It also makes sense that their strength-building effects might not transfer well to other movements (if that even matters to the glute obsessed). Pro Tip: Ensure your shoulders are pinched together throughout the exercise as this will keep your chest open. PowerliftingTechnique.com is compensated for referring traffic and business to these companies. Practical Tip: Keep your low back locked in throughout the hip thrust, allowing your hips to drop and chest to move forward during the descent. What Muscles Does the Barbell Hip Thrust Work? The Olympic lifts are complex, high-speed exercises that transfer well to sprinting. The hip thrust is more effective for specific glute activation. As a result, they are considered the greatest eccentric glute exercise. Your knees are slightly bent, but this is mostly a pulling exercise initiated by the hamstrings and glutes. And the exercises that top the list for core stability are the Olympic lifts. deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts), Perform a stability-based exercise to keep your gluteus medius/minimus active and healthy, Standing Leg Circles 3 rounds (at each angle) per leg, Toe Touch to Knee Drive Hold 10 reps per leg, Band-Resisted Hip Abduction Squats 10 bodyweight reps, Stability Ball Lateral Crab Walks 5 reps on each side. Don Chu, Ph.D., a jumps coach known for his work in plyometrics, introduced me to this exercise during a physical education class I took from him in 1982. Dietmar Schmidtbleicher, Ph.D., NSCA National Conference, San Diego, California, 1990. Sort of. The lesson here is that coaches should stop looking for revolutionary isolation-type exercises and piecing them together into some strange Gestalt system of superior program designremember the story about the blind men trying to describe an elephant? This variation strongly involves the quadriceps, as these are the muscles used when applying force into the ground during a sprint. That said, we have to question the value of EMGs for determining how useful an exercise is for improving athletic performance. Start by placing a bench directly behind you on the smith machine. My third red flag was that the subjects performed either hip thrusts or squats, but did not switch protocols in the middle of the study. Cable pull-throughs. As with the glute bridge, a hip thrust (or hip thruster) is an exercise that targets all three of the gluteal muscles, as well as muscles in your lower back, legs, and abdomen. Focus on power from the hips, core, and lower body. Hi! Maintain a slight bend to the knee and drive the hips back. Bishop, C.,et al. However, to reap this benefit, you must make sure you correctly position your body throughout the move. Stand lunge-length in front of a bench making sure your knee does not extend past your toes. The takeaway is that rather than jumping on the latest training secret that carries the promise of dramatically improving athletic performance, look at these discoveries with a journalists eye and carefully read the research to see its true value, if any. Even though the server responded OK, it is possible the submission was not processed. Going into this extended range of posterior pelvic tilt might maximally recruit the glutes since the maximal voluntary isometric contraction activity of the gluteus maximus has been shown to rise as the hip joint proceeds from flexion to extension (Worrell et al. PowerliftingTechnique.com also participates in affiliate programs with Clickbank, CJ, ShareASale, and other sites. Hold for three seconds at the top, then lower back down to starting position, explains Gallucci. This workout is designed for those (I guess, mostly women) who want shapely glutes that are firm to the touch and fit beautifully into any pair of jeans. In my weightlifting circle, we often refer to sets of 4 reps in the front squat as cardio! Place the heel of your right foot on the box or bench. Although the hip thrust is a reliable way to build a stronger and more muscular backside, there are other options out there. Practical Tip: At the top of each rep, pause for 1-3 seconds (keep your duration consistent) to work your glutes even harder. The snatch and clean and jerk are large amplitude movements performed at high speeds that develop the elastic qualities of the tissues and promote pelvic stability. (5). Your supporting leg glutes will be firing to stabilize your pelvis so be sure to stand tall and strong no swaying. This is a great prehab exercise for waking up your glute medes (as I call them) and to help train your pelvis to better stabilize itself while on one leg. The distance between your feet should be slightly wider than the width of the pelvis and hips. You can do these with barbells, kettlebells, and dumbbells. At the bottom of the movement, squeeze your glutes and pull with your hamstrings to drive your hips forward to stand up tall. Place one foot on the bench and step up onto the bench with the other. Brace your abs and lower your bum back and down (as if sitting into a chair) keeping the weight in your heels and sink down into your squat. Meaning, your pelvis shouldnt tilt as you go low if it does dont go as deep. Your gluteal muscles are actually 3 distinct muscles that each play a different role and are activated to differing degrees based on your body position, exercise used, and its range of motion. Your legs should be at 90 degrees. Practical Tip: Point your toes outwards between 35-45 degrees to recruit more of your glute fibres. (3). Squats that only go part of the way tend to be more reliant on the muscles of the quads, not the glutes. Contract the glute of the working leg and lift your hips until they're in line with your torso. Keeping your chin tucked, press through your heels until your thighs are parallel with the floor. there are other options out there. If one of your training goals is to improve elastic strength so you can sprint faster, you should avoid performing activities that compromise the performance of these tissues. Here is Mattie Rogers, a former cheerleader who won the silver medal in the 2017 World Weightlifting Championships. Extend as far as possible, then reverse the motion to return to the starting position. In fact, the single-leg reverse hyper produced double the EMG measurement, and the reverse hyper was also nearly double. Further, the results of any hip thrust study can be misleading because participants perform exercises on the floor to lessen interference from other muscles. It also improves glute muscle power. This is your starting position. 3. The glute bridge is performed with your shoulders on the floor, while hip thrusts are done with shoulders placed against a bench. Try to do this exercise slowly and in the correct form. Instead, you should aim to keep your entire back segment locked in throughout the entire set. Next, raise your top leg, without bending your knee, a few inches into the air. Squats are superior in terms of quad activation though hip thrusts actually can heavily activate the . The gluteal muscles perform 3 distinct actions in general: Its important to understand how the glutes work in the hip thrust because you can manipulate these actions to increase muscle activation. Eccentric Barbell Hip Thrusts Eccentric barbell hip thrusts are a single joint glute exercise that places the complete load and stimulus directly over the glutes. Hip extension is also prominent during deadlifts, the push-off in sprinting (and skating), and simply extending the thigh backward in any leg swing type of activity (ie. Specifically, training at shallower knee flexion can influence quadriceps dominant sport skill performance that can limit performance and increase injury risk. Here is what they did: With over four decades in the Iron Game, Ive never seen any published athletic fitness workouts that recommended sets of 12 in the front squat. According to Robinson, the reason the hip thrust is so good at targeting your glutes is because your knees remain bent throughout the exercise. The function of the gluteus maximus is primarily upper leg (thigh) extension, such as moving the upper leg backwardthink rising from a squat position. Be persistent. Hip Thrust Exercise Benefits. Stop when youre full. These arent just reserved for a Cindy Crawford workout. Image 2. We would recommend some jogging/cycling along with the world's greatest stretch. However, one foot is lifted slightly off the ground while the hip extension is controlled by the opposite glute. Although an average of 9 reps per set may be considered a mass building protocol for the front squat that transfers poorly to sprinting, performing the same repetition bracket for the hip thrust could be considered a relative strength protocol that would increase maximal strength with minimal increase in body mass. If youre going to play that game, then how about only performing partial hip thrusts? Now, float the upper leg upwards while keeping your feet in contact with one another, then return. The authors concluded, Potentially beneficial effects were observed for the hip thrust compared to the front squat in 10- m and 20- m sprint times. Pretty shocking, until you see how the study was designed. Lets start with a six-week study that compared the hip thrust to the front squat for improving short sprinting speed. Here are my 9 tips on how to feel your glutes more while hip thrusting: Its unfortunate, but a number of lifters fail to feel their glutes while hip thrusting. So go deep for greater glute involvement. Required fields are marked *. deep squats, lateral drop squats), Perform a deadlifting movement (ie. Here's how to do it. Finally, the glutes also externally rotate the leg at the hip joint rotating the femur outwards and making your foot turn out. On weeks 3, 7, and 11,the women did 10-12 reps with 1 to 2 minutes of rest between sets. EMG Testing: Does It Tell All?, Jowsey, James. The keys to shaping stronger, more defined glutesFace it, ladies. With your back flat and core engaged, lean forward and place both hands on the kettlebell. SF, Koch, Fred. Lift hips off the ground, squeezing your glutes and core until your knees, hips, and shoulders form a straight line. Before the study started, the researchers assessed the women's 1RM on both squats and hip thrusts while also measuring the thickness of their quads and their glutes. Remember, your glutes are the abs of your back so the healthier they are, the better off youll be, especially if you sit on your butt all day. Pretend your back is a thick tree trunk, it cant bend or flex because its too rigid but it can still move as a unit. If you're training for hypertrophy (size), perform 10 - 12 reps for 3 - 4 sets with a 1 - 2 minute rest. If you cant feel your glutes while lunging, then check out my article on Cant Feel Your Glutes In The Lunge? The horse-stance kickback using a flywheel machine is an advanced exercise for developing sprinting power. After the bar passes the knees aggressively pull the bar back, driving your hips forward in a hip thrusting motion. Double the weight each glute lifts by performing the hip thrust with a single leg. All-Day Energy Diet and The All-Day Fat Burning Diet, How to Get Abs: The Belly-Blasting, Stomach-Sculpting Trifecta, The 15 Best Bodyweight Exercises for Burning Fat, The 10 Worst Ab Exercises That Waste Your Time and Kill Your Spine, What Happens If You Dont Eat For 44 Days? Lower the bar by bending at the hips and guiding it to the floor, ensuring that it stays close to your body to reduce any excess load on your low back. Here are the benefits of hip thrust exercise. Lets quickly talk about the hip thrust so you know how the glutes are supposed to function while doing this exercise. Master this exercise with only your bodyweight before attempting to do it with traditional weighted squats. A glute bridge is performed with your feet flat on the ground and your knees bent to 90 degrees. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. In an effort to compare the effects of the back squat and hip thrust exercises on muscle strength and hypertrophy, Brazilian scientists recruited 22 well-trained women. Mix things up. Other than that, it works together with the gluteus medius. 7. Practical Tip: Wear a hip circle around your thighs as you perform the hip thrust to fully recruit them. The hip thrust is another effective exercise for strengthening and hypertrophying glute muscles. Never tilt your head forward or backward. These researchers apparently were not selling hip thrust benches so had no potential financial gain from the results. This. Keep your ribs down and back in because want the extension to come from your glutes and not the lower back. If it is more of a warm up for squats, then do around 2 sets of 8-10 reps of bodyweight hip thrusts before you start back squats. The keyto this exercise is that your leg is out to the side. Finally, the trunk musculature (abdominals, lumbar muscles) work to keep the torso stationary and avoid moving under the load applied by the barbell. Repeat for required reps then switch sides. Additionally, the gluteus medius (and minimus) work to abduct the thigh (move it away from the body). With that, here are 4recommendations when choosingglute exercises for your workouts. Like squats and deadlifts, the hip thrust is a lower body compound exercise that recruits several leg muscles. To help feel your glutes more during the hip thrust, consider adding accommodating resistance equipment (bands and chains) that changes the resistance throughout the movement. Your legs should be hip-width apart from each other and hands by your side. Lets take a closer look at why this glute builder doesnt live up to its hype and explore how you can do better. Okay, your Spidey sense probably already intuited the results. It may seem impressive to do a slow partial range split squat or single leg deadlift with heavy dumbbells as these functional trainers recommend, but this type of training will not develop the elastic qualities of the connective tissues. How To Plus, your glutes play a crucial role in supporting your lower back. To be clear, Im not coming from the perspective that bodyweight hip thrusts should never be performed. In this case, youd want to encourage posterior tilt after you achieve full extension at the top (your pelvis will tilt upwards slightly at lockout). When you look at the preponderance of research and real-world evidence that dispute the claims of those promoting the hip thrust, its obvious that this exercise has little value to a sprinter. Brace your abs and lower your bum back and down (as if sitting into a chair) keeping the weight in your heels and go below parallel as long as your back stays straight through the entire range of motion. The hip thrust is primarily a hip extension movement, The hardest part of the hip thrust is at the top, which means more activation at full hip extension (ie. One of the goals with glute training is to ensure youre doing the best exercises that maximally activate your butt and NOT the TFL. It's great for improving stability to the lower spine as well. "When the knees are bent and the hips are . Check out my other article where I discuss the science. Contrast that to a 2014 paper on squats, which explained that squatting to an appropriate depth was critical to work the posterior chain muscles adequately: Without squatting to the proper depth, the hamstrings and gluteus muscular complex may not be adequately challenged. This is important because your butt isnt just onebig muscle. You can add extra weight to your hips in both exercises, but the hip bridge is typically done without any additional weight. However, you can exaggerate their recruitment by pausing at the top of each rep. BENEFITS OF HIP THRUSTS. This shifts your bodys balances and imposes more work on the working glute. Your quads, core, and hip adductors . I say this because, if you dont time your deceleration properly when the foot strikes the ground during sprinting, the amount of force you apply into the ground will be deficient. Ensure that you're warmed up with some light cardio and dynamic stretching to begin with. Lower the weight back down between the legs and keep this swinging motion going for desired reps. [Related Article:14 Kettlebell Exercises for Weight Loss], A study in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research showed that compared to partial-and parallel-depth squats, a deep squat provide far greater activation of the gluteus maximus, especially in the pushing (concentric) phase. Besides the challenge of finding volunteers to perform squats with needles stuck in their glutes, this practice can cause nerve damage. Sprint coach Charlie Francis was a big believer in this type of movement, which he had his athletes perform on a horizontal leg press machine. This makes the hip thruster very useful for people who are rehabilitating an injury. Then push through the heel of your front foot to return to standing, keeping the back foot on the bench. This site is owned and operated by PowerliftingTechnique.com. Keeping your legs straight, step out to your right (activating your right glute) and bring your left leg in slowly. Although hip thrust strength improved dramatically, the effects this strength had on sprinting speed were underwhelming. Place a small resistance band loop around your legs, just above your knees. Video 1. Repeat for required reps, then switch sides. Basically, when one glute fires, the opposing low back muscle fires as well. Before getting into the details of how to maximally recruit your glutes during the hip thrust, lets summarize the actions of the muscles that are working during this movement. A post shared by Deangalo Tatum (@dmotivator22). Sure enough, both groups exhibited growth in their quads and glutes, but squats led to more than double the glute growth and about 6 times more quad growth. Stand close to the bar so your shins graze the bar and that it is centered over your feet. 5. 5 Eccentric Glute Exercises 1. Hip thrusts build strength and size in your glutes in a way many other exercises cannot, and experts agree that they provide benefits for many people, from athletes to older adults over age 65. Go Get Faster Anyway (A Four-Week Speed Training Plan), Curved Treadmills: Pros and Cons That You Should Know, Top 10 Resistance Band Exercises Athletes Should Use, Fueling Speed: Five Nutritional Strategies with an Impact, Looking at Coaching Strategies with Jay DeMayo, Practical Strategies to Gain Buy-In & Community Support for a Strength & Conditioning Program, Cody Hughes: Student-Athlete Preparation Podcast. And it should be noted that in 2017, one of the studys researchers admitted in a podcast that the hip thrust might have a better transfer to running, not sprinting. Since this article covers how to recruit your glutes more during the hip thrust, lets review the actions of the glute muscles next. Building your glutes is a goal for strength and Both the hip thrust and squat are used for lower body training to increase strength, power, and build muscle. Booya! This graph shows the results along with other notable glute exercises (already mentioned in our list here): (1). Then, engage your glutes and hamstrings on your left leg to drive yourself back up to standing and swing your right knee up and through toward your chest. Hip Thrust Vs. Glute Bridge: Pros and Cons Neither exercise really has cons, per se, but each one has characteristics that make it more suitable for certain people and situations. Hip thrust pros: The biggest pro for the hip thrust exercise is its ability to build size and strength. The hip thrust can be altered using various body positions, changes to the lift itself, and added equipment to assist in maximizing glute recruitment. But dont worry, do a few circles or speed them up (while under control) and youll see why theyre included here. Squat to Bench Press Ratios: How Much More Should You Squat? Improves body posture. Again, they are commonly used in physical therapy. These flywheel machines provide fast eccentric loading that enables you to work on the timing of glute activation during sprinting. Place the load on your hips and hold it with your hands - it is best to use the upper arm-width grip. Copyright 2022 SimpliFaster. Muscles work together with the fascia to create biological springs to produce maximum speed and power. This is your starting position. 3. The glute bridge vs. hip thrust debate will always be an ongoing one. Perfect Hypertrophy & Strength Exercise: Hip thrusts are ideal as a muscle-building exercise for the glutes. From a standing position, balance yourself on your left leg. ), then engagement of the hamstrings and quadricep muscles. On weeks 2, 6, and 10,the women did 4-6 reps with 3 to 4 minutes of rest between sets. The hip thrust is a barbell based exercise that places an extreme emphasis on the glutes; it typically requires a bench, barbell, a barbell hip thrust pad, and some floor space to perform. Slide your feet up so that your shins and thighs are 90-degrees, Extend one leg straight in a controlled manner, Lots of variations for increased difficulty, Grip the handles and slide your feet in front of the rollers, Contract the glutes and kick back the roller, pulling the weight up, Control the eccentric descent for maximum hypertrophy, Wrap the resistance band around something sturdy and set it between your legs, Pick up the band, take a couple small steps forward to create tension, Push your butt back, allowing the tension of the band to pull you back, Shins should remain vertical, back straight, Pause to feel the stretch in your butt and hamstrings, Contract your glute to drive the hips forward, Stand straight with the kettlebell in your hands, Push your butt out, keep your shins almost vertical, drop the bell back between the legs, Drive forward with your hips and heels and launch the kettlebell out in front of you, Upper body should be braced, but not participating in swinging the bell, Grab your bench or box of choice that is knee height, Rest the top of your back foot on the bench, The front foot should be just outside of shoulder width, Descend slowly, sinking your butt until the thigh is parallel with the floor, The front of the knee shouldnt track past the tip of your shoe, Drive through the middle and heel of the foot skyward. Image 4. The hip thrust motion mainly targets the glutes both the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius as well as the hamstrings. As with any type of training, variety is key. "This gives the. Complete required reps then switch sides. The Nordic curl proved to be a simple yet valuable exercise for sprinters to help prevent hamstring injuries; step-ups and Bulgarian lunges, on the other hand, did not fulfill their promise of turning athletes into cheetahs. Get on your hands and knees, keep your back neutral, and abs braced. Other hip thrust benefits include: Posterior pelvic tilt is when your pelvis tilts forwards when standing. This information is especially important in the medical field for identifying neuromuscular diseases. Get more done in less time. You can do lots of exercises with a kettlebell, but the two-handed swing is arguably one of the best.