While strength training has proven over and over to be the most potent sport for anti-aging, stabilizing mood behavior, and recovering from injuries, it is essential to practice this sport carefully and with the knowledge to prevent getting hurt.

Not every exercise or piece of equipment is necessarily beneficial. Some can be highly detrimental.

An example is the hip thrust.

The hip thrust has become a popular fad. Many believe it to be the best exercise to build your butt muscles and boost sprinting.

It is heavily promoted by gurus and many fitness professionals who will show you research and studies to prove its efficiency, mostly with their gain in mind.

Social impact and creative marketing skills produce the next media hype. Controversy makes the idea take hold, sways the masses, and finally, the concept sticks.

However, there is vast debate about hip thrusts’ benefits vs. harmful consequences.

Dr Fitness USA, a world-renowned ergonomic expert who has led people of all ages to ultimate transformation without injuries for over 45 years, presents his warning about the hip thrust:

“The hip thrust brings many problems because it is an unnatural movement. It naturally forces your body into poor biomechanical positions, and hyper-extending the back can lead to severe injury. In addition, the excessive weight and bar that lies across the top of the thighs pressing into the pelvic area of the body and joints, even with a pad, can lead to a soft tissue injury, especially in young adults.”

WARNINGS:

1. Hip thrusts present a significant risk of abdominal, hip flexor, and lower back injury, creating excessive compression on the lumbar spine and shearing forces on the psoas (a muscle that flexes the hips), sub umbilical (below the belly button) abdominal fibers.

2. It disrupts the fascial system. When you execute a barbell hip thrust, even with a padded bar, the prolonged force of the bar resting directly over the pelvis constricts the fascia. The body reacts to this stress by creating more fascia, making this connective tissue less flexible. The outcome is disruption of the fascial system.

The most common problems among those who do hip thrusts include tightness in the rectus femoris, piriformis, knee pain, and extreme anterior pelvic tilt.

3. It delivers little transfer to compound movements or sports. For example, a hip thrust will probably do little to increase performance in the squat because its resistance curve is highest at the squat point where the lifter is the strongest.

4. It’s short ROM (range of motion) restricts glute development; compared to the squat, the hip thrust is a less effective exercise for glute development. Furthermore, it’s hard to define the efficacy of the hip thrust as a glute developer because those who execute the movement perform other exercises that also work the glutes.

5. Its advocates often use contentious research to support their claims. Many proponents of hip thrusts include those who sell apparatus to perform the exercise and support their claims by citing EMG studies. The studies mainly use surface EMGs, which have many limitations.

A better way to develop the glutes while avoiding injuries consists of mastering these exercises:

SQUATS: Squats help you feel and look good. Squatting helps shape your legs and butt since it targets the glute and inner thigh muscles. As your buttocks become firm, your posture and balance might improve.

Favor squatting exercises that do not require putting a bar over your shoulders, or at the very least, protect your shoulders by using a squat foam pad.

HACK SQUAT: A hack squat may be an excellent introduction to the traditional barbell squat; it requires a squat hack machine, which helps stabilize the body and provides padding on the shoulders.
Because the machine is angled back 45° to 60° depending on the brand equipment, there is less pressure on your vertebrae’s spinal column while performing the exercise.

LEG PRESS: The leg press is an excellent way to strengthen your legs safely, provided you keep the buttocks stationary against the back of the seat. The leg press permits you to load up the legs with more weight than you can squat with. In addition, because your back is supported, you don’t have to focus on stabilizing the load, which enables you to press more weight with more control.

The best approach to achieving a beautifully toned and sculpted physique without incurring injuries is balancing ergonomically safe exercise sequencing to provide a uniform increase of strength and muscular development.