elevated hip thrusts

Elevated Hip Thrusts are a powerful variation of the standard Hip Thrust exercise, except in this instance your feet are elevated on a step or bench. This modification places even greater emphasis on your glutes, making it an exceptional addition to your lower body workout routine.

Here we will delve into the muscles worked, how to perform Elevated Hip Thrusts, benefits, common mistakes to avoid, reps and sets, how to progress this exercise, how and where to fit it into your workout plan and finally other exercises targeting the same muscle groups.

Muscles Worked when Performing Elevated Hip Thrusts

Elevated hip thrusts primarily target the following muscle groups:

Gluteus Maximus: A.K.A, the glutes. These are responsible for achieving toned and shapely buttocks. From a practical perspective, they are the largest muscle in your body, responsible for keeping you upright.

Quads: Your quads are engaged from a secondary perspective during this exercise.

Hamstrings: These back thigh muscles are also recruited as part of the Hip Thrust exercise.

Hip Flexors: As with most exercises that involve movement of the hips, the hip flexor muscles are recruited.

Core: Naturally there will also be core engagement to get you through this exercise.

You can use the muscle highlighted image at the top of this page for a visual guide of the muscles worked.

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How to Perform Elevated Hip Thrusts

1. Equipment: To perform Elevated Hip Thrusts, you will need a barbell, a step or bench, and optionally, a flexible mat and bar pad for comfort*.

2. Body Positioning: Begin by lying on your back with your feet positioned on the step or bench. You can place the flat of your feet or just your heels on the elevated surface, choosing the option that feels most comfortable for you.

3. Barbell Placement: Once you're comfortably positioned, position the barbell across your lap, resting it just above your hips.

4. Execution: Brace your core and initiate the movement by driving the weight upward through your hips in a controlled and powerful motion. At the top of the movement, squeeze your glutes before gradually lowering your hips back to the start position.

5. Go for reps

*If the barbell's position feels uncomfortable, use a pad or flexible mat to cushion the area.

Other Weight Types You Can Use to Perform This Exercise

You can also perform this exercise with a dumbbell, kettlebell, medicine ball or sandbag clutched into your lap.

Benefits of Elevated Hip Thrusts

Advanced Glute Activation: Elevated Hip Thrusts intensify the glute activation, making it an effective exercise for building glute strength and aesthetics.

Variation and Progression: This variation allows for simple progression as you can gradually increase the weight, making it adaptable to your fitness level and long term goals.

Elevated Hip Thrusts: Common Mistakes to Avoid

Poor Core Engagement: Maintaining a tight core is crucial to avoid putting undue strain on your lower back during the exercise.

Proper Form: Performing Elevated Hip Thrusts with incorrect form may not only result in poor muscle engagement, it could also lead to repetitive strain or overuse injury which can develop over time with improper form.

Muscle Focus: Mind muscle connection works, always keep in mind that the primary target is the glutes. Concentrate on engaging these muscles throughout the exercise for the best results.

Reps and Sets

The number of reps and sets you perform depends on your current strength with this exercise.

Beginners: Start with simply mastering the move. Keep in mind that if you’re just starting out, 3 reps is a valid set.

To determine how many reps/sets of Elevated Hip Thrusts you should start with, you first need to figure out how many reps you can comfortably perform. Then add 2, and perform that number of reps for 3 sets.

For example; let’s say you can perform 4 reps comfortably. Add 2 to make 6 reps. Perform those 6 reps 3 times over, allowing yourself sufficient rest inbetween.

Experienced lifters: You know your body and its abilities better than anyone, use your own judgment.

We recommend that you avoid performing more than 12 reps per set. If you’re comfortably performing 12 reps for up to 6 sets, it’s time to make the exercise more challenging.

How to Make Elevated Hip Thrusts More Challenging

As with the vast majority of exercises, you can make this exercise more challenging by adding more weight. Alternatively you can play around with weight distribution, for example a dumbbell in your lap will feel different to the barbell across the hips.

Another way to make the Elevated Hip Thrust more challenging is to slow down the movement, this will increase the time under tension and result in more muscle gain. If slowing down the entire move feels like too much, you can slow down half of it, so push up at the same tempo, but then come back down in half tempo, or vice versa.

How to Incorporate Elevated Hip Thrusts into Your Workouts

This exercise belongs in your leg, glute or general lower body workout. If you’re loading it with a lot of weight, you should keep it towards the beginning of your workout, so perform it after your other key compound exercise, like Squats or Deadlifts. If you’re not adding much weight, you can shift it towards the end of your workout. Always work your way down through compound to isolation exercises by way of how much weight you are using. Exercise order matters.

Exercises that Work Similar Muscles to Elevated Hip Thrusts

As far as compound exercises go, consider incorporating exercises such as Squats, Romanian Deadlifts or Bulgarian Split Squats. These exercises complement Elevated Hip Thrusts because they target similar muscle groups, but as compound exercises, so you will be able to move more weight and build strength on these moves faster.

For isolation exercises, you can work in Cable Kickbacks, Leg Extensions and Leg Curls, all of which will support your overall lower body development.

You can find more bum exercises at the bottom of this page. Or you can check out our entire exercise database, broken down by muscle group here.

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