How to Do a Glute Bridge Hold

If you’ve done your fair share of glute exercises, you’re probably familiar with the glute bridge. Glute bridges are amazing for isolating the glute muscles during exercise, helping you build your bum without adding extra mass to your thighs or hamstrings. But did you know that performing a glute bridge hold (a slight variation of the glute bridge) can help elevate your glute gains even further? If you want to learn how to do a glute bridge hold, keep reading!

How to Do a Glute Bridge Hold

What’s a glute bridge hold?

A glute bridge hold is a bit like the traditional glute bridge – in fact, it’s exactly like a traditional glute bridge! The only difference between performing a set of glute bridges and performing a glute bridge hold is stamina. When performing a glute bridge hold, you’re going to be a lot more focused on holding your position and maintaining that hold for as long as you can.

How to Do a Glute Bridge Hold

Performing a glute bridge hold is relatively easy, especially if you already know how to do glute bridges. Here’s how to do a glute bridge hold for bum gains:

  1. Lay on your back on your workout mat, with your feet tucked in near your bum and your hands by your sides.
  2. If you’re using a weight, you can place the weight in your hands and rest it just above your hips, below your stomach (in this case, obviously your hands don’t need to be by your sides.)
  3. With your heels pressed into the ground, lift your lower body off the ground. 
  4. Unlike during a traditional glute bridge, you’re not going to begin to lower your bum to the ground after a couple of seconds. Instead, hold your position.
  5. Hold your glute bridge for up to 30 seconds if you’re a beginner, but feel free to carry on for longer if you’re more experienced in lower body exercises. 
  6. During the hold, squeeze your glutes as much as possible. You’re engaging your glutes and making sure they’re firing during the movement.
  7. Once you’ve held your glute bridge for 30 seconds, slowly lower your bum to the mat.
  8. Repeat up to 5 times if you’re a beginner, increasing repetitions if you’re at a more advanced level.
  9. And there you have it! You just completed a round of glute bridge holds, and your bum is probably a bit sore!

Glute Bridge vs. Glute Bridge Hold

If you’re wondering what the main difference is between a glute bridge and a glute bridge hold, there isn’t much difference. When it comes to your results, both exercises are going to shape, build, and strengthen your glutes and lower body. That being said, holding your glute bridge is great for isolating the glute muscle without overly engaging your thighs or hamstrings. Whether one is more effective than the other will depend on your form and consistency.  

Like a squat hold or lunge hold, your glutes are going to start burning after a couple of seconds. For this reason, it’s best to add “holding” exercises (squat holds, glute bridge holds) onto the end of your lower body workouts, rather than burning your muscles out right at the beginning of your session.

Do I need to use weights during a glute bridge hold?

Adding weights to your lower body exercises is always a good idea if you’re looking to build your bum and achieve those all-important glute gains! Adding weights will make your muscles work harder, will build lean muscle, and will even help you burn calories – perfect if you’re trying to build your booty and follow a weight loss regime at the same time.

That being said, using weights isn’t for everyone. I certainly wouldn’t recommend jumping into weighted glute bridges if you’re a beginner, nor if you have a sustained injury currently in its healing process. If you can’t use weights but you still want to add some resistance, you can use resistance bands, light watter bottles, or even a lengthy book instead of a dumbell! Anything that will make your glute muscles work harder is going to enhance your results. Put simply – while weights aren’t strictly necessary, those who are able to use them should add them progressively into their lower body exercises to maximise their results.

Are glute bridges good for the bum?

Glute bridges are great for the bum, as they are one of the few lower body exercises that are going isolate the glutes and build muscle without also heavilty engaging the thighs or the rest of the lower body.

Benefits of Glute Bridges:

  • Target the glute muscles without fully engaging the rest of the lower body
  • Low impact; perfect if you’re recovering from injury or a beginner
  • Effective without weights, but turbo-charged when you add some resistance
  • Can be performed at home or in the gym
  • Tones the glute muscles
  • Can help improve back pain and posture
  • Improves core stability
  • Activates and engages all three glute muscles for a well-rounded bum exercise that tones, lifts, and builds the glute muscles

Does holding a glute bridge build muscle?

Holding a glute bridge is beneficial for the body for many reasons, principally because you’re going to largely increase your physical stamina and better perform your other lower body exercises as a result. But holding a glute bridge will also force your glute muscles to work harder, which will in turn help you develop larger, stronger glute muscles, and a larger, rounder bum! 

That being said, if you want to build glute muscles while performing a glute bridge hold, you’re going to need to add a bit of weighted resistance to truly see results. As I explained above, adding weighted resistance is going to turbo-charge your results and get you that perky peach much faster! Always begin by adding weighted resistance progressively, which means starting small, or with resistance bands. Never push yourself to lift more than you’re capable of; you’ll end up injuring yourself and delaying your results even further.

Authors

I’m Chloe – a body confidence writer here at House of Peach! I help women to feel fabulous in the body they’re in and feel amazing in gym wear – regardless of their body shape and type. Unleash Your Peach.

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