18 Dumbbell Glute Exercises (Workouts To Build Your Butt) (2024)

The suitcase squat is a fantastic dumbbell glute workout that is easy to perform almost anywhere, making it ideal for most home gyms. All you need is a set of dumbbells and a small amount of space.

Since the weight is held at your sides, it doesn’t stress the lower back, so it’s ideal for anybody with back issues.

The only downside to this exercise is that it activates your quadriceps more than it works your glutes. It’s also worth noting that as you increase the weight, you rely heavily on grip strength to hold onto the dumbbells.

• Easy for beginners to learn.
• Also works the upper back muscles and engages the core.
• By having the weights by your sides, you're much less likely to lean too far forwards.

1. Hold a set of dumbbells in your hands, and let them hang at hip height.
2. Place your feet at hip-width with your toes pointing out slightly.
3. Bend at your knees and squat downwards while maintaining a straight spine.
4. Squeeze the glutes and push through your feet, reversing the movement.
5. Repeat.

The Romanian deadlift is a popular glute and hamstring exercise that many gym-goers perform in the gym. The straighter leg position helps engage your glutes and hamstrings more than the traditional version of the deadlift.

During the movement, your glutes work through a large range of motion and are forced to stretch at the bottom of the movement before contracting hard at the top end.

If you want to build your glutes, you cannot leave this dumbbell exercise out of your program.

However, if you can't perform this exercise, you can try out Romanian deadlift alternatives.

• Improved mind-muscle connection to the posterior chain.
• Reduced chance of injury by improving hamstring and glute strength.
• Effectively works the lower back and core.

1. Hold two dumbbells in your hands with your shoulders retracted and chest open.
2. Place your feet at hip-width with your toes facing forward.
3. Soften the knees (not fully bent).
4. Hinge from the hips, bringing your upper body forward until your hamstrings are at full stretch. Maintain a straight, neutral spine throughout.
5. Fire your hips forward and squeeze your glutes together.
6. Repeat.

The deadlift is one of the best glute exercises with dumbbells. As with many other exercises on this list, it requires hardly any room and uses minimal equipment.

This exercise works the posterior chain, such as your hamstrings, glutes, and lower back. It’s excellent for injury prevention (when performed correctly) as it strengthens the back and develops the glutes.

• Ideal exercise for beginners learning how to deadlift and hinge.
• Full body strengthening exercise.
• Engages the core.

1. Hold a set of dumbbells at your sides and draw your shoulder blades back and down.
2. Maintain a straight (neutral) spine and hinge forward from the hips, bending your knees slightly.
3. Take the dumbbells to mid-shin height and fire your hips forwards, squeezing your glutes at the end of the movement.
4. Repeat and finish your set.

This is one of the most unusual dumbbell glute exercises you’ll come across, but it gives your glutes a lot of bang for your buck.

The movement targets your entire lower body, including some additional muscles that aren’t stimulated during the traditional versions of the lunge. When your leg crosses behind the other, your stationary leg’s glute medius activates along with your hip abductors during the kicking part of the movement.

While it’s a good glute builder, I’d be cautious of this movement if you’ve had knee issues in the past, as it places more stress on the knee joint than other exercises on this list.

• Improves hip mobility.
• Easily done at home or whilst traveling.
• Challenges balance and coordination.

1. Stand with your feet placed hip-width apart, holding two dumbbells.
2. Take your left leg back and across while lunging downwards.
3. Let your legs reach 90-degrees and stop before your knee touches the floor.
4. Push up back to the start and swap legs.
5. Repeat.

The lateral lunge, or “side lunge” as it’s commonly known, is a great lower bodybuilder that helps develop your glutes, abductors, quads, adductors, and hamstrings.

It works your body in a different way to the regular lunge as you’re moving laterally, so it’ll engage your muscles in a way it’s not used to, which is a nice change.

Along with developing your lower body muscles, you’ll improve your body’s stability and balance. It’s an excellent exercise to add to your program if you participate in sports.

If you're often on the go, you need some exercises in your arsenal that don't require equipment like this one.

• Moves the body through the transverse plane, which is important to incorporate moving in different directions.
• Strengthens and stablizes the hip.
• Works the core.

1. Stand with your feet placed hit width apart.
2. Hold a dumbbell in each hand, placed at shoulder height.
3. Step to the side with your right leg and sit back slightly while bending your knee.
4. Lower yourself to roughly 90-degrees.
5. Push through your foot and return to the start.
6. Complete your reps and repeat with the other leg.

The forward lunge is a dumbbell only leg and glute workout that targets your glute max, hamstrings, quads, calves, and core muscles.

If you’ve been looking to grow larger glutes, then you don’t want to leave out lunges; they’re fantastic glute developers and allow you to work them through a large range of motion.

• Good for beginners, easy to learn.
• Promotes stability and balance.
• Builds good strength in each leg separately.

Related Article -Benefits Of Lunges

1. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and stand tall with your head looking forward.
2. Place your feet hip-width and step forward while lowering yourself to the floor, taking both knees to 90-degrees (don’t let your knees touch the floor).
3. Push off of your front foot back to the starting position.
4. Switch legs and repeat.

The reverse lunge is basically a regular lunge movement, but instead of stepping forward, you step backwards... who’d have thought it.

This is a brilliant dumbbell glute exercise as it places a lot of emphasis on the glutes and lower body.

Some gym-goers might find this exercise easier on the knee joints as it’s less impactful on the joints, making it suitable for anybody with knee issues.

• Targets the glutes more.
• Less strain on the joints.
• Can easily be done at home or whilst traveling.

1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart and hold a dumbbell in each hand.
2. Stand up tall with your shoulders drawn back and your head facing forward.
3. Step backwards (around 2-3 ft) and lower your body until your legs are at 90-degrees.
4. Push through your leading leg back to the starting position.
5. Swap legs and repeat.

The curtsey lunge is a slightly easier version of the curtsey lunge with a kick and doesn’t require as much balance and coordination.

Performing this exercise not only improves your glute strength, but it helps lower your risk of injuries, increases overall body health, and improves your balance and stability.

It also helps develop more stability in your ankles, so if you participate in sports or activities such as dancing, this exercise will help.

• Challenges the muscles differently.
• Creates a more stable hip.
• Improves coordination and balance.

1. Stand with dumbbells in your hands and a hip-width stance.
2. Take one leg backwards and across while lowering to 90-degrees.
3. Push through your front leg back to the start.
4. Repeat with the opposite leg.

The front squat is one of the first exercises I teach my clients. It’s straightforward to learn, difficult to get wrong, and can be performed almost anywhere.

The movement resembles the suitcase squat mentioned earlier in this article but involves holding the dumbbells at shoulder height. Doing so requires slightly more core work to stabilize the upper body and shifts the emphasis to your quads.

While it is a brilliant dumbbell glute workout, it doesn’t isolate the glutes as much as I’d like it to. But, it does help to develop the glutes, so you shouldn’t discount this movement.

I like using dumbbells for squats because it forces you to engage your core to stabilize the individual weights.

For more information, review our comparison guide ondumbbell vs barbell squats.

• Every effective exercise to strengthen the legs and glutes.
• High amount of core activation.

1. Hold a set of dumbbells at shoulder height with your palms facing each other and push your elbows forward.
2. Take a shoulder-width stance and squat down, bending your knees.
3. Stop when you reach 90-degrees and push up through your feet back to the starting point.
4. Repeat the movement.

Like all squat variations, the dumbbell goblet squat is a fantastic glute developer. As the weight is front-loaded, it keeps your upper body in a more upright position, allowing you to get deeper into the squat than you would with a back squat.

The increased range of motion places a bigger stretch on the glutes, increasing muscle-building potential.

Along with developing your glutes, the goblet squat helps build your hamstrings, quads, and hip flexors.

• One of the most beneficial exercise for beginners learning how to squat.
• Very effectively strengthens the lower body.
• Great for hypertrophy training and increase volume for the lower body.

1. Hold a single dumbbell chest height in a goblet position (so the dumbbell is vertical).
2. Take a hip-width stance with your toes pointing out slightly.
3. Bend your knees and send your bum backwards until your legs reach 90-degrees (or lower if you can).
4. Push through both feet and drive yourself upwards.
5. Squeeze the glutes at the top and repeat.

The Bulgarian split squat is a killer glute exercise that’ll have your glutes firing up in no time at all. It’s a fantastic lower body exercise that works each leg individually.

As each leg is required to work independently, it helps you fix any strength differences that may have developed throughout the years.

It’s worth noting this exercise requires a lot of leg strength and balance, so it’s not suitable for everyone.

• Very effective at fixing muscular imbalances.
• Tests your balance and builds strong stabalizer muscles around the hip.
• Builds strong legs.

1. Stand in front of a step, bench, or elevated platform with your back towards the bench.
2. Hold two dumbbells in your hands at hip level.
3. Place your right leg on the top of your platform and take a step forward with the opposite leg.
4. Brace your core and lower yourself by bending your left knee until it reaches 90-degrees.
5. Push through your foot and bring yourself back to the start.
6. Finish your set and swap legs.

Related Article -Split Squat Vs Lunge

The staggered-stance deadlift is a helpful exercise to help you progress to the single-leg deadlift.

It gives you some of the benefits of training your leg singly while providing your body with additional stability. Eventually, when you’ve mastered this glute exercise, you can move on to the single-leg deadlift.

As your body is more stable, this version of the deadlift lets you lift more weight than you can with the single-leg deadlift, increasing your lower body’s muscle stimulation.

During this exercise, your glutes work through an extensive range of motion, stimulating the muscle fibers for growth.

• Trains one side at a time which promotes unilateral strength.
• Improves any imbalances.
• Strengthens the hamstrings very effectively.

1. Place your feet hip-width with your toes facing forward.
2. Hold two dumbbells on the front of your hips/upper legs.
3. Stagger your stance, so one foot is slightly further back than the other. A good benchmark is having yourtoes in line with the other foot’s heel.
4. Keeping a neutral spine, hinge from the hips until your body is parallel to the floor.
5. Push your hips forward, squeezing the glutes, and repeat.
6. Swap legs.

This combination exercise not only stimulates your glutes into growing, but it aids with your lower body’s stability.

During the squat to lateral leg lift, your hips are required to elevate your leg to the side; this improves your hip function, increasing your range of motion and strengthening the joint.

I like this exercise as the hips are often one of the most underworked areas of the body and, if it’s not trained sufficiently, can lead to injuries.

• Improves flexibility in the hips.
• Works the adductor muscles.
• Challenges balance.

1. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, and hold a dumbbell in each hand at shoulder height.
2. Squat down by bending your knees and pushing your hips back (keep a straight back).
3. Push through your feet, and at the top of the movement, elevate your right leg to the side.
4. Bring your foot back down slowly and repeat.
5. Swap sides.

This sumo squat is a wide stance version of the traditional squat that increases the amount of work your hips and glutes need to do to move the weight.

It’s a compound movement that works your glutes, quads, hamstrings, adductors, hip flexors, and core muscles.

The sumo squat’s widened foot position engages your hips more than other squat positions, which helps you improve your balance and helps protect your hips from injury. It’s a brilliant move to do if you participate in heavy physical activities.

• Recruits all leg muscles with a big emphasis on glutes and adductors.
• More core activation to keep your torso upright.

1. Pick up a set of dumbbells and stand with a wide stance (2x shoulder width).
2. Turn your feet outwards slightly.
3. Hold the dumbbells at shoulder level and squat down, bending your knees.
4. Stop when your legs reach a 90-degree bend and push up back to the starting position.
5. Repeat the movement.

The weighted glute bridge is a fantastic exercise to work the glutes. The glutes are the primary muscle worked throughout this movement with some assistance from the hamstrings and core.

It’s suitable for all ability levels and has many different progression levels to make the exercise more challenging.

Using this exercise to strengthen your glutes helps increase your other lifts, such as deadlifts and squats. It also improves your lower back and knee health, which is a massive bonus as we get older.

• Builds stronger hip extension which will strengthen other lifts like deadlift.
• Builds strong glutes that will protect your back and knee from risk of injuries.
• Creates round looking glutes.

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent at 90-degrees and spaced hip-width apart.
2. Put two dumbbells on your hips and secure them with your hands.
3. Push your hips into the air, squeezing your glutes hard throughout the movement.
4. Pause at the top for 1-2 seconds and slowly lower your body back to the floor.
5. Repeat.

The 5 O’clock lunge is a more challenging version of the standard lunge, which not only targets your glutes and lower body but also builds strength in your ankles and knees.

It’s a brilliant exercise to add to your glute dumbbell workout, helping you develop well-rounded glutes capable of working in multiple directions.

• Targets all three muscles in the glutes.
• Creates a stable hip.
• Time efficient exercise.

1. Place your feet hip-width apart and hold a dumbbell by both ends at chest height.
2. Take a big step sideways with your right leg, rotating your foot, so it’s placed at 5 o’clock compared to your starting point.
3. Bend your right knee until it reaches 90-degrees, and keep your left leg straight.
4. Stand up, pushing through your right foot, rotating back to the start.
5. Repeat for both legs.

The single-leg deadlift is one of my favorite glute exercises as it works each side iso-laterally, allowing you to overcome any muscular imbalances that might have occurred throughout your training.

This dumbbell butt exercise helps develop your glutes, hamstrings, lower back, and core muscles. While you’re performing this movement, your body has to work incredibly hard to keep you balanced, activating more core than the regular deadlift.

It’s suitable for all levels; however, if you find it too challenging, try the staggered stance deadlift mentioned previously in this article.

• Improves any muscular imbalances.
• Builds a strong lower back.
• You'll learn better balance and how to stabalize your body whilst hinging.

1. Place your feet together and hold a dumbbell in each hand.
2. Shift your weight to one leg and lift your other leg behind you while hinging from the hips.
3. When your torso is parallel to the floor, hold the position for a second and slowly head back to the start.
4. Squeeze your glutes at the end and repeat.
5. Swap legs and perform another set.

This exercise combines the movement of the single-leg deadlift and the reverse lunge.

It requires a lot of balance and coordination, and I’d recommend this exercise for intermediate to advanced gym-goers. Mainly due to the learning curve for this exercise, if you’re a beginner, you’d be better off learning the two movements separately before combining them.

It’s one of the best glute exercises with dumbbells that works your hamstrings, quads, calves, and core.

• Time efficient exercise, targeting two large muscle groups in one exercise.
• Builds a strong core.
• Strengthens key muscles to help prevent injuries.

1. Stand with your feet hip-width with your dumbbells in hand.
2. Hinge from your hips and raise your right leg, stretching your hamstring.
3. Stop when your torso is parallel to the floor.
4. Push the hips forward to the starting position.
5. Step backwards with your right leg and bend your knees to 90-degrees.
6. Pushing through your front leg, stand up tall and squeeze your glutes.
7. Repeat with the opposite leg.