Hip Thrust
You sit with your upper back against a bench or box, the barbell resting across your hips. From there you drive your hips up until your knees, hips and shoulders form one line — then lower them slowly again. Your glutes do the work; your back holds its shape.
The hip thrust is hip extension in its most direct form. Your back rests on the bench, your knees keep their angle, and the only thing that moves is your hips — driven by your glutes. Because the load sits on your hips and your upper body is supported, you can move a lot of weight here and feel exactly where the work is happening.
Your glutes are built for high force. They extend your hips with every step, on every staircase, every time you stand up and every time you run — and at some point they need resistance to get stronger. That's exactly what they get here.
From the studio: Since Andreas started training the hip thrust regularly, he notices the difference on long walks, when running and in his acceleration on the road bike. That's his observation from his own training.
Starting position
Sit on the floor with your back against a bench or a box. Roll the barbell up to your hips — ideally with a pad on the bar — so it sits centred across your hips. Then place your upper back on the edge: your shoulder blades rest on the bench and stay there for the whole rep.
Your feet are shoulder-width apart and fairly close to your body, heels roughly under your knees. When you drive your hips up, your shins, thighs and torso all sit at right angles to each other at the top — that's your check that your feet are in the right place.
Your weight is on your heels. It's fine for the balls of your feet to lift slightly off the floor.
With no added weight, with a dumbbell or with the barbell: the starting position is always the same.
The three cues
- Shoulder blades planted on the bench, weight on your heels — from there you drive your hips up
- At the top, squeeze your glutes and push your hips through until your knees, hips and shoulders form one line
- Pause briefly at the top, keep your abs tight — and lower slowly
Common faults
| Fault | How to fix it |
|---|---|
| Your lower back takes over at the top — your hips go past the line into an arch | Keep your abs tight and come up only until your knees, hips and shoulders form one line. Stop there. |
| Your feet are too far away and your knees straighten as you drive up | Bring your feet closer, heels under your knees. At the top your shins and thighs sit at a right angle. |
| Your weight is on the balls of your feet | Shift it onto your heels. It's fine for the balls of your feet to lift slightly — that's when your glutes do the work. |
| Your hips stop short of full extension | Pause briefly at the top and squeeze your glutes. Only once your hips are fully extended do you start lowering. |
| Your hips drop on the way down | Lower slowly, drive up with power. The way down is part of the rep. |
| Your shoulder blades slide off the edge | Before the set, place your upper back deliberately on the bench. Your shoulder blades stay there — they are your pivot point. |
Variations
| Variation | When to use it |
|---|---|
| No added weight | You learn the position: shoulder blades on the bench, heels under your knees, everything at right angles at the top. Once the balls of your feet lift and your glutes are doing the work, you add load. |
| Just the bar, or a dumbbell | Your first load across the hips. The empty bar is the best place to start — even if others in the gym load a lot more. The dumbbell is the alternative for home or a hotel gym. |
| Barbell with plates | What we do in the studio. The bar sits on your hips with a pad, and you pick a weight that keeps your reps clean inside your rep range — then build it up step by step. |
| Single leg | One foot stays on the floor, the other leg is lifted. Demanding even without added load: each side carries your hips on its own, and your hips stay level. |
Reps and load
Pick a starting weight that lands you in the range of about 10 to 15 reps, across several sets. For your first sets the empty bar or a light dumbbell is plenty; the load goes up on its own once the movement is solid.
Pause briefly at the top, don't drop at the bottom: drive up with power, lower slowly. Around a minute and a half to two minutes between sets, and you can fill that rest with an upper-body exercise.
Which muscles do the work
| Muscle | Role | What it does here |
|---|---|---|
| Glute max M. gluteus maximus | Prime mover | Extends your hips and drives them up — the engine of the exercise |
| Hamstrings Mm. ischiocrurales | Synergist | Assist hip extension and hold your knee angle from behind |
| Adductor magnus M. adductor magnus | Synergist | Pulls from the inside of your thigh to help extend the hip, especially out of the bottom |
| Quads M. quadriceps femoris | Synergist | Hold your knee angle while your hips come up |
| Glute med M. gluteus medius | Stabiliser | Keeps your knees tracking and your pelvis level |
| Abs M. rectus abdominis | Stabiliser | Holds the line at the top and stops your lower back arching past your hips |
| Spinal erectors M. erector spinae | Stabiliser | Keep your trunk as one piece while your hips extend beneath it |
Your glutes do the moving; your trunk holds the shape. Your abs make sure it's your hips that extend at the top and not your lower back — and that is what decides whether the work lands where it should.
Ways to do it — on video
The equipment changes, the movement pattern stays the same. What you learn on the cable applies to the band just as much — only the resistance differs.
BarbellStandard
The studio standard. The bar sits centred on your hips with a pad, and the plates give your glutes the resistance they need to get stronger.
Dumbbell
For home, a hotel gym or when there's no barbell around. The dumbbell lies across your hips and you hold it with both hands. Past a certain weight it gets awkward — that's when you move to the barbell.
No added weight
The starting point. This is where you learn the position and the feel: weight on your heels, the balls of your feet free to lift, everything at right angles at the top. Your hands stay free.
Single leg
The harder version without added load. One foot stays on the floor, the other leg is lifted, and your hips stay level as you drive up — they don't drop towards the free side.
Explained in full
The whole setup: the position on the bench, the heels, the bar across the hips — first without weight, then with the barbell. And how Andreas picks a starting weight. · 3:29
Seeing it done right is not the same as doing it right
Video, cues and variations take you a long way. What they cannot give you is an outside eye at the moment the movement isn't quite there yet. That is what training with me is for — in the studio or in a workshop.
See the workshopsNew exercise pages are added all the time — the newsletter keeps you posted.
Sources
Contreras B, Vigotsky AD, Schoenfeld BJ, Beardsley C, Cronin J. (2015). J Appl Biomech 31(6):452–458. DOI: 10.1123/jab.2014-0301 — Compares the barbell hip thrust with the back squat in 13 trained women with a mean age of about 29, each at a 10-rep maximum. Mean glute max activity in the hip thrust was roughly double that of the squat (upper fibres 69.5 vs 29.4 % MVIC, lower fibres 86.8 vs 45.4 %), and the hamstrings were also clearly higher; the quads were equally high in both lifts. That is where the quads' role as a synergist on this page comes from. There is no measurement of this exercise in the Academy's readership — 40 to 60, two to four hours a week; what carries over is the division of labour, not the size of the numbers. (Evidence type: EMG)
Andersen V, Fimland MS, Mo DA, Iversen VM, Vederhus T, Rockland Hellebø LR, Nordaune KI, Saeterbakken AH. (2018). J Strength Cond Res 32(3):587–593. DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000001826 — Compares the hip thrust, the barbell deadlift and the hex bar deadlift in 13 resistance-trained men, each at a 1-rep maximum. Glute max activity was highest in the hip thrust, hamstring activity highest in the deadlift. The spinal erectors worked equally hard in all three lifts — which is why this page lists them as a stabiliser that holds the trunk, not as a muscle the bench takes the work away from. (Evidence type: EMG)
Delgado J, Drinkwater EJ, Banyard HG, Haff GG, Nosaka K. (2019). J Strength Cond Res 33(10):2595–2601. DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000003290 — Compares the back squat, the Romanian deadlift and the hip thrust in eight trained men at a 1-rep maximum. Glute max activity in the hip thrust was higher than in the squat, but the same as in the Romanian deadlift. A small sample; used here to place the hip thrust as one of two hinge-pattern lifts that load hip extension directly. (Evidence type: EMG)
Neto WK, Soares EG, Vieira TL, Aguiar R, Chola TA, Sampaio VL, Gama EF. (2020). J Sports Sci Med 19(1):195–203. PubMed 32132843 — A systematic review of 16 EMG studies on glute max activation in strength exercises, mostly in young trained adults. All hip thrust variations sat in the highest activation band; step-up variations ranked above them. Supports placing the hip thrust among the exercises with the strongest glute involvement — one of several, not the one. (Evidence type: Systematic review)
Plotkin DL, Rodas MA, Vigotsky AD, McIntosh MC, Breeze E, Ubrik R, Robitzsch C, Agyin-Birikorang A, Mattingly ML, Michel JM, Kontos NJ, Lennon S, Frugé AD, Wilburn CM, Weimar WH, Bashir A, Beyers RJ, Henselmans M, Contreras BM, Roberts MD. (2023). Front Physiol 14:1279170. DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2023.1279170 — A nine-week randomised training study in 34 untrained college-aged adults: hip thrust versus back squat, muscle size measured by MRI. The glutes grew equally in both groups; the squat additionally grew the quads and the adductors. Higher glute activation in the first hip thrust session did not predict later growth. That is why this page says the glutes work hard here — not that they grow most here. (Evidence type: RCT)
Brazil A, Needham L, Palmer JL, Bezodis IN. (2021). PLoS One 16(3):e0249307. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249307 — A three-dimensional motion analysis of the barbell hip thrust in 19 resistance-trained men at 70 % of their maximum. The hip joint moment dominated over knee and trunk, and the ankle contributed practically nothing. The basis for this page describing the hip as the one joint that moves, and for leaving the calves out of the muscle table. (Evidence type: Biomechanics)
Kennedy D, Casebolt JB, Farren GL, Fiaud V, Bartlett M, Strong L. (2024). Sports Biomech 23(12):2935–2949. DOI: 10.1080/14763141.2022.2074875 — Compares the barbell hip thrust with the barbell glute bridge on the floor in ten men. The floor version reached the same or higher values in glute max and glute med, the hip thrust higher values in the quads. Used to place the floor version without a bench as a full alternative for loading hip extension — with a small sample. (Evidence type: EMG)
Jarvis P, Cassone N, Turner A, Chavda S, Edwards M, Bishop C. (2019). J Strength Cond Res 33(Suppl 1):S78–S84. DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000002146 — An eight-week randomised training study in 21 collegiate athletes with a mean age of about 27. The hip thrust maximum rose by 44 kilograms; 40-metre sprint times and every split stayed unchanged. That is why Andreas' observation about running and cycling appears on this page as his own practice — with this context next to it. (Evidence type: RCT)
Lin S, Cheng M, Yi X, Li Y, Liu R. (2026). PeerJ 14:e20785. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.20785 — A meta-analysis of 20 randomised trials in athletes. Hip thrust training improved strength in the hip thrust itself but did not transfer measurably to jump or squat performance; for sprinting the effect sat at the edge of detectability, with low to very low certainty of evidence. No such study exists for the Academy's readership. It rounds out the context for the practice observation on this page. (Evidence type: Meta-analysis)
A note on context: EMG studies show which muscles an exercise recruits — that is a good reason to pick it, but it does not replace adjusting things to the person in front of you. See a doctor for persistent or severe pain.