Good Hip Thrust Weight By Age And Gender

A good hip thrust weight for most recreational lifters is roughly 1x your bodyweight as a novice, climbing to 1.5x or more as you get stronger.

Women often reach about 1.5 to 2x bodyweight at the intermediate stage, while men land around 1.75 to 2.5x.

“Good” always depends on your bodyweight, gender, age, and experience.

Below we break down the full strength standards by gender, level, and age, then show you exactly how to convert your numbers and keep progressing safely.

What Counts as a Good Hip Thrust Weight?

The biggest source of confusion is comparing the wrong numbers. Most people quote the weight they lift for reps, but strength tables report a one-rep max. Mixing those up makes a solid lifter feel weak and a beginner feel elite.

Working Weight vs One-Rep Max

Almost nobody trains by maxing out. You probably lift in sets of reps, often 3 sets of 10, so your 10-rep max is the real-world number you actually care about.

Strength Level and most standards charts report something different: your one-rep max (1RM). That is the single heaviest weight you could move for one clean rep. Same exercise, very different figures.

How to Convert Between Them

Your 10-rep max is roughly 75% of your 1RM. To estimate your 1RM, multiply your 10-rep weight by about 1.33. You can run the exact math through any one-rep max calculator if you want precision.

Worked example: if you hip thrust 135 lb for 10 reps, your estimated 1RM is about 180 lb. Bump that to 185 lb for 10 reps and your estimated max climbs to roughly 247 lb.

Your 10-rep weight	Estimated 1RM (x1.33)
100 lb	133 lb
135 lb	180 lb
185 lb	246 lb

One caveat: the formula gets less accurate above 10 reps, and the hip thrust’s stable position lets some people grind out extra reps, which can slightly overestimate a true max. Treat the number as a tracking tool, not a guarantee.

We give the gender and level tables below in 1RM (sourced from Strength Level’s roughly 1.2 million logged lifts) and the age tables in 10-rep working weight. With the conversion above, you can move between either format in seconds.

Hip Thrust Standards by Gender, Level, and Bodyweight

Want the honest answer to “Is my hip thrust good?” Start here.

Absolute loads differ between men and women, but the bodyweight ratios track closely, so find your level below, then check the ratio section to see how you really stack up.

Standards for Women

Level	1RM (lb)	1RM (kg)	Bodyweight ratio
Beginner	66 lb	30 kg	0.5x
Novice	124 lb	56 kg	1x
Intermediate	205 lb	93 kg	1.5x
Advanced	306 lb	139 kg	2.25x
Elite	421 lb	191 kg	3x

These figures come from Strength Level, and they include the 44 lb (20 kg) barbell in the total. The intermediate 205 lb mark is the average for women who train regularly, and it already counts as a very strong lift.

Standards for Men

Level	1RM (lb)	1RM (kg)	Bodyweight ratio
Beginner	84 lb	38 kg	0.5x
Novice	167 lb	76 kg	1x
Intermediate	284 lb	129 kg	1.75x
Advanced	432 lb	196 kg	2.5x
Elite	603 lb	274 kg	3.5x

As with the women’s chart, these Strength Level numbers include the weight of the 44 lb (20 kg) bar. A 284 lb intermediate hip thrust is the male average and beats roughly half of all lifters.

The Fairest Test: Your Bodyweight Ratio

Raw plates on the bar don’t mean much until you account for body size. A 130 lb lifter and a 220 lb lifter pushing the same weight are doing very different things, and the bodyweight ratio normalizes that gap.

The ladder is simple: 0.5x is beginner, 1x is novice, 1.5 to 1.75x is intermediate, 2.25 to 2.5x is advanced, and 3 to 3.5x is elite. The same rungs apply to both genders, so use it as your honest scorecard regardless of the plates involved.

So where does a 2x bodyweight hip thrust sit? For a woman, that’s between intermediate and advanced, a level only a minority of regular lifters reach.

Getting there is mostly about consistency. Pairing the lift with smart accessory work like these glute-building home exercises speeds the climb.

Hip Thrust Standards by Age

Your strongest years aren’t permanent, and that’s completely fine. Here’s what realistic working weights look like across the decades, plus why the numbers shift.

Working Weight by Age

These are 10-rep working-weight ranges, not maxes, so they reflect what people actually load on the bar in a normal session.

Age	Women (10RM)	Men (10RM)
Under 30	121-176 lb (55-80 kg)	176-264 lb (80-120 kg)
30-39	110-165 lb (50-75 kg)	165-242 lb (75-110 kg)
40-49	99-154 lb (45-70 kg)	154-220 lb (70-100 kg)
50-59	88-132 lb (40-60 kg)	132-198 lb (60-90 kg)
60+	66-110 lb (30-50 kg)	110-165 lb (50-75 kg)

Find your row, then judge yourself against your own decade rather than the 25-year-old next to you.

Why Strength Declines With Age

Strength typically slips about 5 to 8% per decade after 45. The 1RM standards show it clearly: men drop from 284 lb at their peak (ages 25 to 40) to 252 lb at 50 and 173 lb at 70. Women move from 205 lb to 181 lb at 50 and 124 lb at 70.

That’s roughly a 25% fall between age 40 and 60, and it is normal physiology, not failure. Much of the decline is sarcopenia, the age-related loss of muscle that can reach up to 8% per decade after 65, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

The encouraging part is that resistance training is the primary treatment. So every hip thrust you do now is buying strength you get to keep for decades.

Why You Can Hip Thrust More Than You Squat

If your hip thrust dwarfs your squat or deadlift, nothing is wrong with you. That gap is expected, and three plain reasons explain it.

First, the loading vector. The hip thrust pushes the weight horizontally against your hips, a leverage setup that lets you handle far more load than a vertical squat.

Second, the range of motion is short. You move the bar a few inches at the hips instead of sinking into a deep squat, so there’s simply less distance to grind through.

Third, your glutes are loaded hardest exactly where they’re strongest, at full hip extension during the lockout. The exercise lines up the heaviest demand with your most powerful position.

The research backs this up. In the Contreras et al. EMG study, the barbell hip thrust produced far higher glute activation than the back squat (upper glute about 69.5% vs 29.4%, lower glute 86.8% vs 45.4%), and glute activity peaked at full extension rather than the squat’s deep bottom position.

That’s why the two lifts deserve their own spots in a program. If you’re stacking them, doing the squat and deadlift on the same day covers how to balance the load without frying your hips.

Weight Isn’t Everything: Form Comes First

A huge number on the bar means nothing if you feel it everywhere except your glutes. Two form issues separate real glute work from wasted reps.

Arching Lower Back

Lumbar hyperextension is the most common fault by far. Instead of tucking the pelvis at the top, lifters crank their lower back to fake a fuller lockout, and the glutes barely fire.

Fix it with four cues: posterior pelvic tilt (tuck your hips under), ribcage pulled down, shins roughly vertical at the top, and chin tucked toward your chest.

If you feel the lift in your lower back, either the weight is too heavy or you’re driving past neutral at the top.

Are You Actually Feeling It in Your Glutes?

Glute activation comes down to setup. Rest your shoulders on the edge of the bench, not your mid-back, and drive through your heels on every rep.

If you feel quads instead, your feet are probably too close; too much hamstring usually means they’re too far forward. Aim for vertical shins at the top, where the glutes contract hardest.

Small details matter here too. A proper pad keeps the bar comfortable so you can actually push hard, and the single-leg hip thrust forces each glute to work on its own, exposing left-right imbalances without adding a plate.

And skip the ego-lifting. Half-reps under a loaded bar miss the top contraction where the glutes work hardest, train the wrong pattern, and stall your growth while looking more impressive than they are.

How to Progress Your Hip Thrust Safely

Getting stronger is mostly patience plus the right rep range. Here’s how to build load without stalling or getting hurt.

Pick the Right Rep Range

Match your reps to your goal:

Goal	Reps	% of 1RM
Power	3-6	80-90%
Strength	6-10	70-80%
Hypertrophy (growth)	10-15	60-70%

The most popular setup, and a great default for glute growth, is 3 sets of 10. Strength Level’s logs show it’s the single most common scheme for both men and women.

How to Add Weight Over Time

Progressive overload is the whole game, and small jumps win. Most lifters reach around 1.5 to 2x bodyweight fairly quickly because the hip thrust is far less technical than a squat, then the top-end gains take roughly 6 to 12 months of steady work.

When you add load, go up about 10% at most, or use small fractional plates (0.5 to 2.5 kg). Better yet, add reps before you add weight, so you earn the next jump.

You can also overload without more plates by slowing your tempo or shifting to single-leg work. Plateaus are normal and just mean you’ve left the beginner stage, so don’t panic when one shows up.

Frequency helps too, and our take on whether it’s bad to do squats every day applies to lower-body volume in general.

To round out your training, a complementary machine move like the reverse hack squat hits the legs from a different angle.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a 2x bodyweight hip thrust good?

Yes, a 2x bodyweight hip thrust is very good. It sits between the intermediate and advanced levels on the standard strength charts. That’s genuinely impressive for anyone, and especially strong for women, who tend to reach this range a little less often than men.

Why can I hip thrust more than I squat?

Because the hip thrust has a shorter range of motion, more favorable leverage, and loads your glutes hardest at lockout, exactly where they’re strongest. The squat moves the weight a longer vertical distance through weaker positions, so almost everyone lifts noticeably more on the hip thrust.

How do I convert my 10-rep weight to a one-rep max?

Multiply your 10-rep weight by about 1.33 to estimate your one-rep max. So if you hip thrust 135 lb for 10 reps, your estimated max is roughly 180 lb. It’s an estimate, not a guarantee, but it’s accurate enough for tracking progress.

Is it normal for hip thrust strength to drop with age?

Yes, some decline is normal, usually around 5 to 8% per decade after age 45. The good news is that consistent resistance training dramatically slows this drop. Many older lifters stay far stronger than their peers simply by keeping the hip thrust in their routine.

Why do I feel hip thrusts in my lower back instead of my glutes?

Usually, it’s because you’re arching your lower back at the top instead of using your glutes. Tuck your pelvis under, keep your ribs pulled down, and squeeze through full hip extension at the lockout. Lowering the weight slightly often fixes it instantly.

Conclusion

Judge a good hip thrust by your bodyweight ratio, not by the plates alone. Around 1x bodyweight is a solid novice number, 1.5 to 1.75x is intermediate, and 2x or more is genuinely strong, especially when you adjust for your age and gender.

Remember that hip thrusting more than you squat is normal, not a fluke. Chase clean lockouts over heavy half-reps, keep your pelvis tucked, and add weight in small, earned steps.