How to Do Hip Thrusts Without Injuring Your Hips
Hip thrusts are not only a great exercise for your glutes (aka glutes) , but they’re also a great confidence builder: Most of us can learn to do heavy weight hip thrusts once we get the hang of this exercise. However, this success creates a small problem: how do you lift all that weight on your hips without getting bruised? I’ll explain.
Hip thrusts work best with some kind of padding. You can buy pads that you can wrap around the bar, pillows that you can put on your lap, or you can even improvise with things you find at the gym. (My favorite solution is one that isn’t sold as a bar stand, but we’ll get to that.)
But fix your positioning first
Before we talk about padding, we need to talk about positioning. When you’re preparing for hip thrusts, you’ll need a barbell in your hip crease. This will put it over your pubic bone (the one right in the center of your perineum) but under your iliac crests (those two bones you can feel at the front of each thigh, above the crease).
This is an ideal location because it avoids all those bony areas. If you think about holding a barbell “on your knees,” you may end up with it resting on your pubic bone. And hopefully you don’t roll it all the way to your belly, but if you do, you might hit your iliac crests. So adjust accordingly.
If you’re having trouble placing the barbell in your hip flexion area, take a look at your overall setup. If you’re lying back on a bench and starting with your butt on the floor, you’ll probably have an easier time positioning yourself if you change the bench to something shorter—like a 12-inch padded poly box , a pair of pads , or an elevated aerobic step .
You probably already have one at your gym: a cylindrical barbell mat.
I’m starting with this type of padding because your gym probably already has it, and if not, there are plenty of options if you want to buy your own. This is the same type of pad that I told you not to use for squats (it just keeps you from positioning the bar correctly), but it’s great for hip thrusts.
You’ll need something with fairly thick foam padding. I’ve even heard of success using pool noodles for this purpose; There’s a pool noodle crowd that says they’re better than custom made barbell pads, although I’m not convinced.
Make sure you have one that can be secured around the bar or it will roll and pop out. Something like this with straps is a good choice; so does this style with the velcro flap.
Upgrade Option #1: Square Sided Barbell Stand.
Instead of these cylindrical pads, you can look for pads with square sides. It’s essentially a square version of the one above, which means it won’t move out of place. Some gym goers find them more comfortable.
Upgrade Option #2: Flat Pillow.
But what’s even better is a big, flat, dense pillow. It can be attached to a bar, making it a hybrid of a flat pad and a bar pad, as shown above. But you can also get a plain old pillow . (Pro tip: Use them behind your knees for abdominal extensions , bicep curls , or other knee exercises.)
What to use in a pinch
If you’re doing hip thrusts at the gym, didn’t bring any padding with you, and can’t find the right barbell pad, take a look around. One of the best options is a thick yoga mat , folded in half or in thirds. Look for them in the stretching area or anywhere people do exercises on the floor.
The best-kept secret in thigh padding: a sandbag.
Finally we came to my favorite. You probably don’t want to lug around a heavy sandbag in your gym bag, but if your gym has a tightly packed sandbag in a perfectly rectangular shape (like this one ), using it to train your thighs is a privilege and a luxury. tremors.
The tight pack distributes the weight of the barbell over a larger area, making it less painful. And you’re already lifting heavy weights, so it’s no problem if, say, 25 pounds are in your lap rather than on the end of the barbell. (Load the barbell with this in mind: a 135-pound barbell with a 25-pound sandbag is a 160-pound lift.) And if you have your own home gym, be sure to take the sandbag route. There are lots of other fun exercises you can do with a sandbag .