Dumbbell · intermediate · upper legs
Dumbbell single leg glute raise holds & single arm
Also called Single-leg glute bridge with dumbbell press, One-leg bridge hold with single-arm press, Single-leg bridge single-arm floor press.
You lie on your back, lift your hips into a bridge on one leg, hold that position and press a dumbbell with one arm while it stays up. The arm is the half doing repetitions, and because you are on your back it is your chest pressing the dumbbell at the ceiling rather than a shoulder pressing it overhead. The glute of the supporting leg extends the hip once and then holds it there, and the muscle at the side of that hip keeps your pelvis level, which in a measured single-leg bridge was working at least as hard as the glute the exercise is named after.
How to do it
- Step oneLie on your back with one knee bent and the other leg extended, holding a dumbbell in the opposite hand.
- Step twoDrive the hips upward by contracting the glute of the bent leg into a single-leg bridge.
- Step threeAt the top, perform a dumbbell press or lateral raise with the arm holding the weight.
- Step fourLower the dumbbell and then lower your hips back to the ground.
- Step fiveComplete all repetitions on one side before switching.
What usually goes wrong
Each starts with what you would notice.
Once you are up, the hip on your free-leg side sits lower than the other one.
WhyOne leg is under your pelvis and the other is not, so something has to hold the pelvis square across that gap. The job belongs to the muscle at the side of the supporting hip, and when it cannot keep up, the unsupported side drops. In a measured single-leg bridge, that muscle read higher than the glute the exercise is named after.
FixGet square before the dumbbell moves. Lay your free hand flat on the floor and use it as a reference, and lift until your hip bones feel level rather than until the hips feel highest.
The back of your thigh is what feels worked, and the glute barely registers.
WhyThat is normal in this position and bigger than most people expect. When a single-leg bridge was measured, the hamstrings read higher than either gluteal muscle, in an exercise named for the glutes. Where the supporting heel sits is what moves that reading.
FixBring the supporting heel an inch or two nearer your hips and hold again. In the same study, taking the knee into a deeper bend cut the hamstring reading to under a third of what it had been while the glute reading hardly changed.
Your hips drift down as the presses go on.
WhyThe arm is what you are counting, so the hip is what stops being watched. The bridge has no repetitions in it, which is exactly why it slips without announcing itself.
FixPress slowly enough to feel the hip position between reps, and end the set when the hips drop rather than when the arm runs out. The half with no reps in it has no other way of telling you it is done.
You are doing the lateral raise version and it feels like nothing at all.
WhyBecause there is almost nothing to raise against. Gravity pulls straight down, and lying on your back an arm traveling out to the side moves across that pull rather than into it. The same raise standing up is loaded by the gravity that does nothing for it here.
FixPress the dumbbell toward the ceiling instead. That is the direction the weight actually resists from this position, and it is the version that loads your chest at all.
What it is for
The single leg glute raise holds and single arm dumbbell exercise combines a single-leg glute bridge hold with an upper body dumbbell movement to train the glutes and shoulders simultaneously. It targets the glutes through the bridge and challenges core stability throughout.
Questions people ask
- What muscles does the single-leg glute raise hold with a single arm work?
- Split it in two. Doing repetitions: the chest presses the dumbbell up, the front of the shoulder assists and the triceps straighten the elbow. Holding position and never changing length: the glute of the supporting leg, the muscle at the side of that hip keeping the pelvis level, the hamstring of that leg assisting, and your abs stopping your ribs flaring as the arm works.
- Should I press or do a lateral raise?
- Press. This exercise's own instructions offer either, but only one of them is loaded. Lying on your back, a dumbbell taken out to the side moves sideways across gravity instead of against it, so there is no resistance in that direction to work against.
- Why do I feel this in my hamstrings and not my glutes?
- Because in a measured single-leg bridge the hamstrings read higher than either gluteal muscle, so it is a property of the position rather than a sign about you. Heel distance is the variable that moves it: with the knee taken into a deeper bend, the same study recorded the hamstring at under a third of its earlier reading while the glute stayed about where it was.
- Does this build your glutes?
- It holds them. The hip extends once and then stays put, which makes it an isometric, and isometric training has been shown to raise strength mostly at the joint angle trained and the angles nearest to it. So this trains holding a hip open at the top of its range. Building across a range needs something that moves.
- How long should I hold the bridge?
- For as long as the arm reps take, and no longer than the hips stay level. We do not publish a duration. The useful limit is positional: when the pelvis tips or the hips sink, the hold is finished whatever the arm has left in it.
- Is this better than doing the two exercises separately?
- It is quicker, and that is the honest case for it. Apart, you can load a bridge with weight across your hips and press a bigger dumbbell with your back supported. Together, the glute gets whatever your own body over one leg supplies and the chest gets whatever you can hold steady while bridging.