Hip Thrusts
Hip Thrusts with Light Weighted Bar
Hip Thrusts with Full Size Bar
Hips Thrusts are a great exercise to increase bodyweight strength and functional strength. At first you will perform this exercise with bodyweight only and then will begin to add weight as you gain strength.
Most people in Western countries (especially those who spend a good portion of their day seated at a desk, seated in an airplane, seated in a car, or seated anywhere else for that matter!) have excessively tight hip flexor muscles and excessively weak glute muscles. This is largely due to the seated position causing muscular imbalances by leaving the hip flexor muscles in a shortened (ie flexed) position for large blocks of time. Ultimately this reduces the flexibility in the hip flexors and in effect neurologically "turns off" the glute muscles. This can then lead to a whole host of problems ranging from back pain to knee problems to weak abdominal muscles. Often times once this cycle is initiated, each one of these problems eventually occurs and then ultimately lead to even more muscular imbalances and and more joint problems that spring from them.
Obviously this is a bad cycle. If you're already on it, you definitely want to get off ASAP. If you're not on it, you want to stay off of it before you inadvertently get on it. Hip Thrusts are an excellent way to re-estamblish glute strength and begin rebalancing the glute/hip flexor relationship properly. This can help prevent the whole chain of negative events that can occur due to these two muscles getting so imbalanced in the first place. There is more to this than I've just mentioned in this quick explanation of course, but simply getting the glutes activated can go a long way to helping fix things.
Not only that, but the glutes are also some of the potentially strongest muscles in your entire body and if you can just learn to contract them properly and utilize them to their full potential then you can actually increase your strength dramatically.
For this same reason, glute development can make a massive difference in athletic performance because the glutes are one of the most important muscles for sprinting, swinging a bat in baseball, throwing a punch in boxing, performing a takedown in wrestling, driving through a tackle in football, and many other primary athletic movements. Your glutes are the primary muscles that drive your hips and thereby transfer power through your torso for sporting movements. Strengthening the glutes and then learning to transfer that strength rapidly through the body powerfully in a particular athletic movement can make a massive difference in an athlete's sports performance.
What it comes down to is that regardless of who you are or what you do, you can definitely benefit from increased glute strength.
However, oddly enough, there is very little exercise equipment dedicated to glute development and very few trainers and coaches spend much time emphasizing glute development with their clients and athletes. This is partly because there are very few exercises that emphasize the glutes because the glutes work primarily in a front to back hip extending motion and exercises tend to be performed up and down (to utilize the natural pull of gravity) since our natural stance as human beings is the upright standing position.
However, Hip Thrusts are one of the few excellent exercises available to emphasis glute development and strength and they accomplish this by tilting the body back and allowing it to be placed in a horizontal position to perform the exercise.
To perform Hip Thrusts, simply lean on the side of a bench on your upper back/shoulder area and place your feet a few feet away from the bench with about a shoulder width stance. While getting into position you can simply leave your butt sitting on the ground. However, once you are in position, push your feet firmly into the floor (making sure to keep them flat and focus on keeping the majority of your weight on the heel area rather than the toe area of your feet) and lift your hips up as high as you can by contracting your glutes firmly.
At first, you may not be able to lift your hips very high because of glute weakness, hip flexor tightnees, or some combination of the two. Over time, however, you will find that you will be able to push your hips higher and higher using the strength of your glutes. Eventually you will find that you are able to push you hips slightly higher than the height that your knees and torso are at for the exercise.
After you have performed bodyweight Hip Thrusts for a few weeks and have gained confidence in your ability to perform the exercise properly and have gained some strength in your glutes, you can place a barbell across your hips to add extra resistance tot he exercise. Over the course of time, you can add more and more weights plates onto the babrell and you may eventually find yourself performing this exercise with some very heavy weights. Do not rush yourself however. Let your glutes gain strength at their own speed and they will come along just fine.
When placing a barbell across your hips you may find that it helps to wrap a towel or a pad of some sort around the barbell to pad your hips from the bar laying across them, as this can be quite uncomfortable without some kind of pad.
Disclaimer - We do not recommend performing any exercise without the supervision of a highly qualified bodyweight strength professional present with you. This detailed exercise description is for informational purposes only. Consult your physician before attempting any strength training program or attempting this exercise or any of the other exercises on www.getrealstrength.com
Most people in Western countries (especially those who spend a good portion of their day seated at a desk, seated in an airplane, seated in a car, or seated anywhere else for that matter!) have excessively tight hip flexor muscles and excessively weak glute muscles. This is largely due to the seated position causing muscular imbalances by leaving the hip flexor muscles in a shortened (ie flexed) position for large blocks of time. Ultimately this reduces the flexibility in the hip flexors and in effect neurologically "turns off" the glute muscles. This can then lead to a whole host of problems ranging from back pain to knee problems to weak abdominal muscles. Often times once this cycle is initiated, each one of these problems eventually occurs and then ultimately lead to even more muscular imbalances and and more joint problems that spring from them.
Obviously this is a bad cycle. If you're already on it, you definitely want to get off ASAP. If you're not on it, you want to stay off of it before you inadvertently get on it. Hip Thrusts are an excellent way to re-estamblish glute strength and begin rebalancing the glute/hip flexor relationship properly. This can help prevent the whole chain of negative events that can occur due to these two muscles getting so imbalanced in the first place. There is more to this than I've just mentioned in this quick explanation of course, but simply getting the glutes activated can go a long way to helping fix things.
Not only that, but the glutes are also some of the potentially strongest muscles in your entire body and if you can just learn to contract them properly and utilize them to their full potential then you can actually increase your strength dramatically.
For this same reason, glute development can make a massive difference in athletic performance because the glutes are one of the most important muscles for sprinting, swinging a bat in baseball, throwing a punch in boxing, performing a takedown in wrestling, driving through a tackle in football, and many other primary athletic movements. Your glutes are the primary muscles that drive your hips and thereby transfer power through your torso for sporting movements. Strengthening the glutes and then learning to transfer that strength rapidly through the body powerfully in a particular athletic movement can make a massive difference in an athlete's sports performance.
What it comes down to is that regardless of who you are or what you do, you can definitely benefit from increased glute strength.
However, oddly enough, there is very little exercise equipment dedicated to glute development and very few trainers and coaches spend much time emphasizing glute development with their clients and athletes. This is partly because there are very few exercises that emphasize the glutes because the glutes work primarily in a front to back hip extending motion and exercises tend to be performed up and down (to utilize the natural pull of gravity) since our natural stance as human beings is the upright standing position.
However, Hip Thrusts are one of the few excellent exercises available to emphasis glute development and strength and they accomplish this by tilting the body back and allowing it to be placed in a horizontal position to perform the exercise.
To perform Hip Thrusts, simply lean on the side of a bench on your upper back/shoulder area and place your feet a few feet away from the bench with about a shoulder width stance. While getting into position you can simply leave your butt sitting on the ground. However, once you are in position, push your feet firmly into the floor (making sure to keep them flat and focus on keeping the majority of your weight on the heel area rather than the toe area of your feet) and lift your hips up as high as you can by contracting your glutes firmly.
At first, you may not be able to lift your hips very high because of glute weakness, hip flexor tightnees, or some combination of the two. Over time, however, you will find that you will be able to push your hips higher and higher using the strength of your glutes. Eventually you will find that you are able to push you hips slightly higher than the height that your knees and torso are at for the exercise.
After you have performed bodyweight Hip Thrusts for a few weeks and have gained confidence in your ability to perform the exercise properly and have gained some strength in your glutes, you can place a barbell across your hips to add extra resistance tot he exercise. Over the course of time, you can add more and more weights plates onto the babrell and you may eventually find yourself performing this exercise with some very heavy weights. Do not rush yourself however. Let your glutes gain strength at their own speed and they will come along just fine.
When placing a barbell across your hips you may find that it helps to wrap a towel or a pad of some sort around the barbell to pad your hips from the bar laying across them, as this can be quite uncomfortable without some kind of pad.
Disclaimer - We do not recommend performing any exercise without the supervision of a highly qualified bodyweight strength professional present with you. This detailed exercise description is for informational purposes only. Consult your physician before attempting any strength training program or attempting this exercise or any of the other exercises on www.getrealstrength.com