Exercise of the Month: Hip-Pop

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By Cassandra Forsythe, PhD(c), MS, CISSN

One of my favorite exercises (or movements, as it’s now fashionable to call them in strength and conditioning articles) is this one you see below.

hip-pop exercise

It's called a bench hip-pop (say it quick and it’s prounced “hip hop” as in “hip hop hooraaaay hooo….”) and it's great for getting more pop out of the top portion of your squat. You often see powerlifters doing heavy goodmornings and “throwing” their hips forward in the top part of the motion. It’s the same idea here.

For a girl like me, this is a great exercise for tightening the glutes, but for high reps can be used to help strengthen the top portion of the squat, and especially for a finishing exercise…err…movement -for bodybuilders.

The reason I love it so much is because it really targets all the gluteal muscles and the hamstrings. Personally, I do it between sets of bench, or other heavy exercises as a way to keep my heart rate up and burn more calories while I'm waiting to do my next set.

You can do it at the end of a leg workout also, or on your lower body volume day.

In my case, since mother endowed me with a nice full butt already, when I load these muscles too much, they grow more than I like. But if you’re not like me, you can probably include this movement and see it pay off with some nice strength and muscle gains – particularly if you’ve never done it before. And I’m guessing you haven’t.

With this exercise, there's only a small amount of load, but a lot of contraction -which still gets the muscles firing and burning energy, without stimulating a lot of growth.

So, what you do is lie at the bench like you see me doing here (yes, I’m the girl in the picture) with one heel on the bench and the other leg out in the air in front of you. From the floor, bring your hips up until your hips are fully extended and your glutes are well-contracted. Then, lower and repeat that movement over again for as many reps and you like -I usually perform 12 to 15.

You can also do this just on the floor or on a Swiss ball. Both are effective at waking up the butt and getting it ready to fire. And getting those muscle fibers firing translates to more strength and more muscle – not just for girls!

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Exercise of the Month: Hip-Pop

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