About this workout
Glutes grow the same way every other muscle grows: heavy loading, enough volume, and progressive overload over months. Not from band walks alone, and not from a 15 minute routine on repeat. This is 12 weeks of hip-dominant training with two lower body days and two upper body days, because a program that only trains one muscle is a program that makes you imbalanced.
Who This Program Is For
- Women who want glute development as the priority and have four days a week to train.
- Anyone comfortable with a hip thrust, a squat and a hinge pattern.
- Gym or home — every exercise has a home substitution listed.
Who this is NOT for: anyone expecting change in four weeks. Glutes are a large muscle and large muscles take time. Twelve weeks is the honest minimum to see a real difference, and that assumes you are eating enough to build tissue.
If you are brand new to lifting, run the 3 Day Full Body Workout for Beginners first. You will get glute growth from it, and you will build the technique this program assumes you already have.
What You'll Need
Gym version: barbell, rack, bench, dumbbells, cables, leg curl machine, hip thrust setup or a bench. Home version: adjustable dumbbells, a set of resistance bands (including a heavy hip circle), and a sturdy bench or couch for hip thrusts and split squats.
You also need enough weight to actually get heavy on hip thrusts. This is the lift where home trainees run out of load first — bands and single-leg variations are how you get around it.
The Program
Four days: Lower (Glute Focus), Upper, Lower (Posterior Chain), Upper. Two days between lower body sessions.
Home substitutions are listed in brackets.
| Day 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Lower, Glute Focus | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Hip Thrust (Weighted Hip Extension) | 4 | 8-10 | 2-3 min |
| Barbell Squat | 3 | 8-10 | 2-3 min |
| Bulgarian Split Squat | 3 | 10-12 each leg | 90 sec |
| Cable Kickbacks (One Legged Kickback) | 3 | 15-20 each leg | 60 sec |
| Seated Hip Abduction | 3 | 15-20 | 60 sec |
| Day 2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Upper | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Dumbbell Bench Press | 3 | 10-12 | 2 min |
| Lat Pulldown | 3 | 10-12 | 90 sec |
| Dumbbell Shoulder Press | 3 | 10-12 | 90 sec |
| One Arm Dumbbell Row | 3 | 10-12 each arm | 90 sec |
| Dumbbell Lateral Raise | 3 | 15-20 | 45 sec |
| Plank | 3 | 45 sec | 45 sec |
| Day 3 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Lower, Posterior Chain | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Romanian Deadlift | 4 | 8-10 | 2-3 min |
| Dumbbell Reverse Lunge | 3 | 10-12 each leg | 90 sec |
| Lying Leg Curl | 3 | 12-15 | 90 sec |
| Glute Bridge | 3 | 15-20 | 60 sec |
| Standing Calf Raise | 3 | 15-20 | 45 sec |
| Day 4 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Upper | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Incline Dumbbell Bench Press | 3 | 12-15 | 90 sec |
| Seated Cable Rows | 3 | 12-15 | 90 sec |
| Push Ups | 3 | To 2 reps short of failure | 90 sec |
| Reverse Flyes | 3 | 15-20 | 45 sec |
| Dumbbell Curls | 2 | 12-15 | 45 sec |
| Overhead Tricep Extension | 2 | 12-15 | 45 sec |
Home swaps: Hip Thrust → Dumbbell Hip Thrust; Barbell Squat → Dumbbell Goblet Squat; Cable Kickbacks → Banded Kickback; Seated Hip Abduction → Banded Seated Abduction; Lat Pulldown → Banded Lat Pulldown; Romanian Deadlift → Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift; Lying Leg Curl → Dumbbell Single-Leg Romanian Deadlift; Seated Cable Rows → Banded Row.
How to Progress
Three blocks of four weeks.
Weeks 1-4 — build the base. Establish your loads. Add reps within the range each session. Hit the top of the range on all sets, add weight next time — 10 lbs on hip thrusts and Romanian deadlifts, 5 lbs elsewhere. Two reps left in the tank on every set.
Weeks 5-8 — add volume. Add one set to the hip thrust on Day 1 and one set to the Romanian deadlift on Day 3. Keep adding weight by the same rule. This is where most of the growth happens.
Weeks 9-11 — add intensity. Drop the extra sets. Take the final set of hip thrusts, squats and Romanian deadlifts to one rep short of failure. Add a 15-20 rep back-off set at 50% weight on hip thrusts.
Week 12 — deload. Required, because this program is longer than 8 weeks. Half the sets, 60% of the weight. Then either run block 2 again with your new numbers, or move to a different lower body emphasis.
Track your hip thrust weight above everything else. If it is not going up over 12 weeks, nothing else in the program matters.
Warm-Up and Recovery Notes
Before lower body days: 5 minutes of easy cardio, then a set of 15 glute bridges and a set of 10 bodyweight squats. That is a warm-up. Long band activation circuits are not making your glutes grow — they are making you tired before you lift.
Take at least one full rest day between the two lower body sessions.
Because the program runs 12 weeks, the week 12 deload is not optional. If your lower body sessions start feeling worse instead of better in weeks 6-8, take an easy week early. The program will still work.
Nutrition and Supplementation
Muscle needs a calorie surplus, or at minimum maintenance. You cannot meaningfully grow glutes in an aggressive deficit — this is the trade-off nobody wants to hear. Protein at 0.7-1g per pound of bodyweight.
Protein powder helps hit the target. Creatine at 5g a day is as effective for women as for men, and it will not make you bulky — that is a myth that has cost a lot of women a lot of progress. A daily multivitamin covers the gaps if your diet is inconsistent. Nothing else is necessary.
FAQ
Can I train glutes more than twice a week? You can, but the two heavy days here already deliver the volume most people can recover from. More frequency with less recovery is not more growth.
Will squats alone build my glutes? They contribute, but hip thrusts load the glutes in a shortened position that squats do not. Both are in the program for that reason.
Why are there upper body days in a glute program? Because training one muscle group four days a week is not a program, it is a hobby. The upper days keep you balanced and they cost you nothing in glute recovery.
Can I do this entirely at home? Yes, using the bracketed substitutions. The limitation is load on hip thrusts — use single-leg variations, bands and slower tempos to keep progressing once dumbbells run out.
Do I need to be in a surplus? To build, yes. You can run this at maintenance and still improve, especially in your first year of serious training. In a deficit you will maintain, not grow.