Sober hip thrusts are one of the best exercises for building your buttocks, glutes, and quads. If your goal is to pump up these powerhouse muscles, this is also one of the best gluteal exercises for building muscle in your back.

You can do the exercise with kettlebells, one of the best adjustable dumbbells, barbells or resistance bands. My favorite is the barbell hip thrust, which offers the most weight gain but is also notoriously the most difficult to master. No matter which variation of the thrust exercise you choose, holding the weight with your hips and performing a hip extension will strengthen your gluteus maximus, hip flexors, and quadriceps muscles, which will help your muscles develop.

As a trainer, this is the thrust exercise I recommend to work the glutes hard. Here I will show you why I stick with this thrust exercise, common mistakes I make, and how to add it to your strength program.

The glutes are part of your core muscle network, along with your abdominals and deep stabilizers. However, people with sedentary lifestyles or office jobs often find that their glutes and buttocks are stiffer and weaker than those with more active lifestyles. As a result, the lower back is compressed, which can lead to hip, knee, and ankle problems.

This thrust exercise strengthens the glutes and muscles around the hips and knees, including the gluteus maximus, gluteus minimus, gluteus medius, hip flexors, quadriceps, hamstrings, adductor muscles (inner thighs), and trunk. In addition, the glutes stabilize the pelvis, rotate the hip joints, and support lower body movement, posture, and balance. Therefore, keeping the glutes strong and active is critical. [Therefore, this exercise is recommended for people with weak glutes and for those who want to build strength and muscle tone in the lower body. For that reason, this exercise is recommended for people who have weak glutes or who want to build lower body strength and muscle tone. Over time, as you improve your thrust capacity, you will be able to apply it to other exercises such as pull-throughs and deadlifts, allowing you to lift heavier weights more powerfully and with less stress on your lower back.

The proper way to perform hip thrusts can be found here. Most Olympic bars in gyms start at 15 kg (33 lbs.), so try to build up to this weight before attempting lifts with the bar.

A common mistake with hip thrusts is foot position. If the feet are placed too close together, the exercise will be quadriceps-dominant, and if the feet are too far apart, the hamstrings will be emphasized. Shoulder-width apart is best for glute contraction, but it doesn't hurt to try the method that works best for you first. If your knees begin to dip, I recommend placing this $10 accessory between your thighs and giving them a healthy rub.

Other mistakes include rounding your back too much, slouching too much, and not engaging your entire core. The thighs should be parallel to the floor, so that the shoulders and knees are in a straight line.

The following workout can be added to your existing strength training, but we recommend the glute activation exercises first. The 7-minute resistance band glute training with a resistance band, created by "Glute Guy" Bret Contreras, who is famous for inventing the hip thrust, is one of the best activation routines to try before trying the hip thrust exercises.

Progressive overload should be employed to build strength and muscle tone in the glutes. Progressive overload means gradually increasing the volume and load to encourage muscle adaptation; you cannot build a well-rounded back overnight with a single workout, but a well-rounded and consistent program will allow you to persevere.

Workouts by getfitbyivana include medium-heavy loop bands (you can find some in our Best Resistance Bands guide) and dumbbells. Beginners should practice with their own body weight and lighter weights until they feel their muscles moving. You will learn the difference between muscle hypertrophy and strength training, and the sets and rep ranges needed to achieve your goals are also explained.

Begin with a pre-fatigue set of 8 exercises for 30 seconds each, then move to a 10-exercise workout with 45 seconds of work and 20 seconds of rest. The pre-fatigue set will activate the glutes well with clamshells, pulses, and holds, while the hip thrust challenge will combine hip thrusts, abductions, and pulse exercises.

Working all the glutes, not just the glutes, is important to keep the lower body strong and mobile, and abductions are a great way to target and strengthen the middle glutes. Exercising on various planes is the best way to hit various muscle groups you might otherwise miss, and pulse pulses increase strength to work muscles made harder by your resistance bands.

According to the Strength and Conditioning Journal, barbell hip thrusts maximize glute activation and hip extensor strength. This is because the muscles are under tension throughout the entire movement (referred to as time under tension TUT) and the bar position creates a different activation pattern than, for example, vertical loading of a squat.

In this short hip thrust workout, Ivana slows down the exercise to utilize the TUT technique, although she chooses dumbbells instead. She must put more effort into the glutes and hip extensors without straining the hamstrings and quads.

And guess what? Taking the time to increase glute strength, power, and size also improves running, mobility, and athletic performance--win-win.