Exercise library / Legs
Glute bridge
Legs · Bodyweight
The glute bridge is hip extension done lying on the floor. Shoulders stay down, the hips lift, and the glutes do the work over a fairly short range.
It is the easiest hip extension to get right, because the floor stops you before the range gets long enough to cause trouble. That also makes it a good warm-up for everything else you do with your hips.
Sets, reps and RIR
Load is fixed, so progress by adding reps first, then by slowing the lowering phase, then by adding weight.
RIR means reps in reserve: how many you could still have done when you racked it. RIR 2 is two short of failure.
How to do it
- Lie on your back with the knees bent and the heels close enough that your fingertips almost reach them.
- Tuck the ribs down so the lower back is flat against the floor. That is the position you keep.
- Push through the heels and lift the hips until the body is in a straight line from knee to shoulder.
- Squeeze at the top for a beat. The top of the rep is where the glute is shortest and working hardest.
- Lower under control until the hips are just off the floor, then go again.
Common mistakes
- Arching instead of extending
- When the glutes run out, the lower back finishes the rep and it looks the same from the outside. If you feel it in your back, you are arching. Ribs down.
- Feet too far away
- Heels out in front turn it into a hamstring exercise. Walk them in until the shin is close to vertical at the top.
- Pushing through the toes
- The drive comes from the heel. Toes up off the floor for a set is a quick way to find out whether you were doing it.
- No pause at the top
- Bouncing off the floor and back up is the whole range spent in the easy part. The hold is the exercise.
How it differs from the neighbouring variants
The barbell hip thrust puts your shoulders on a bench, which lengthens the range and lets you load far more weight. It builds more, and it needs a bench, a bar and a pad.
The single-leg version halves the load and adds a balance demand, which makes it useful when you have no weight available or one side is clearly weaker.
What it suits
Glute bridges work as a warm-up before squats and deadlifts, or as accessory work at the end of a leg session. Eight to twenty reps with one or two in reserve. Once bodyweight stops being hard, put a dumbbell or a plate across the hips, or move to the hip thrust.
Muscles worked
Primary: Glutes.
Secondary: Hamstrings, Abductors.
What it is called elsewhere
- Norsk Seteløft
- Svenska Höftlyft
- Dansk Glute bridge
- Deutsch Beckenheben
- Español Puente de glúteos
- Italiano Ponte per i glutei
- Português Ponte de glúteo
- Русский Ягодичный мостик
- Français Pont fessier
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