Boost your glutes with these 7 bubble butt exercises. Discover a complete booty workout to sculpt, tone, and strengthen your glutes for a firmer backside. Perfect for all fitness levels!

Bubble butts may come and go as a trend, but a strong, lifted rear end is timeless—and essential for your health.

As a 59-year-old personal trainer, I can tell you that your glutes aren’t just about looks. These powerhouse muscles are crucial for posture, mobility, and overall strength.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through 7 highly effective butt exercises that target your glutes and help you achieve a firm, toned booty—all from the comfort of your home.

These are simple yet powerful bodyweight moves, with options to incorporate a resistance band for an extra burn.

You can use these booty exercises into your existing workouts, or do them all together for one killer, butt-kicking workout!

Bubble Butt Workout Directions

If you do them all together as a “bubble butt” exercises program, perform 10-12 repetitions of each movement and do 2-3 sets of each.

These moves are all bodyweight except for the resistance band butt blaster—but this move can be modified without the resistance band, too.

Basic Squat

The basic squat is an effective lower body move that strengthens all leg muscles including glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves. You can stick to bodyweight at first, and add additional resistance as you build muscle strength.

How To Do A Basic Squat

• Stand tall with your feet hip-distance apart. Your hips, knees, and toes should all be facing forward.
• Bend your knees and extend your buttocks backward as if you are going to sit back into a chair. Make sure that you keep your knees behind your toes and your weight in your heels. Rise back up and repeat.

Skaters

Skaters are a cardiovascular exercise where you perform a lateral jump to get your heart rate up, strengthen your legs and improve stability and balance. These start as a single leg squat and then you laterally hop over to the other side. The strengthening part of this exercise is mostly focused on quads and glutes and is a great butt exercise.

An added benefit to this move is the lateral movement that strengthens of your medial glute and outer thigh. 

How To Do Skaters

• Start with your legs slightly wider than shoulder-distance apart and arms at the sides.
• Bring one leg behind at a slight angle into a reverse lunge. The front knee will come to a 90-degree angle.
• Swing the arms in front of that bent knee and leap the back leg forward to switch sides in a skating motion—arms alternate as you switch sides like a speed skater.

Squat Jumps

Squat jumps are a powerful, plyometric exercise that strengthens your entire lower body and increases your heart rate for a significant calorie burn. This exercise targets your quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves while also toning the ab and back muscles.

How To Do Squat Jumps

• Start standing with feet hip-distance apart and lower into a squat position by bending the knees. Keep the spine straight, chest lifted, and knees behind toes. Arms are in front of the chest for balance.
• Jump straight up and swing arms overhead. Return to squat.

Resistance Band Butt Blaster

The resistance band butt blaster is a unique way to strengthen your glutes without having to do any squats or lunges or even put body weight on your knees. This exercise has 1990 vibes. We used to do fire hydrants and kick backs in aerobic class all the time!

The resistance band comes with so many benefits, and provides a unique opportunity to find new ways to complete exercises that might otherwise be impossible. It’s a great bubble butt exercise!

How To Do Resistance Band Butt Blasters

• Kneel on the floor and wrap band under the right foot, and place hands down under shoulders holding handles against the floor.
• Lift right knee off the floor slightly and push the right foot back to extend leg straight against the band, squeezing your glute.
• Release slowly, bringing the knee back into a bent position. Continue for desired reps and switch feet.

Note: You don’t have to use a resistance band if you don’t have one; it can easily be modified as bodyweight-only.

Glute Bridges

The glute bridge is a simple exercise with powerful results. It helps you build strength, improve posture, and sculpt a toned, firm posterior without stress to the knees.

How To Do Glute Bridges

• Lie on back with bent knees hip-distance apart, and feet flat on mat stacked under the knees.
• Engage the core and squeeze your glutes as you lift your hips to a bridge. Hold, squeezing tight, and return to the mat with control. Repeat for the desired number of reps.

Plié Squats

A plié squat is one of the best butt exercises that strengthens the legs, glutes, and calves and increases the range of motion in your hips. You can channel your inner ballerina when doing this move.

This lower body move targets the thighs (toning the inner thighs,) hamstrings, and glutes (the strongest and most powerful muscles in your butt.)

How To Do Plié Squats

• Stand with feet slightly wider than shoulder distance apart and toes turned out into a 45-degree angle.
• Bend knees and lower your torso, keeping your back straight and abs tight.
• Squeeze your glutes and come to a standing position.

Cross Behind Lunges

The cross behind lunge is a great version of a lunge that focuses on strengthening your glutes, quads, hamstrings and calves. It lets you sink into a deep range of motion to really shape your booty and sculpt your thighs, and can be done with bodyweight alone, or added weight.

Bonus! They’re low impact and a great way to get an awesome rear end.

How To Do Cross Behind Lunges

• Begin standing with your feet hip-distance apart.
• Transfer your body weight onto your left leg and cross your right foot behind your left leg keeping your hips facing forward as you bend both knees and lower yourself toward the floor in a lunge. Keep your back straight, and chest lifted to keep your weight in the front leg. Step back to the start position and repeat on the other side.

Muscles That Give You A Firmer Butt

How to get a bubble butt starts with understanding the mechanics of your powerful butt muscles also known as the glutes. When you think of toning your buns, you may picture the actual butt cheek itself, but there are a few different muscles responsible for creating a firm, lifted appearance.

Glute strength can help reduce hip pain and knee pain and protect your back from injury; it also improves your athletic performance in nearly any workout. This important muscle group plays in important role in your general health.

Three muscles make up your rear:

Gluteus Maximus

This is the largest and most powerful muscle in the human body. It is responsible for the movement of the hip and thigh. When you stand up from a sitting position, climb stairs, or run, your gluteus maximus is actively engaged. It helps in extending (moving your leg behind you) and externally rotating your hip.

Gluteus Medius

This muscle is situated on the outer surface of the pelvis. It assists in hip abduction, which is the movement of the thigh away from the midline of the body. The gluteus medius also provides stability to the pelvis during activities like walking, running, and standing on one leg.

Gluteus Minimus

The gluteus minimus is the smallest of the three gluteal muscles and lies beneath the gluteus medius. It also aids in hip abduction and internal rotation of the hip joint.

Your hamstrings also extend up towards your gluteal muscles, making them a vital muscle to include when considering bubble butt exercises.

Hamstrings are a frequently overlooked muscle, but you need strong hamstrings to not only lower risk of injury to your hips but also create a lean, tight rear end.

Why Glute Strength Matters

All talk of bubble butts aside, glute strength is important for overall strength and fitness. Your glutes are the largest muscle in your body, and they’re crucial for so many different movements concerning your hips and thighs.

Here are three reasons you need to strengthen your glutes in order to get a stronger butt and move better mechanically:

Improves Your Posture

Most of us sit for long periods of time for work, and this causes the glute muscles to “turn off,” so to speak.

When our glutes aren’t firing effectively, our hip flexors tighten and shorten, which not only increases the chances for injuries to our hips and knees but can cause what’s known as “postural deviations” such as slouching.

Strong, activated glute muscles in our lower body prevent this from happening and and are a great way to keep our postural alignment upright and healthy. 

If you’re stuck at a desk all day, you can also incorporate an under desk walking pad to get more movement into your day!

Reduces Hip, Back, and Knee Pain

Strong glutes stabilize your pelvis and help protect your hips from injury. Since these muscles work together, strong glutes also help ease lower back pain.

When your pelvis is stable, it also takes the pressure off your knees and ankles, which can overcompensate otherwise. All around, strong glutes lead to a pain-free body, and bubble butt exercises can help get you there!

Improves Athletic Performance

Strong glutes are crucial to athleticism: they boost your overall mobility,  speed, and overall daily movement. The glutes are responsible for powerful movements such as standing up, climbing, and running. 

Especially if you’re a runner, strong glutes help propel you farther and faster, not to mention they reduce the impact your feet have to take every time they strike the ground.

The best exercises for a bigger butt are more than aesthetic – they’re athletic!

Use my seven powerful bubble butt exercises above to help tone, firm and lift your booty, and improve the rest of your health too!