Glutes and Legs Plan for Women

Women who have trained for a few months, or finished Full Body Plan for Women, and want their glutes and legs to get most of the work. You train 4 days a week, five exercises a day, 3 sets each:

• Day 1, glutes and hamstrings — Romanian deadlift, glute bridge, seated leg curl, hip abduction, back extension
• Day 2, upper body and core — lat pulldown, incline dumbbell press, seated cable row, lateral raise, dead bug
• Day 3, glutes and quads — leg press, Bulgarian split squat, leg extension, hip adduction, side plank
• Day 4, upper body and glutes — seated dumbbell press, single-arm dumbbell row, push-up, glute bridge, hip abduction

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday works well: each glute session gets at least a day's rest before the next one. New to the gym? Start with Full Body Plan for Women and come back after 8 weeks.

Glutes are a main mover in 24 sets a week: 12 on Day 1, 6 on Day 3 from the leg press and split squats, and 6 on Day 4. If you count the big compound lifts as half a set for glutes, as some researchers do, it's about 18.

Research on training volume suggests that about 10–20 hard sets per muscle per week works well for growth, so this plan puts glutes near the top of that range. Quads and hamstrings get about 9 sets each, and back, chest and shoulders 6–9, enough to keep them growing too.

More isn't better if you can't recover. If your glutes are still sore on Day 4, drop the last set of the bridges and abduction that week.

Add reps first, then weight. Each exercise has a target, like 3×10:

• Every set reaches the target with a rep or two to spare → add weight next time: 2.5–5 lb (1–2 kg) on upper-body lifts, 5–10 lb (2–5 kg) on the Romanian deadlift and leg press, one step on the machine stack.
• The last set falls short → same weight next time, chase the missing reps.
• Glute bridge → bodyweight first, then a dumbbell or plate on your hips, then a padded barbell. Pause for a second at the top before you add load.

After 8 weeks, take an easier week with half the sets, then run the plan again from your new weights.

Both train the same thing, driving your hips up against resistance. The bridge is done from the floor, so it needs no bench setup and is easier to learn. The hip thrust puts your upper back on a bench, which gives a longer range of motion and lets you load it heavier.

If your gym has a hip thrust bench or machine, do hip thrusts instead of glute bridges with the same sets and reps. Start lighter than you think: the longer range makes the same weight feel harder.

Not on their own. You can't burn fat from one spot by training the muscle under it: in studies that trained only one leg, or only the abs, the trained area lost no more fat than the rest of the body.

What the machines do is strengthen the muscles. Hip abduction trains the side of your glutes (gluteus medius and minimus), which shapes the upper, outer glutes and steadies your knees in squats and lunges. Hip adduction trains the inner thighs, which also help you stand up out of a squat. A leaner look in those areas comes from overall fat loss.