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When it comes to the perfect glute workout, nothing hits them like the dumbbell glute press. Sure, squats and deadlifts definitely have a place in any lower body workout, but if strong, strong glutes are your specific goal, dumbbell glute presses target those posterior chain muscles just like any other glute exercise.
cause? Sydney Rice, M.D., a physiologist at NYU’s Langone Health Center for Sports Excellence, tells SELF that it all comes down to the ability of movement to separate those muscles, especially the glutes or gluteus maximus. On the other hand, deadlifts or squats are complex movements that require a lot of involvement of other muscles (like your quads in the case of squats). So while they certainly engage your glutes as well, they don’t hone them the way hip thrusts do.
The hip press movement pattern – a combination of hip extension and knee flexion – allows you to isolate your glutes even with your own body weight, but another beneficial aspect of the exercise is that it’s easy to keep progressing. Dumbbell hip presses are an easy way to gradually increase the load on the hips, especially for those who work out at home.
“Normally, bodyweight hip thrust is not enough to resist, and to get stronger and really see results in terms of strength and hypertrophy — muscle size gains — you need to slowly increase the resistance.” – Tessia DeMattos, DPT, CSCS, New York Certified the city’s strength and conditioning specialist, he tells SELF.
This makes the dumbbell hip row a popular program for many lifters, both beginners and more advanced. Want to try this exercise for yourself? Here’s everything you need to know about dumbbell hip jerks.
The hip pull is a lower body strength exercise that focuses on extending the hips during the locked portion of the movement or when your hips come out of a bent position, forming a straight line from your shoulders to your hips and knees. This exercise is similar to the glute bridge, but the glute bridge is performed with the feet and back on the floor, and the hip thrust is performed with the feet on the floor and the back on the bench. This gives you more range of motion.
Glute pushes can only be performed with your own weight or with a barbell, dumbbells, kettlebells, or resistance bands. They are considered a horizontal load exercise, as opposed to squats or deadlifts with a vertical load.
In short, the glute press is a great exercise for building strength and muscles in the lower body, especially the gluteus maximus. If you do the glute press correctly, it will primarily target your glutes and less so your hamstrings (leg muscles behind your thighs). Your smaller glute muscles, such as the gluteus medius, minimus, and adductors, will also get a little activation, and you’ll definitely feel your core burning, DeMatos says.
It is important to do exercises that strengthen your buttocks because they are the main engine of strength and movement in your body. For example, walking, climbing stairs, lifting things off the ground, and running are all daily functional movements that involve the hips. If you’re an athlete, your glutes allow you to jump higher, stay flexible, and increase your speed.
“They are good at stabilizing your glutes and lower back. Often times when your glutes aren’t as strong as they should be, your body finds other ways to compensate, such as using your lower back muscles,” DeMattos says. Thus, building strong hips plays an important role in preventing lower back pain.
What’s more, developing strong glute muscles can also help you become stronger in other lower body movements, such as the aforementioned squats and deadlifts, as they are also great helpers for those movements.
DeMatos says the glute thrust is one of the best glute exercises because his movement pattern just works your glutes: the glute extension (top of the movement) gives you the most glute activation, making the movement more isolated. , your hamstrings shorten when your knees are bent, which isolates your hips better.
Research backs it up: A 2021 study published in the Journal of Exercise and Fitness Research compared glute activation from barbell hip presses, back squats, and split squats. Researchers have found that hip presses have higher EMG activity (a measure of muscle response to stimulation or electrical activity) than back squats and split squats when performing three max lifts. (There was no difference in maximum glute activation between back squats and split squats.)
“Squats and deadlifts are great compound exercises that work the glutes without isolating them,” says DeMattos. “You get more muscle groups like core and back depending on the variation.”
The hip press also ranks first when compared to the deadlift. A 2019 review in the Journal of Sports Science & Medicine concluded that the barbell hip thrust has greater gluteus maximus activation than the deadlift. A 2019 review in the Journal of Sports Science & Medicine concluded that the barbell hip thrust has greater gluteus maximus activation than the deadlift. В обзоре 2019 года, опубликованном в Journal of Sports Science & Medicine, сделан вывод о том, что тяга бедра со штангой активизирует большую ягодичную мышцу сильнее, чем становая тяга. A 2019 review published in the Journal of Sports Science & Medicine concluded that the barbell hip row activated the gluteus maximus more than the deadlift. A 2019 review published in the Journal of Exercise Science and Medicine concluded that the hip press activated the glutes more than the deadlift. (However, traditional deadlifts activate the hamstrings more than glute presses.)
The horizontal loading of the glute press is one of the reasons for the higher glute activation than the squat or deadlift. In vertical loading exercises, the tension in the hip extensors (such as the gluteus maximus) is less as you approach lockout, but in horizontal loading exercises, the tension in these hip extensors increases as you approach lockout.
Absolutely. Weighted glute presses with dumbbells are a great way to keep exercising your glute muscles, which is important in order to keep getting stronger and building muscle mass.
However, before you start adding external resistance, you need to make sure that you can perform reps without weight with proper form. When you’re ready to add weight, you can start with one or two dumbbells. It depends on your preference and comfort, but Rice says it might be easier to start with dumbbells. Just make sure the weight is evenly spaced horizontally across your thighs for proper weight distribution, and keep the dumbbell in place throughout your workout so it doesn’t roll off your body.
Then, when you’re ready to get heavier, you can add weights. How much you gain depends on many factors, such as your starting weight, fitness level, and the number of times you do it. But overall, you can gain about 5 pounds every two weeks, DeMatos says. If 5 pounds isn’t an option, you can add 10 pounds, but wait up to three weeks instead of two before adding more. When you can do more reps with the same weight, you’ll know you’re ready to add more weight, or you won’t feel out of breath at the end of each set like you used to.
When adding dumbbell hips to your routine, Rice recommends doing them during your lower body workouts. If it’s one of the hardest tasks of the day, do it early in your workout. But if you’re using them as a secondary exercise (rather than one of your main weight-lifting exercises), then you can do them last, says Rice. Combine them with squats, deadlifts, and other compound lower-body moves for a real glute-focused and challenging workout.
Both barbell and dumbbell hip presses can help you with progressive overload or keep you loading your muscles with heavier and heavier weights. But there are a few differences, some of which are especially useful for beginners.
On the one hand, the dumbbell hip press is easier to do than the barbell hip press, which makes the dumbbell hip press a better option for those who want a bit more external resistance than their own body weight, but aren’t ready for a lot of weight. This is because dumbbells have a wider weight range whereas barbells usually start at 45 pounds. Because of this, dumbbell hip jerks are great for beginners and those who want to start adding loads to the bodyweight version of the movement.
Rice says that for dumbbell hip thrusts, start the setup sitting on the floor, stand the dumbbells upright and roll them over your pelvis, making sure to load them properly to evenly distribute the weight on your hips.
Other than that, the main difference between the barbell press and the dumbbell hip press is the setup. “The hip row with dumbbells is a little easier to set up because it’s smaller and you can put the weight on the top of your thighs,” says DeMattos.
Setting up the barbell hip press can be a little tricky. First, if you are using plates, you must load them before doing anything else. Then, if you are using a plate, you may need to lift the bar slightly to get under it, or roll it up over your legs. (You can also use a squat rack or a Smith machine for setups, where you can place the bar on the hooks on the side so you can easily complete the setup without having to roll the bar over your legs, says Rice.)
But while it may take longer to set up the barbell hip row, it may actually be easier for you to get stronger: once you lower the setting, it will stay the same—you just add more plates to increase the weight. On the other hand, once you reach a certain weight with dumbbells, the setup becomes difficult because the dumbbells are bigger and heavier.
Whether you use dumbbells or a barbell, the extra weight can cause discomfort in your hip bones. If that bothers you, you can put some padding, a rolled-up towel, or even a pillow over your hips and put your weight on it, DeMatos says. Barbell mats are also a good investment.
If you feel like you have more hamstrings than your glutes when you do dumbbell glute presses, it probably means you need to adjust your leg position a bit.
“By placing your feet closer to your hips, you will be able to use your glute muscles more. The farther your feet are from your body, the more this exercise will target your hamstrings,” says Dematos.
At the top of the movement, you should aim for a flat bridge that forms a straight line from your shoulders to the top of your knees. If you’re noticing that your lower back is arching, you’re probably not working your core, DeMatos says.
While your pelvis should generally remain in a neutral position throughout the movement, tilting your pelvis back to activate your hips can help some people, says Rice.
Another helpful tip, DeMatos says, is to rotate your pelvic bones up toward your nose. “It’s the same feeling when you’re trying to zip up your jeans. You tilt your hips up to zip up. It’s a pelvic tilt.” on the ground and maintain this position throughout the movement.
Demonstrates the above by Jovan Ortega, personal trainer, performance coach and partner at Form Fitness in Brooklyn.
SELF does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. No information published on this website or in this brand is intended to replace medical advice and you should not take any action without consulting a healthcare professional.
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