Hip thrust progression: loading, logging and rep ranges

The usual hip thrust mistake is treating it like a deadlift with a bench behind it: load the bar, grind out whatever reps come, and add a plate next week. The lift takes weight quickly, so that works for a while, and then the reps fall while the load keeps rising. Hip thrust progression holds up longer with a rep range, a rating on every set and a fixed step. For a 60 kg lifter working at 140 kg, ten reps at RPE 8 is worth an estimated 205.9 kg for one, computed with the model behind the one-rep max calculator. On three sets of 8 to 12, the next 2.5 kg arrives when all three sets reach twelve.

Every figure below is compute.mjs output, the script that runs the app's own formulas, or it carries a citation to the study it came from.

What the hip thrust trains

The app's exercise library lists the barbell hip thrust as a compound hinge with the glutes as the primary muscle and the hamstrings as the secondary. The research agrees on the first half of that and adds a caveat. Thirteen trained women did estimated 10-rep maxes on the back squat and the hip thrust, and the hip thrust produced more electrical activity in the upper gluteus maximus (69.5 against 29.4 per cent), the lower gluteus maximus (86.8 against 45.4) and the biceps femoris (40.8 against 14.9) [1]. Vastus lateralis activity, a quadriceps reading, was not different between the two lifts [1].

Activity is not growth, and a training study later tested exactly that. Thirty-four untrained adults trained either the hip thrust or the back squat twice a week for nine weeks, 8 to 12 reps to failure, with sets climbing from three to six per session and volume matched between groups [2]. Gluteal growth measured by MRI was similar in both groups. The squat group grew more quadriceps and adductor muscle, and hamstring growth did not differ [2].

Strength followed the exercise. The hip thrust group beat the squat group on the hip thrust 3RM by 26 kg, the squat group won the squat 3RM by 14 kg, and the deadlift 3RM improved equally in both [2]. The subjects were untrained and the study ran nine weeks, limits the authors list themselves. Either lift can carry the glutes.

How to log a hip thrust

A barbell hip thrust is a load lift. It is not per-side and not bodyweight plus load, so a set is one line with the weight on the bar. The sets on the way up are warm-ups and never count toward volume. On a hip thrust in the 8 to 12 range the three working sets are normal sets at one load, with no top set, and the app reads all three when it writes the next weight.

Rate each working set by reps in reserve. RPE 10 means nothing left, 9 means one rep left and 8 means two [3]. A set saved without a rating is treated as RPE 10, the assumption the classic formulas make, so 140 kg for ten with the field blank estimates 189.4 kg instead of 205.9 kg. Epley and Brzycki both put the same set at 186.7 kg, because both assume the tenth rep was the last one available.

The squat matters for the volume count. Run a week of four squat working sets and three hip thrust working sets, warm-ups included, through the app's volume code and the glutes get 7 sets, the quads 4 and the hamstrings 3.5. The squat lists the glutes as primary, so its four sets count in full before the first hip thrust. The hamstrings take half a set wherever they are secondary. No warm-up counts, as the post on whether warm-up sets count as volume explains.

How many glute sets is enough? A meta-analysis of 15 studies found each extra weekly set linked to about 0.37 per cent more growth, a graded dose-response with no single threshold [4]. The post on weekly sets per muscle covers where that line flattens.

The warm-up ramp for 140 kg

The app builds the ramp from the planned weight of the first working set. For 140 kg, compute.mjs warmup --kg 140 returns five sets, because the 90 per cent single switches on above 120 kg.

The working weight is two 25s and a 10 on each side, from the plate calculator. A lifter who squatted first can drop the bar and the 70 kg set, since the setup is slow. Keep the 125 kg single. It tells you whether the lockout is there before the first set of ten.

What 140 kg for ten at RPE 8 is worth

Ten reps with two left means 140 kg was a 12-rep load that day. The model reads the reps-by-RPE chart along its diagonal, reps plus reps in reserve, and lands on 68 per cent of 1RM, an estimated max of 205.9 kg. The estimated 1RM guide explains how the chart is read past its published range.

Nobody needs to test that single. It is a reading that shows whether the hip thrust is getting stronger at a load you never max. The ladder below, from compute.mjs ladder --kg 140 --reps 10 --rpe 8, gives the heaviest load for each rep count at RPE 10 on that day.

Read at RPE 8 instead, the same estimate gives 152.2 kg for eight, 140 kg for ten and 133.6 kg for twelve. So 8 to 12 reps on this lift spans 68 to 78.6 per cent of the estimated max. The study that found equal glute growth from both lifts used the same 8 to 12 reps, taken to failure [2], which is one reason to keep the hip thrust in that range rather than pushing it toward triples.

How double progression moves the bar

The app has seven progression schemes: Auto, Double, Top set + back-off, Load, Reps, RIR and Manual. A range as wide as 8 to 12 runs as Double, and under Auto it runs as Double anyway. The rule holds the load, chases one more rep each session and adds the step once every working set reaches the ceiling. For a barbell lift the app's step is 2.5 kg. The full rule lives in the post on double progression.

On a hip thrust the reps arrive fast. At 140 kg, sets of 12, 12 and 12 at RPE 8 move the bar to 142.5 kg and reset the target to eight. Sets of 14, 14 and 14 tell the rule the load was too light, so it takes two steps to 145 kg. That double step is the hip thrust's version of 5 kg jumps, and it only fires when every set clears the ceiling by two reps. A first bad session at a new load holds the weight, since it could be an off day. A second one eases it back to 137.5 kg with a target of twelve.

Expect the estimate to dip on the first session after a step. Twelve at RPE 8 on 140 kg is worth 215.7 kg, and 142.5 kg for eight at RPE 8 is worth 192.8 kg, because the model rates twelve reps with two left above eight reps with two left, whatever the load. Compare like with like: 140 kg for eight at RPE 8 was worth 189.4 kg at the start of the block, so the new load is already ahead.

A planned deload week never emits an increase, and a load increase never leaks through on a cut. Five weeks away costs a little: after 35 days off, the same 140 kg for ten comes back as a 132.5 kg suggestion.

Where lifters stall on the hip thrust

The usual stall is a rating that drifts up as the plates go on. Twelve reps at RPE 10 on 140 kg is worth 205.9 kg, exactly what ten at RPE 8 was worth. A ceiling reached by grinding earns a step the strength is not there for yet. The twelfth rep comes with two in reserve or it does not count as the twelfth.

Next comes a lockout that shrinks: as the load climbs, the hips stop short of full extension and the rep still gets counted. The glute readings in the EMG study came from a full hip thrust at a 10-rep max [1],. Pause the top of the last rep of each set. If you cannot hold it, the set ended a rep earlier.

Moving the bench, the pad or the feet between sessions does the same damage more quietly. Each change alters the lift, and the rule reads the new numbers as progress or regression it did not cause. Set the bench the same way every time, and if you change the setup on purpose, log it as its own exercise.

What changes when you swap it

A Smith machine or machine hip thrust keeps the muscles and changes the step. Both are machine lifts in the app, where the increment is 1 kg. Each keeps its own history, so a machine number never pushes the barbell's next weight around.

The single-leg hip thrust is a per-side lift. It logs left then right, the working volume counts both sides, and the app tracks it as load and reps rather than reps alone, so a dumbbell on the hip goes in the weight field. It also uses the 1 kg step.

The back squat is the swap the research supports most directly: equal glute growth over nine weeks in untrained lifters, with more quadriceps and adductor growth on top [2]. It is not a like-for-like swap for the hip thrust number, since squat training moved the hip thrust 3RM 26 kg less [2]. The Romanian deadlift is the swap to make when the hamstrings need the work, because the app lists them as primary on that lift and only secondary here.

Questions

Should a hip thrust count toward my glute sets if I also squat?

Yes, both count. The squat lists the glutes as a primary muscle, so each working squat set adds one glute set, and each working hip thrust set adds another. Four squat sets and three hip thrust sets in a week give the glutes 7 sets in the app's volume count. Warm-up sets on either lift add nothing.

How much weight should I add to a hip thrust?

Add 2.5 kg on a barbell, and only once every working set reaches the top of the range at the rating you set. For three sets of 8 to 12 at RPE 8 on 140 kg, that means 12, 12 and 12 with two reps left on each, and the next session is 142.5 kg for eight. If every set clears twelve by two reps or more, the app jumps to 145 kg.