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The Man Who Invented the Hip Thrust on The Science of Glutes | Mind Pump 2947

Build your program around progress, not novelty: choose a few movements you can load safely, train them consistently, and rotate emphasis before pain forces you to stop. This week, pick one lower-body lift to prioritize, track your sets and reps, and keep other demanding patterns at maintenance volu

1h 38m
Mind Pump Show

Key Takeaway

Build your program around progress, not novelty: choose a few movements you can load safely, train them consistently, and rotate emphasis before pain forces you to stop. This week, pick one lower-body lift to prioritize, track your sets and reps, and keep other demanding patterns at maintenance volume. If a joint hurts, do not push through it—swap to a pain-free variation such as a machine, unilateral movement, or different range of motion.

Episode Overview

Brett Contreras joins Mind Pump to discuss the genetic and training factors behind glute development, including why some people respond better to certain exercises than others. He argues for progressive overload, a stronger mind-muscle connection, and intelligent exercise variation rather than chasing viral “secret” movements. The conversation also explores injury prevention, specialization training, and Brett’s reflections on purpose, relationships, and staying useful through hands-on coaching.

Key Insights

Train for your structure, not an influencer’s promise

Contreras estimates that genetics account for a large share of glute shape, including skeletal structure, muscle insertions, and where someone stores fat. Training can still improve strength, muscle, function, and appearance, but expectations should be based on personal progress rather than an identical visual outcome.

Use isometrics to improve glute recruitment

For people who struggle to feel their glutes during squats or other compound lifts, Contreras recommends isolated isometric practice. Repeatedly contracting the glutes in simple positions can improve the brain’s ability to activate them and may carry over into squats and single-leg movements.

Strength drives results—but obsession with a few lifts creates problems

Getting stronger is closely associated with hypertrophy, but relentlessly pursuing PRs on only a few barbell lifts can lead people to train through pain. Build strength across multiple squat, hinge, thrust, unilateral, and machine patterns so that progress continues while connective tissue gets a break.

Prioritize muscles without piling volume onto everything

A glute-specialization phase works because it deliberately limits volume elsewhere. Brett describes training glutes frequently while maintaining upper-body, quad, and hamstring work with substantially less volume, allowing recovery resources to go toward the priority area.

Variation is a longevity tool, not a distraction

Rather than changing exercises randomly, rotate the focus of training blocks and use variations that challenge different portions of a movement. This keeps training engaging, distributes stress across tissues, and helps lifters sustain year-round progressive overload with fewer injuries.

Frameworks or Models

BoudiBar Brett Periodization System

1. Train three days per week with a thrust/bridge pattern, squat/lunge pattern, hinge/pull pattern, abduction pattern, one upper-body press, and one upper-body pull. 2. Rotate lower-body variations across sessions—for example, double-leg and single-leg squats, vertical and horizontal hinges, full-range and lockout-focused thrusts, and different abduction angles. 3. Rotate the primary focus by month, placing selected lifts in a progression phase while holding other lifts at maintenance volume. 4. Use the final week of a focused block to pursue a PR when recovery and technique permit, then shift emphasis to reduce overuse and keep training sustainable.

Notable Quotes

"You can always gain strength, gain function, and I've never had a client where you couldn't tell at all."

— Brett Contreras

"If you can't back squat, that's fine. Do some belt squats."

— Brett Contreras

"Periodization helps prevent injury and pain. And injury and pain, you get hurt, you're not building anything."

— Brett Contreras

"You don't figure out the meaning of life when you're staring at your phone 24 hours a day. You figure out when you're bored."

— Brett Contreras

Action Items

  • 1
    Run a one-week glute-connection practice

    Three times this week, perform a simple glute isometric such as a bridge hold, quadruped hip-extension hold, or banded kickback hold. Use a position where you can clearly contract the glutes, hold with focus, and then notice whether your next squat or lunge feels more glute-driven.

  • 2
    Audit pain before your next workout

    Before loading your main lifts, identify any painful area. If squats aggravate your knees or deadlifts aggravate your back, replace that pattern for the session with a pain-free alternative rather than trying to force the planned exercise.

  • 3
    Create a priority-and-maintenance split

    Choose one goal muscle group for the next four weeks. Put its exercises early in your workouts and track progressive overload, while keeping non-priority muscles to a smaller maintenance dose rather than trying to improve every lift at once.

  • 4
    Track quality progression on two lifts

    Select two movements that fit your body and equipment, such as a hip thrust and a leg press. Record load, reps, effort, and any pain after each session; aim for gradual improvement without sacrificing technique or recovery.

Full Transcript

Transcript of The Man Who Invented the Hip Thrust on The Science of Glutes | Mind Pump 2947 from Mind Pump Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

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This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, we had Brett Contreras on the podcast. You know who he is. He's one of the best trainers in the world, famous for building butts, but he's actually an excellent trainer all the way around. You can find him on Instagram at brettcontreras1 and bootybybrett official. Now, this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Legion Supplements. So, Legion Supplements are excellent supplements for fat loss, muscle gain, for protein powders, creatine, all the things you want, third-party tested. What the bottle says is in the bottle is in the bottle.

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So, if you want those two areas to develop and you want them to develop quickly, get this program. It's 40% off because it's brand new. So, it's a discounted program right now. And we include another free MAPS program, Muscle Mommy 15 or Muscle Mommy, plus two free guides. Go to mapsabsandbutt.com. Use the code LAUNCH for the 40% off discount, the other free MAPS program, and the free guides. Here comes the show. All right. Real quick, if you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at MyPumpStore.com.

I'm talking right now, hit pause, head on over to MyPumpStore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. Brett, welcome back to the show, man. Thank you for having me. I think it's been a while. Three years. It's been three years. It's not fair we were talking about that. I didn't realize how long that's been. Whenever we talk about people that we like and respect in the space, your name always pops up. A good example of being able to combine science with experience. It's always good to have you on the show because I appreciate your points of view, always.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to open with this. Can anybody build a nice butt? Hell no. Explain that. Explain that. Why can't anybody do it? I always say 60% of this is genetics. I'm getting annoyed at some of these. When I started, I was the only glute guy. Now, I'm the grumpy old man. You're starting to trend. Yeah. Yeah. Now, there's 1,000. These people are preying on the genetically disadvantaged, acting like everyone can get a huge set of glutes. It's just your training variables. You're just not training the right way.

If you use their cues and then do their fancy exercise, your glutes will grow. That's not the case. I remember John Meadows. He threw me this client. He's like, I cannot get this person's glutes to grow for the life of me. I'm going to send them your way. Hopefully, you can. I tried everything, nothing. I swear, glutes didn't grow a centimeter. You look at bodybuilding. A lot of bodybuilders have a hard time bringing up weak parts. They're on 15 different drugs. They have good genetics for building muscle.

If you have a weak part, if you think what factors go into making the glutes look nice, I always laugh because some of my clients, well, some of my best hip thrusters don't have the roundest glutes. They have wider hips. You think about the cross-sectional area, that's going to be a lot of glute fibers but spread out at a longer distance. Better biomechanically. It's more advantageous. They have huge glutes. It's just not round, perky glutes. What people want is the round, perky glutes. That's a lot of your skeletal structure, your sacral slope and then distances between, well, that's muscular type, but just with your skeleton, if you have a really flat sacral slope or if you have a longer distance between the femur to the sacrum, if there's more distance, it might make it look more round.

Also, just think about if all four of us flexed our biceps, some would bulge more, some would peak more, some are more flat. Some glutes are like that too. They just project outwards more. I have this one client that just everyone wants her glutes. I have top three Miss Bikini Olympia contenders train with me and they walk in, they go, I want her glutes. The girls like to measure their glutes, their hip circumference, they all want like 40 inch glutes and Kiana has like 34, 36 and she's the one that everyone wants.

She's not big around, it's just so round and perky. Then there's the fat content. I think the glutes have the highest intramuscular fat content out of all the muscles. I did not know that. Okay. It's a sign of disease and not being healthy, but there are people who have 50% intramuscular fat, not outside the muscle, inside the muscle. Even healthy? No, those are not healthy people, but there is some evidence that if you work out, I believe in cyclists, they might have more intramuscular fat, but there's more mitochondria around it or something.

Just like sumo wrestlers tend to have a lot of fat, but not as much visceral fat. If you exercise, you're going to be healthier, but some, if you store a little bit more fat inside the muscles and then you store it outside the muscles, also just some, in Fort Lauderdale, some of these, these are the ones getting accused of having BBLs. They don't. Their fat doesn't go to their stomach. It goes to their butt and their thighs. Combine that with modern leggings and cinches it up real well.

It looks round. They can gain 10 pounds. It doesn't look bad. It looks good. They'll be like, coach, I lost six pounds. I'm like, good job. They're like, no, not good job. I want to get that back. I go, okay, let's eat. Let's eat more, but they want to reclaim that six pounds, whereas I do have some Asian clients that have big round glutes. They tend to have very dense glutes in my experience, but they can have strong glutes, but it's very dense. I don't think they store, I have no research on this, but I think they might have flatter sacral slopes, less intramuscular fat, and they also don't have extra muscular fat there.

When they gain, a lot of Asians gain weight, it tends to go other places, not their hips, not their glutes. There's all these factors, your origins, insertions, which you mentioned, which are going to determine how- Like a long butt or a short butt. Yeah, or like in bikini, the lower insertions are coveted, but also there's studies on, yeah, different people's, some people have way more upper glute than lower glute. It's funny, because when I was growing up in the 90s and stuff, everyone wanted to look like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model or a Victoria's Secret model, and you wanted to be thin, but you did want glutes, but you wanted that upside down heart-shaped butt, the teardrop look.

No one talked about upper glutes, and now it's all about the shelf and everyone wants upper glutes. I feel like that's very genetic. I have this client, Raisa, in Fort Lauderdale, and all the Fort Lauderdale girls are like, I need more upper glutes. I'm like, I feel like there's this mass glute dysmorphia out there. These are the best butts ever, and I'm training these girls, and they all think they have bad butts, bad butts, poor glute development. And I'm like, your glutes are amazing. What are you talking about?

And they're like, well, look at Raisa. And I'm like, okay, Raisa, she's Brazilian, and yeah, I don't even do progressive overload with Raisa. Some of these influencers that look so good, you just don't injure them. They just need to train hard, don't follow any system, just kind of go hard at a few exercises, then mix it up all the time, and they're going to look amazing. But it's so genetic, and not everyone can, hell, how many times you go to the gym and you see guys that don't even look like they've ever touched a weight in your life, and then you see them year after year.

It's not easy for people to build muscle, and so there's the whole developing muscle on a whole, but there's also individual weaknesses. We all have muscles that grew easily and ones that didn't. If you're someone whose glutes don't grow easily, and you're a non-responder, it's tough. You can gain strength. You could gain density. I'm sure if you get way stronger at different glute exercise, I'm sure your density goes way up. You probably do build more sarcomeres and stuff like that, but it doesn't project outwards. It doesn't end up with much rounder glutes.

So the answer is definitely no, and if you've trained enough people, and that's what I wish I could tell these people, you haven't worked with enough people, and they could say, oh, I'm the magician. You just don't know the secrets. No, trust me. You've worked with a lot of clients that have probably come to you, have tried to grow a butt on their own, and they're struggling, or they want more, and so then they're doing a lot of the exercises that they're supposed to. Would you say it's a common or uncommon thing when you get a client, and one of the reasons they have trouble growing their glutes is because their quads are taking over a lot of the good movements like squatting and movements like that?

Is that common or uncommon? Super common, and there's even some new research to show. Some people use a lot more quads to squat. It's common sense, but it's nice having research to support it that you can look as they go heavier and heavier, their glute activation doesn't go up more, and that you could say, well, EMG doesn't mean anything, but they can break down the joint torques and stuff and show that they're relying on strategies to lift heavier. They're relying on knee-dominant strategies, and they don't end up using their hip extensors more for the squat, whereas other people, the opposite, and so not only do I think that is important, because in our industry, you see people just say, just get strong.

Just get strong at squats and Romanians, and you'll be good, and some people rely more on quads and hamstrings with those movements, but I also think there's a case for the mind-muscle connection. There's a lot of research on brain adaptations to isometrics in particular, get on all fours, put a band on, do a hip extension, abduction, extra rotation mix, where you're doing a... It looks like a fire hydrant, but also kicking back, and they hold that off and on for 20 minutes three times a day, so an hour of that concentrating, and they do that for one week, and you see crazy increases in cortical motor activation and less inhibition.

So you get a better connection to the muscle. Exactly, and it's just the brain's ability to activate the glutes in the first place. I love it when studies support what those of us who've been training clients for decades have always known. When I had clients who had challenges connecting to a muscle, isometrics practiced daily was a surefire way to get them to be able to feel it. Just a good old fashioned isometric, depending on the position and how we activate, but it was, it's like, oh yeah, now I can feel my lats, now I can feel my glutes, now I can feel my pecs, whereas before I couldn't.

Well, do you remember growing up, when you first started lifting weights? I mean, if you guys were like me, I'd be in the mirror at 15, 16, like, how do I... Couldn't flex your chest. How do I spread my lats? I couldn't flex my chest. I remember my buddy used to be able to pinch a penny between there, and I'm like, I couldn't even flex my chest. And then you learn by flexing the muscles, and then you build that mind-muscle connection. Yeah. And then you're doing an exercise, and you're like, oh, you see that connection there, that I know how to flex it, activate it hard in isolation, and now I can incorporate it more into everyday movement.

And that's what some of the research found too. Through doing these isolated glute movements, it then carries over, and they end up using their glutes more for functional movements like squats and single leg squats. Yeah. So two things, and I'll start with the first one. I do want to encourage most people, because most people, generally speaking, you can change the way you look through strength training. You can see some adaptations, but there are genetics that play a big role in the kind of bodies that we tend to look at on social media.

But for the average person, they can build muscle, they can get stronger, and they can improve. And I just want to say that because someone might be listening and be like, ah, it's a waste of time. I should do it again. I wanted to do that too, I was going to say. But you can always gain strength, gain function, and I've never had a client where you couldn't tell at all. That's right. Even some of my clients that were like, I'm seeing no progress, then they tend to see a picture from before, and they're like, okay, it has grown.

a big difference, somebody who wants, let's say, a bigger butt, and maybe we don't grow the actual circumference, but by training hamstrings and other muscles, the illusion of a bigger butt or a better butt, it happens. I kind of think it's the opposite, though. Oh, okay, that's fair. If you, and that's something that pisses men off. And men and hardcore female lifters, they get so mad. Like, why would you want to just get strong at everything? And that's kind of what I try to do with my clients.

In fact, I've formed that strong lifting, it's like just a competition with my clients that we do. And they're so freakishly strong, it's insane. They do six lifts, squat, bench, deadlift, military press, chin up, and hip thrust. And the stronger they get at those, the better they look. I remember when we were in 2020, we took a trip to Tulum. During COVID, it was like, everywhere was abandoned. So we were on the beach, and everyone thought we were celebrities. You see one guy walking with 30 women, they're like, who is this guy?

But I'm like, oh my god, my clients who are bikini competitors, they look like they could step on stage in about four weeks of dieting. They've never looked that way off season before. And all they were, they were, but I put the, I had a spreadsheet, and I'd put it on the reverse hyper so everyone could look at it, the numbers. And the girls would be like, you know, Amanda would be like, wait, Vanessa hit this on the squat? Great, I've gotta beat it. And it was like the ultimate tool to keep them competitive.

So I do like everyone getting stronger at all the big basics, but if you have, if you don't have big glutes, say you have flatter glutes, and then you get big quads and hamstrings, it just makes the glutes look even smaller. So it's the glute to thigh ratio. So I have a lot of clients who I do have them do, hell, the one I posted about two days ago who saw really good improvements, she has the propensity to build big legs. She was a track athlete in high school, and just can easily go up in the squat.

In fact, I've given her leg press four times, and she's doing five plates on the side bags on each side. For 10 reps, and I'm like, I've given her that four times. And yeah, like she can build big legs, but I give her like one set, one set or maybe two. Just to prevent some atrophy and just keep it. I mean, she's growing, but yeah, like I don't want the glutes growing more. And we've achieved that, but we have to do a lot of hip thrusts, a lot of abduction, a lot of kickbacks, a lot of the special machines that I have now, these kneeling glute isolators and the 3D abductors and stuff that are awesome.

You guys should get them. Now talking about a client like that, okay, I love that you brought her up, because my experience when I have an athlete, especially a runner, what we talked about earlier with this quad dominance, and we talked about the neurological studies that you talked about. They have done so many repetitions of quad dominant running, right? That you then take that person and they go squat. It is so difficult to get that client to connect to the glutes. Would you think that that's part of her challenge?

I know genetics play a role, but would you think that was part of her challenge of developing glutes? It's because she's gotten so good at running, and that's like. I think it's, what makes someone quad dominant is like half of it's like practice, which you said, they spent their life playing soccer, or they only, I mean, I remember my, I have an identical twin brother, and I watched him. He was only doing like legs. He wasn't doing posterior chain much. And I watched him do a kettlebell deadlift.

I'm like, he's way more upright than me. And then after like a few months of training with me, and I hit a lot of hamstrings too, then he's like stiff legging it out. He's like taking his legs out of it. And that's what a lot of women, they can stiff leg what they can deadlift because they're so posterior chain dominant. But he became more hip dominant than quad dominant over time through training with me. But his first instinct, because he had mostly just done like leg press, and squats, and goblet squats, and things like that, he was naturally more upright with his deadlift.

And that's kind of a good, the deadlift is a good barometer of how quad versus hip dominant you are. Kind of how natural you would sit to pull it up. A lot of people will want to stiff leg it. And then you're like, get those hips down a little bit. And then you start going heavy, and they start shooting their hips up because they're stronger that way. But anyway, I think half of it's also structure. You get these people with long legs in general, really long legs.

Also makes for a good runner, so it's like. Yeah, and I remember Mark Ripato talked about this in one of his books or something. He had a female lifter pull sumo, and she was like, her torso was horizontal after satisfying the right conditions with the bar over the midfoot and the scapula because her structure had to be that way. You get some people, and that's back to what we're talking about. You get these people making these bold claims. And it's like, you've never trained. Go train some NBA players.

Like, they are so hard to train. What you think you know goes out the window when you're training some 6'10 or 7'1 guy that is all legs and stuff. And so anyway, yeah, I think a lot of it's structure, not just bone structure, skeletal structure like your anthropometry and proportions, but also which muscles tend to grow. And things like your kneecap. I know I have a small patella compared to a lot of guys. And that, how far your patella sticks out determines your knee extension moment arm.

And so if you have a bigger patella, thicker patella, and it sticks out more, then you're stronger at knee extension. That's right. Or if you just have the ability to get big quads. I can't get big quads because my knees hurt. I have knee pain, and it's so frustrating because I can do like two sets, anything more than that for quads, and I'm hobbling around. If I could just get rid of that knee pain, I could handle way more volume and get bigger quads. But there's a lot of factors that go into it.

If the muscle was bigger, you would use it more. And if a muscle gets bigger, it also gets better leverage. We published a study on that. My colleague, Andrew Vygotsky, I was talking to him about it, like theoretically. And then he went and got, I think he borrowed a data set from Stu Phillips, like on the biceps, and modeled it. And it's published in PeerJ, like a really nice, it shows as the biceps get bigger, it inserts at a more horizontal angle. So now it's like pushing on a wrench.

It's better leverage. If you push on a wrench at an angle, it's not effective force. If you push on it at a 90 degree angle, that's all the force that is effective. Yeah, in many cases, that's the case. In some cases, not so much. I think it depends on the muscle. You brought up isometrics before. I feel like isometrics are one of the most underutilized form of strength training. Maybe because they don't produce the same hypertrophy as the traditional contractions, but yeah. New study. New study just published.

I think it was published. My friend, Brad Schoenfeld, throws me these studies before they're published. He says, don't talk about it. I think this one was published. They did, yeah, yeah, it was published. They did isometrics in the stretch position versus leg extensions and matched for time of effort. Got it. So 30 seconds. Exactly. Versus 30 seconds. Yeah, and it was the same growth. Yeah, isometrics, it might. They run the same, but then they kind of fall off. Well, there's a risk factor and safety of it.

I think the value of isometrics, the way that they strengthen tendons and the way you can generate force and stability, and they don't fry you like other forms of contractions. Nobody utilizes them. I mean, if you go to the bronze era of strength athletes, they used isometrics all the time. They did some incredible feats of strength. We don't use them enough. Do you use them with any of your clients? No, but I do. I mean, I'm a student of the game. I love everything. I miss training males, too, because I used to love, you know, when we learn everything, we're bored.

We learn every aspect of grip training and the different types of grip. I don't use that knowledge with it, but every once in a while, I get to use the, I remember, I'm gonna go off topic here. I was training my client, Estrella. The rotisserie hip thrust, you're about 30% stronger, but it's a tilting pad. You know, it tilts for you. And it's, the Fort Lauderdale squad, it's their favorite. So when I started, when I moved to Fort Lauderdale, my San Diego girls were like, oh, are you enjoying training those cheaters, those fakers?

What, they can't hip thrust normal? Yeah. The internal competition that you have is great, dude. They're always like that. They're always bitches, too. How are your new bitches? I'm like, well, you'd love them. You'd actually love them. Why are they always bitches? Oh, that's hilarious. They're like, oh, do they like their little cheater pad? And they love the rotisserie. And it's a lot of, they're like bros. There's a new glute builder elite with like a Smith machine that moves. And they feel their glutes, but they're like, I don't like that.

I'm like, why? Well, I can only use two or three plates on it. And I'm like, but do you feel your glutes? Yeah, but I can only use two or three plates. I'm like, who cares? That's less plates to load. They wanna load all the plates on. They're like bros with bench press. Hip thrust, they're like bros with bench press. And so anyway, Estrella is like the strongest at rotisserie hip thrust. She has done like 765 for eight. And she weighs like 120 back then. Now she weighs like 108.

She's so strong. In fact, people always talk about what's dangerous for hip thrust and stuff. We don't ever get low back injuries. We get hip bruise. With the rotisserie, their hips get beat up. You can't then rotisserie two days later after you do something like that. Well, from the pressure. The pressure. They get bruises and swelling and stuff. So we have to then do, if it's really bad, we have to do the kneeling glute isolator, which is a kneeling machine or single leg hip thrust or they can do part, like I could sit on them backwards.

Like if I sit on them, they can do partner hip thrust and they could hip thrust me for like three sets of 20 and it's good because it's spread out a lot, the surface area. But we can't just do, like you can't do rotisserie, you can't do a heavy barbell hip thrust because you're, but anyway, she's like, yeah, it's so funny because I come in town, like what I mentioned to you guys earlier, I have Fort Lauderdale, San Diego, and Las Vegas. And when I come in town, they know they're gonna hit PRs or they're expected to.

They love it, but then I think they're ready for me to leave after a couple weeks. So I have Estrella and I'm like, I've had her do, so I don't like with barbell hip thrust, they slide back and that's cheating. They wanna slide back when they do it. Yeah, you wanna go straight up. You wanna hinge and not slide back on the machine. So I started having them use instead of my glute benches, the ramp that like Glute Builder makes, it's like a ramp. So it's like almost like a decline.

Almost like a decline bench. But I'm like, because if you shift back on it. It stops you. Well, it stops you, but it's also higher up, so it makes it harder. But then I find them cheating. They find out a way to cheat with everything. But anyway, I had her just do ramp. And it's like, this is how you know what the best lift is in my opinion. If you get stronger at squats, you're also in your leg press went up and you didn't even do leg press.

You get carry over. It carries over. It goes up, yes, yep. And that's what with barbell hip thrust, it makes the rotisserie go up. Even though, I don't know, it's weird. Rotisserie is hardest at the bottom and then easier at the top. Because your body weight goes over the top of it and now it's like a teeter-totter. It's helping you out on. So you're not lifting as much weight on this side of the fulcrum. But anyway, so I said, hey, you're gonna, we're gonna set a rotisserie pair.

She's like, no, I haven't done that in like six weeks. I haven't done a single set. And I'm like, trust me. And I put on, it's so funny because all they listen to is, I wanna say reggaeton, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's, what is their, their hip, their like, Latin hip hop around the clock. And luckily I'm like not one of those, like I'm 50. I just turned 50. I can still listen to their music and be okay. But it's all day long of, you know, Bad Bunny and stuff like that.

And you know, Carol G and stuff. So anyway, but I put on like Papa Roach, Last Resort. That's the PR song. And these girls don't know any heavy metal. So, but Estrella loves Last Resort. So she puts, she's always like, put that on, put the song on. And it's like a mental cue, like, and she's like a total bro. She takes 10 minutes to psych up and she'll wrap her wrist because pushing the bar forward is hard on the wrist. You know, these, these girls are, they, they're hip thrust champs.

So then, so I have her do, I think it was, yeah, 765 and she hits 10 reps. And then afterwards, she's so, God, there was this movie back in the day. Oh, I can't remember it. Vladimir was the guy's name, the football player. And he was like, oh, that's the program. The program. Yes. Remember, he was like, and he puts the weights in and he's like shaking. That's what it reminded me of. She finished her set and she's like shaking. And then like, I go off and train other people.

And then it's like 10 minutes later and she's like, I'm like, she's so stimulated and like so amped up. She's like, I feel like I'm going to throw up. And God, this is a long story just to get some basic things across. So she's like, I feel like I'm going to throw up. Well, that's something you encounter as a trainer. Sometimes, especially with newbies, you know, they're going to throw up. And I remember reading an article from like, God, so long ago when I was like in 2012, when I was getting my PhD, I think I'm going to butcher, but I think they had like a man on this side of a leg press and a woman on the other side.

And he was doing concentrics and she was absorbing, doing eccentrics. But when you do heavy eccentrics, it doesn't raise your blood lactate or anything. It doesn't get your heart rate up. Like think of going downstairs. You don't, you're not breathing hard. Eccentrics are mostly elastic, the Titan, stuff like that. So it's not, so you could theoretically, Reason that she could do eccentrics even though she feels like she's gonna puke. So She's like I want to do more. I don't just want to do one set and then she's fizzled out and that's Probably my bad as a coach.

I literally zapped them on their first set but it works these girls have insane glute development, they're strong as hell, but You wouldn't want to theoretically you should have them do like three sets and on their third go to failure But this is a psyched up music pumping 10 people watching and we also have a pr bell that we ring We ring the bell when they so it's like the ultimate environment for prs Also, everyone's hitting five plates. So it's not weird there you come there and you're like I better step it up It's like west side for squats.

That's cool. If we train at west side, we'd be way stronger at squats Um, but the the hip thrust like the glute lab is the the west side for hip thrust, you know So anyway, I had her do eccentrics. I had her do like Three sets of five where she would come up with like 315 pounds and then I I would sit on one end of the barbell on the thruster pro like it's like a hammer strength Plate loaded and then i'd have two two girls sit on the other side So it's like a 700 pound eccentric and she can control it.

You're very strong eccentrically in the hip thrust She could control it then we'd step off. She'd go to the top we'd sit on it And it didn't and she got like three good sets in very productive sets and that's where Research benefited practice. Usually it's the other way around you think of something in practice and then you Research it but that's what we were talking about like things. I say things like isometrics and all these things that You know every once in a while they come in useful as a trainer How important is getting stronger because you've talked a lot about hitting prs lifting more weight and this discussion doesn't come up as much These days but it still kind of comes up about You know strength is a decent correlate for muscle size.

It's not perfect, but it's decent And you'll get some people arguing that you know strength You don't need to chase it as much but I hear you talk all the time about getting stronger get these girls stronger In my experience if you get stronger consistently you build muscle. It just happens So talk about how important strength is so that's another area that this was like 10 years ago There was a guy jeremy lenokee that was bringing bringing to the right raising awareness to the fact that it wasn't Very related at all.

Yeah, and I remember there was this guy in the field that kept Kept asking him and he would never answer the question. Then. Why are there power lifting weight classes? I think I would never answer it, but he did point out. There's not a good There's not good research showing a good relationship a good correlation between Strength and hypertrophy and now since then we've had studies emerge. In fact, just one emerged in the last year showing Very high relationship like very close relationships with strength and hypertrophy.

So Back back in the day. We're like well your strength can be a lot of things can rate increase your strength, you know, you're You're a lot of neural factors half of it's like the neural factors and then technique skill coordination intramuscular coordination all that stuff and then also like You know stiffness and all these things and you're There's things other than just muscular hypertrophy That could theoretically influence strength. But anyway now we know that it's very related but I think it's I think for me my the pendulum kind of swings so I was all about strength With the strong lifting I told you about and then I left to fort lauderdale and I And then my san diego squad was left all on their own and I remember Going like I can't close up san diego that they're gonna have to train In other gyms where they don't have this equipment.

I can't do that to them. So I just kept the gym open I didn't take on clients. I just said you guys just I give you all keys You guys just keep using the gym and i'll pay the the the lease. That's nice Yeah, and and then they don't have me here there I didn't teach them properly I realized because they always had me there. So it's just like if The four of us were training And we're all doing squats and you know One of us was like, oh my low back's hurting.

We'd be like, dude, don't squat You know, you don't let them squat if you're low or deadlift if your low back is hurting you'd like you go do Like bulgarian split squats and and we'll squat and then we'll we'll do leg extensions together or whatever That's just how it is. But I didn't but also we had to learn that the hard way through getting injured You don't remember before you had a bad low back injury. You just thought you were bulletproof It still takes you a couple injuries to even after the first one.

You're like, I think i'm good again and so they they they so then they started pushing and I remember I would give them if I tried to give them like Three three by like three by five at 80 85 percent of 100 max they cannot just do three sets of five because they're used to training to failure They have to at least the last set they do an amrap set and i'd be like I said three sets of five and they're like But it was easy some lifts The the percents nail it.

It's perfect. So other lifts not quite as much like military press. It's a Some people could do three sets of five with 85 Was so easy and other people not but anyway, they want to get a good workout They don't no one likes to keep five reps in the tank or three even three reps in the tank if you're a serious lifter, so they were so Obsessed with the with the big With the big six, you know, let's say the big three but Squatch squats bench deads military chins and hip thrusts and They would train through pain Instead of around it when I was there if your low back is Acting up no squats or deadlifts if your knees are acting up No squats we do hip dominant stuff, you know But with me not there they would push through it.

So then a lot of them started experiencing pain And they still have it and they can't get they're more injury prone now and When I started training my squad in fort lauderdale, I had way more machines So I taught them because I don't it's three times the size of glute lab san diego. So I taught my florida squad I want you to care about your belt squat your hack squat your pendulum squat your leg press. We have two leg presses I want you to care about your single leg strength.

I want you to care about your barbell back squat, but also We have two squat machines. So we have like 12 different squat patterns that we're paying attention to And they feed off each other, you know Um, and then and then same thing with like the deadlift pattern We have like five plate loaded death of pieces They're all unique and I I want you to care about your single leg already all your devil also your 45 degree hypers You know and these because they kind of feed into each other And same thing with hip thrusts.

I don't want you to worship the barbell hip thrust I want you getting strong at all the hip just yes, they will have a favorite but anyway so much less injuries we barely have any injuries there because they rotate stuff around and they're they know that if If you can't back squat, that's fine Do some belt squats You know like they know that things transfer if you're pushing your belt squats harder your leg press or whatever you're not going to just lose all your squat strength and then They build up all these things and then if we want to say we have an we just had another strong lifting competition two weeks ago All they need is just you know Six to eight weeks to focus on that lift and it'll skyrocket but they're they're because they have the foundation there They have the specificity reserves left if they wanted to increase it But they're training year-round and not getting injured where the san diego squad some of them have Back pain, and then i'm trying to give them like jeffersons and stuff like that to Build that tissue tolerance, but it's hard with me not there So anyway lesson learned when you're obsessed with just strength on a few lifts.

Yeah Look at all the power lifters were popular Back when we were coming up 15 years ago, there's no one's left Now they're getting smarter. They're doing way more reps and reserves So you have two options do more variety like my florida squad or keep a lot of reps in reserve Which is hard for serious lifters. Yeah, how many of us want to keep five r.i.r. Yeah, you're communicating something that um Something we talk about on the show a lot with our own our own workouts, right?

We always are talking about the core lifts How they should be a foundation Uh of your program, but then we always say like that But that doesn't mean you won't catch me on machines all the time doing unilateral and the way it looks like for me Is here's these are my core lifts similar to your six that we're talking about that I'm always kind of focused on trying to get stronger there But what I know happens to me and it happens on a probably every other week where I overreach Where I have a workout I was pumped up from papa roach Too many too much And i'm and then my my knees my back or someone's talking to me coming into friday's workout and guess where i'm at I'm on the machines and so that's a perfect way to cut and so as coaches, but by the way, how old are you now?

Yeah. Yeah. No, i'm 45 50. Yeah. Yeah 47 46 These young these 20 year old guys out there. They don't get it Yeah, because we were all bulletproof back then as as you get into your 40s And even more so 50s You just mentioned you overreach I do that every week, too Every week something's a little off and you have to pivot and train around it. You don't train through it You don't go. Oh, my shoulder is killing me on this movement. I'm gonna do it Anyway, you have to find something that doesn't hurt while you and that's kind of the art.

It's like a it's like a cool Art science did is try to how can I maintain my strength while my shoulder heels up or something? Well, there's two parts of that one as you get older you just have accumulated, you know Potential right just potential for injury potential for movement patterns But even for younger lifters, uh, if you get really strong a specific movement, even if it has carry over if that strength So far exceeds let's say stability going laterally or rotation. You actually increase your risk of injury Yeah, so you're super strong in the sagittal plane And like you could squat 500 pounds, but your lateral stability barely supports, you know, 100 pounds You know you're playing with your kids or something happens.

You need to cut to the left next thing You know you twist your knee You're like what's going on? I can squat 500 pounds. How did this happen? It's like well, it's like a really powerful car without a reinforced frame and it twisted And so that can also be an issue. It's just i'm really strong in one direction Yeah, but I don't have the support most people don't consider these other planes of motion rotation and lateral stability So yeah, it's always something we're trying to incorporate in their programming.

Yeah, I also think there's a a genetic element to soft tissue strength I have friends that if they had strong soft tissue, they could have become world-class power lifters, but you know imagine if you could Squat bench and deadlift as hard as you wanted every week and when you're 20 you can yeah, but now We can't just go I can't do weighted dips Like I used to deep like, you know deep weighted dips. I have to stop at parallel and be real strict Even weighted chin-ups aggravate me a little bit now.

So that's where the machines become more. Yeah every 40 year old lifter that's been lifting for 20 years gravitates towards more hammer strength Machine more machines in general But the hammer strength is a little easier in the stretch and a little harder in the squeeze And a new study, uh that we published showed that there wasn't any difference in muscle growth between making it harder in the stretch Yeah versus making it harder in the squeeze like everyone. I saw that everyone would think that it was a stretch yeah, every that the stretch in fact the Researchers who carried the study out all hypothesized that the stretch but we did four muscles.

We did rear delts Side delts pecs and glutes and all four muscles saw the same growth. So interesting. So I think That and that that increases your longevity That's what I loved about west side. They used a lot of bands and chains Yes, so less hard on the body when you use bands and chains. They are they're phenomenal I got a huge prs using bands and they feel so smooth just adding them to the weights um the benefit of training, uh increasing or Decreasing resistance in the different kind of ranges of motion is just that's how you get stronger Then you know, you want to get a little stronger in the stretch then train it there.

You're gonna start By the way, that's what I think of with my hip thrust program now. It's like We load in different positions. Yeah, we have so many devices there like I mentioned earlier The rotisserie is harder at the bottom It's really hard at the bottom heavier in the stretch and then But so so the things that get you stronger at hip thrust in the bottom are rotisserie But also leg deep leg press and squats. Yeah squats and leg press whenever i'm doing heavy squats I'm so strong at the bottom of the hip thrust, but then you fail at the lockout and then what what's hardest at the lockout?

Well, just regular barbell hip thrust But then if you want to make it even harder you do pauses pulses or bar plus band add the bands to it And then also we have the kneeling glute isolator we can load it's like a kneeling hip thrust You can load it with plates or bands if you load it with all bands It's the hardest in the full how extension how often do you have to uh convince like your clients to Be in a surplus. Oh calories for calories.

I don't tend to talk too much about diet. That's up to them like Well, let's just because they go through phases where they need well, yeah, if I got a client that was You know starts getting to under 15 percent body fat. It's kind of a hard discussion to have like, yeah He's also you got the the bias that he has is that you got a self-selection You got a lot of bikini competitors that understand macros and diet. They're already gonna know It's so true. I'm spoiled.

I don't right when I used to train general pop gin pop is Yeah, yeah general pop is grossly under eating protein never tracked a macro doesn't weigh food We got a bunch of girls that are like carrying their food with them what I do with my clients as I have like They tend to in my experience with a lot of the women don't like the whey protein like we do i've Guzzled down so many whey protein shakes in my life They tend to irritate their skin and or just they don't digest it.

Well, so I have like protein yogurts, you know like the oikos with 23 grams of protein And i'll just Give it to them on their way out. Hey, take a take a yogurt, you know Take take this take two Yeah, because then that's if they drink two of them. That's 46 grams That's half their if they weigh 120. That's almost you know Because yeah, ideally they'd hit 1.0. But if they hit 0.7 on a daily basis. That's still good, you know, but yeah a lot of the A lot of people will get 0.3 grams per protein.

You know that's limiting their progress. 100%. We also, I mean we'll hear this a lot, just in gen pop and social media. It's like, I want a six pack, I want to get a bigger butt. It's like, pick one. Yeah. We gotta work on one or the other because talk about building in a deficit. How many people try to do that and how impossible it is? Yeah, so, and that's always the most frustrating thing. When you have a competitor, there's several types of clients I don't train anymore.

And I'm so glad I don't have to, that I'm at the point where I don't have to. Oh no, I was talking to Doug, go ahead. Oh okay, sorry. There's three types of clients I won't train anymore. And I'm so glad I'm at this point where I don't have to train everyone. The first client is the shredded bikini or wellness or figure competitor. And they're just shredded and they're like, I want to build my glutes. And I look at their, you know, I look in their, they've been shredded for three straight years.

Like you can tell they're at like 12% body fat, you know? How are we gonna build your glutes when you're 10% and they can't have an off season. They can't raise their body fat. They're addicted to being lean. And it's so hard for some men and women when you've got those abs. See, I never had those abs. When you have the shredded, they want that look. You get addicted to it. The second. They just really struggle with putting body fat on and it's so necessary, especially with a female.

Talk about when you have a female who's under 17, 18% body fat and she's trying to build her glutes and it's just so hard to build that low of body fat. And then the second type that I won't train is the person that complains after every set. I didn't feel my glutes. I don't feel my glutes. You have to realize, you don't make your trainer's life a living hell, too, you know? Like, if I'm saying it, you're not gonna feel it on every set, you know?

I could put a band around you and have you do super high reps or try and get these creative, but if we wanna build your glutes, you're gonna have to get good at the basic movement patterns, too. Hopefully, we can increase how much you feel your glutes, but if you say that on every set, yeah, I don't wanna train. And then, real quick, the third is the I don't wanna get bulky. Oh, God. And they're like, I don't wanna do this. I don't wanna get bulky.

Good luck trying to get bulky. You can't even do, you weigh 120 and you can't even do a pull-down with 70 pounds. Yeah. I just want you to know that you just described a majority of Gen Pop. Yeah. I mean, that's a majority of the people that are probably gonna listen to this episode, right? I'm a spoiled trainer that I. Well, that's not my point. I'm making that you're spoiled by any means. I am, but I have to go to, I go to a lot of commercial gyms so I don't lose touch with reality, because I do, I would be oblivious to half the problem if I only.

Oh, half your conversation is convincing a woman to lift weights heavy. Yeah, you generally. Or just to eat in a surplus. Yeah, you just talked about those three people that you won't train is literally a majority. You're working with the girls that are saying, hey, I am comfortable bulking. I am willing to carry my food and hit my macros every day. I am willing to chase PRs. I mean, those are three huge lever movers in the pursuit of an ass that you got already automatic. You know what I'm saying?

And so, yeah, Gen Pop is like, I gotta convince those three people, or those three, that those three things are okay. It's like, I can't tell you how many conversations I have around, we need to put body fat on. Or, you gotta consistently hit that protein intake. We have to get stronger. I mean, those are like your repeated conversations when you're talking about Gen Pop, for sure. I wanna bring something to you, Brett, because for a while there, there was this huge debate. It's really not there anymore, but there's a huge debate.

What builds the glutes more, squats, hip thrust? Remember the whole like, squats versus hip thrust? There was this huge debate. And then they came out with studies, and they showed that they're both pretty darn good at building the glutes, and you're probably better off doing both of them. But you still see people on social media, through their experience, who say, squats didn't build my butt, hip thrust built my butt. And my theory around- And vice versa. You'll hear vice versa sometimes, too. So my theory around that, especially with the crowd that says squats didn't do it, but hip thrust did, is I think what we're looking at are people who are quad dominant, and the hip thrust just, it's easier to hit the glutes with a hip thrust.

It's harder to be quad dominant on a hip thrust than it is on a squat. So my theory is when people can't build their glutes with a squat, the hip thrust is probably gonna do better for them. What do you think about that? Well, you still hear that debate, by the way. I don't think you'll ever, I don't think it'll ever go away completely. You know, like, what's better, squats or hip thrust? And it's always squats or hip thrust. What about RDLs? Yeah. You know, what about single leg leg press, or like a lunge, or a Bulgarian, or a glute dominant step up?

They're probably all similarly effective, but here's why I like the hip thrust the most, is because it just doesn't beat you up as much, it doesn't injure you, it doesn't beat you up, you can do it more frequently. So. Good points, very good points, Brett, because I was just thinking this right now while we were talking earlier about getting strong. The stronger you get, you have a higher risk of injury. Oh, yeah. And some exercises, it's like, you gotta be very careful. Hip thrust is really safe.

Yeah, think about the most weight you've squatted. You know? Could you get back to that? And once you get to all four of us, like the most I've deadlifted and squatted, could I get back to that at age 50? What happens, you start getting back, you start getting, and then you always injure yourself. It's like you've gotta, unless you start taking like steroids and stuff like that, I feel like you have a natural limit where it starts to be hard on your connective tissue. You might strain a muscle, or something gives, so.

And you can still get that way with hip thrust, but it's not like you're gonna injure yourself. It's just you hate, you get so sick of hip thrusting, doing all the volume. But if the four of us, if we were doing top sets, really hard sets, how many really, really hard sets of squats could we do a week? And how many really hard sets of deadlifts could we do a week? Probably twice a week. Max. Twice a week, maybe two really hard sets. I can't do four sets to failure and then do it three days later.

We could've in our 20s maybe, but now that we're all in our 40s and me in my, just turned 50, it's just harder now. And you have more margin for, once you start getting to that level where you're like, shit, I might snap, I might tear something when I come down. Squats and even deadlifts off the floor, you're like, God, please don't, please don't snap. Whereas with hip thrust, it works you at a shorter muscle length. So you don't have that injury risk and you can do more volume, but you still have the same issues of, and that's why with my program, I rotate the focus.

I never heard of anyone doing that, but I think it's so wise to do. Because first of all, periodization seems to be important with strength, but not with hypertrophy. But I believe periodization is important with hypertrophy. Agreed. But I like to think, I made a video once and I never posted it, because it just didn't come out right. But I'm like, imagine you're trying to juggle six balls. All right, those are my favorite lifts. You guys have your different lifts. But mine, as I mentioned, are squats, bench, deadlifts, military, chin-ups, hip thrusts.

And it's really hard to juggle six balls. But if you're a really good juggler, maybe you can pull it off. But think of progressive overload as the ball getting a little bit bigger each time. So if you go up on your squat, that ball gets bigger. And as the balls get bigger, especially if you're going up on all six of them, it gets to a point where you cannot juggle those six balls. They're too big. So you take two of those balls, one a lower body ball and one an upper body ball, and you focus on those two.

And then you set the other four on maintenance. Maintenance is easy. Do two sets a week, hard sets a week, you can maintain it. Do it at the end of the session, you can maintain it. But, and I realize there's kind of a separate strategy for each lift. If you guys were trying to go for a chin-up PR, you could probably hit an all-time chin-up PR. You just start training the chin-ups frequently, you know? And I'm like, if I want a chin-up PR, I gotta do it three times a week, first in the workout.

And yes, you can do different grips. Yes, you could do band-assisted and weighted one day, or try variety, but you gotta hit that pattern first a few times a week, and then you'll do it. So I realize there's a different, but with deadlifts, you can't be like, I'm gonna do deadlifts hard three times a week. But you could do a lighter stiff leg session, and then a harder, maybe one day start off with 45 rehypers, because it's a similar pattern. So I mix around the focus.

So one month, we have a strong lifting focus, which is just, it's a well-rounded program. Get focused on your total body strength. Then the next month, it's a squat and bench-press focus. Then the next month, after squats, your knees are feeling beat up, you know? So it's wise to switch to hip thrusts. Now it's hip thrusts and chin-ups, okay? And I used to do deadlifts with chin-ups, but if you do chin-ups after deadlifts, they weaken you a little bit. My girls are like, don't put chin-ups after.

I get, my Buddha Barbera members get mad at me if I forget and put, because during the strong lifting month, if I ever put, they love their chin-up strength, and they know it's affected after deadlifts. So anyway, I put deadlifts and military together. So you have those, and then after deadlifts, your low back is feeling it, so it's a good time to do variety and single leg. Then I have the, I call it a glute squad special month, where it's a lot of variety and stances.

That's where we do sumo, curtsy, rotational, a lot of stuff like that, because in theory, a sumo stance, you might have heard this, everyone's saying, well, sumo is all adductor. And I'm like, when did sumo become all adductor? But when they say, think about it. Here's your stance. When you length, when you spread the legs, you're lengthening the adductors. You know what else you lengthen? The lower glute max. But you shorten the upper glute max, because the glutes go over the center of rotation. So when you go out, the upper glute max will shorten, the lower glute max will lengthen.

Now, when you go deep, because of the way the glutes are, how they wrap under the pelvis, you can get a better stretch going real deep with narrow stance. But with a sumo stance, a lot of stuff we do isn't rock bottom. You know, even like sumo squats, sumo deadlifts, sumo leg press, we're not necessarily going like, you weren't like. So theoretically, that might work more lower glutes. And then it's opposite with curtsy and this like single leg rotational RDL, where you twist on the way down.

Yeah, I think. That lengthens the upper glute max, and it shortens the lower glute max. So that would be a strategy to work more of the shelf, more of the upper glute max. And you might be saying, is there any evidence that you can target upper versus lower glute max? There has never been until now. Even our Plotkin 2023 study that you mentioned earlier, squats versus hip thrusts, tied for glute development in all three regions. We measured lower glute max, middle glute max, and upper glute max.

Squats and hip thrusts tied in all three. We thought that squats would grow the lower glute max more, and hip thrusts would grow the upper glute max more. No. Same. Pretty similar, all three. So I was kind of wondering, maybe you can't target them that well. EMG shows you can target them, but we didn't have a study, and then it's gonna be published real soon. The researcher posted about it on social media, so I can mention it, Joe Nunez. He had one group do cable kickbacks, and the other group do cable standing hip abduction.

So the group that did cable kickbacks was leaning forward, and then kicking the leg back. And then the standing abduction was leg would go out in front and then straight to the side. It wasn't back at an angle like the glute medius kickback. It was just straight to the side. And what they found was that the cable kickback group grew mostly lower glute max, little bit of upper glute max, and then not much glute medium in at all. And then the standing abduction group grew mostly upper glute max, barely any lower glute max, and not much glute medium in either.

We always thought abduction is one glute medium in. Based on the research, the glute medium in might not grow that much, but it was upper glute max. So basically, I've always said, throw in your abduction, throw in your abduction for upper glutes, but I always just said upper glutes thinking it would be glute med and upper glute max and glute med, but it seems to be mostly upper glute max. Interesting. I always thought it was glute med. So you can target subdivisions. So that's why after the deadlift month, you're beat up.

Throw in the curtsy, curtsy lunge or the rotational single leg RDL. Throw in some sumo stance. Just have fun and don't focus on PRs. That's the one kind of deload month where I'm not, I would say, focus on the mind-muscle connection. Get some quality workouts, but we don't have to beat PRs that much because every other month we're focusing on setting records and it's daunting. But I also try to periodize the individual weeks. Week one, learn the lifts. Week two, three, and four go up with week four hopefully culminating in an all-time PR on the focused lift.

And anyway, that's my system with Boudibar Brett and I think it's really smart and wise to do. I've just never heard anyone periodize that way. Back in the day, we read all the books on periodization, all the Russian texts and Tudor Bomp and all these books and stuff. They only talked about manipulating volume and intensity where you can periodize anything. Why not switch the focus of the lifts? It was always like you're gonna do the same core lifts and tinker with the volume and the effort and all that.

But instead, I think a better way to periodize is switch the lifts and the prioritization and then the others go on maintenance. mode. So, exercise order and then exercise selection variation. It makes sense. And the challenge with studies, because I think periodization does help with hypertrophy, but the problem with studies is they're not long enough to show the benefits. So, periodization helps prevent injury and pain. And injury and pain, you get hurt, you're not building anything. And so, as a trainer, having trained lots and lots of people, I periodized, and I don't care what the data says on hypertrophy.

I know when I do it right, my clients don't get hurt as much. But that's why I did, that's exactly why I started doing it with Boudibabre. I'm like, I don't want people getting hurt. That's right. I want you training year-round injury-free and pain-free hopefully. That's right. And it's hard to do if you are utilizing Progressive Overload. So, I 100% agree with you. And I see these people that are like, you don't ever have to switch your lifts around. You can do the same lifts year-round.

Okay, are you using Progressive Overload? Because, A, that's boring as hell, but B, you don't get achy joints. Speaking of boring, I gotta ask you this, because you're, although, so, there's a confusion around workout programming. People think complex programming involves five million different exercises, when really it's fewer exercises, but there's variables that we're playing with. You mentioned your favorite six. Do you ever get criticized? Like, oh, that's so basic. Why aren't you doing all these other exercises? I keep talking about this post I made two days ago that did really well.

I made it myself. That's why I was proud of it. I have a team that does it, but I was bored. And I made it myself. You're like, silly, I can do this still. Yeah, I still got it. But I had her do, because lately I'm hearing all this stuff, and you guys might see it, and it annoys you. The secret to building big glutes, you see these influencers say the most obnoxious, literally, the most obnoxious stuff I've ever heard. Unhinged stuff, and it's like, the reason why you're not building glutes is because you're not training your hip flexors.

My hip flexors, I'm all about gaining hip flexor mobility, but that's not going to make you grow your glutes. Is that a real post? Did somebody ever say that? Yes, that was going around, and it's like when one person says it and it goes viral, then 50 of them crop up, and you can't, and because it's entertainment algorithms, you can't, a scientist can't keep a lid on it. It's just, this is now out there. And then it's like some functional type guy being like, you're not training your spiral chain, or the Serape effect, or your posterior oblique sling, or whatever they say.

And so what I did with this post, it was my client Ryan. She was inside the house drinking her yogurt, and I go, oh, let's go back out to the garage. I want to film something real quick. And she's like, I'm all sweaty. And I'm like, no, we just have to do this one thing. And I put a band around her knee laterally. Oh, I saw that clip. I saw it. I actually caught my what the hell is he doing? And then another band wrapping around her body, and she's holding it out like this, and a dumbbell, and I said, and I put up her before and after picture, and I said, here's how we took Raya's glutes from flat to fat in four months.

We start off by doing this deep, whatever I called it, like deep lunge, deep split squat with lots of bands to activate the spiral chain and the, like what's the spiral chain? The spiral chain and the deep core. That's also, yeah. Did you not see this? Oh, it's so caught my attention because it was on your page. And I'm like, what is this I don't know about? Is this a functional pattern? Yeah, yeah. Noddy was shaking his head. Yes, now you're onto something. And then I said, just kidding.

We didn't do any of that. What we did do was straight up progressive overload, and then I showed her using a lot of weight. And so, yes, I do get criticisms, and you do get in my experience, a lot of women want to do like six to seven exercises per session, and it's hard to get them not to because they, but when you really push yourself, four is good enough, maybe five, but yeah, a lot of times they're not pushing themselves hard enough, so they try to compensate for lack of effort with more volume, but a lot of it's junk volume.

And when you really do have quality volume, you don't, you rest more, you don't want as many sets, you know, because that's what I train my women. They're like, coach, what else should I do? Go home. I want to do one more. Go home. You got to train in two days. You just crush heavy squats or like leg, you just killed it today. You got to train in two days. If you train Monday, Wednesday, Friday, sometimes I'll give them a little more on Friday, but a lot of times on Friday they're beat up, we have to go, so yeah, it's really complicated because they train, and a lot of guys don't understand it.

They don't understand glute training because they have never trained glutes three times a week. There's an art to it, and you get guys chiming in, wanting to be expert at it, but then they'll be like, here's what I like to do, and like, because remember back in the day, it was like where we grew up, it was, when we grew up, it was one leg day a week. That's right. And you would do death sets, like what you'd do. You could walk. That was the test.

Did you fall off the curb walking out of the gym? It wasn't enough. I didn't push the clutch on my car. German volume training, drop sets, super setter with it. Like, it was like, there was no, yeah, like Arnold's book. Like, I would go into the forest and do 50 sets of squats, like what? So, we grew up with that, but you try that three times a week, no. And that's something I've done in my own training. I've eliminated the drop sets, the stuff I realized I was doing to impress people, because if you're a trainer and you give them a drop set, or just really high reps, or super sets, they love it, they feel, especially you get them sore the next day, they're like, I've never been that sore in my life.

And you're like, sorry. And they're like, no, I like it. Or you get them to have some crazy glute pump or burn, which, just have them do something new for super high reps with a controlled tempo, and they're going to burn like crazy. They will love you and think you're the best, but I try to tell them that doesn't, that stuff is fluff. That's me winning you over for session number one, and then by week two, we aren't doing that stuff. So great. Such a veteran trainer move right there.

Give them a taste of some of their stuff, and then go out and do the bait and switch, like, we don't need to do that shit, just so you know. Just so you know I can do this, but now we're not doing it. Let's talk about frequency, because you said three days a week, and you'll see some data that says so long as the volume is controlled, two days a week versus three days a week versus four all builds the same amount of muscle. I always disagreed with that, because I know if I do 15 sets for back on Monday, it's not the same as if I did five on Monday, and you can't control the volume.

In the real world, when I do five, five, five, I'm stronger. The volume naturally goes up. So talk about that a little bit, because I hate it when that debate comes up. When you work out in the real world, in real life, breaking it up, you just tend to have better workouts. So it's kind of what you said earlier. There are some problems with research. One of them is that it's short term. It's usually universities doing it during a semester, and so you've got a 16 week long semester, but you can't just have them start it on day one.

So they're usually eight week studies, 10 week studies, that's it. But they're short term studies. But also another pitfall is you want to have advanced subjects, and you say I want you to do one exercise. It's not going to happen. No serious lifter would just do one or an advanced lifter. I want you with your left leg, we're going to do this, and on your right leg, I would have like OCD paranoia, asymmetry OCD paranoia set in, and be like wait, I'm going to be off balance.

Newbies, or like non-lifters, they're game for anything. So you're going to have way more research on newbies than advanced lifters, and it's always going to be eight weeks, 10 weeks long. So is three times a week more effective than twice a week? In the literature, not really. It might be, we might get that data over time, but it's not going to be like it's crazy more beneficial. But I will always say my programs are three times a week. Could you see amazing results doing twice a week?

Yeah, of course you could. How much percent better is doing three times a week? Well, it is under these conditions. My booty bar prep, for example, and it's funny because they do see good upper body results. I do one press, so it's three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for example. I do one upper body press, three sets, and one upper body pull, three sets. So it's any compound press and any compound pull. So basically, either push-up or bench press with dumbbells or barbells or overhead press, some shoulder press variation.

And then it's a chin-up, a pull-down, or a row. And they do three sets of that. The glute component is typically four. It's hard to throw kickbacks in one of these columns because technically it's a hinge, but what if you bend the knee and kick, but what if you do more donkey kick? Is that a squat? Not really. So it's hard to program kickbacks in there. Then I just say, if you want, add in a couple sets of kickbacks. But I do a thrust bridge pattern, a squat lunge pattern, and a hinge pull pattern.

What I like to do if I'm just training someone in real life, and we're not doing like booty bar prep style programming, is I alternate the thrust pattern. By the way, you can do it in any order, too. So we might do squats first. With the squat pattern, I alternate between a double leg and a single leg. The double leg being squats, leg press. I try to make them glute dominant still, but there's no way to take your quads completely out of any squat. Even if you're doing glute dominant box squats, your quads are still in my opinion, still the prime mover.

But then two days later, you'll do a single leg variation, a glute dominant step up, single leg press. Reverse lunge, I try to stick to more on Friday because you get two days off. You do it on the day where you have two days afterwards because those beat you up pretty good. Or a Bulgarian. But then you alternate between those. Now if you do the hinge pattern, alternate between a vertical and a horizontal. Meaning, one day it's RDL or stiff leg or good morning. The next day it's 45 hyper or reverse hyper back extension.

Those don't make you sore. And then with the thrust bridge pattern, it's a full range movement and then a lockout focus. Because a lockout focus doesn't beat you up as much. Hip thrusts don't beat you up in general, but get really strong at hip thrusts and they do start to beat you up. So the lockout focus is a little less daunting. So the lockout focus would be bar plus band, which is my favorite, or pauses or pulses. Pulses being just the top half or the top third.

And then with the abduction pattern, so it's, yeah, with the abduction, did I mention that the four squat lunge, hinge pull, thrust bridge, abduction. Abduction, it's frontal plane one day, transverse plane the next day. So if you're thinking of a seated hip abduction machine, one day it's leaning forward, the next day it would be bridged or leaning back. But there's also a ton of different movements you could do. For the leaning, your options would be kind of like basically leaning seated hip abduction, sideline hip raises, band seated hip abduction, or the dumbbell hip airplanes you see now, which you want to be stable, but that kind of works a similar pattern.

Or any of these 3D abductors that are getting more and more popular. And then the other day would be the frontal plane, that's all of your cable standing, or your bridged seated hip abduction, your cable standing variations, and then you could do straight out to the side or kind of angled to make it more glute medius kickback. And then you have your extra range sideline hip abductions, with or without a band or ankle weight. You could do any band, any lateral band walk type thing where you're more upright.

But basically with bands, with ankle weights, or now we have like the snow angel machine, which I call it, I just made it up. Someone tried to copy the hammer strength seated hip abduction, just made it way too big. So we just put the seat all the way back and you lay down on it. And it's like I call it snow angel because you just go straight out to the side. But yeah, basically it's a good system. But what you talked about, it's a system and it prevents injuries.

If you stick to that, it's less injuries and less pain. And you just mentioned that pain and injuries are everything. I think it's everything with, I think it's more important than we talk about. And the reason why, and you have to get older to appreciate it because me, I had my, like four years ago I had my no, it was six years ago. My God, my camera guy, Alex, he was living with me when I moved to Vegas. He lived in the upstairs. There's like a 1200 square foot studio up there.

And I'm like, you can just live up there and then we can film more, but he's younger than me and he's spry. He's like, no, I think he's like 30 now. So he's like, yeah, like 20 years younger than me. So when he's around, or if I have a girlfriend, I'm always like, Hey, cause I'll be like sitting down and I'm like, Hey, can you grab me a, an energy drink or can you grab me a can you toss this on your way out? I don't want to get up cause my knees hurt.

My knees hurt and I'm trying not to move, but think about it. Remember when you were a kid, you, you could be like junk jump up right now and try to touch the ceiling and then take off in a sprint. You could do that right now. If the four of us tried that, we would, have you seen that? Have you seen the viral video? I shared it on my story just like three days ago of the twenties, your thirties and your forties. And it was like these 20 year old kids jumping off a roof.

And I did see that. And then it's like the 40 year old trying to get out of the truck. The bed of the truck. That's me going, if I just jump, I might, yeah, it's better to just sit down. You know what you got to do because that's true, but you got to compare yourself against the average. But yeah, I'm not too hard on myself, but what I realize it decreases your neat. We always say your metabolism goes down No, it doesn't drop that much. It's your neat and it's because of pain.

Yeah, if you didn't have any pain you'd go play Pain is related to neat I've seen no studies. Oh, no. No, that's that's obvious You are you you glossed over something. I want to highlight for the audience that I think is so important We talk about this a lot and you and you just went right over it I think it's it just highlights, you know, what a great coach and a programming that you do is A lot of times when someone will hear an episode like this They hear us all talk about gluten They want to build their glutes They go take all this these great exercises that you're throwing out what we're talking about and they pile it on to their kind Of routine area if you notice that you have a very minimalist upper body.

Oh my god. That's what I didn't finish That's what I meant. So I was describing my system. So think about it it's 36 what if you do that Monday Wednesday Friday pick pick these extras pick a squat lunge thrust bridge hinge pull Abduction. Yeah, and then a upper body press in an upper body pull do that three times a week three sets each That ends up being 36 sets for glutes nine sets for quads and adductors nine sets for hamstrings Because the squat lunge works your quads and adductors the hinge works your hammies So it's nine sets for quads and adductors nine sets for hammies nine sets for the upper body pressing musculature Nine sets for the upper body pulling Musculature and 36 sets per glutes.

It's a permanent glute specialization program Yes, and that way you can recover if we're trying to do everything 36 sets You're 20 put you you could not recover people don't get in by the way because we're alternating with the things I mentioned like Abduction doesn't get you to soar. Yeah, you know and like this is why you like it's not people say well 20 sets is is enough for most muscle groups and I agree like chest like I 20 sets a week I can't do 20 sets a week for chest anymore and still recover But think of the delts the glutes are kind of like, you know You've got upper glute max lower max and glute meet him in the delts You could do 20 sets because it's front delts side delts radio bunch of lateral And then you've got your military presses your upright rows and then all your delt raises you could easily do 36 if you're on a delt specialization program, which I did in 2024.

I Didn't increase my weight on anything. I just started doing more volume and I was like, I'm gonna do Cables like with lateral raise. I've always just done dumbbells. I'm gonna do the lateral raise machine dumbbells cables And bands and with cables sometimes just lengthen partials. Yeah And my delts grew just from doing more volume, that's awesome. Mm-hmm, but yeah, you but real quick you get so sick of it Yeah, I got so sick of it That's why these guys are like additive. They see a movement.

They're like just do a Romanian just do us just squat Yeah, you don't get this train glutes. Yeah, I've been working out for decades I mean for the girls they don't different they want variety because yeah, it gets really freaking boring So you want a new program every four weeks in my opinion Four weeks works out. Well, yes, you can do an eight-week program. Yes, you could do a 12-week, but like four weeks That's what another thing I learned from Louie Simmons like they would pick a movement stick with it for three weeks and then switch That's how we've got all of our master Different phases every three or four weeks The same program and that's part of the reason they're part of reasons avoid injury and just keep things fresh, you know when you work Those two things are equally important, that's right avoid injury and keep it fun.

That's right percent Otherwise, you won't be consistent I got to ask you a question not glute related But you brought something up and it just makes me laugh talk about if you have a girlfriend or when you have a girlfriend How is it dating women when you do what you do and you're surrounded by? Bikini models and stuff all day long like all your posts champion bikini models Yeah, like how is that for you as a guy trying to date? Are they okay with it? Does it cause problems my my My client Angela.

She's Chinese. I mentioned how I've had Chinese clients with really round glutes. She has Great glute development and she hip thrust 600 barbell hip thrust 610 pounds at 120 body weight That's crazy. Yeah, but She's so freaking strong, but anyway She once said Brett Brett like Brett Brett doesn't Brett belongs to all of us. Not like like Not in a sexual manner, but like he's I'm always you FaceTime me. I I answer but I've been single for 18 months now and that's I've always been good at business.

I've been good at social media. I'm good at being a personal trainer. I'm not good at business I'm a good personal trainer And then there's just some things you're not as good at and I've just I mean, I'm still single at age 50 I would like to you know, settle down I would love to get married, but it is hard and I think if I want to make a relationship We're gonna have to quit training. I mean you think I go back and yeah, I go back and forth between five I have a house in Fort Lauderdale trying to sell and it will not sell.

It's a bad market there right now It's crazy over there. Yeah, and then I have two houses in San Diego and one in Vegas and I just go back and forth between my three houses and Train my clients and I don't have any schedule. It's when I get bored and I get a flight like that day Oh, wow, that's pretty cool. It's a it's a great life But I do miss having a girl. I miss having I would like to have a life partner I would like to have a best friend to go do life with.

Yeah, I'm a little lonely Like I don't mean I wanted to say lonely But I like watching I love watching Netflix with someone that is interested in I feel like there aren't a lot of us left That's like to watch TV at night. I'm going can I get a girlfriend? I make good money I don't you don't need to work. You want to work? I'll support you I'll even help you with it, but you don't have to work just Travel around with me eat food with me and I'll pay for it and then watch some TV with me Give me quality time and I realized over time that I like, you know Languages when I first learned about it years ago is like such a great this is like this is so gay and then now I'm like, okay, I Realize I like all the love well not gifts, but I like quality time.

I like words of affirmation. I like I like physical touch. It might be all the pictures that your clients send you Relation where I think I have to quit Training quit training so many women I got I'm going what do I do switch to training bros, but you know You just need you just need the the ultimate the ultimate confident She just has like cuz there's there's a lot of to make her like in charge That's what I've never been good at making her feel so special and I wish so taking the last 18 months off And being single I was like And I also moved moved back to Vegas and I've been alone a lot and not to switch and get all sentimental here But yeah, I've got a lot of downtime and I also thought I follow this guy Arthur Brooks and he's always talking about Okay, so Like so I'm like I need to put my phone down and like live life So it's hard for me to just go 20 minutes without my phone But I'll use my jacuzzi or like red lights on or something and put the phone down and then sometimes I'll be in the jacuzzi for a half an hour and you just think and I've been thinking a lot and you reflect on how I could have been a better boyfriend how I could have I don't think Back of might be like I was a victim.

This person never loved me. I don't think that way I always think of I'm used to being like I've got like five people mad at me at all times and I'm always trying to use humor to Gloss it over and keep everyone happy. It's like the the balls. I mentioned earlier juggling. I'm trying to keep everyone happy and And I tease everyone so there I always piss some people off like, you know, like going too far So I'm always trying to make everyone happy But I realized I was I never made anyone feel that special and I I could have been a lot better.

So I've been Following like the Gottman's they're like the relationship My god, yes, I don't listen to podcasts I don't expect Rogan episode or anything. That's all stuff. We like I love you guys. I love Huberman. I love Joe Rogan I just don't listen to podcast ever. Yeah, we had the Commons on a long time. Okay, so the Gottman's I've been listening to John Gottman I'm like man, that's how you're supposed to be Yeah, now I know why I'm single But yeah, have you connect have you since you're going down this rabbit hole?

I mean, I find all this stuff interesting this conversation. Um, have you have you connected it to? Childhood stuff or like what is what is because a lot of times it's there's something That you subconsciously you're running from you don't even know it. Have you connected it? That's another thing. I've been doing I've been going to therapy twice a week for three years now and it's it's it look like I make good money but that's expensive if you didn't make I mean if if your therapist is You know 250 bucks an hour or something that's 500 bucks a week, you know So that's two weeks a year.

You're looking at 26,000 a year just for therapy therapy. But anyway Yeah, so I've I've figured out a lot of things about myself like an anxious attachment stuff things like that But also just watching John Gottman. He got through to me I'm like what a loving man a supportive man and he's like when when you know, Julia sits down to talk He'll take out a notepad. I feel like I was always arguing to win in the past being the scientist like I want to win Cool, you you won you won the argument and then you're sleeping on the couch that night.

You know, so you lost So have you I'm sure you are fascinated with all the research they've done like they did some really I've never pulled up the actual Some of the most duplicated studies in Mental health because mental health studies are very difficult duplicated 60% of them. They can't but Gottman studies. They've repeated Why just their prediction on divorce is like crazy Well, I quote them like the four horsemen of relationship like contempt being the worst. Yes Yeah, have you seen back to I think was Arthur Brooks that said this the other day this this was another time going off On a tinder.

We said the dark triad. Yeah, if you have No Narcissism Machiavellian Machiavellian ism and psychopathy. Mm-hmm. It's like that's the dark triad like I I It's all about me. Yep The end justifies the means I will do whatever it takes to get what I want and I will feel no guilt. No guilt Yeah, but anyway, I've been I've been paying more attention to this stuff Have you seen the podcast with Arthur and his wife where they taught Esther? No, those are the ones you got to watch really?

They're phenomenal. They're no it's it's it's what you realize. All right. What what was I good at in life? I was good at personal training go figure. I love it I'm naturally love if you love something so much You're gonna be good at it. I Loved relationships, but I wasn't ready to settle down a lot of guys can be there in their 20s I feel like I took to like my late 40s to really really want to prioritize a relationship and You know Chris Rock said it in a skit a long time ago like a man is as faithful as his options And as I got more popular, I realized wow, I have more females are into me, but then you reach 50 and you're like Invisible.

I don't get hit on people will be like nice thirst trap. You posted on your story I'm like you think that people respond to me like in their minds. I'm getting like 50 Like no Posting that for me In my 30s, I didn't make any money in my younger 30s, but I was I was getting hit on By, you know supermodels in in Spain and stuff and I'm like now I have all the money and I Don't get hit on at all. And even though I've noticed with my clients like like Feel like they all have admiration for me and they love me but they like the thirty-year-olds.

I'm too old I don't want to dad someone in their 20s into dad now I'm dad now and the women that come get formed the closest bonds with me are the women who had daddy issues Yeah, I'm like a father figure them and it's it's you know, and I like I love it because I like the closeness But then I sabotage my ability to have a girlfriend. Yeah, and I've made a lot of mistakes along the way It's always been my fault Every relationship I had I feel like I was good at blaming I'm good at like and everyone takes my side, you know, cuz I can describe things in a way But then I this whole last 18 months of sitting the jacuzzi.

I'm like, oh my god. It's been me the whole time Love you. Have you any any recent breakthroughs going to the therapy? Have you had a recent breakthrough? No, it's it's more like for me Trying to like You know express things but not dwell on them. Like I don't ever want to go down the road of B I had a therapist years in 2020 and she was like Brett I I What I was going through at the time She's like she said I have sympathy for you and I do believe you've been dealt a bad hand here Like you're a victim in this case, but I just can't implore you never have victim mindset If you and she said this to me and it changed my life it made so much sense She goes if you go if you develop a victim mindset you stop in your tracks You will stagnate the rest of your life.

I have a couple that I've been seeing off and on for 20 years and The the man and the wife split up the man went and remarried. He has two kids. He's happy You know, I barely see him in where he's so happy He moved on with his life and the woman is still complaining to this day 20 years later about the relationship That's all she wants to talk about and I went. Oh, I do not ever want to be like that. So for me, it's like realizing I need to take time and the the women that I pick What like I thought it could work out what I realize is I need us I need to notice red foot not not necessarily like red flags for everyone, but like what were what would be red flags for sustaining relationship for me if you know because I'm older and People are sometimes like you should be with this Influencer, I don't want to date a popular influencer.

It's all about that. I don't want to read their foot You're their photographer in life, you know And I mentioned you've lived that life. I want to settle down and I want and you think I also think the world changed a little Bit and men have always been so had the upper hand and it's been all about men and we've been But now women if the world changed and women are more picky now and they want they want to have They they want their men to have the whole package and I and it's because of only fans It's because of social media being an influencer.

You can crush it as an entrepreneur now if you want You can crush it. Not just only like I have People like clients that aren't only fans. They don't post nude they post Sexy pictures, but it's never it's not nude and them they might make four grand a month that way and then two grand a month Then like this Avenue and another two grand this way and they're they're making ten grand a month to being influencers, you know and And having fun and they wake up.

They don't wake up to alarm They don't have a boss breathing down their neck and they're loving life and they tend to get free stuff all the time So they're loving their life and they don't need a man. So if they're gonna be with a man What do you add to my what? How do you add to my life? And so in Florida, I realize this in South Florida there's a lot of Transactional relationships and neither side are happy because you have the You have the woman that's with the man just for money and it's never enough It's never enough and the man who yeah, he can if he's not if he has money he can upgrade He might be a six and he can date a ten But he knows he has to pay for it so the woman is is like man I could date this Short King in Dubai paying me a million a month.

This guy's giving me ten grand a month I could get a hundred grand a month if I dated this guy, so she's always comparing Because they tell they talk they tell stories thing things overheard in my gym sometimes in Florida. Oh my god So they tell stories but then the man is going I could get someone who just loves me and wants to be with me without Money, so they're both resentful and it doesn't work in my opinion. What you're looking for is a wife not a girlfriend Yes, and a mother is what you're looking at your mother, but a mother to your children Yeah, and so those are the qualities you want to look for.

What kind of a mother do I want for my kids? What are those qualities and what is a wife? What are the qualities I'm looking for in a wife and and when you pull from that pool of women then I think you'll find Yeah Go do things. Yeah, because I just travel around and I'm always in the gym I'm also I'm not on dating apps and I don't put out the vibe that I'm looking. I don't know this episode will come out Too exhausting though filtering through and I also realize Your therapist money and I'll call you once a week and I'll filter all the But I also realize this is kind of funny I dressed up for a wedding Two weekends ago and then a couple weekends before that my my squad threw me my 50th birthday party And they made me dress up it was like a fancy dressed and like I would have rather had a jorts and tank top party You know But I realized I get way more attention.

I realized this cuz um one time it was like st. Patrick's Day This is a funny story. I was walking down in San Diego I was walking down the street and it was st. Patty's Day and I went to the gym I'd bring a backpack. I'd have my computer in there so I could work while I lifted and it was late. I'd lift This was like 20 ish and I'd lift weights late at night. I don't do that now now I try to focus more on sleep and my health but anyway I was walking by this bar thrusters is kind of by my house and there's a big old long line and I'm like, excuse me, I need to get through and this guy was drunk and he's like he's like You know, I was like, excuse me, can I get three goes walk around and I'm like You know, I don't need your permission, right?

I could just remove you and This is girlfriend goes babe. Listen to me. It's a lot bigger than you and she and he goes he looks at his girlfriend He goes honey. He's homeless The end of the movie where the mug drops in slow motion you have all these realizations. Oh my god, I've got a scraggly beard Jordan tank top and a backpack. I don't even know what to say right now I Drive a 2012 Toyota Tacoma and I drive so little it's about it's at like ninety eight five Thousand miles like it's about to get the hundred I don't even have a hundred thousand miles on my truck, but I have a 2024 in San Diego I like the 2012 more.

I mean that's truck. I couldn't sell it for five grand. I don't think I Don't care about cars. I bought this just to wear for things like this. I don't Know what the heck I know nothing about jewelry. I don't care about and it's kind of a cool feeling like I don't care about money They all my people my family and friends care more about my money than I do. I'm happy. I go to the gym every day I don't need anything else. I'm not trying to buy a nicer house.

I'm not trying I don't care about cars And I clearly don't care about dressing The two times I dressed up I got so much attention I'm like, oh my god, maybe that's just don't look homeless Maybe we'll find a wife if you So good, this was great man Too long, I can't believe we let that much time. We won't tell it's time to go by it next time But yeah, you're one of the good guys in the fitness space We appreciate you the way you communicate things You do a good job and I think we need more It's good to have people like you in our space because there's so much noise And you've been doing this for a while, but and through that period of time you've seen people come up and down But you listen to the podcast you hear how many times we pump your tire People tell me okay, I always I always tell anyone ever says What podcast was I listen?

I say mind pump for fitness. Yeah, I don't think there's any better one out there But um, yeah, it's it's we've seen We've seen the industry change and we've seen That's the the era of the fake trainers like think about most of these popular people. They've literally never trained anyone Ever had a client 23 years old and they're a million followers Arguing with me on instagram. I'm like imagine Feeling confident and like arguing with someone who you've never Had experience with and you're like, oh, I'm not gonna do this.

I'm not gonna do this Had experience in the field It's crazy. It's crazy. And that's what we're dealing with. So it's nice to that's why we can and that's why I always say I'll always train people because you know arnold said that in his like I watched his documentary Be useful. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you got to stay useful That's the secret. Yeah, so It keeps me being useful, but it also keeps me interesting Have one of those guys on the podcast, what would he talk about? He only has his own experience.

That's why we never have any of them on our podcast You know louis simmons, you knew he really trained people he He'd go I trained this, you know This guy this guy kenny patterson had this much but he was benched 600 pounds He'd be real enough numbers and I realized I kind of do that too Like when you really train people you're like I took this person's strength from this to this or I built their god put two inches On this person's glutes doing this You have actual have stories to tell.

Yeah, and so you will It's how to stay marketable when you're 50 and on social media I don't understand social media the way the younger crowd does anymore. And so I have to stay competitive. I do that by Staying on top of the research lifting weights myself Lifting weights myself and then training other people which is the most important component and it's what I love doing Anyway, so I I had that a pit to close this up I had this epiphany that if you don't care if you've if you Saved up enough money and you don't really care about it that much and you found what you like to do And you know, I would be doing this if I won the lottery or if I was dirt poor I will I love training people and being in charge of their fitness and I love when people are like I need to step it up.

I need to get in shape and they can call me and I will be equally as enthusiastic as They are about it It's a lucky way to live life and I think it's the missing element It's what arthur brooks talks about a lot of the younger generation. They don't Have a purpose they have a missing element to themselves because they're always on their phones and you don't figure out the meaning of life When you're staring at your phone 24 hours a day You figure out when you're bored And we came up in an era where we had to be bored.

We had to figure stuff out So i'm glad that we came up when we did before social media before the internet was huge before Ai i'm, I I love the prospects of ai and everything and we've benefited very much from social media But I do like that. We've been we've been able to experience two extremes of life, you know agreed Well brett, thanks for coming on the show, dude. Great time, dude. Thank you for having you having you greatly appreciate it. Thank you Thank you for listening to mind pump if your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy And maximize your overall performance check out our discounted rgb super bundle at mindpumpmedia.com The rgb super bundle includes maps anabolic maps performance and maps aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by sal adam and justin to Systematically transform the way your body looks feels and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos The rgb super bundle is like having sal adam and justin as your own personal trainers But at a fraction of the price the rgb super bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee And you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com If you enjoy this show Please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on itunes and by introducing mind pump to your friends and family We thank you for your support and until next time.

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