The "Sit On It" Dumbbell Squat hits your glutes through two major avenues...
1. Extreme squat depth WITHOUT the knee stress sometimes associated with deep squatting.
2. Forcing you to sit back on your heels to promote posterior chain activation.
These two factors play a big role in recruiting the glutes during a squatting movement...if you can't squat deep and you can't sit back, you're not going to get the glute development you're looking for from the squat.
That's where this exercise comes into play.
How To Do Sit-On-It Dumbbell Squats For Glutes...
To do this one, you'll need a single dumbbell of moderate weight...use something you could do for a single dumbbell split squat or lunge movement. I'm using an 85 lb dumbbell in the demo.
It should be heavy enough because it'll be actually counterbalancing your bodyweight during the squat to some degree (you'll see when you see how it's done).
Set the dumbbell on the floor between your feet, placed as in the picture.
Next, squat down and sit on the back dumbell plates. Grip the dumbbell handle up near the front dumbbell plates with one hand (hey, I didn't promise it wouldn't be a strange-looking exercise ;).
Squatting down this deep and actually sitting on the dumbbell plates forces you to sit back and put pressure on your heels.
Now stand up, focusing on pushing with the heels. You'll be swinging the dumbbell forward as you come up, which is also a dumbbell hip thrust movement, further activating the glutes as you push the hips forward.
When you come to the top, the dumbbell will be resting against your upper thigh.
Set the dumbell back down and repeat.
One key thing to remember is to swing the dumbbell back behind you a bit more than you normally for a dumbbell deadlift or squat. You want to get it behind you enough to actually sit down on again at the bottom.
Taking the tension off the legs and glutes at the bottom I find really forces the glutes to activate when you stand up again. Continuous tension seems to focus on the quads...removal of that tension seems to force the glutes to kick in at the bottom.
After a rep or two on one arm, switch arms.
Here's the back view.
You'll find this exercise also hits the core very effectively. The core is strongly involved in the deep squat movement and will be even more so because of the off-set resistance of just holding one dumbbell.
I've also found this sitting on the dumbbell to keep the stress off the knees much more than a deep barbell squat.
The grip on the dumbbell allows you to sit back and move from the hips out of the deep squat rather than starting with the knee from a deep squat, which is often what happens with barbell squatting.
That is also the reason that some people don't get much glute work out of the regular barbell squat - the tendency to squat from the knees out of the bottom rather than pushing with the glutes. The glutes are most active in the squat out of the bottom...if you're not pushing with the glutes out of the bottom, the exercise won't be as effective for working the glutes.
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