7 Easy Fixes to Make Butt Exercises More Effective (2024)

There's no shortage of effective butt exercises out there, but what gives when they just don't feel all that effective for you? If your glutes take a rain check while your legs put in the all the work during lower-body exercises, you might be what's called "quad dominant"—and it can really mess with the results you see from all those squats and lunges.

If this sounds familiar, same. Up until a few months ago, feeling all of my butt exercises in my legs wasn't something I'd given much thought to. But after one particularly frustrating strength workout that left my quads quaking while my glutes were left untouched, I wondered how it was possible that my backside so often felt nada. I could chalk some of it up it up to a bit of gluteal amnesia (or "dead butt syndrome," where your glutes have a hard time activating properly), but I figured my consistently tired quads might mean something in my routine was a little off.

After a bit of research and chatting with trainers, it became clear that I'm very quad-dominant—and it's actually extremely common. Being quad-dominant means that you overuse your quadriceps, the group of muscles across the front of your thighs, during workouts that aren't meant to specifically target the quads, Adam Rosante, C.S.C.S., creator of the Two-Week Transformation, tells SELF.

If you're feeling your glutes exercises in your legs, you might be quad-dominant—and tight hips may be to blame.

How does quad dominance occur? It's not something you're born with—it's something you develop over time. The process of becoming quad-dominant usually starts with tight hips.

Here's how it all goes down: In all variations of squats and lunges, your glutes and hamstrings (the muscle group on the backs of your thighs) should be sharing a major part of the load, ACE-certified trainer Pete McCall, C.S.C.S., host of the All About Fitness podcast, tells SELF. But to access your glutes and hamstrings effectively, you need to be moving from your hips. And that's tough to do when they're tight from spending most days sitting at a desk, in a car, or on a couch. "If I'm sitting all day, then my hips are going to stay in a flexed position, and my muscles adapt to that position," explains McCall.

When you jump straight into a workout after sitting all day, that hip tightness means you're more likely to move your knees forward first when you squat down or step into a lunge (rather than sitting your butt back by hinging at your hips first). And when you lead with your knees instead of your hips, you're transferring the force into your quads first instead of your hamstrings and glutes, explains McCall. Over time, your body adapts to this movement pattern, and since you're still able to bang out these exercises with these faulty mechanics, it's probably not something you notice.

As you continue to strengthen your quads without addressing your glutes and hamstrings, though, your quads become even more eager to take over the work. "You'll continuously default to the stronger muscle group to drive movement,"explains Rosante.

Over-working your quads without effectively targeting your glutes can set you up for pain and even injury.

The most obvious consequence of quad-dominance is that you end up not working your glutes or hamstrings as effectively. If you're trying to strengthen your glutes and hamstrings, or to increase the size of your butt muscles, then quad-dominance could be stalling your progress. But there are other reasons to worry about quad-dominance, too—namely aches, pains, and eventually the possibility of injury.

Your body works best when there's a balance between opposing muscle groups, and quad dominance can disrupt that balance, particularly when it comes to your knees. "If you think about the knee joint, you have the quad on the anterior (front) side and the hamstrings [and glutes] on the posterior (back) side. When the quads are overly dominant or overly strong, you end up putting more tension on the front side of the knee," exercise physiologist Joel Seedman, Ph.D., owner ofAdvanced Human Performancein Atlanta, Georgia, tells SELF. This can lead to knee pain. Over time, it can even contribute to joint subluxation, a common injury where the tension from the overdeveloped quad pulls the tendon that runs over the kneecap out of place, McCall says.

Plus, weak glutes and hamstrings can cause a host of issues in their own right. Weak glutes can lead to overuse of the low back, which isn't designed to take on that much load, says McCall. If you pick up your suitcase with your back muscles instead of your glutes, for example, you're setting yourself up for aches and pains, McCall says.

The truth is, you're probably quad-dominant. Fortunately, it's easy to correct over time.

"Unless you've been prioritizing strengthening [your backside], you can pretty safely assume you're quad dominant," says Rosante. Other clues can be knee pain that stems from leading with your knees during every squat and lunge, as well as my main clue, feeling like your quads are always, always working during lower-body moves.

"The good news is, this is all pretty simple to fix with a little time, proper programming, and consistency," says Rosante. First, make sure you're doing the same number of moves for your hamstrings and glutes as you are for your quads—if not more hamstring and glute exercises to help correct the imbalance. In addition, there are a few ways to get your posterior chain working the way it should be when the front of your legs are tempted to take over more of the load.

Here are seven things to help balance out the work and get your glutes and hammies involved the way they should be.

1. Master the "hip hinge" to lean forward slightly during lunge and squat exercises.

The first step in correcting for quad dominance is reestablishing how to correctly do squat and lunge exercises. "This is the single most important factor when it comes to a proper balance of quad, glute, and hamstring activation," says Seedman. "Because if you have proper mechanics and proper technique on your basic foundational lower body exercises, your glutes and hamstrings are going to be targeted properly."

This means mastering what's called a hip hinge. It's a common tendency to try to keep your upper body straight when you do a lower-body exercise, but you actually have to have a slight torso lean to set your hips back effectively and target your glutes and hamstrings, says Seedman. The cue "keep your chest up," can be confusing, but what that really means is to keep the chest out (that is, push your shoulders back).

"The key is making sure you're not bending from the low back, but bending from the hips by driving the hips back and pivoting at the hip joint." Just doing this hip hinge alone can help correct for that sitting-induced hip tightness that tends to encourage quad dominance.

2. Drop your butt before your knees go forward in lower-body moves.

The first move in every squat or lunge should be your butt dropping, not your knees going forward. This is part of what trainers are getting at when they say "don't let your knees go past your toes."

"You're trying to make sure the right muscles are generating the right amount of force at the right time," says McCall. A squat should activate your glutes first, then your quads, then your hamstrings, he says. But when you bend with your knees before setting your hips back and dropping your butt, you're using your quads first, so they end up doing most of the work.

"Focus on setting the hips back, sticking the butt out, and putting a little bit more weight on the back of the heels," says Seedman. (I have to say, moves like split lunges and goblet squats started to feel entirely different when I started focusing on not moving from my knees first.)

3. Start your workout with a dynamic warm-up that includes hip bridges and other glute isolation moves.

By isolating your butt at the beginning of a workout, you'll begin to get those glutes firing and your hips opening up, says McCall. If you don't take the time to warm up your glutes, it's easy to revert back to overuse your quads, he adds.

McCall and Seedman are both major fans of including glute bridges in a warm-up, because it forces your glutes and hamstrings to do the work. It also helps work on the hip hinge pattern, says McCall. He recommends doing two sets of 12 glute bridges at the beginning of a workout. Here's how to do it.

Reverse lunges can also be a great warm-up move, says McCall. "A lot of times when you do a forward lunge, all that force is going into your quadriceps and knee," he says. Stepping backward into a reverse lunge makes it easier to transfer the force into your glutes and hamstrings. Again, go for two sets of 12 to get warmed up. Here's how to do a reverse lunge.

4. Finish your workout with more glute isolation exercises with added weight.

To really target your glutes and hamstrings, you can book-end a workout by doing a couple of glute isolation exercises at the end, too. By this point, you've probably burned out your quads during the main part of your workout, so your glutes still have some fuel left in the tank. "The theory is that when you fatigue the quads, the muscle doing most of the work would then be the glutes, because that sucker hasn't fatigued yet," says McCall.

Glute bridges, reverse lunges, and step-ups are still great choices, but add weight for an extra challenge. To do a weighted hip bridge, hold dumbbells or a barbell across your hips. During your reverse lunges, you can hold dumbbells at your sides or a kettlebell at your chest. Aim to do three to four sets of six to eight reps with heavier weight (here's how heavy they should feel).

5. Actually picture your butt and hamstrings contracting to power you through lower-body exercises.

The mind-muscle connection can be a powerful tool for engaging your glutes and hamstrings. "When doing your exercises, visualize your muscles working and really feel them taking you through the full range of motion on each movement," says Rosante.

"Just thinking about trying to target your glutes and hamstrings more when you're doing something like a glute bridge will help you actually fire those glutes and hamstrings, rather than if you just went through the motions mindlessly," Seedman says.

6. Try foam rolling to reduce tightness in your quads.

Fitness pros have differing opinions on how effective foam rolling really is, and it's an ongoing debate (on Seedman's part, he doesn't see it as a game-changer). But if you are using proper movement patterns and dialing in on that mind-muscle connection (which are more important than foam rolling, in this case), it can be worth trying to see if foam rolling makes a difference for you.

Although it's not proven, foam rolling may help release some of the tightness in the tissue, which can "calm" the quads so that your glutes and hamstrings have a chance to get involved, McCall says. He suggests spending a minute or two rolling out your quads and hip flexors before your dynamic warm-up.

Rosante is also a fan of a daily foam-rolling routine to make sure you're moving correctly during your entire workout. "Flexibility in your muscles and mobility in your joints will help you get into proper positioning to perform your exercises correctly," he says. He recommends foam rolling your glutes, hamstrings, hip flexors, quads, and calves for 5 to 10 minutes each day.

Foam rolling may not be the most important thing you do to address quad dominance, but it might help. So you might want to test it out for a few workouts and see if you notice any improvement in your mobility during lower-body exercises.

7. And if you're still having a hard time, consider booking a session with a trainer to help assess your movement pattern.

If you still can't seem to get out of your quads, consider meeting with a trainer for a session or two so they can assess your movement pattern and give you some guidance that's tailored just for you.

If you are making mistakes with your form or anything else (it happens to everyone), getting some coaching can set you back on track for balanced workouts that help you reach your goals.

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