You have seen it in every gym. The band around the knees. The little side steps before squats. The clamshells on the mat. The promise is always the same: your side glutes need their own special work, because the big lifts do not reach them.
In 2023, a research team measured the force inside all three glute muscles across eight exercises. One finished in the top tier for every muscle. It was not a band walk.
| THE MYTH “Your gluteus medius and minimus need their own abduction exercises. Squats and hinges do not reach them.” |
MEET THE PLAYERS
You have three glutes on each side, not one.
The maximus drives your hip backwards and gives the shape most people are training for. The medius keeps your pelvis level when you stand on one leg. The minimus sits deeper and does the same job.
READ THIS FIRST: ACTIVATION IS NOT GROWTH
Almost every glute exercise ranking you have seen came from EMG. EMG does not measure how hard a muscle pulls, and it does not measure growth.
| WHAT THE WORDS MEAN EMG reads the electrical signal a muscle receives. Force is how hard the muscle actually pulls. They are not the same thing. |
That difference matters. In 2022, Vigotsky and colleagues reviewed the evidence and concluded that surface EMG amplitude measured in a single session is not a validated predictor of muscle growth.
So Collings and colleagues did something better. They combined motion capture, force plates and EMG, and fed all of it into a computer model of the hip. That let them estimate the actual force inside each glute muscle. Force is closer to the real growth signal than an electrical reading.
| THE SCIENCE This is still an estimate from a model. It sits above EMG and below MRI on the evidence ladder. Read it that way. |
THE STUDY, IN PLAIN ENGLISH
Fourteen female footballers, aged 18 to 32, all with at least three months of lower body lifting. Eight exercises, each done twice: once with bodyweight, once with a load they could lift about twelve times. Every exercise was then ranked by peak force and sorted into four tiers, separately for each of the three glutes.
PART 1. WHAT ACTUALLY WON
For gluteus maximus, the top tier was the loaded split squat, the loaded single-leg RDL and the loaded single-leg hip thrust.
For gluteus medius, it was the bodyweight side plank, the loaded single-leg squat and the loaded single-leg RDL.
For gluteus minimus, it was the loaded single-leg RDL and the bodyweight side plank.
| KEY TAKEAWAY Read those three lists again. One exercise appears in all of them: the loaded single-leg RDL. That is your one move. |
PART 2. A NUMBER YOU ARE PROBABLY MISREADING
When one of those charts shows an exercise at 100%, it does not mean 100% of what your glutes can do. It means it was the highest of the eight exercises tested.
The side plank scored 100% for gluteus medius. In real units that is roughly 411 newtons: the top of this list, not the ceiling of the muscle.
PART 3. WHERE THE BAND WORK LANDED
Across the three muscles there were eight top-tier slots in total. Six went to hip extension exercises. Two went to the side plank. None went to a band walk, a hip hike or a side-lying leg raise.
Side-lying leg raises landed in tier 3 or tier 4 for all three glutes, even when loaded. A bodyweight single-leg squat produced more gluteus medius force than a loaded side-lying leg raise.
| COACH’S TIP If band work is eating the energy you could spend on loaded single-leg work, you have the order backwards. |
PART 4. WHAT THE BAND CROWD GOT RIGHT
| THE OTHER SIDE The bodyweight side plank was top tier for both medius and minimus and needs no equipment. That is a real result, and the one piece of non-lifting work that clearly earned its place. |
This was also a rehab menu, not a gym menu. No barbell hip thrust, no back squat, no two-legged RDL. Best of these eight is not the same as best there is, and fourteen women is a small group.
PART 5. LOAD STILL DOES THE WORK
Adding a twelve-rep load raised peak glute force in every exercise tested, by between 28 and 150 newtons depending on the movement. Bodyweight versions are where you start, not where you stay.
THE VERDICT
| MOSTLY MYTH Dedicated abduction work is not what builds your side glutes. Loaded single-leg work already does it, and does it harder. The one honest exception is the side plank. |
BY THE NUMBERS
Here is the same result in real units, so you can see the size of the difference rather than a ranking.
AT A GLANCE
| If your goal is… | Do this | Because |
|---|---|---|
| Overall glute size | Loaded split squat or single-leg RDL | Top tier for gluteus maximus |
| Side glutes | Loaded single-leg RDL plus a side plank | The only two moves in the top tier for medius and minimus |
| One move for all three | Loaded single-leg RDL | The only exercise in tier 1 for every gluteal muscle |
| Training with no equipment | Side plank | Top tier for both side glutes, zero kit |
| Warming up or early rehab | Band walk, hip hike | Low force, useful as a primer, not as the main lift |
THE BOTTOM LINE
| Your side glutes are already working hard inside loaded single-leg exercises. The loaded single-leg RDL was the only move in the top tier for all three. Add a bodyweight side plank. Keep the band for warming up, but stop treating it as the main event. |
| WANT THE FULL GLUTE PLAN? Programmes, form checks and the science behind them, all in one place. bootycenter.com |
REFERENCES
1. Collings TJ, Bourne MN, Barrett RS, Meinders E, Gonçalves BAM, Shield AJ, Diamond LE. Gluteal muscle forces during hip-focused injury prevention and rehabilitation exercises. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2023;55(4):650–660. doi:10.1249/MSS.0000000000003091
2. Vigotsky AD, Halperin I, Trajano GS, Vieira TM. Longing for a longitudinal proxy: acutely measured surface EMG amplitude is not a validated predictor of muscle hypertrophy. Sports Med. 2022;52(2):193–199. doi:10.1007/s40279-021-01619-2
3. Moore D, Semciw AI, Pizzari T. A systematic review and meta-analysis of common therapeutic exercises that generate highest muscle activity in the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus segments. Int J Sports Phys Ther. 2020;15(6):856–881. doi:10.26603/ijspt20200856
4. Plotkin DL, Rodas MA, Vigotsky AD, et al. Hip thrust and back squat training elicit similar gluteus muscle hypertrophy and transfer similarly to the deadlift. Front Physiol. 2023;14:1279170. doi:10.3389/fphys.2023.12791705. Maeo S, Huang M, Wu Y, et al. Greater hamstrings muscle hypertrophy but similar damage protection after training at long versus short muscle lengths. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2021;53(4):825–837. doi:10.1249/MSS.0000000000002523
