reckonerMachine glute kickback
Brace on the pads, push the plate back through your heel and let the glute do the pushing. It loads hip extension one leg at a time, without a bar on your back and without a bench under your shoulders. It is a useful addition, and the review of glute training we found does not make it the foundation2.
Squeeze the glute, don't arch the back.
- Pattern
- Hip isolation
- Trains
- Glutes
- Kit
- Machine glute kickback
- Loading
- A weight you choose
- Reckoner prescribes
- 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps at RPE 8
- Progression step
- 5 kg once the top of the range is clean
- Skill
- Simple to learn
- Recovery cost
- Low
Muscles worked
How to do it
Set the pads and the start position
Brace on the pads the way the machine intends and place the working foot on the plate. Every machine has its own adjustments, and the aim is the same on all of them: set up so the push comes from the hip.
Squeeze to push the plate back
Push the plate back through the heel by squeezing the glute. Think of it as straightening the hip rather than lifting the foot.
Stop before the lower back arches
End the rep when the hip stops moving and before the lower back starts to arch. Extra height from the spine is not extra work for the glute.
Return slowly, then do the other side
Let the plate come back under control to the start. Finish your sets on one side, then do the same on the other so both sides get the same work.
What goes wrong
Arching the lower back to get the leg higher
The leg goes higher because the spine moved, not because the hip did. The range you want is the hip's, and it ends where the back starts to move.
Swinging the leg back
A kick at the start gives the stack momentum, so the push through the rest of the range is lighter than the weight says. A slow push through the whole range is a harder rep at the same load.
Logging one side and forgetting the other
The machine works one leg at a time, so it is easy to finish a set and walk away. Do both sides, and log the set you did on each.
How Reckoner progresses this lift
Six weeks of this lift, run through the real engine. Nothing below was typed in: the prescription, the decision and the sentence beside it all come from the same code that writes your week.
| Week | Prescribed | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 x 10 | More reps 10 → 11 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 2 | 3 x 11 | More reps 11 → 12 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 3 | 3 x 12 | More reps 12 → 13 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 4 | 3 x 13 | More reps 13 → 14 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 5 | 3 x 14 | Deload 40% of sets offFive weeks of building, then one week lighter. About 40% of the sets come off. The load holds and your reps stay where you earned them, so you keep the strength and lose the fatigue. |
| 6 | 2 x 14 | More reps 14 → 15 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. The lighter week is over, so this is back to three sets. |
Real engine output, not an illustration. Every row was produced by running the engine itself when this page was generated.
The full rule, and why the reps move before the load does, is in how Reckoner decides to add weight.
Questions people ask
How do kickbacks compare for the glutes?
In 15 trained women lifting at 75 per cent of an estimated maximum, glute activity in cable kickbacks was as high as in the Romanian deadlift, the step up and a 45 degree hip extension, and higher than in the machine leg curl and the Nordic hamstring curl1. That was a cable and not this machine. The same study found the upper hamstring more active in the kickback than in the first three, which is why the hamstrings are listed as helpers.
Is a kickback enough to build the glutes?
It is one tool among several. A meta-analysis of 12 trials found resistance training with hip extension had a moderate effect on glute size, and said that when the aim is the glutes at the expense of other muscles, single exercises such as the barbell hip thrust should be prioritized. Kneeling hip extensions were among the options that promoted growth2. No trial we found tested this machine.
Will Reckoner put this machine in my plan?
Not by itself, and on purpose. The engine never places this machine for you: you reach it by choosing it in a swap or in the movement picker, and a lane you have put it on keeps it. Because it is done one side at a time, the library marks it as a one side lift and your sets are recorded as left and right.
Similar movements
Reckoner eases the load first when this lift stalls, and offers one of these only if it stalls again after that. A lift already as light as your kit goes has no load left to ease, so the offer comes straight away. Each of them has a page.
Sources
- Stevens and colleagues, International Journal of Exercise Science, 2022. Muscle activation patterns of the proximal, medial and distal biceps femoris and gluteus maximus among 6 hip extension and knee flexion exercises in trained women 15 trained women lifting at 75 per cent of an estimated maximum, with cable kickback glute activity as high as the Romanian deadlift, step up and 45 degree hip extension and higher than the leg curl and Nordic curl
- Krause Neto and colleagues, Frontiers in Physiology, 2025. The impact of resistance training on gluteus maximus hypertrophy: a systematic review and meta-analysis 12 articles, with a moderate effect of hip extension resistance training on glute size and a recommendation to prioritize single exercises such as the barbell hip thrust when the glutes are the aim