, so they gradually start to deactivate and shut down.

So, if you’re chained to the desk all day, glute activation exercises can be a game changer for your butt development, your health and overall fitness.

This is the largest muscle in your body after all, and you can’t neglect it.

For example, when you’re squatting you’re using your legs and butt to lift the weights. Your glutes are much larger than your thighs and hamstrings, so it makes complete sense that you should recruit them as much as possible.

But without activating them, you could be lifting weights without being able to get the most out of this huge muscle. Needless to say it will limit your lifts and the amount of muscle you can grow in your booty.

Whether you want to add another 10kg to your squat, or you simply want a perkier butt, the only thing standing in your way could be a 10-minute glute activation workout before you get to work.

Check out these glute activation exercises below to get the party started.

[Related Article: 5 Best Resistance Bands for Glutes] 

How to activate your glutes – the best glute activation exercises

The best way to get your glutes fired up and primed to go is by warming them up with a few simple glute activation exercises that specifically target this muscle.

This will take around 5-10 minutes before you start your full training session, and it can have a transformative effect on your results. Trust us! It’s a huge bonus to be able to fully recruit your glutes in heavy weight lifting sets.

Remember, this is just a warmup so don’t go crazy. While these exercises should definitely burn, they shouldn’t leave you too fatigued to do your full squat or deadlift set. Instead they should help you engage these big muscles with ease.

Take your pick of two or three of these exercises and perform three rounds of each one with a minute or two break between each set. Then when your glutes are all fired up and ready to go, start your workout.

We’d recommend using a resistance band for some of these exercises, but don’t worry if you don’t have one, they can all be done at bodyweight too. And, if you’re just starting out, it might be better to start with bodyweight to warm up to those harder sets.

And don’t worry about going to hard or heavy with your glute activation workout, we’re just waking these muscles up rather than working them super hard, that will come in your training session later. You should be able to feel it, but you shouldn’t be fatigued for your weights session.

[Related Article: Best Glute Exercises to Perfect your Peach]

The final word

Begin your next lower-body or booty workout with the best glute activation exercises to accelerate your progress.

Whether you’re trying to build size and shape, or feel like your glutes just aren’t doing their fair share during a squat, these movements could be the difference between a plateau and next level development. Both in the size and in the strength of the muscles in your derriere.

Simply take two or three of these movements and perform three rounds of each to get those muscle fibres firing ahead of a workout.

It can be super tempting to grab a few more of the exercises on the list and create something bigger out of your glute activation. We’d say try to avoid this. It’s more of a warm up than something that will fatigue you. And, as you continually work on this area, your muscles will be more consistently awake, so you shouldn’t have to go crazy with it as time goes on either.