By Nadia Popescu, Strength & Conditioning Writer · Updated 9 October 2026
The best hip thrust alternative is the glute bridge, because it's the same movement done from the floor and it still loads your glutes hardest at the very top, where your hips are fully locked out. If you want to keep the bench but ditch the heavy bar, the single-leg hip thrust is the next closest swap. Below are nine alternatives ranked by how close each one gets to the hip thrust's signature trait (peak glute tension at end-range hip extension), with cues for each and an honest note on what the research actually says about whether you need hip thrusts at all.
| Rank | Alternative | Kit needed | Closest to the hip thrust because |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Glute bridge (barbell, dumbbell or banded) | Floor plus any load | Same movement, shorter range |
| 2 | Single-leg hip thrust | Bench or sofa | Same position, half the load needed |
| 3 | B-stance hip thrust | Bench plus light weight | Mostly one leg, easier balance |
| 4 | Cable pull-through | Cable or long band | Peak tension at lockout, no bar on hips |
| 5 | Kettlebell swing | Kettlebell | Explosive lockout, less time under tension |
| 6 | 45-degree back extension (glute bias) | Back extension bench | Hard squeeze at the top if set up right |
| 7 | Frog pumps | Nothing | Glute-only lockout, very light load |
| 8 | Glute drive machine | Gym machine | Same pattern, but gym-only |
| 9 | Romanian deadlift | Barbell or dumbbells | Loads the stretch, not the lockout |
The glute drive machine would rank higher on pure mechanics. It sits at eight only because most people searching for a swap don't have one.
Three reasons come up again and again. The first is pain: a loaded barbell sitting on your hip bones hurts, and thin pads make it worse. The second is setup. Rolling a loaded bar over your legs, finding a bench that won't slide and getting into position eats time and, in a busy gym, a lot of floor space. The third is simply not having a bench or a barbell at home.
None of those mean you're missing out. The hip thrust earned its reputation because the glutes are the main hip extensor and it keeps tension on them when your hips are straight; a 2019 systematic review found hip extensor activation was higher in the barbell hip thrust than in the squat (Neto et al., 2019). But higher EMG doesn't automatically mean more growth, which matters a lot when you're picking a replacement.
What the 2023 trial actually found
In a 9-week randomised trial, untrained adults did either back squats or hip thrusts with matched set volume. Glute size increases on MRI were similar between groups, with only a slight, uncertain edge for the hip thrust. The hip thrust group had higher glute EMG in their first session, but that didn't reliably predict who grew more. The squat group gained more quad and adductor size (Plotkin et al., 2023). So if hip thrusts don't suit you, you can build your glutes perfectly well without them.
Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat, about hip-width apart, then drive through your heels and squeeze your hips up until your knees, hips and shoulders form a straight line. It's the hip thrust with your back on the floor, which cuts the range at the bottom but keeps the hard part, the lockout, almost identical.
You can load it three ways. A barbell across your hips lets you go heavy, a single dumbbell held on the hip crease suits home training, and a loop band above the knees adds work for the side glutes while you push your knees out. Our glute bridge guide covers foot position and progressions in full.
Set up exactly as you would for a normal hip thrust, shoulder blades on the edge of a bench or sofa, then lift one foot off the floor and drive up through the other heel. Working one leg means you need about half the load to make it hard, so the bar (and the bruising) disappears. Most people find bodyweight alone tough for 10 to 12 reps.
It also exposes imbalances quickly. If one side stalls three reps before the other, you've found something worth working on.
This is the halfway house between a two-leg and a single-leg thrust. Put your working foot flat in the usual spot and slide the other foot forward so only its heel touches the floor, with that leg doing perhaps 20 to 30 percent of the work. You get most of the single-leg stimulus with much better balance, so you can hold a dumbbell on the working hip and keep progressing. The same staggered idea applies to hinges in our B-stance RDL guide.
Stand facing away from a low cable with a rope between your legs, hinge your hips back, then snap them forward to stand tall. The cable pulls you backwards rather than down, so the resistance stays high right at lockout, which is the closest any standing exercise gets to hip thrust loading. Nothing presses on your hips, so it's the best pick if pad pain is your reason for swapping.
No cable machine? A long resistance band anchored low around a post does the same job. See our cable pull-through guide for the hinge cues.
The swing is a hip extension done fast. You hike the bell between your legs, then drive your hips forward hard so the bell floats to chest height, finishing each rep in a full standing glute squeeze. It doesn't give you the slow, grinding time under tension of a hip thrust, but it trains the same lockout with power and conditioning thrown in. Learn it properly with our kettlebell swing guide before you go heavy, because a swing done with the arms or lower back misses the point entirely.
On a 45-degree back extension bench, most people work their lower back. To shift it to the glutes, set the pad just below your hip crease so you can bend at the hips, turn your feet out to around 30 to 45 degrees and round your upper back slightly. Then lift by squeezing your glutes, stopping when your body forms a straight line. The back extension guide has the full setup. Hold a plate to your chest once bodyweight gets easy.
Lie on your back, press the soles of your feet together and let your knees fall out, then pump your hips up in short, quick reps. The turned-out position limits how much your hamstrings can help, so it feels almost purely glute. The trade-off is load: you can't add much weight, so frog pumps work best as a high-rep finisher or warm-up. Our frog pumps guide explains rep schemes.
If your gym has one, this is close to a straight replacement. You sit in the machine with a padded belt across your hips and push up against a lever, so you get the hip thrust pattern with no bar to roll in and no bench to slide. It's the easiest way to load the movement heavily and comfortably. The only reason it ranks this low is access; see our glute drive machine guide for how to set it up.
The RDL trains the glutes hardest at the opposite end of the movement to the hip thrust, when they're stretched with your hips bent back, and tension fades as you stand up. That makes it a poor like-for-like swap but a great partner: one exercise covers the stretch, the other covers the squeeze. If the barbell version doesn't suit you, our Romanian deadlift alternative guide lists options.
Finishing with your lower back. If you feel bridges or back extensions mostly in your spine, you're arching at the top. Tuck your pelvis and stop when you hit a straight line.
Rushing the top. End-range glute work only counts if you actually get there. Pause for a second with the glutes squeezed on bridges, single-leg thrusts and pull-throughs.
Feet in the wrong place. Feet too far away turns a bridge into a hamstring exercise; too close and the quads take over. Adjust until your shins sit roughly vertical at the top.
Replace hip thrusts set for set. For most people that means 3 to 4 sets of 8 to 15 reps, two or three times a week, stopping a rep or two short of failure. Pair one lockout exercise from the top half of the list with a stretch-focused hinge like the RDL, and you've covered the glutes through their whole range.
A home session with just a dumbbell and a band could look like this: dumbbell glute bridges for 4 sets of 12, B-stance hip thrusts off the sofa for 3 sets of 10 per side, then 2 sets of 25 frog pumps. A systematic review of glute exercises found step-ups, lunges, split squats and deadlifts also produce very high glute activation, so if you want more variety, our glute exercises guide is the place to look.
If you're kitting out a home setup, a stable flat bench makes every thrust variation easier (see our best weight bench UK guide), a set of loop bands covers pull-throughs and banded bridges (best resistance bands UK), and a single kettlebell gives you swings (best kettlebells UK).
The glute bridge. It's the same movement with your upper back on the floor instead of a bench, so the glutes still take the most load right at the top where your hips are fully extended. You lose some range of motion, but you can load it with a barbell, a dumbbell or a band and it needs no setup at all.
Single-leg hip thrusts off a sofa, dumbbell glute bridges and frog pumps all work with almost no kit. If you own a kettlebell, swings are a strong second choice because they train hip extension explosively. A loop band above your knees makes any bridge or thrust variation harder without adding weight.
For glute growth, they seem to be about equal. A 2023 randomised trial found nine weeks of squats or hip thrusts produced similar gains in glute size measured by MRI, even though the hip thrust showed higher glute EMG. Squats also grew the quads and adductors more, so they give you more leg for the same time.
Use a thicker pad than you think you need, or fold a yoga mat over the bar pad. If it still hurts, switch to a loaded alternative that doesn't press on the hip bones: a cable pull-through, a 45-degree back extension or a glute drive machine with a padded belt.
No. The glute bridge is the floor version, and a sofa, a sturdy box or the edge of a bed all work for single-leg and bodyweight thrusts. A proper bench only matters once you're loading a barbell heavily, because it needs to stay put while you push against it.
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