Barbell hip thrust
Also called hip thrust, weighted hip thrust, bench hip thrust.
What is a barbell hip thrust?
The barbell hip thrust is a loaded hip-extension exercise performed with your upper back supported on a bench and a padded barbell across your hips. You lower your hips toward the floor, then drive them upward until your torso and thighs are nearly in line. It mainly trains the gluteus maximus, with the hamstrings and quadriceps assisting. A bodyweight hip thrust uses the same bench position without the bar; a glute bridge keeps the shoulders on the floor, and a hip thrust machine uses its own pad, belt or lever instead of a free barbell.
How do you perform a barbell hip thrust?
Set up
- Place a sturdy bench against a wall or rack so it cannot slide, then sit on the floor with your upper back against its long edge.
- Use a bar pad and roll the bar over your legs only if the plates give it clear passage; centre the padded bar across your hip crease.
- Plant both feet flat at a comfortable width with your knees bent, rest the bench edge below your shoulder blades, and hold the bar with both hands.
Execution
- Brace your torso and press through both feet to raise your hips, keeping the bar centred as your upper back pivots on the bench.
- Stop when your hips are fully extended and your torso and thighs are nearly in line, without leaning farther back through your lower spine.
- Lower under control until your hips are close to the floor, then repeat; after the final rep, settle the plates on the floor before releasing the bar.
Common mistakes
Using a bench that can slide
Your shoulders push backward as the hips rise. Brace the bench against a fixed support before loading the bar so it cannot move away during a rep.
Letting the bar drift off the hip crease
A bar that rolls toward the stomach or thighs becomes harder to control and can make the pad press into a sensitive spot. Keep both hands on it and reset the bar before continuing.
Arching the lower back to make the top look higher
The rep finishes when the hips reach extension. Leaning the chest farther back after that changes the movement without moving the hips farther.
Rushing the bottom
Dropping the hips can shift the bar or bounce the plates. Lower until you reach a controlled bottom, keep the feet planted and start the next rep from a settled position.
Where it fits in a session
After the most demanding squat or hinge work in a lower-body session, or earlier when the hip thrust is the session's main glute exercise.
Begin with a load you can centre and control through every rep. Add weight only after the bench stays fixed, the feet remain planted and the bar reaches the same top and bottom positions without shifting.
Muscles worked
Primary
Secondary
Schematic surface view. Some muscles are partly visible or not shown.
The gluteus maximus is the main hip extensor in this movement. The hamstrings assist hip extension and the quadriceps help hold the knee position as the hips rise. Those assisting roles do not promise equal muscle growth: the MRI trial below found greater thigh growth with squats and little or unclear hamstring growth in either group.
Scientific studies on the barbell hip thrust
Research has compared hip thrusts with squats for muscle growth and strength. It also shows why an exercise’s muscle-activation reading should not be treated as a forecast of growth.
The barbell hip thrust can grow the gluteus maximus. It does not have a demonstrated universal advantage over squats, and the two exercises do not produce the same thigh adaptations. Strength gains also depend on which lift you practise.
Do hip thrusts grow the glutes more than squats?
A nine-week trial in 34 untrained young adults found similar gluteus maximus growth after barbell hip-thrust or back-squat training. MRI measurements covered upper, middle and lower regions. The estimates were uncertain enough that the study does not establish identical results.
An earlier 12-week study in 22 trained women reported greater gluteus maximus thickness gains with back squats. Different participants and measurement methods make a single exercise ranking premature. Together, these studies support hip thrusts as a glute-building option, not a guaranteed improvement over squats.
Does higher activation mean more growth?
In the nine-week trial, hip thrusts produced higher average gluteal electrical activity during the initial test session. That did not translate into clearly greater glute growth afterward. The activation measurements did not consistently predict the growth results.
The same trial found greater quadriceps and adductor growth with squats, while hamstring growth was small or unclear in both groups. A muscle helping with the movement does not mean this exercise will grow it as much as the main target.
Sources
Which strength gains carry over?
The nine-week trial found that hip-thrust training improved hip-thrust three-rep maximum more, while squat training improved squat three-rep maximum more. Both groups improved their deadlift test without a clear difference between groups.
That is a reason to distinguish improving a particular lift from gaining general strength. The trial did not test sprint times or establish that either exercise replaces practice of a sport.
What training was studied?
Participants performed 15–17 supervised sessions over nine weeks, with three to six sets of 8–12 reps taken to the point where another good rep was not possible. Hip thrusts used a padded barbell and an adjustable back-support apparatus. Squat trainees used their lowest achievable depth. This protocol describes the experiment rather than prescribes your program.
Variations
- Bodyweight hip thrust — Keeps the upper back on a bench but removes the barbell, making it the simplest way to learn the movement.
- Glute bridgeKeeps the shoulders and upper back on the floor, so the hips travel through a shorter range than in a bench-supported thrust.
- Machine hip thrustUses a dedicated machine with a padded lever, belt or other fixed loading point instead of balancing a free barbell.
- Single-leg hip thrustUses one planted foot and is usually learned without a barbell before external load is added.
Articles
Related tools
Frequently asked questions
What muscles do barbell hip thrusts work?
The gluteus maximus is the main target. The hamstrings assist hip extension and the quadriceps help hold the knee position while the hips move. The illustration also shades the inner thighs, but its highlighting is not a verified muscle ranking, so the adductors are not included in the target list.
What is the difference between a hip thrust and a glute bridge?
A hip thrust supports the upper back on a bench, leaving room for the hips to travel farther. A glute bridge keeps the shoulders on the floor. Either can be done with bodyweight or external load, but this guide is specifically for the bench-supported barbell version.
Is a bodyweight hip thrust the same exercise?
It uses the same bench-supported hip-extension pattern without the barbell. It is a useful way to learn where the bench, feet and top position feel comfortable before adding load.
Is a hip thrust machine the same as a barbell hip thrust?
It trains the same general hip-extension pattern, but the setup is not interchangeable. A machine guides the resistance through its own pad, belt or lever, while the barbell version requires you to centre and steady a free bar across the hips.
Where should the bar sit during a hip thrust?
Centre the padded bar across the hip crease where it stays balanced as you move. It should not roll toward the stomach or down the thighs. If the contact point is painful rather than simply loaded, lower the weight and reset the bar and pad before continuing.
How high should you lift in a barbell hip thrust?
Raise the hips until the torso and thighs are nearly in one line and the hips feel fully extended. Stop there instead of leaning farther back or arching the lower spine to make the bar travel higher.
Sources
- Krause Neto W, Vieira TL, Gama EF. Barbell Hip Thrust, Muscular Activation and Performance: A Systematic Review. J Sports Sci Med. 2019;18(2):198-206. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6544005/
- Plotkin DL et al. Hip thrust and back squat training: hypertrophy and strength transfer. 2023. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10593473/
- Barbalho M et al. Back squat versus hip thrust training in trained women. 2020. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31975359/