Muscles worked
The glutes on your supporting leg do most of the work, and your hamstrings usually have far more to do than in a standard glute bridge, because your foot is higher than your hips. The straighter your knee, the more you tend to feel it in your hamstrings. The side of your hip keeps your pelvis level. With your whole body on one leg, it is demanding even without added weight.
Common mistakes
- Your foot is too far out on the edge. With only part of your heel on the bench, your foot can slip off mid-set. Put your whole heel, or your whole foot, on a bench or box that will not move.
- Your free leg helps out. A leg that swings upwards adds momentum and takes work away from your glutes. Keep it still throughout the set, either with the knee pulled towards your chest or with the leg pointing straight up.
- You rest on the floor between reps. Lower until your bum almost touches the floor and go straight back up, so no rep starts with a break.
Variations and alternatives
- The glute bridge with both feet on the floor is the base to build before moving to one leg.
- The marching glute bridge is a halfway step, with one leg at a time for a moment.
- The single leg hip thrust has your shoulders on the bench instead of your foot and usually puts more of the work on your glutes.
- The slider leg curl suits you if it is mainly your hamstrings you want to train at home.
Sets and reps
Two to four sets of 8 to 15 reps per leg work for most people. Let your weaker leg set the number of reps, and do the same on the stronger one. The guide to sets and reps helps you pick a range, and most sets can go to within one or two reps of failure, as covered in the guide to reps in reserve.
Once 15 reps feels easy, hold the top for a couple of seconds, lower more slowly, or rest a dumbbell or weight plate across your hips. That is progressive overload. Log what you did on each leg, so you can see whether the two sides drift apart over time.