Hip Thrust Solves Your Problems: Here's Why

Sometimes I think - what could we all benefit from most? Not more options, more choice, more variety in our lives - but being able to simplify for less.

There’s so many pointless exercises out there in the ether (like f****ng burpees) getting swallowed up by the masses, it’s not only harder for us to land on the ones that are actually relevant, but also (thanks to unlimited distractions), it’s also so much harder for us to stick to the programme when we finally get to the exercises that will make a tangible difference to our lives.

(Thanks to my darling wife for this one)

For me, the hip thrust is one of these game changing exercises, and I’ll give you 5 reasons why:

1) The pleasant shock when you realise how much you can actually lift

Hip thrusting is great for confidence, as I don’t think many people realise just how much they would be able to lift vs. other movements.

If I give you some potentially plausible numbers for an averagely strong person, it might be that their 5-rep bench press is 60kg, squat is 80kg, barbell deadlift is 100kg, trap bar or rack pull deadlift is 120kg.

The hip thrust would probably be stronger than all of these movements - maybe 130/140kg. So imagine doing this for the first time and realising how much load you can actually shift. Big ego boost if you want to feel good about yourself!

2) Your knee pain goes away

When you spend all day at a desk, increasing chronic hip flexor shortening, hamstring lengthening and weakening, on top of glute inactivity, compounds to make you want to bias your movements towards where you are most active, or can generate the most force.

For many people, this is the quadriceps. They already have a slightly bigger strength ratio vs. the hamstrings and this is exacerbated through sedentary life. The more we lean into this quadricep bias, the more stress we place on the knee, with more force passing through that joint than necessary.

Hip thrusting helps us minimise that bias. Building you to be strong in the opposite of your sedentary posture. The power pack muscle group we call the glutes, now become active participants, dominant in your athletic movements (as nature intended), removing an enormous stress from the knees.

3) The amount of load you take off your back

As with the knees, most people experience back pain because the load that *should* be tolerated and managed by strong, mobile hips, ends up bypassing the hips, with shock forces then impacting the lumbar spine (which lacks the sufficient strength and stability to do all of that on its own).

When you nail your hip thrusts, suddenly your glutes start doing a ton of work they should have been doing all along, resulting in a tangible reduction in discomfort and stress in the lower back region.

I maintain that the key to *most* people’s lower back pain is simply that their glutes are extremely weak - nothing to do with the lower back itself.

4) You ‘feel’ stronger - whatever that means?

There’s a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ that comes from going big and heavy with your hip thrusts, an aura (as the kids are calling it these days) if you will.

Put simply, you will just feel stronger - more secure in your body, more powerful in your stride, more capable in big movements. Whether it’s climbing out of the car, squatting down to the cupboard under the sink, powering up the stairs.

In the small moments, you will notice it.

5) You run faster & jump higher

Not only in the small moments, but also the big ones when you go to the gym, step onto the sports field, or lace up your trainers for a run. Hip thrusts will improve your performance by increasing your physical capacity to produce bigger forces for key athletic movements.

Running for example, is simply an extended series of jumps from one leg onto the other. The jumping action consists of you flexing your knee and hip to lower your centre of mass, pressing as much force into the floor as possible, and then rapidly extending your ankle, knee and hip to project yourself into the air. Your ability to create fast and forceful extension of your hips will directly correlate with your ability to jump, hop, skip, run etc.

So what are you waiting for?

Does the hip thrust feature in your strength training? Would you consider your reps heavy? How many sets and reps do you aim for? Let’s hear from you in the comments!

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