Glute Bridge: Muscles Worked and How to Do It
TL;DR
The glute bridge works your glutes, the muscles doing most of the work to drive your hips up. Your hamstrings help extend your hips, and your calves assist as you push through your heels. It's a simple, low-impact way to build hip strength and wake up glutes that sit idle all day.
- Primary muscle:
- Glutes
- Secondary muscles:
- Calves, Hamstrings
Muscles worked
Your glutes, especially the gluteus maximus, are the prime mover. Driving your hips up into extension is their job, and squeezing them hard at the top is what separates a glute bridge from just lifting your hips.
Your hamstrings assist at the hip, working alongside the glutes to extend it, especially if your heels are set further from your hips. Your calves help stabilize your ankles and add a small push through the floor as you drive your heels down to lift your hips.
Log Glute Bridge in PR Streak
PR Streak's library has 873 exercises, each with photos and step-by-step instructions like this one. Log this move and see what you lifted last time right next to every set, with every PR caught automatically and a chart for every exercise.
How to do it
- Begin seated on the ground with a loaded barbell over your legs. Using a fat bar or having a pad on the bar can greatly reduce the discomfort caused by this exercise. Roll the bar so that it is directly above your hips, and lay down flat on the floor.
- Begin the movement by driving through with your heels, extending your hips vertically through the bar. Your weight should be supported by your upper back and the heels of your feet.
- Extend as far as possible, then reverse the motion to return to the starting position.
Form tips
- Set your heels close enough to your hips that your shins are roughly vertical at the top.
- Push through your heels, not your toes, to keep the glutes doing the work.
- Squeeze your glutes hard at the top instead of just reaching full hip extension.
- Keep your ribs down and avoid overarching your lower back at the top.
- Lower under control instead of dropping your hips back to the floor.
Exercise details
| Equipment | Barbell |
|---|---|
| Level | Intermediate |
| Mechanic | Compound |
Used by lifters following PPL, 5x5, upper/lower, and more.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the glute bridge as effective as squats for glutes?
The glute bridge isolates hip extension more directly than a squat, which also splits demand across your quads and core. That makes it a useful accessory for building glute strength and mind-muscle connection, though most lifters get the best results pairing it with, not replacing, squats.
How do I feel the glute bridge in my glutes instead of my hamstrings?
Keep your heels closer to your hips so your shins are close to vertical, and focus on squeezing your glutes together at the top rather than just pushing your hips as high as possible. Moving your heels further away shifts more of the work onto your hamstrings.
What else should I do to build my glutes?
Pair glute bridges with compound lower-body work like squats, deadlifts or the hip thrust, which loads the same hip-extension pattern with more resistance through a longer range. Bridges are a great warm-up or accessory, not a full glute-training program on their own.
More glutes exercises
Exercise instructions and photos come from the free-exercise-db library, public domain, the same library used inside the PR Streak app.
