Exercises like squats, glute bridges, lunge walks, deadlifts, and donkey kicks can help strengthen and shape your glutes helping you gain weight in your butt. You need to do these butt-shaping exercises regularly to target the glute muscles as much as possible. But, make sure you do not overexert yourself, or else you may reach a fitness plateau, a stage where you won’t see much growth no matter how hard you try. To gain weight in your butt, you also need to eat a balanced diet that helps convert your body fat to muscles, especially around your buttocks.
In this article, I will share some of the best butt-building exercises that you can try at home or gym. These exercises are pretty easy and suitable even for beginners. I will also share some do’s and don’ts so you get long-term results. I have also included some FAQs on how to gain weight in your butt towards the end of the article. Keep reading!
💡 Quick Tip: Looking for a compact glute-shaping machine that can help you train correctly? I recommend Sunny Health & Fitness Squat Assist Row-N-Ride Trainer for glutes. It is fully adjustable with three levels of resistance to help you get better results. Being foldable, it is suitable for small homes too.
Sunny Health & Fitness Squat Assist Row-N-Ride Trainer
Best butt exercises to gain weight in your butt
Squats
Beginner-friendly butt-shaping exercises like squats can help add muscle mass to your glutes and give a curvy shape to your hips. You can try any of the several variations but weighted squats are the best for shaping, toning, and firming the glutes. You can use a dumbbell, kettlebell, medicine ball, or barbell to intensify your workouts.
If you are an already active person, you may try jump squats, Bulgarian split squats, sissy squats, single-leg squats, squat jacks, and other challenging varieties. The advanced varieties can help you gain weight in your butt faster.
Glute bridges
If you want to enhance the roundness and firmness of your booty, this is the one exercise you can’t miss. It is a low-impact, highly targeted exercise that you can do at home at any time. It is suitable for those who may not do squats due to restricted knee and ankle mobility. It is also a good option for people suffering from back pain. You can start with basic glute bridges and, when you have built some butt and core strength, you may try advanced variations such as glute march, single-leg glute bridge, bridge with weights, mini-band bridge, and glute bridge on a bench or chair.
📖 Related Article: Resistance loop bands can help make your butt exercises more challenging. They are pretty affordable and come with various levels of resistance. If you are interested in buying one, do check out our carefully curated list of the best resistance loop bands for your home gym
Hip Thrust
Hip thrusts require some practice but they are probably the most effective booty-building exercises that can help you gain weight in your butt faster. It is a compound exercise meant to strengthen all the muscles of your posterior chain. For hip thrusts, you may need a workout bench or you may use your bed, the bench in your park, or any stable object. You may add some weight by using a weight plate, a barbell, a kettlebell, or just dumbbells.
Deadlifts
This butt exercise is for people who are already quite active and have decent strength, stamina, and balance. Deadlifts not only lift and firm your buttocks but also help improve posture and strengthen the posterior chain. You can start with a pair of dumbbells if you don’t have barbells. If you are new to this exercise, start with the simplest variation i.e. Romanian deadlift. Once your glutes and core have become strong enough, you may try other variations that can help gain weight in your butt. Single-leg deadlifts and stiff-leg deadlifts are the most effective ones.
💡 Quick Tip: Looking for an inexpensive tool that you can use to make your butt exercises even more challenging? COBA Board Booty, Arm & Glute Exercise Machine is a good option. It comes with its training app and lets you do more than 8 different glute exercises exclusively meant to help you gain weight in your butt.
COBA Board Booty, Arm & Glute Exercise Machine
Donkey kicks and fire hydrant
These are simple but highly targeted butt exercises suitable for everyone. They can lift your buttocks and make them appear rounder and firmer. You don’t need any equipment for doing donkey kicks and fire hydrant but you may use a resistance band and try a couple of variations such as resistance band donkey kicks, straight leg donkey kicks, band leg extension donkey kicks, standing donkey kicks, standard fire hydrant, and band assisted fire hydrant.
Lunges
Lunges help strengthen the glutes, hamstrings, and quads. However, they require a bit more coordination and stability than squats. Plus, they are more difficult than the other exercises listed here. You can start with stationary body weight forward lunges and backward lunges and when you are ready, you may start doing weighted lunges, lunge walks, curtsy lunges, and side lunges. Curtsy lunges and lunge walks are the best variations that can help you gain weight in your butt.
📖 Related Article: If you are serious about toning and strengthening your butt muscles (for aesthetic purposes as well as for improving your athletic performance, you may check out our list of the best Glute Machines for Home Use.
How to gain weight in your butt: dos and don’t
Focus on your form
I know this sounds obvious but many of us engage the wrong muscles or partially utilize nearby muscles instead of the ones that we should be focusing on. We usually do this when things get tough. A wrong form or technique can cause injury. Plus, if you engage the wrong set of muscles, you won’t get the desired results.
When trying to gain weight in your butt, make sure you engage the glutes. When things get tough, take a short break but try to put maximum focus on exerting the right muscle groups.
Listen to your body
On your first day, you might feel tempted to exert yourself the most but that's the biggest mistake beginners make. Start with as many reps as you can comfortably do and gradually increase the numbers, weights, or resistance. If you don’t know how many reps you should do, continue your workout until you find it pretty much impossible. Also, make sure you do not arch your back or lose your form when the exercises get tough.
Keep changing your exercises frequently
All the exercises I have mentioned above are meant to help you gain weight in your butt, but they work different associated muscle groups. For example; fire hydrants do not engage your core whereas donkey kicks do. Unless you strengthen the associated muscles, you may not see as good results as you may have expected. Plus, if you do the same exercises every day, you may reach a fitness plateau sooner than expected. Create a workout chart so you do not rotate a specific exercise for more than three days a week.
Give adequate rest to your muscles
No matter how quickly you want to gain weight in your butt, do not forget to take a day off from your workout routine. Rest won’t delay the process. Rather, a rest day helps the muscles recover faster and get stronger for the next session. The glutes are the largest muscle groups of our body and specific butt exercises may exert them faster. So, if needed, take two days of rest or do upper body workouts and glute exercises on alternate days of the week along with one rest day. This can help delay fitness plateaus.
💡 Quick Tip: The butt exercises I have mentioned above may leave your booty sore. You may find it uncomfortable to walk or jog. Don’t worry; this soreness indicates that your exercise was effective. To get faster relief, you may massage your glutes using a handheld DDVWU Massage Gun.
DDVWU Massage Gun.
What to eat to gain weight in your butt?
You might have come across articles on how specific food items or a specific type of diet can help you get a fuller booty. I don’t know how true those claims are because there is no specific food that can help you gain weight in your butt.
Doing highly targeted exercises is the only way you can give shape to your bum. But, food can help build overall muscles including glute muscles. If abs are built in the kitchen, so are glutes. Eat a healthy diet rich in lean protein, good fats, vegetables, and carbohydrates (in deficient quantities), so your body gets enough nutrition to repair your sore glutes and strengthen them.
How frequently should you train to gain weight in your butt?
As frequently as you can!
That being said, you can’t focus on your lower body every day and ignore the other muscle groups. I suggest that you do butt exercises on alternate days of the week. For the remaining three days, you can do any exercise of your choice such as cardio, strength training, running, pilates, or anything that you love. Or, you may do 10-15 minutes of butt exercises plus 20-30 minutes of any exercise of your choice for 6 days a week. Wherever you do, make sure you keep changing your routine so your body doesn’t get used to a specific thing.
How long does it take to gain weight in your butt?
It depends on the kind of effort you make. If you do the above-mentioned butt exercises dedicatedly thrice or four times a week, you may see a noticeable difference in 6 to 8 weeks. If you have a slower metabolism, you may take longer. Don’t lose your motivation. Keep patience because sooner or later, you will get the desired results.
Wrap up
I hope I have covered all the relevant information that you need to gain weight in your butt. Remember to set realistic expectations and not get carried away by social media influencers with a perfect body. If you have any questions or know any other trick that may help gain weight in the butt, please leave a comment or email me. I will add it here.
Best of luck!
