Frog Pumps: How to Do Them, Muscles Worked and Progressions

Frog pumps are a glute isolation exercise where you lie on your back, press the soles of your feet together, let your knees fall out wide, and pump your hips up and down. That odd froggy position rotates your thighs outward, which quietens your quads and leaves your glutes to do nearly all the work. You can do them with just your bodyweight, a band above the knees or a dumbbell on your hips, which makes them a great finisher or warm-up for anyone chasing a stronger backside. Here's how to do them, the muscles they target and how to make them harder once bodyweight stops burning.

What a frog pump is (and why it dodges your quads)

The move looks like a glute bridge that lost the plot. Rather than keeping your feet flat and hip-width apart, you bring your heels together, turn your soles to face each other and splay your knees out toward the floor. From there you drive your hips up by squeezing your glutes, then lower under control.

That foot and knee position is the whole trick. Externally rotating and abducting your hips (knees out, soles together) slackens your quads and takes them out of the equation, so they can't help extend your hips the way they do in a squat or a standard bridge. Most people feel a frog pump almost entirely in the meat of the glutes, with barely a flicker in the thighs, and that's exactly the point.

How to do a frog pump

You don't need any kit for your first set, though a padded exercise mat spares your spine and tailbone from a hard floor when you're grinding out 20-plus reps.

1. Lie on your back. Rest your arms flat by your sides for stability.
2. Set the frog position. Bend your knees, bring the soles of your feet together, and pull your heels in fairly close to your body. Let your knees drop out to the sides.
3. Tilt your pelvis. Before you move, flatten your lower back into the floor by tucking your tailbone slightly. This posterior pelvic tilt pre-loads the glutes and stops your back arching.
4. Pump up. Push through the outer edges of your feet and drive your hips toward the ceiling by squeezing your glutes hard. Keep the tilt as you rise.
5. Squeeze, then lower. Hold the top for a second with your glutes fully contracted, then lower your hips most of the way down without resting them on the floor. Keep the tension and go straight into the next rep.

Muscles worked

Frog pumps are about as close to true glute isolation as a hip-extension move gets.

• Gluteus maximus. The big glute muscle is the star here. It's your main hip extensor, and with your quads sidelined by the externally rotated position, it handles the lift almost alone. A systematic review of gluteus maximus activation found that hip-thrust-style movements, which a frog pump essentially is, produce some of the highest glute activation of any exercise.
• Gluteus medius. Because your knees are pushed out wide against gravity, the smaller glute on the side of your hip fires to hold that abducted position for the whole set, a bonus you don't get from a feet-together bridge.
• Hamstrings. Your hamstrings assist with hip extension, but far less than in a standard bridge, since the frog position shortens them too. If you feel the entire set in your hamstrings, check the mistakes below.

Want the full menu of ways to load these muscles? Our guide to the best glute exercises covers the heavier lifts that pair well with a frog-pump finisher.

How to progress

Bodyweight frog pumps get easy fast, often within a couple of weeks. Here's the ladder once they do.

• Add reps and a pause. Before you reach for load, push your sets to 25 to 30 reps and hold a two-second squeeze at the top of each one. Time under tension does a lot of the work.
• Band above the knees. Loop a resistance band just above your knees so you have to press out against it the entire set. That lights up the glute medius and stops your knees drifting inward as you tire.
• Dumbbell or plate on the hips. Rest a dumbbell, plate or kettlebell across your hip crease, with a folded towel underneath to save the bruising, and hold it steady with both hands. It's the simplest way to add real resistance.
• Frog pump burnouts. Finish a glute session with one all-out set of fast, continuous pumps to failure. Forty reps, fifty, as many as you can grind out. They're a brutal burner precisely because no stronger muscle can step in and bail your glutes out.

Common mistakes

Arching your lower back. This is the error I see most. If you let your lower back peel off the floor and hinge from the spine, you'll feel it in your back rather than your glutes and lose the whole benefit. Set that posterior pelvic tilt before the first rep and keep it locked.

Letting your knees creep up. As you fatigue, your knees want to float back toward neutral, which quietly drags your quads and hamstrings into the lift. Keep driving them out and down on every rep. A band above the knees makes any cheating obvious.

Heels too far from your body. When your feet slide away from you, the exercise turns into a hamstring movement. Pull your heels in closer until you feel the tension settle firmly into your glutes.

Rushing the top. Bouncing up and down with no pause skips the part that matters. The squeeze at the top is where the glute actually does its work, so own it for a full second.

Where frog pumps fit

Two jobs suit frog pumps perfectly. As a glute finisher, run them at the end of a lower-body session after your heavy work. Once you've done your hip thrusts or squats, a couple of burning sets of frog pumps empties the tank with almost no load on your spine or joints, so it's a safe way to add glute volume when you're already tired.

For warm-up activation, a light set of 15 to 20 reps before you squat or deadlift wakes the glutes up so they fire properly under the bar. Pair them with a glute bridge for a quick two-move primer.

Frog pumps also suit anyone training at home with barely any kit. The NHS recommends working all the major muscle groups, including your hips, on at least two days a week, and frog pumps let you tick the glutes off that list from a bedroom floor.

Sets and reps

A simple plan that covers most goals:

• As a finisher: 2 to 3 sets of 20 to 30 reps, 30 to 45 seconds rest, after your main lifts.
• For activation: 1 to 2 sets of 15 to 20 light reps before lower-body work, no load needed.
• Burnout: 1 set to failure at the very end, trying to beat your rep count each week.

Progress by adding reps, then a band, then weight, in that order. Frog pumps respond far better to high reps and a hard squeeze than to heavy load, so don't rush to pile on the dumbbells. Two or three focused sessions a week is plenty for the glutes to grow.

Recommended reads

1. Glute exercises: the best moves for stronger glutes
2. How to do a hip thrust
3. How to do a glute bridge
4. The best resistance bands in the UK