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Hip Thrust for Beginners & using the Smith Machine

March 31, 2021

Whether you've been working your booty muscles for a while or not, the hip thrust can be your booty's new best friend!

How to Hip Thrust using the Smith Machine

Well almost...

As long as you can do a proper glute bridge and recruit your glutes.

Why?

If you can't create a strong glute connection on a mat, putting your bodyweight on a bench which increases the difficulty of the exercise (essentially hip thrusts are glute bridges with your upper back on the bench), is likely going to become problematic for a beginner or for someone with weak core and mind muscle connection.

You're better off understanding how to do a glute bridge on the floor and ensuring you can create a 'good' posterior tilt with your pelvis first.

It may only take you a few attempts until you're ready, or a few weeks/months.

Everyone is different and there are lots of variables to consider.

If you've mastered how to do a glute bridge properly and you're ready to increase the challenge, using the smith machine is one of my favourite ways to do loaded hip thrusts.

Here's why:

1. It's easy to add incremental weights

2. It's easy to set up VS using a barbell

The barbell can require some balancing skills and ensuring you have steps to go on either side to avoid having to lift up from the floor. This becomes more of an issue depending on how tall the benches are at your gym. A small detail that you may never notice until you start doing hip thrusts. I've been to some gyms where the benches are so tall, or well at least for me being 5'2!

3. It's easy to lock and unlock. As a beginner when you're lifting weights, this can feel a bit more comforting.

Now to help you get started as a beginner or for someone who hasn't used a smith machine before, I have a video that demonstrates how to get set up without weights and then adding weights on the smith machine bar.

Don't be nervous about having to lift 20kg's as I do at first. Although you will likely work up to that quickly if you are consistent!

You could start with 5 or 10kg each side and go from there. As you improve, don't forget to increase the weight to keep your booty happy!

Check out the tutorial on how to do Hip Thrusts with the Smith Machine and subscribe to my channel to ensure you don't miss out any other useful booty and fitness tips to come!

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