Walking Lunges vs Hip Thrusts: Which Builds Bigger Glutes?

The hip thrust has been the internet’s answer to “best glute exercise” for a decade, and it earned the title on one kind of evidence. Put electrodes on the glutes and the hip thrust lights them up more than almost anything else.

Then researchers tested whether that activation turned into more muscle. It didn’t, at least not more than a squat did. That changes how you should look at walking lunges, the glute exercise most people skip because they can’t sit down the next day.

Why the Hip Thrust Got the Crown

EMG studies measure how hard a muscle fires during a lift, and hip thrusts consistently show higher glute activation than squats. The hip thrust is also easy to load heavy, easy to learn and light on your lower back. None of that is wrong. The question is whether firing harder in the moment means growing more over months.

What the Growth Research Found

In 2023, a 9 week study from Brad Schoenfeld’s lab put 34 untrained young adults on either hip thrusts or back squats. The hip thrust group had higher glute EMG. Glute growth came out similar in both groups, with only a small edge to the hip thrust. The squat group also grew more quadriceps and adductor muscle, and deadlift strength improved about equally.

Depth adds to the picture. A 10 week study by Kubo and colleagues found full depth squats grew the glutes more than half squats did, which fits the wider hypertrophy research showing muscles often grow well when they’re loaded in a stretched position.

No study has put walking lunges head to head with hip thrusts for glute growth. What the evidence does show is that a lift that loads the glutes in a deeper stretch, the back squat, matched the hip thrust for glute growth and built more leg muscle on top. A long walking lunge loads the front leg’s glute in that same deep stretch at the bottom of every step.

What the Walking Lunge Adds

Every step is single leg work, so the smaller glute muscles on the side of your hip have to work to keep your pelvis level. The hip thrust, with both feet planted and your back on a bench, asks very little of them. That stability is what you use every time you run, climb stairs or step off a curb, and it’s why single leg training belongs in every program.

Lunges also hit your quads hard, the way the squats did in that study, so you get extra muscle from the same set. And progression is simple: heavier dumbbells, more steps.

How to Do Walking Lunges for Glutes

Two changes shift a walking lunge from mostly quads toward more glute:

• Take a longer stride. Short steps keep the work in your quads. A longer step keeps your front shin closer to vertical and takes your front hip deeper, which is where that glute gets stretched.
• Lean your torso forward a little. In a small study of 10 adults, a forward trunk lean during the lunge increased glute max and hamstring activity and hip extensor effort compared with staying upright. Stay braced. Don’t slump.

Push through your whole front foot to stand, control the lowering into the next step, and keep each rep smooth. 2 to 3 sets of 10 to 12 steps per leg, once or twice a week, is a solid place to start.

So Which One?

If glutes are the only goal and your knees or balance are the limit, the hip thrust is a great pick. The 2023 study says it builds as much glute as a squat.

If you want the most from one exercise, pick the walking lunge. You get the deep stretch that matched the thrust for glute growth, plus quads and single leg stability in the same set. That evidence comes from squats, not lunges, so treat it as a strong bet rather than a proven result.

Better still, use both. Lunges early in the session while your balance is fresh, thrusts afterward, when your legs are shaky but your glutes still have work left in them.

Your glutes don’t care which exercise wins the internet. They care whether you load them hard, deep and often.