Walk onto almost any gym floor today and you’ll see how much glute training has changed, especially compared to five years ago when it was a relatively new category.

We’ve moved on. Hip thrusts, kickbacks, abduction and lower-body strength work is now mainstream. As demand has grown, so has the amount of equipment available to operators.

And on first glance, some of it can look remarkably similar.

But there’s a difference between responding to a category and helping to create it. Booty Builder developed the first dedicated hip thrust machine and has spent more than a decade developing equipment specifically around glute training.

So when operators ask us how Booty Builder compares with the growing number of alternatives on the market, our answer isn’t simply that it was the original. It’s about why it was designed differently in the first place, and why those differences still matter.

It wasn’t designed to copy an existing machine or do what others do; cheaper. Before we created a dedicated hip thrust equipment, members were improvising.

Benches had to be moved. Barbells, pads and plates needed setting up. Members had to find sufficient space and, once they’d finished, everything needed putting back again.

The rationale is simple, if members repeatedly improvise a movement using equipment designed for something else, there’s an opportunity to design something specifically for the job. That thinking led to the original Booty Builder. And it continues to influence the range today.

It’s not about how much weight you can put on it

A common comparison between hip thrust machines is how much weight somebody can lift. We’d argue that more weight doesn’t automatically mean a better glute exercise.

Booty Builder’s original design incorporated its raised foot platform specifically to change the user’s positioning and place greater emphasis on hip extension. That’s an important distinction.

Booty Builder isn’t designed to win a competition for who can load the most plates onto a hip thrust. It has been developed specifically around the exercise it is intended to perform.

It’s about purposeful load, not just more load. Dedicated equipment can make the gym floor work better

The same philosophy extends beyond the hip thrust. Take kickbacks.

Members can perform a kickback using a cable station. But that means finding an available cable, attaching an ankle strap, setting everything up and occupying a multi-purpose station for the duration of the exercise.

Booty Builder looked at that behaviour and created a dedicated Selectorized Kickback machine. The exercise has proved more popular than might be expected once the barriers associated with cable set-up are removed. The dedicated machine incorporates a raised platform, multiple handle positions and an ankle strap designed for users to move in and out of easily.

It’s a similar story with step-ups. Instead of members standing on benches or adapting other equipment, Booty Builder created a dedicated Step Up machine with adjustable step height and a Selectorized weight stack.

That matters to operators as much as it does members.

If people are constantly dragging benches around, occupying Smith machines or monopolising cable stations to perform popular exercises, the issue isn’t necessarily member behaviour.

It might be that the gym floor hasn’t caught up with the way members now want to train.

Perhaps the biggest difference between Booty Builder today and when the company started is scale.

Booty Builder is no longer one hip thrust machine.

The range now spans multiple glute and lower-body movements, giving operators the opportunity to select individual pieces or create an entire dedicated Booty Builder Training Zone.

The goal for Booty Builder has always been to create a destination within the gym: somewhere members immediately recognise as the place for lower-body and glute training.

It changes the conversation from:

“Should we buy a hip thrust machine?”

to:

“What should our lower-body proposition look like?”

And that’s a much more interesting question for operators. Equipment can become part of your marketing

There’s another commercial consideration that is easily overlooked.

The right equipment doesn’t only serve the members already inside the gym. It can help sell the facility to people outside it.

Booty Builder can legitimately claim to be the original dedicated hip thrust machine.

But being first isn’t enough. The real test is whether you continue innovating once everyone else starts following.

And more than a decade after Booty Builder helped create the category, that’s exactly what the brand intends to keep doing.

Want to understand the difference for yourself? Speak to React Fitness about trying Booty Builder equipment or creating a dedicated Booty Builder Training Zone for your facility.