Horizontal Hip Extension
Hip Thrust Strength Standards
The hip thrust is the one big lift where the numbers routinely beat the deadlift, which makes it hard to know what is good. Enter your bodyweight and this page gives your beginner to elite hip thrust figures and tells you which one your best lift sits in.
Find Your Hip Thrust Level
Enter your bodyweight, pick your sex, and put in your best lift. Everything below updates as you type.
What the Hip Thrust Really Measures
Glute strength at the point where every other lift gets easy.
In a hip thrust your upper back rests on a bench, your feet are planted, a padded bar sits across your hips, and you drive the hips up until your torso and thighs make a straight line. The resistance is horizontal rather than vertical, which means the hardest point is full extension, exactly where a squat or a deadlift has already finished. That is the whole argument for the exercise: it loads the glutes at the position where they do their real work.
It also explains why the loads look so alarming. Nobody is lifting the bar very far, the back is supported, and the lockout position is the strongest one your hips have. A person who deadlifts 300 lb will often thrust well past it in their first year of trying, and that is a normal result rather than a sign that something has been measured wrongly.
Where These Numbers Come From
A shade above your deadlift at first, a shade below it once you are advanced.
These standards start from the deadlift figures on our strength standards page, because both lifts are hip extension under load and the deadlift is this site's anchor for the posterior chain. Beginners thrust about 1.2 times their deadlift, intermediates about 1.1 times, and advanced and elite lifters about equal to it or slightly under, because a serious deadlift eventually outgrows an exercise with a short range and a supported back.
Women's numbers come out relatively higher than men's here, and that is not a thumb on the scale. It follows from the deadlift standards themselves, where the gap between men and women is narrower than it is on the pressing lifts, and it matches what most coaches see: the hip thrust is a lift where trained women hold loads that surprise people.
| Level | Share of the deadlift standard |
|---|---|
| Beginner | 120 percent |
| Novice | 115 percent |
| Intermediate | 110 percent |
| Advanced | 100 percent |
| Elite | 95 percent |
These standards are estimates derived from typical ratios to the main lifts, rounded to the nearest 5 lb. The bench, squat, deadlift and overhead press figures they are built on are the bodyweight-ratio approximations published on our strength standards page, which are aligned with widely used references in the strength and conditioning field including ExRx.net. Nothing here is measured lab data, and no table anywhere else has been copied. Treat every figure as a target to aim at, not a verdict on you.
Hip Thrust Standards for Men
Estimated 1-rep max on the bar, by bodyweight.
| Bodyweight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 110 lb | 130 lb | 190 lb | 240 lb | 275 lb | 315 lb |
| 130 lb | 155 lb | 225 lb | 285 lb | 325 lb | 370 lb |
| 150 lb | 180 lb | 260 lb | 330 lb | 375 lb | 425 lb |
| 170 lb | 205 lb | 295 lb | 375 lb | 425 lb | 485 lb |
| 190 lb (your bodyweight) | 230 lb | 330 lb | 420 lb | 475 lb | 540 lb |
| 210 lb | 250 lb | 360 lb | 460 lb | 525 lb | 600 lb |
| 230 lb | 275 lb | 395 lb | 505 lb | 575 lb | 655 lb |
| 250 lb | 300 lb | 430 lb | 550 lb | 625 lb | 710 lb |
Hip Thrust Standards for Women
Estimated 1-rep max on the bar, by bodyweight.
| Bodyweight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 110 lb | 80 lb | 125 lb | 155 lb | 210 lb | 250 lb |
| 130 lb | 95 lb | 150 lb | 185 lb | 245 lb | 295 lb |
| 150 lb | 110 lb | 175 lb | 215 lb | 285 lb | 340 lb |
| 170 lb | 120 lb | 195 lb | 245 lb | 325 lb | 390 lb |
| 190 lb | 135 lb | 220 lb | 270 lb | 360 lb | 435 lb |
| 210 lb | 150 lb | 240 lb | 300 lb | 400 lb | 480 lb |
| 230 lb | 165 lb | 265 lb | 330 lb | 435 lb | 525 lb |
| 250 lb | 180 lb | 290 lb | 360 lb | 475 lb | 570 lb |
A Worked Example
A 140 lb woman working out where she stands.
A 140 lb woman at the intermediate standard deadlifts 180 lb and hip thrusts 200 lb. Say she does ten solid reps with 155 lb, pausing at the top of each. That estimates to about 205 lb for a single, so she is sitting right on the intermediate line of 200 lb and has 265 lb waiting as the advanced target.
The gap from intermediate to advanced on this lift is bigger than on most, so a jump like that is a training block or two of work rather than a few weeks. It is worth pairing the thrust with a lift that has a longer range, because a thrust number that races ahead of everything else is telling you about one position rather than about your hips in general.
What These Standards Cannot Tell You
The setup is doing more of the work than you think.
Bench height, pad thickness, foot placement and how far you lean back all move the load by a large margin, and none of them are visible in a number. A thrust done with the shins vertical at the top and a slow pause is a different lift from one bounced off the floor with the feet forward. Standardise your setup first, then compare.
It is also worth being clear about what a big hip thrust does not buy you. Transfer to sprinting, jumping and the deadlift is real but modest, and the lift trains a very short range at the strongest end of hip extension. Use these standards as a scale for the thrust, not as a proxy for how strong your hips are everywhere else.
More Tools
Weigh up the hips, then the rest of the lower body.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about these standards.
How much should I be able to hip thrust?
A 140 lb woman at the intermediate level thrusts about 200 lb, and a 190 lb man about 420 lb. Enter your bodyweight in the tool at the top of the page to see your beginner, novice, intermediate, advanced and elite figures.
What is the average hip thrust weight?
People who train the hip thrust seriously usually sit between the novice and intermediate rows. For a 140 lb woman that is an estimated single of 160 to 200 lb, so working sets of ten near 120 to 160 lb. Beginners are commonly working with the bar plus a plate a side.
Should my hip thrust be heavier than my deadlift?
Early on, yes, usually by around ten to twenty percent, because the range is short and the back is supported. As your deadlift becomes genuinely strong the two converge, and advanced lifters often thrust about the same as they deadlift or a little less.
Does the barbell weight count in these numbers?
Yes. Every figure is the total load on the bar including the bar itself, which is 45 lb for a standard Olympic barbell. Thrust pads and mats do not count.
Why are the women's hip thrust standards close to the men's?
Because they inherit the deadlift relationship from our main standards, where men and women sit closer together than they do on pressing lifts. The hip thrust is genuinely a lift where trained women handle loads close to men of similar training age and size.
How are these hip thrust standards calculated?
Each level is a share of the deadlift standard for the same bodyweight and sex, from 1.2 times at beginner down to 0.95 times at elite, rounded to the nearest 5 lb. They are estimates derived from typical ratios, not measured data.