Hip thrusts are not only a , they’re also a great confidence-builder—most of us can learn to hip thrust a of weight once we get the hang of the exercise. This success brings a small problem, though: How do you lift all that weight on your hips without getting bruised? I’ll explain. Hip thrusts go best with padding of some sort.
You can buy pads that wrap around the bar, cushions that sit in your lap, or you can even improvise with stuff you find around the gym. (My favorite solution is one that’s sold as a bar pad, but we’ll get to that.) Before we talk about padding, we have to talk positioning.
When you set up for hip thrusts, you’ll want the bar in the crease of your hip. That puts it your pubic bone (the one right at the center of your crotch), but your iliac crests (those two bones you can feel at the front of each hip, above the crease). This is the ideal spot because it avoids each of those bony areas.
If you think of having the bar “on your lap,” you might end up with it riding over your pubic bone. And hopefully you aren’t rolling it all the way up toward your belly, but if you are, you might hit those iliac crests. So adjust accordingly.
If you’re having trouble getting the bar into that hip crease area, take a look at your overall setup. If your back is on a bench, and you’re starting with your butt on the floor, you’ll probably have an easier time with positioning if you swap the bench for something shorter—like a , a pair of , or an . I�.