Band Hip Thrust
The band hip thrust is a hip extension done with your upper back on a bench and a band stretched across your hips. It works your glutes, with hamstrings assisting. The band adds most tension at lockout, making it a strong home or warm-up option when you have no barbell for loaded thrusts.
Muscles worked
The band hip thrust trains the glutes, with hamstrings helping.
Primary
Helpers
Weekly sets for glutes
Hard sets per week that Swole.fit plans for glutes, counting every exercise that trains it. Start a cycle near the growth line and climb toward the recovery limit before a deload.
How to do the band hip thrust
- 01Sit with your upper back against a bench and stretch a band across your hips, anchored under your hands or to the floor.
- 02Plant your feet flat, about hip width apart, with knees bent so shins are vertical at the top.
- 03Tuck your chin slightly and brace your abs.
- 04Drive through your heels and lift your hips until your torso is in line with your thighs.
- 05Squeeze your glutes hard at the top, then lower your hips under control.
Coaching cues
- Chin tucked, ribs down
- Drive through the heels
- Squeeze hard at lockout
Common mistakes
- Arching your lower back at the top shifts work off your glutes, so keep ribs down and tilt the pelvis under.
- Placing your feet too far out loads the hamstrings more, so position them so shins are vertical at lockout.
- Rushing reps wastes the band's peak tension, so pause briefly at the top of each one.
How Swole.fit programs it
Log it once and the app plans the next session for you.
- Most sets land between 8 and 15 reps, the range the plan steers compound lifts toward for size.
- Week one starts around 2 to 3 reps in reserve. Each week you train a little closer to failure, ending around 0 to 1 in reserve before a deload week.
- Hit the top of the range on every set and the next session adds the smallest real jump in weight, rounded to the plates, dumbbells or stack you actually have.
- Sets for this exercise count toward your weekly volume for every muscle it trains: a full set for the primary muscles, half a set for the helpers.
The full method, with the maths, is in how mesocycles work.
Band Hip Thrust alternatives
Same muscles, different tool. Swap in one of these when the equipment is taken or your joints want a change.
Log it. Let the app plan the next one.
Track your band hip thrust free. Swole.fit picks the next weight, counts your weekly sets and tells you when to deload.