Make your square butt look round and perky— get the best glute workouts for your butt shape like glute dumbbell exercises or gluteus minimus exercises.

Do you struggle with a square derriere?

Most of us have butts.

BUTT, do you understand how your booty is shaped in proportion to the rest of your body?

In this article, we’ll take a brief look at human butt shapes, focusing particularly on the square.

Learn some workouts you can do for a perkier, rounder shape, feel more confident, and increase the lifting power of your glute muscles.

Welcome to Square Butts 101.

Butt Shapes

Here, we’ll go into more detail about the square butt shape. However, there’s a massive variety of asses to go around.

You may prefer the look of a butt made of solid muscle. But did you know storing more fat in your butt may actually be healthier for you?

It can be healthier to hold fat in the gluteofemoral area (butt and thighs). Fat here, rather than the abdominal area may put you at lower cardiovascular risk.

Check out the different butt shapes — Take a look at a few of the shapes your butt might have. Are you firmly in one category or does your rear resemble a few of these butts?

Here’s an overview of the main butt shapes.

Heart-Shaped Butt

It’s more of an upside-down heart, but the heart-shaped booty is one of the most coveted butt shapes in the world.

The heart-shaped butt is widest at the base, where it attaches to your legs and tapers in as it rises to meet your waist.

Especially for women, the heart-shaped butt is a popular goal. Think of Kim Kardashian’s notorious assets and you’ll see someone with an example of a heart-shaped butt.

Although you may not be Kim, you can certainly optimize your workouts with great exercise to try to work towards a similar butt shape.

Round Butt

A round butt, aka bubble butt is the most proportionate overall. This butt has even fat distribution along the top, bottom, and sides of the hips, as well as on the butt cheeks. If you're looking at how to get a round butt, you're not unique. This is something many strive for.

Although men may not have as much booty fixation as women when it comes to workouts, it’s still a good idea to tone up. A rounded butt can look great on anyone!

After all, it’s more visually pleasing than a pancake butt, right? What’s more, it feels great to have strong butt muscles, so a round butt is one both men and women may want to work towards in the gym.

Square Butt

We sometimes call a square butt an H-shaped butt and it looks like how it sounds. Square butts have more linear sides and don’t round out through the sides.

A square butt has more volume up top but flattens at the base.

If you’ve ever experienced the “muffin top,” aka, spilling out of your low-cut jeans, you may have a square butt. Try a square butt workout to hit your side glutes.

To train your glute muscles and improve this shape, focus on targeting the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus. Working on these side glute muscles will help you create more volume to round out your glutes.

Muffin top coming out of pants — If you’ve experienced the muffin top, you may have a square butt. This means your butt carries more fat and volume up top. Try working your side glutes for a more rounded shape.

Inverted Butt

Inverted butts, like squares, carry a lot of volume up top. These butts, though, have even less fat and muscle distribution around the base of the butt, resulting in smaller or flatter cheeks.

Although all booties are beauties, you may need to focus a bit more on powering the biggest butt muscle— the gluteus maximus. This will give you more development through your rear and lower butt to round out that shape.

Everyone’s booty is unique. Your butt might have a combination of different ASStributes and fall into more than one category.

For instance, you could be mainly a square. But by developing the gluteus maximus, your butt can take on a round appearance, even if you have narrow hips.

What Are the Butt Muscles?

So what muscles work when you focus on the glutes to round out your square butt?

When we talk about "butt muscles" we primarily mean the gluteal muscles. Three main muscles make up the gluteals:

Gluteus Maximus: This is the biggest of the three gluteal muscles. Your gluteus maximus is responsible for hip extension (moving the thigh backward) and external rotation of your hip joints. Located at the back and center of your butt, this muscle is mostly responsible for giving your buttocks a rounded shape.
Gluteus Medius: This muscle can be found on the outer side of your pelvis. Its primary role is hip abduction (moving your thighs away from the midline of your body). The gluteus medius also helps you keep your pelvis stable. For workouts like squats, or everyday movements like walking outside, a healthy gluteus medius will kick in to help you keep your balance standing up.
Gluteus Minimus: This is the smallest of the three gluteal muscles, under the gluteus medius. Your gluteus minimus helps abduct the hips and stabilize your joints.

All three of these muscles work together to give you stability, power, and movement. We use our glutes when walking, running, climbing, and squatting.

Strong gluteal muscles are essential for overall lower body strength. They can contribute to better posture and less risk of injuries.

Exercises like squats, lunges, deadlifts, and specific glute-focused exercises can be effective in strengthening the gluteal muscles. This includes workouts such as hip thrusts and glute bridges.

Additionally, activities like cycling, and climbing stairs engage the glutes. Keep a balanced workout routine that targets different muscle groups. This improves overall strength and prevents imbalances.

Why Is My Butt Square?

There are many reasons you could have a more squared-off butt shape. The biggest one? Blame mom and dad!

Genetics are largely at play for your body shape. This includes your booty.

DNA has a major impact on whether you store more fat on your hips or around your abdomen. This can vary somewhat based on your age, sex, and ethnic background.

Women also generally store more fat around the hips than men and generally have higher body fat overall. This healthy fat distribution in the hips may protect women against type 2 diabetes and other metabolic diseases.

Some bodies are genetically prone to store more stomach fat, while some store more fat around the hips, regardless of gender.

The fat distribution that favors the hip area is generally associated with the appearance of a bigger butt.

Even if you tend to hold more weight in your stomach, though, there’s no reason why you can’t take steps to build up your glutes. Although you may not have fat stores in the butt region on your side, growing the gluteus maximus, medius, and minimus can be a priority for you in the gym.

Strengthening these muscles can give you the appearance of a firm, sturdy, round booty.

However, regardless of gender or ethnicity, you may just have less round butt genes running in your family.

Despite this, there are many strategies you can look into to try and transform your butt from a square to a circle.

Let’s check out some exercises you can try to go from square

Square Butt Transformation

Let’s understand how to get rid of a square butt. To get great glutes, there are a few key elements you should focus on to make the most out of your workouts.

Let's look at the key steps to rounding out that square booty.

Glute Activation

Give your glutes a “hello” before your workout. Trying to lift heavier loads in the glutes without proper activation can lead to injuries.

It’s also not the most effective work you can do for these big muscles. Before a glute or leg day, always activate the glute muscles.

Try this using a resistance band or booty band. Squeeze your glutes and try out some squat pulses. Just enough to activate the muscles. You'll feel some light activation before you move into more intense glute exercises.

Square Butt Exercises

Band Walks

To target the glutes, take a resistance band around the sides of your upper legs and step into a slight squat. Holding the squat, begin to walk sideways for up to 10 steps. Come back in the other direction. Continue this movement for 1-2 minutes to awaken your glutes.

Glute Bridges

Lying on your back, flat on the floor, plant your hands by your sides, and bend your knees upwards. Press into the feet and lift your hips and booty into the air. Hold the position for 10 seconds. Slowly lower your hips to the ground, rolling through the vertebrae of the spine, returning to the starting position.

Gym tip: For some serious heat in this position, try doing glute bridge pulses. Pulse your hips up and down at a quick pace. Do you feel the burn?

Step-Ups

Using a box or step to do a step-up is one of the best ways to get the gluteus maximus activated. If your square butt also lacks volume in the back, adding a step routine to your workout can be beneficial in achieving a rounded shape.

Glute Abduction

Square butts lack volume throughout the gluteus medius or side butt muscles. This is why you tend to see a square shape rather than rounding: Your muscles in this area e aren’t developed enough to take up much space.

Gluteus muscles chart featuring the gluteus maximus, medius, and minimus muscles — Lack of volume or strength in the gluteus medius, or side glute area can make your butt look square.

To increase volume along the sides of your booty, try some hip abduction moves. Most gyms have a seated abduction machine, which involves starting with your legs together and pushing them out and apart to fight against your chosen resistance.

Typically they use a weight stack, so don’t be afraid to go heavy to work the gluteus medius to its max.

Step-ups and band walks require a high level of standing stability to get the glutes firing. If you’re not there yet, an abduction machine or any seated or lying down abduction and rotation moves can hit your mid-glutes just as hard.

Fire Hydrants

Person performing fire hydrant exercises — The fire hydrant is one of the best no-equipment options for hip rotation and strengthening the side glute muscles.

These are another medius move. Although they don’t call for weights, fire hydrants are a challenging move that can be great for gluteus medius development.

Throw them in as part of your glute activation warm-up if you plan to work up to weighted glute moves like squats or deadlifts.

These can also be part of the main event if you’re specifically doing a glute-focused leg day. Toss on some ankle weights and you’ll be feeling this move for days to come. The outer thigh burn is real with this one.

Squats

There’s a popular misconception that squats are the only move you need to get a big butt. Although that’s not completely true, and there are many other factors, this powerhouse exercise is great for building more than just the booty.

Squats work the gluteus muscles, hamstrings, and quads all together through compound movements.

Overall, squats are a phenomenal stabilizing move and help work the other parts of the leg that support the booty.

After all, what’s a nice butt stacked on top of toothpick legs? Not so enjoyable, is it?

Work in moves like back squats, goblet squats, and front squats, and you should feel some amazing activation through your gluteus muscles.

Squats can also help alleviate pain in tight hips. Check out Why Do My Hips Hurt When Squatting, to understand the mechanics of a squat and learn how to drop it down low with no pain.

Read: How to spot a squat

Big Picture

A square butt is one of a variety of different butt shapes we can have. This is alongside shapes like hearts, round, and inverted. Sometimes you have a combination of two or more butt shapes!

That being said, most of us want to aim for a round butt shape.

The way our butts look is largely influenced by DNA. Ethnicity and gender can make a difference in where your body stores fat. Some bodies store more stomach fat, while some store more fat around the hips.

Butt genes can vary, but there’s no reason you can’t optimize your exercise for a bigger booty. Exercises like squats, abduction, and hip activation can help you build a round butt.

Make your workouts anything BUTT ordinary. Flex AI offers an all-in-one workout platform to help you learn new exercises, visualize your fitness journey, and keep all your PRs in one place.

We’ve made it simple to work on customized fitness plans or to introduce a little friendly competition to your fitness community by sharing exercises with your friends. Start for free through the Flex fitness app.

Plus, want to learn more about how to work your booty? For more butt stuff, read Butt Shapes and Heart Shaped Ass to learn more about how to sculpt a perfect butt.

Fitness Goals

Best Exercises to Turn Your Square Butt into a Round Behind