The hip thrust is one of the best exercises for your buttocks. The exercise is usually performed with a barbell, but you can basically also use a dumbbell, kettlebell or resistance bands.

THE BEST BUTT EXERCISE?

The hip thrust is an isolation exercise. That is, there is only movement in one joint, in this case the hip joint. The exercise targets your gluteus, which gets a little help from your hamstrings and quadriceps.

HELP EXERCISE

In that sense, it is a good auxiliary exercise for your deadlift and squat. For example, research has shown that you can increase your 1RM in the back squat by more than 30% if you add the hip thrust to your training regime for eight weeks.

But of course it’s also a great exercise on its own, for stronger, firmer buttocks.

GLUTE EXERCISE

The ‘glute girls’ who show their derrières on Instagram mainly do these specific butt exercises: hip thrusts, the glute bridge, cable pull-throughs, glute ham raises and so on. Coach and glutes expert Bret Contreras also swears by these types of exercises.

Still, it’s not a foregone conclusion that hip thrusts are the best butt builders. EMG-studies suggest so, but a muscle-growth study found that deep barbell squats are more than twice as effective for the butt as hip thrusts. This is mainly because full squats have a much greater range of motion (ROM) than hip thrusts. For the record: EMG studies only measure muscle activation during exercise, not actual muscle growth and/or strength gain.

However, deep squats are not for everyone: correct execution demands a lot from your mobility and flexibility (which you can improve by the way). In addition, the squat is a compound exercise, which, in addition to the buttocks, mainly trains the quadriceps. Women in particular sometimes find this undesirable, because they do want a firm buttocks, but do not want very muscular legs. In that case you are dependent on more isolating exercises such as the hip thrust.

ACTIVATOR

Hip thrusts are so-called activators in gluteal jargon, exercises in which there is an anteroposterior load: the weight is pushed forward. These exercises have a relatively small eccentric growth stimulus, a relatively small ROM, and the peak tension occurs at the highest point, where the gluteal muscle is contracted and thus at its smallest.

Anteroposterior exercises cause relatively little muscle damage, so you can recover faster from them than from, for example, squats and deadlifts (the so-called stretchers). Anteroposterior exercises usually have the greatest glute activity – hence the name activators.

For a complete development of the buttocks, you preferably do a back-squat variant (not necessarily deep barbell squats), an activator (for example the hip thrust), a pumper (for example the hip abduction) and possibly a deadlift variant.

EXECUTION

Performing the hip thrust requires some set-up and may feel a bit awkward at first, but don’t let that discourage you. The exercise looks like this:

SETUP

For the hip thrust you need a weight bench, which you should place against the wall or against a heavy dumbbell to prevent it from shifting during the exercise. Sit on the floor, with your upper back (the part just below your shoulder blades) against the edge of the long side of the bench. Roll a barbell over your hips. Use a neck gaiter to protect your pelvis and pubic bone.

It is important to use 15 or 20 kg weight plates or bumper plates to ensure sufficient space between the floor and your hips. If this weight is too heavy for you, use a lighter barbell if your gym has one. And sometimes you also have 10 kg discs with a larger diameter.

PLACEMENT OF THE FEET

Place your feet shoulder-width or slightly wider and keep them flat on the floor throughout the exercise. Let them point slightly outwards, so that your knees also point slightly outwards when you punch upwards. This increases the activation of the gluteal muscle and is also safer for the knee joint.

Furthermore, position your feet so that your shins are vertical at the top of the movement. This also contributes to maximum contraction of the glutes. If you place your feet too close to your buttocks, you will shift some tension to the quadriceps. If you place them too far away from you, the hamstrings will come more into action.

THE MOVEMENT

Now follows the actual movement:

• Move the bar upwards by pushing it up from your heels and fully extending your hips. Avoid overextending the spine. To this end, it is important that you keep your head forward during the entire exercise and that you do not look at the ceiling with your head on your bench.
• Don’t focus on weight, focus on the contraction in your gluteal muscle.
• In the top position your back is completely flat. Now tighten your abdominal muscles and squeeze your buttocks firmly.
• Don’t sacrifice range of motion to do more reps. Only in the highest possible position do the gluteal muscles reach maximum activation. Therefore, use your glutes to raise your hips as far as possible.
• Lower the weight again by flexing your hips and do the desired number of repetitions. You can lower the weight to the floor or just barely, for constant muscle tension.
• Perform the exercise smoothly and don’t take the ‘thrust’ in ‘hip thrusts’ too literally.
• Do not move from your lower back.
• Don’t stand on your toes at the end of the movement: this will shift the tension to your quadriceps and you don’t want that during a butt exercise.
• Make the exercise more difficult by holding the weight in the top position for a few seconds on the last repetition to train your glute isometrically.

TIP: USE A DECLINE BENCH

Many experience the hip thrust as a somewhat uncomfortable exercise. Often the back slides away from the bench, or the bench itself slides. In addition, it can be difficult to position your arms and elbows in such a way that you can comfortably hold the bar. And if you are small, the bench is actually too high to do the exercise properly.

You can solve all these problems in one go by performing the hip thrust on the end of a decline (abdominal) bench. Regardless of your height, you will find a comfortable and stable position to perform the exercise. And because you use the bench lengthwise and not widthwise, your elbows have free play and you can hold the bar more easily.

INCREASE ROM

We already saw that the hip thrust does have a high gluteal activation (especially in the peak of the exercise), but that the range of motion is relatively small – especially compared to the full squat. However, you can increase the ROM and thus the effectiveness of hip thrusts by raising your feet slightly.

ECCENTRIC VARIANT

After some time, if you are ready for a new challenge for your buttocks, try the variant below, according to the 2/1 technique, where you perform the eccentric phase of the exercise (the one in which you sink) with one leg and thus in fact double makes it so heavy. But choose a lighter starting weight.

PROGRAMMING

You can do the hip thrust with your legs training, after large compound exercises such as the squat or deadlift. If you have a pure butt workout, the hip thrust is the best (because heaviest) exercise to start with.

ABSOLUTE INTENSITY

In terms of muscle fibers, the gluteus maximus is composed in such a way that it benefits from different types of load: both light weights with 10 to 20 repetitions, and heavy weights with 5 to 10 repetitions. So vary in weight and rep ranges.

To give you an idea, according to Bret Contreras, with the barbell hip thrust you should aim to do 10 repetitions with a weight of at least 1.5 times your body weight.

RELATIVE INTENSITY

In general, it is best to leave one or a few repetitions ‘in the tank’ during your sets and not train completely to muscle failure. This way you avoid a disproportionately great fatigue that is at the expense of the maximum training volume that you can do. And less training volume usually means less muscle growth.

With heavy hip thrusts, hold 1-3 reps in the tank (1-3 Reps In Reserve, RIR). With lighter hip thrusts, i.e. with a lot of repetitions, you have to train a little closer to muscle failure to create a sufficient growth stimulus. In that case, use 1 RIR and possibly train your last set to complete muscle failure (0 RIR).

VOLUME

The optimal training volume for the buttocks differs per person and depends on various factors. For most, during a training career it progresses from 10 to 30 sets per week in men and even more in women.

Training volumes of more than 25 sets are usually only possible if you specialize. Many women train almost exclusively their buttocks, which means they can train at maximum volumes without any problems (apart from the fact that women also recover slightly faster than men).

You should also try to distribute your training volume evenly over:

• different types of exercises: stretchers (squat, deadlift), activators (hip thrust, cable pull-through) and pumpers (hip abduction, band side walk);
• different relative intensity levels (both training close to muscle failure and further away from it);
• different weights and therefore different rep ranges.

Make sure you do no more than 5-12 sets per muscle group per workout, because the growth stimulus stagnates around 12 sets.

Build in enough rest time between workouts (24-72 hours). How long you need to recover exactly depends on training status, gender, training variables and the type of exercise.

FREQUENCY

You can safely do the hip thrust two or even three times a week, as long as the programming of your training is in order.

We have devoted an extensive article to programming a butt workout.

Last update: March 9, 2024.