This article will explain all the great benefits of the hip thrust exercise.
The hip thrust is a great exercise for the glutes and hamstrings. It’s one of the best compound exercises for developing your posterior chain. The hip thrust has many benefits including increased glute strength, increased core stability, improved running speed and jumping ability, and protection against injury.
- 1. Increases Hip Extension Strength for those that Suffer from Weak Glutes
- 2. Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Improves Core Strength and Stability
- 3. Hip thrusts Will Improve your Running Speed, Jumping Ability and Quickness
- 4. Helps to Activate the Glutes and Protect Against Injury
- 5. Hip thrusts Develop a Strong Posterior Chain
- 6. Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Strengthen the Glutes and Hamstrings
- 7. They are an Adaptable Movement
- Muscles of the Glutes and Hamstrings
- Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Gluteus Maximus
- Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Gluteus Medius
- Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Gluteus Minimus
- Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Piriformis
- Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Tensor Fasciae Latae (TFL)
- Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Sacrotuberous Ligament
- Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Sciatic Nerve
- Long Head of Biceps Femoris (Semitendinosus and Semimembranosus)
- Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Short Head of Biceps Femoris
- Conclusion
- Learn More
1. Increases Hip Extension Strength for those that Suffer from Weak Glutes
For those who suffer from weak glutes, the hip thrust exercise is a great way to strengthen your glutes and hamstrings.
2. Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Improves Core Strength and Stability
The hip thrust is an excellent exercise for strengthening the core, which is essential for many sports.
Core strength and stability are important for injury prevention and performance. The hip thrust targets the glutes (butt), hamstrings, adductors (inner thighs), quadriceps (front of legs) and erector spinae muscles that support proper posture by keeping the spine aligned with the pelvis in a neutral position.
3. Hip thrusts Will Improve your Running Speed, Jumping Ability and Quickness
Hip thrusts are an explosive exercise that will improve your running speed, jumping ability and quickness. To become a better runner, you need to incorporate some exercises that build explosive power into your workout routine.
To become faster at sprinting or jumping higher, you must do exercises in which you use the force of the ground to generate power in one direction – like sprinting or hopping. These are called “closed chain kinetic movements”.
You can increase your explosiveness by doing exercises where you produce force against an immovable object such as a wall or bench during training sessions instead of just running on a track for example! This will help teach your brain how to use its muscles more effectively when it comes time for competition day!
4. Helps to Activate the Glutes and Protect Against Injury
You might be wondering why you should care about activating your glutes. The reason is simple: because they’re the strongest muscle in your body! They’re also the largest muscle group in your body, meaning they can do a lot of work.
But what does that mean for you? Well, if you want to accomplish more with less effort—and get stronger in the process—you’ll need to activate those glutes whenever possible. The hip thrust exercise helps with that by forcing you to contract them during an exercise involving loading from an angle (which is how most athletic movements happen).
The glutes are responsible for hip extension, external rotation and abduction/adduction. These are all important functions because they help us move around efficiently and safely when we walk or run on uneven terrains like hills or stairs.
5. Hip thrusts Develop a Strong Posterior Chain
The hip thrust is a great exercise to develop a strong posterior chain. The posterior chain consists of the muscles that run from the lower back to the feet. It is important for standing and walking, running, jumping and throwing.
A strong posterior chain can help prevent injuries by providing stability through your hips, back and legs when you’re moving around in daily life or playing sports.
In addition, strengthening this area will improve your posture and give you greater strength in other exercises like deadlifts or squats.
6. Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Strengthen the Glutes and Hamstrings
The hip thrust is a great exercise for strengthening the glutes and hamstrings.
It targets and activates these muscles, stressing them so that they have to adapt and grow stronger.
7. They are an Adaptable Movement
The hip thrust is a popular exercise that can be performed anywhere, anytime. While it originated in the gym, you can also do hip thrusts at home, on the beach and even in your hotel room.
Here you simply need to adapt the weight. Kettlebells, dumbbells, weight plates and sandbags are all excellent alternatives to the barbell.
Muscles of the Glutes and Hamstrings
The glutes and hamstrings are large, complex muscles of the lower body.
Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Gluteus Maximus
The gluteus maximus is the largest muscle in the body. It is responsible for extending and rotating the hip, along with working with other muscles to extend your legs. Its name comes from its large size—in Latin, maximus means “biggest.”
The gluteus maximus lies on either side of your buttocks and attaches to your pelvis at two places:
- above your sacrum (the bony arch that forms part of your spine)
- just below your back pocket on each side of your hips.
Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Gluteus Medius
The gluteus medius is a powerful muscle located on the outer surface of the pelvis. It is a key muscle in both the pelvic and hip stabilizing systems. It also plays an important role in running and jumping by helping to rotate your thigh outward, which allows you to maintain proper form as you move forward.
The gluteus medius helps protect against injury because it assists with lateral stability of your pelvis during side-to-side movements such as running or hopping over obstacles (like low walls). If this muscle is weak or tight, it can cause increased stress on other lower body muscles (such as your hamstrings) that help stabilize your hips when rotating them side-to-side.
Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Gluteus Minimus
The gluteus minimus is a small muscle that lies deep to your gluteus medius. It originates at the outer portion of your ilium (hip bone) and attaches to the inner side of your thighbone.
The main function of the gluteus minimus is to keep you from toppling over sideways as you walk or run. It also helps stabilize your pelvis when performing other movements such as squatting, lunging, running and jumping.
Injury prevention: The gluteus minimus is most often injured in runners with tight hamstrings who engage in high-impact activities without warming up thoroughly beforehand. To prevent injury from occurring, make sure you warm up properly before engaging in any physical activity that demands a lot of energy from your muscles—including weightlifting exercises like squats and lunges—and stretch out those tight areas afterward!
Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Piriformis
The piriformis is a deep muscle that originates on the sacrum and inserts on the femur. It’s an important muscle for hip stability. It is involved in hip extension and adduction. It can be strained after sitting for long periods of time.
If you have pain, it could be from this muscle being tight or irritated, which will cause it to tighten even more when you try to stretch it out with stretching exercises like side leg raises (called “piriformis stretches”).
The only way to really know if your pain comes from this muscle is by going through a physical therapy evaluation process where they assess how tight your muscles are by doing things like asking you about your symptoms and looking for abnormal movement patterns during various movements such as walking.
Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Tensor Fasciae Latae (TFL)
The Tensor Fasciae Latae (TFL) is a muscle that runs along the outer thigh. It helps with hip abduction, which is the movement of the leg away from the body. The TFL also works to assist with hip flexion, which is when your thigh moves towards your body.
Gluteal muscles work together to create strong, powerful hips and thighs. Having strong gluteal muscles allows you to perform activities like jumping higher and running faster without injury. If you don’t have strong glutes then this could cause you some serious problems in terms of injuries such as knee pain or back problems due to weak back muscles compensating for weak hips!
Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Sacrotuberous Ligament
The sacrotuberous ligament is a band of connective tissue that runs from the upper posterior portion of the sacrum to the ischial tuberosity (the bony part of your pelvis). It helps stabilize the sacroiliac joint, which connects your lower spine and pelvis.
Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Sciatic Nerve
The sciatic nerve is the largest nerve in the body and begins in the lower back, running down through your buttock and into your leg. It is responsible for feeling in your foot and ankle, as well as sensation below the knee and thigh. As you can see from this image, it runs right alongside one of our strongest muscles: glutes.
Long Head of Biceps Femoris (Semitendinosus and Semimembranosus)
The long head of biceps femoris is a deep back muscle that originates on the ischial tuberosity, or bone formed by fusion between the ischium and pubis bones in the pelvis. It then travels down to insert into the upper part of your tibia (shin bone).
The long head of biceps femoris works to bend your knee and also assists with hip flexion. This muscle also stabilizes your knee during walking, running, squatting, lunging and jumping activities.
The long head of biceps femoris receives innervation from two different nerves: sciatic nerve (S1-S4) and tibial nerve (L4-L5).
Benefits of the Hip Thrust Exercise – Short Head of Biceps Femoris
The short head of the biceps femoris is located on the outside of your hip, between your gluteus maximus and your semimembranosus. It originates at the lower part of the head of your fibula, which is that long bone just below your knee.
It’s involved in both hip extension and hip flexion (when bending forward), as well as knee flexion. This muscle can be used to help you lift heavy weights or perform squats or deadlifts with great power—and it also helps with athletic performance by providing stability during running movements like sprinting or jumping.
Conclusion
The glutes and hamstrings are complex muscles. They are the largest muscles in the body and they perform a wide range of motions. The glutes extend at the hip, flex at the knee and medially rotate the thigh when they contract. The hamstring muscles also extend at the hip, but they also perform knee flexion as part of their front-to-back motion.
The hip thrust is a great exercise for the lower body. It is easy to perform and you can do it anywhere.
The benefits of this exercise will help improve your running speed, jumping ability, quickness and avoid injury.
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Image Sources
- Dumbbell-Hip-Thrust-Exercise: Samuel Girven on Unsplash / CrossFit Inc