The Best Barbell Hip Thrust Alternatives For A Peachy Butt

This post contains 7 barbell hip thrust alternative exercises and 4 hip thrust variations to continue effectively targetting your glutes without the traditional hip thrust exercise!

Love or hate them, hip thrusts have exploded into the fitness scene and are here to stay!

Barbell hip thrusts are an incredible lower body exercise that effectively targets the three different muscles in our glutes, lower back, and hamstrings. 

I strongly believe that a well-rounded workout regime should incorporate the hip thrust or one of its variations.

This is because hip thrusts help build stronger glutes and developing strong glutes has enormous health benefits. Some of the most impressive (and even surprising) advantages of hip thrusts include improved posture, reduced hip and lower back pain, and improved athletic performance. 

They have also been shown to be as effective as the barbell back squat for building stronger and bigger glutes. If you’re reading this post, I’m guessing this is an important outcome for your personal fitness goals!

Let’s break down the hip thrust exercise.

To perform this movement, your upper back is traditionally resting on a bench, with the barbell positioned across your hips, feet positioned shoulder-width apart, and knees bent at approximately 90 degrees.

The glutes and hamstrings engage to drive the hips upwards on a vertical pathway. At the top of this position, the body will be in a straight line from the shoulders to the knees, while the gluteus muscles and hamstrings contract.

The hinging at the hips is what activates the glutes and hamstrings during this exercise.

Brett Contreras (aka the Glute Guy) explains the importance of including hip-hinging exercises in training to develop our glutes.

Therefore, we must mimic this movement throughout our alternative exercise selection to ensure we perform an effective substitute for the traditional hip thrust. This allows us to reap the benefits and avoid neglecting this essential movement pattern to glute growth!

Equipment Needed: Barbell, Dumbbells or a Kettlebell

How to perform the Romanian deadlift:

• Stand with your feet hip-width apart and hold the barbell (or dumbbells) in front of your thighs.
• Keeping a slight bend in your knees, push your glutes backwards to initiate a hip hinge. The weights will skim down your legs as a result. Ensure your spine is kept neutral throughout the entire movement.
• Lower until you feel a stretch in your hamstrings (usually just below the knees or at shin level).
• Engage the glutes and hamstrings to drive your hips forward, lifting the weights back to their starting position.

Equipment Needed: Dumbbell or Kettlebell

How to perform the single-leg Romanian deadlift:

• Stand on one leg (you can use a wall or bench to support yourself if you need help with balance) and hold the dumbbell or kettlebell in the hand opposite to the standing leg.
• Like a traditional Romanian deadlift, keep a slight bend in the standing knee and hinge at your hips, pushing your glutes backwards.
• The dumbbell should stay close to your body while lowering alongside your standing leg.
• Once you feel a stretch in the hamstring of your standing leg, engage the hamstrings and glutes to return to the standing position.
• Repeat for the required repetitions and then swap legs.

Equipment Needed: Bodyweight (Optional: Barbell, Dumbbell, Kettlebell, or Resistance Band)

How to perform a glute bridge:

• Place an exercise mat on the floor and lie flat on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the ground. Your feet should be hip-width apart.
• Either place your arms at your sides (if you’re performing bodyweight glute bridges) or hold onto the weight positioned across your hips if using a weight.
• Push through your heels to lift your hips, lower and middle back off the ground until your body forms a straight line from your shoulders to your knees.
• Squeeze your glutes at the top and hold this position for 1-2 seconds.
• Slowly and with control lower your hips back to the starting position.

Equipment Needed: Barbell

How to perform good mornings:

• Place a barbell across your upper back (not on your neck!). Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart with a slight bend in your knees.
• Hinge at the hips, causing your glutes to move backwards and your chest to lower towards the ground. Keep your back flat.
• Once you feel a stretch in your hamstrings, push through your heels and engage your glutes to return to the starting position.

Equipment Needed: Reverse Hyperextension Machine

How to perform reverse hyperextensions:

• Lie face down on the reverse hyperextension machine, with your hips at the edge and legs hanging down. Hold onto the handles of the machine.
• Engage your glutes and hamstrings to lift your legs up behind you until they are in line with the rest of your body. Squeeze at the top.
• Lower your legs slowly to return back to the starting position.

Equipment Needed: Hyperextension Machine

How to perform hyperextensions:

Adjust the bench so that your hips rest comfortably at the top of the bench and the back of your ankles are resting along the padded supports at the bottom of the machine. Your toes should be pointed outwards.

Cross your arms over your chest or hold a weighted plate for added resistance. Engage your core.

Lower your body as far as it can go toward the ground while keeping your back straight.

Then engage your glutes, hamstrings, and lower back to lift your torso until it is in line with your legs. Squeeze at this starting position and then slowly lower the body back down to repeat the movement.

Equipment Needed: Cable Machine with Rope Attachment

How to perform cable pull-throughs:

Lower the cable pulley and stand with your back to the machine.

Grab the rope with both hands between your legs and take a few steps forward until there is tension in the cable.

Stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and maintain a slight bend in your knees.

Hinge at the hips, letting your torso fall forward and the rope be pulled backwards between your legs until you feel a good stretch in your lower body muscles.

Engage your glutes and drive your hips forward, causing the rope to be pulled forward.

Squeeze your glutes to stand up in your starting position.

Sometimes the gym is super busy or maybe your gym doesn’t have all the equipment required for setting up the traditional barbell hip thrust! Either way, this can be extremely disappointing if you’ve set out to the gym with this exercise in your training programme and there’s no way to complete it.

However, having these alternative exercises to the barbell hip thrust under your belt can soften the blow.

These exercises not only target the glutes, lower back, and hamstrings effectively but they mimic the hip-hinging movement pattern used during hip thrusts. Therefore you can continue your workout with minimal frustration or impact to your glute training.

If you’ve set up the bench and the barbell loaded with heavy plates then YOU KNOW how long it can take to set up for the barbell hip thrust.

If you’re short on time, why not swap barbell hip thrusts for one of these alternative exercises for a quick yet effective glute workout? The exercises mentioned in this post take much less time to set up, making them convenient if you’re sticking to a tight schedule.

They say variety is the spice of life and when it comes to glute training, they were telling the truth!

Adding different glute-targeting exercises is crucial to keep your workouts interesting and inspire motivation to head to the gym. After all, it’s consistency with our training that will provide the peachy butt results that we’re working towards!

If you don’t have the necessary equipment to set up or fancy trying out a little twist to the traditional barbell hip thrust exercise, why not try out some of these hip thrust variations?

These exercises will allow you to perform the hip thrust movement while using different equipment, which is great for keeping things interesting!

The Hip Thrust Machine is an awesome glute-isolating machine. It is great for quickly getting those hip thrusts in if you don’t have much time to spare.

Instead of loading up a barbell with weighted plates, you simply add them onto the machine. This avoids the added struggle (and quite honestly exhaustion) of lifting the barbell one side at a time to increase the weight you’re lifting.

Smith Machine exercises are perfect for those who want to dig deep and hone in on the targetted muscles.

Since the barbell is fixed onto two rails on either side, there is no need to worry about balance when performing Smith machine hip thrusts.

This allows you to focus on lifting heavy, with good technique and feel those glutes burn!

◼️Related: 8 Smith Machine Exercises To Spice Up Your Next Leg Workout!

This is probably the quickest and easiest variation of the hip thrust. Just grab a dumbbell or kettlebell and position it on top of your hips like you would with the barbell and you’re good to go!

Don’t be fooled by this innocent-looking exercise. Despite, being a lot less daunting compared to the barbell hip thrust (since there’s no need to load up huge weighted plates for this variation), this exercise leaves your glutes sore for days!

All you need is a moderately heavy dumbbell or kettlebell and position your body in the same way as you would for the barbell hip thrust except keep one foot off the floor at all times!

For those who are tired of trying to figure out which exercises to include and how many sets/reps to perform during their glute workouts, I have created the perfect solution for you!

I’d love to introduce you to my 12-Week Glute Builder Guide, which you can access immediately and begin working towards your glute growth goals today!

The guide contains the perfect gym-based glute workout routine, as well as my favourite tips and tricks to help you fast-track your glute development journey.

➡️ You can read more about this glute guide here!

Although the barbell hip thrust is an extremely popular and effective exercise for building bigger glutes, it can’t (and shouldn’t) be the only glute-targeting exercise that you include in your glute training programme.

This post has included 7 great alternative exercises that you can swap out the barbell hip thrust for if you find yourself lacking the time or equipment to set up for this exercise. Perhaps you even just fancy mixing things up!

Whatever your reason, keep this post at hand for when you need inspiration for alternative exercises for the barbell hip thrust!

I’d love to know whether you already include one (or more!) of these exercises in your workout routine. Let me know your favourite in the comments below!

This post contains 7 alternative exercises for the barbell hip thrust. Don’t forget to share or save to come back to later!

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