The Best Way to Do the Barbell Hip Thrust

Instructions

  1. Sit with your upper back resting across a regular bench or against the padded backrest of a dedicated hip thrust bench (as shown in the videos).
  2. Roll a barbell over your thighs so it sits in your hip crease (use a bar pad or folded yoga mat to protect your hip bones), and plant your feet on the floor or footplate about shoulder-width apart with your toes pointed slightly out. Position your feet so that your shins are vertical and your knees are bent about 90 degrees at the top of each rep.
  3. Push the bar up with your hips by pressing through your heels until your torso and thighs are parallel to the floor and your shins are vertical.
  4. Hold this position for about one second, and then reverse the movement and return to the starting position.

Expert Tips

  • There are many different pieces of equipment you can use to do the hip thrust, but the basic movement is the same for all of them. You can use a dedicated hip thrust machine where the weights follow a fixed path, a hip thrust machine whose bar can move both up and down and toward or away from you, a hip thrust platform with a barbell (as shown in the videos above), or just a regular bench and barbell.
  • Place a hip thrust pad, barbell pad, or folded yoga mat between the bar and your hip bones to prevent bruising and make the exercise more comfortable. Trust me, don’t skip this.
  • Grab the bar with your palms facing toward the floor and a few inches from your sides (you can experiment with different hand positions to find what’s most comfortable for you).
  • Try to keep your back relatively straight throughout each rep. You shouldn’t be bending your spine much at all, especially at the top of each rep where you might be tempted to aggressively arch your back. Instead, brace your core and keep your torso straight.
  • During each rep, don’t stop thrusting the bar toward the ceiling until your torso and thighs form a straight line that’s parallel to the floor and your shins are vertical. To make sure you fully extend your hips and are moving the weights under control, pause at the top of each rep and take a second to ensure the bar is at about the same height as your knees, then descend. This also ensures you’re flexing your glutes as hard as possible.
  • Think about driving through your heels as you thrust your hips upward. Lifting your toes off the foot plate or floor can help ingrain this cue even more.

Workout Programming

It’s best to program the barbell hip thrust as part of a leg or full-body workout, either as your main glute exercise or as an accessory to squats and deadlifts.

A good default is 3 sets of 6–8 reps. Take each set 1–2 reps shy of failure—the point where you can’t move the weight despite pushing as hard as you can—and rest 2–3 minutes between sets.

Mike’s Take

The hip thrust is one of the most popular and effective exercises for training your glutes, and for good reason. It’s one of the few exercises that effectively isolates your glutes, trains them through a full range of motion, and allows you to add weight in small increments over time.

Although it does train your hamstrings, too, it’s usually your glutes that give out first, which is exactly what you want in a glute isolation exercise. In other words, your hamstring, lower-back, or grip strength isn’t usually the limiting factor, as it can be with other glute exercises like the Romanian deadlift, good morning, or Bulgarian split squat.

That said, you’ll sometimes hear people talk about the hip thrust as if it’s the only good exercise for building your glutes, and it’s easy to come to the impression that if you aren’t doing the hip thrust you’ll never develop a strong, defined butt. And this is nonsense.

Most compound lower-body exercises train the glutes to some degree, and in some cases just as effectively as the hip thrust.

For example, in a study conducted by researchers at Auburn University, 34 untrained men and women did either barbell hip thrusts or barbell back squats for nine weeks. Both groups gained a similar amount of glute muscle, while the squat group gained more muscle in their quads and inner thighs.

While this study only looked at the barbell back squat, it’s safe to assume that other similar movements like the front squat, belt squat, pendulum squat, and even leg press and hack squat would be equally effective for building your glutes.

In other words, while the barbell hip thrust is a fantastic glute isolation exercise, you may not need a glute isolation exercise if your workout routine already includes plenty of exercises like this.

Typically, I recommend you do hip thrusts as part of your lower-body workouts, and only if maximizing glute growth is your main priority. You can do them first in a glute-focused workout or after an exercise like the barbell squat in a general leg workout. Doing hip thrusts after other lower-body exercises has also worked well in research.

If you aren’t doing any deadlift variations in your workout routine, you can also train almost all of the same muscles by doing the hip thrust and a back exercise, like weighted hyperextensions. And, depending on your anatomy, this might even work better for you.

The main drawback of the hip thrust is setup. If your gym doesn’t have a dedicated hip thrust station or machine, then you need to find ample space in your gym and move a bench into the proper position. Some gyms also want you to only hip thrust on a deadlift platform with bumper plates, which limits your options even further.

And you have to track down a bar pad or yoga mat to protect your hips. All in all, though, it’s worth it if you’re trying to build your glutes.

And if your gym has a hip thrust platform or machine, use it. It offers all of the same benefits while taking less time to set up.

Barbell Hip Thrust Alternatives

  • Machine Hip Thrust. A hip thrust machine includes an angled back rest and foot plate and typically a thick, padded belt that you position across your hips or a bar with a pad that is locked into a metal frame and moves forward and back and up and down. This makes the exercise more comfortable, faster to set up, and easier to learn and perform. My preferred option, if your gym has one.
  • Barbell Hip Thrust with Bench. This is the same exercise as the one shown above, but performed without the purpose-built hip thrust platform. It’s just as effective, but more annoying to set up and a bit less comfortable for most people (the bench tends to dig into your back more and is less stable).
  • Dumbbell Hip Thrust. Doing the hip thrust with a dumbbell is a good option if you’re working out in a hotel or home gym and don’t have a barbell available, or if you’re new to weightlifting and want to start out with a weight that’s lighter than a barbell.
  • Smith Machine Hip Thrust. This is the same as a barbell hip thrust, but you use a Smith machine instead of a regular barbell. It works, but the fixed bar path can make it harder to find a position that’s comfortable and allows you to maximally contract your glutes. Worth trying if your gym doesn’t have a hip thrust machine, but your mileage may vary.
  • Glute Bridge. This is a bodyweight hip thrust performed without a bench. It’s fine if you’re new to weightlifting, but you’ll quickly reach a point where you need to add external resistance to keep gaining muscle and strength.

3 Barbell Hip Thrust Workouts

Here are three sample workouts that show how to program the barbell hip thrust in a leg workout, a glute-focused workout, or a full-body workout.

Glute-Focused Workout with the Barbell Hip Thrust

Barbell Hip Thrust: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Barbell Romanian Deadlift: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Leg Press: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Seated Leg Curl: 2 sets | 8–10 reps | 1–2 min rest

Leg Day Workout with the Barbell Hip Thrust

Barbell Back Squat: 3 sets | 4–6 reps | 2–3 min rest
Barbell Hip Thrust: 3 sets | 8–10 reps | 2–3 min rest
Barbell Romanian Deadlift: 3 sets | 8–10 reps | 2–3 min rest
Leg Extension: 3 sets | 8–10 reps | 2–3 min rest
Seated Leg Curl: 3 sets | 8–10 reps | 1–2 min rest

Full-Body Workout with the Barbell Hip Thrust

Barbell Back Squat: 3 sets | 4–6 reps | 2–3 min rest
Barbell Bench Press: 3 sets | 4–6 reps | 2–3 min rest
Barbell Hip Thrust: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Seated Machine Row: 3 sets | 6–8 reps | 2–3 min rest
Cable Side Raise: 3 sets | 8–10 reps | 2–3 min rest

To progress these workouts, use double progression: use a weight that allows you to work within the given rep range, take each set 1–2 reps shy of failure, and once you hit the top of the range for your first set, add weight.

Muscles Worked by the Barbell Hip Thrust

The barbell hip thrust primarily trains your gluteus maximus, the largest muscle in your butt. Your hamstrings and hip adductors (inner-thigh muscles) can help straighten your hips, while your quadriceps (front-thigh muscles) and spinal erectors (muscles along your spine) help support and stabilize your body.

More Leg and Glute Exercises

The post The Best Way to Do the Barbell Hip Thrust appeared first on Legion Athletics.

https://ift.tt/1Ibp7Mo October 8, 2026 at 01:23AM Legion Athletics

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