Study: Back Squat produces better glute growth than hip thrust

[seeker47]

@dawn16 Actually that's not true, a lot of people (me included) believed Bret's theory that hip thrusts are much better at growing glutes than squats.

 

[brad94]

@dawn16 Many people have, actually. Take this girl -

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

she credits the growth in the 3rd picture to hip thrusts. There are hundreds of posts like this. Then again, hip thrusts did a poor job at strengthening the lower parts of my butt. So now I don’t know what to believe

 

[dawn16]

@brad94 I think the real takeaway is that there is no perfect exercise, and if you want a strong posterior chain, you should include a variety of compound exercises including squats, hip thrusts, deadlift variations, and clean variations. There’s no one exercise that’s the panacea.

 

[hawkestorm]

@dawn16 Nah, you’ll see tons of people all over the internet saying that the squat isn’t that great for growing glutes.

 

[ephraimite]

@dawn16 I don’t follow Bret Contreas anymore but even he in the past has always recommended you include all compounds.

This is a good analysis of it that touches on why there’s no need to leave out one for another: https://mennohenselmans.com/squats-vs-hip-thrusts/

 

[mar254]

@dawn16 I found that I like hip thrusts because I can throw loads of weight on without any fear of getting stuck when failing. I still do both exercises but tend to be more cautious with BS progression than HT.

 

[kittycat400]

@mar254 I've recently swapped back squats for hip thrusts completely for the same reason. My gym doesn't have safeties of any kind, and I go during open gym hours (it's a group fitness gym) when hardly anyone is there. I've gotten too scared of failing to keep progressing with squats so I just don't do them now.

 

[dawn16]

@mar254 Do you squat in a rack without safeties?

 

[seeker47]

@mar254 sameee are we going to the same gym? Only one rack has safeties at my gym. Yesterday I actually got a scare because i didn't brace properly before a rep and was struggling to get the barbell back up thank god I made it, with shit form but I managed not to break my neck so... D:

 

[lijoice]

@mar254 It kind of blows my mind that a commercial gym wouldn't have safeties on every rack.

 

[dawn16]

@lijoice Could be a gym with a wall-wide rig like this. Many CrossFit gyms or gyms with functional fitness areas have them, and in my experience most places like that don’t keep safety arms around for the rig and limit them to the dedicated power racks.

 

[lijoice]

@dawn16 I hadn't considered CrossFit boxes, but for those I imagine you'd just dump the weight behind you.

 

[mar254]

@dawn16 Yeah, a bunch of the racks are just like that. There's a couple of stand alone racks that have the safeties on.

 

[montecristodog]

@dawn16 I tried Crossfit for a bit and they had a wall wide thing like this. One of the first things they taught us was how to toss a barbell behind you if you can’t get back up. Rubber plates+a rubber floor= no damage if you just shove the barbell off your shoulders behind you and bail forwards. Never got to the point of needing it though, thankfully.

 

[lijoice]

@montecristodog Another thing you can do, though this is more for metal weights, is to leave the ends of the bars open so if you fail a rep you can tilt the bar and the weights will slide off.

 

[mrkruback]

@dawn16 The hip thrust does fire the quads, though, very strongly. At least according to EMG testing (whether emg activity correlates to muscle growth is another matter).

 

[ephraimite]

@mrkruback Definitely true it does fire and it does produce growth. However important to note that this study showed hip thrusts produced an average 2% growth in quads and 4% growth in glutes. Squats produced 12% and 9% growth respectively. So hip thrusts produced a lot less quad growth proportionally to glutes whereas the squats actually grew the quads proportionally more. I’m sure that definitely helps drive the trend.

 

[johannammmm]

@ephraimite yeah this is why I love HT's because my quads have always grown a lot faster and easier than my glutes so I need exercises specifically for glutes to balance it out

 

[dawn16]

@mrkruback Yeah I definitely feel them in my quads, maybe just as much as my glutes

 

[transparency]

@dawn16 I personally think hip thrusts are way easier than squats, hence the current trend. People want results without the work.