Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2065: Glute Masterclass

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover everything you need to know to build your glutes. Why do we find this muscle so attractive? (1:31) The scale of difficulty to develop. (4:35) The muscles of the glutes and main functions. (6:09) Best exercises. (10:44) The importance of incorporating unilateral exercises. (17:36) Building a program for the average person. (20:39) The best rep ranges. (22:12) Frequency. (27:32) Isolation exercises that have some value. (28:08) Total sets. (33:22) Dietary strategies. (35:28) Related Links/Products Mentioned For a limited time only, Mind Pump listeners get a free LMNT Sample Pack with any purchase: Visit DrinkLMNT.com/MindPump April Promotion: MAPS Anabolic or MAPS Split 50% off! **Code APRIL50 at checkout** Fix Your Back Pain – Mind Pump Blog How To Do A Barbell Hip Thrust The RIGHT Way! (FIX THIS!!!) Learn To Squat Like A PRO (FREE GUIDE) - YouTube Adam Schafer’s DEEP Squat Mobility Secrets | Behind The Scenes at Mind Pump THIS Is The BEST Side Butt Exercise! - YouTube The ONLY Way You Should Be Doing Stiff Legged Deadlifts! – Mind Pump TV 4 Cues To Improve Your Deadlift With Eugene Teo – Mind Pump TV Mind Pump #1790: The Secret To An Attractive & Functional Body Mind Pump #1827: The 3 Best Rep Ranges To Build Muscle & Burn Fat Activate Your Glutes & Accelerate Butt Development with Butterfly Floor Bridges Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness health and entertainment podcast ever. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, it's the Glute Masterclass. We talk everything glutes, function, had to develop them, what good workout programming looks like.

You're gonna love this episode if you wanna develop strong, powerful, amazing looking butt. By the way, this episode is brought to you by a sponsor, Element. This is electrolyte powder that's flavored naturally, no sugar, and it has the right amount of sodium for athletes and people who are fitness fanatics. Other electrolyte powders, they don't have enough sodium, believe it or not.

This one does and you will notice a difference in your workouts, especially if you have a low carb diet or you don't eat heavily processed foods. Anyway, go check them out and get a free sample pack. Go to drinkelement or so drinklmnt.com forward slash mind, and you'll get a free sample pack with any order. Also, these are the final hours of our April Maps program sale, two programs 50% off. Maps in a bulk, and Maps split. If you're finding this episode right when we drop it,

you have a few hours to take advantage of that 50% off sale. So, if you're interested and you want to take advantage, go to mapsfitinistproducts.com, and then use the code, April 50 for the 50% off sale. So if you're interested and you want to take advantage, go to maps fitnessproducts.com and then use the code April 50 for the 50% off discount. All right, here comes a show. All right, today's episode, we're going to talk about the glutes, what they do, why they're so important to develop, and what things you could do to give yourself strong, round, amazing, glute muscles. That's the butt muscles. Let's talk about that. Hands down the single most common muscle

that people asked to be developed in higher. It has to be like the last 10 years, it has to be the highest priority for most. I mean, my entire career, that was the number one, right? So if I had, first of all, you have to know that 70% of our clientele were female. Many of them were middle-aged women and almost all of them. Even if they said, I'd like to lose 15 or 20 pounds

and I want to build my butt. It was like almost always and build my butt or it was purely like, I just want to build an ass. You know, it's funny. This is the one muscle when you look at, like if men and women were to list the top four, let's say muscles that they find attractive in a mate, this is the one common muscle.

You'll find that women will say glutes, and men will obviously say glutes. And so you ask yourself why, why do we find this muscle so attractive? And it's mainly because, and anybody who's ever worked in any kind of sport or strength sport knows this, that round, strong, powerful glutes typically signifies power. Like, you got someone who's fast, stable, like, and strong.

I thought you were going to go the evolutionary route, right? Like, for men, isn't it, I mean, if you have, like, wider hips, it's better for birthing, right? Like for men, isn't it? I mean, if you have like wider hips, it's better for birthing, right? For women, right? Yes, okay. So the bigger butt hips thing, I think plays for men towards that way. And then to your point about,

if you've ever seen, if a dude has like big butt naturally, he's probably athletic. He tends to be really good. Wow, powerful athletic. And it's responsible for keeping us upright. Yes, so yeah, there's body fat storage that's desirable that men like, which is kind of what you're talking about,

like women who store more body fat in the lower half of their body, tend to be healthier, have healthier offspring. But in terms of the muscles themselves, I mean, glutes are locomotion. It's what allows you to move and be mobile. And if you have poor locomotion, you are not a good partner.

You're not gonna be able to have kids very well, take care of them, or actually do anything. And it's one of the muscles that, in terms of its size, that's unique to humans in terms of primates. We have like really, really big glute muscles compared to, gorilla is a huge muscular animal. Flap butt. Little tiny butts. And it's cause, a flat butt, little tiny butt.

And it's because what you said, we walk up right, it's this this this hip extending muscle, it allows us for, you know, locomotion and speed and strength. And for athletes, like almost every sport, you develop stronger glutes, you're going to have better athletic performance. And you can always, you can almost always pick out an athlete with a lot of power. Yeah, but having strong hands. It's pretty accurate to pick out of a lineup which athlete is probably the most powerful out there on the field. Now, where would you guys rated on a scale of one being, you know, not difficult at all, ten being very difficult to develop for most people.

You know what? I think across the board, arms, bison tries one of the easiest muscles to develop both men and women, shoulders, relatively easy, I think. Chest a little challenge, I would say as a challenging muscle for many people to develop. Back up, back can be challenging. I would put glutes up there with, if not the top, one of the top three most difficult muscles to develop for most people. And that doesn't mean as a trainer, so take your trainer brain out, not for you, because

I think I think we've learned a lot of great hacks in ways to help people. I think the average person, it's the most common, I guess, client that will get that has a hard time like accessing a certain muscle group is, I very much heard a lot of like female clients especially coming in and they didn't have very good connection with their group. Yeah, well, modern life, we tend to like under develop them and we don't,

we're not very well connected to them. So that's why people have, you're right, that's why they have a tough time developing them because they don't, we're not very well connected to them. So that's why people have, you're right, that's why they have a tough time developing them because they don't connect to them very well. But once you get them to connect, then they become an easy muscle to develop. They're very responsive and that's the thing with the glutes, they're very responsive to hypertrophy when you can train them properly. You can really, and it's a huge muscle and they have this massive capacity for strength and power and for development. You just have to learn how to connect to them.

So, let's break down the glutes, because we talk about glutes and we just think these two big butt cheeks, but there's actually like three main muscles that make up the glutes. You have the gluteus maximus, which is like the big kind of meaty middle part. Then you have the medius, which is kind of this outer upper part,

and then you have the minimus, which is a smaller, part of the glute that's underneath the meatiest. Now they all are involved in hip extension, like that's bringing your leg back to some degree abduction, bringing the leg out, rotation for the most part, and they all kind of work together. So people who try to isolate one or the other, I mean, you can kind of do that a little

bit. You can't isolate it. You can put emphasis on more of one than the other, but it's like they work synergistically. It's not like it's not like comparing the bicep to the tricep, right? It's not like you can do exercises for it and completely not work it at all. Right. The best exercises for the glutes are going to be ones that allow you to get that hip extension with good load.

Like being able to add a decent amount of weight to the bar, this is like all body parts, right? The ones that allow, the exercise allow you to load them tend to be the best muscle builders. So I would add also range of motion in that. Yeah. Add load and good range of motion I think would be the king of exercise in that. Because the challenge that I always had with clients that hired me for this, very few of

them like never didn't try something themselves. Most of them thought they were doing all the right exercises. The most common things I saw were either one, they were doing these shortened isolation type of exercises, kickbacks, dog peas, type of marching things, extension on the stair master, they're doing all this stuff that made their butt burn.

Quarter wrap kind of squeeze pumping. Yes, all these movements that made their butt burn. They can feel it in their butt better than maybe some of the exercises that actually built their butt better. Yeah, it's funny too, because a lot of those exercises you said were directed towards a female market

because women were more aware of, hey, I want to build my butt, but they're also the common female consumers. I don't want to build too much muscle overall. So here's some wonderful, but building exercises for women, and they're all not the best but building exercises. They're all these short, like you said,

range of motion almost. Yeah, and I'm glad you brought up range of motion because like one of the biggest things that I always had to work through with clients like that, like a lot of times it was a limiting factor of knee pain or or something, you know, that was sort of restrictive in terms of their depth. And so they'd never really were able to tap in and access, you know, that full range of motion, which then allowed their glutes to contract and fire at that optimal amount. So to kind of work through that,

and then, you know, open up this whole range of potential for them for their glutes was huge. You know, it's funny too, a lot of people don't know this. This is very true though. One of the most common root causes of low back injury and pain, which is one of the most common injuries. Okay. One of the more common places people hurt is in their low back is actually weak dysfunctional

glutes. Like weak hips really place a lot of stress on the lower back because what your butt can't do, your spine ends up having to do every time you bend over, twist, lift, something move, and you'll almost always, I mean, this is very, very true, not always, but almost, you know, pretty common, I'd say a majority of the time, somebody who has lots of back problems has some dysfunction or weakness in the glutes. That was me. I think that I couldn't break past 90 for the longs time.

One of the things that I realized happened to me when I worked on my ankle and hip mobility got to a place where I could do a really deep squat Was the development in my glutes. I got all this great glute development and then all of a sudden back pain is Completing on and that's for sure of course Working on the hip mobility probably contributed and helped some of that and alleviate some of the low back pain But so did developing the glutes because that's supporting that well Yeah, I think of what hip mobility is what muscles are being actively involved there. It's all glute, it's mostly glute, right?

So, it's to protect your back, it's really important. Right, and the mobility, I mean, yes, it is a strengthening, it's not just flexibility, but that really helped to provide access to that range of motion, right? And to strengthen it is really crucial for you to be able to keep that. Yeah, totally true.

So, I mean, best exercises, you know, there's like, hip thrust have been known now are known to be a great butt exercise. And I think that's up there. But I think barbell swaths are still the king of glute development. Hip thrust is still number three for me. Yeah, it's still in with all the popularity. By the way, that doesn't mean it's not good. That's great. It's a great club. It's a top three. It's a top three. And I know the way, that doesn't mean it's not good. That's great. It's a great, great, great, great, great. It's a top three. And I know that's a bit of controversy around that

because of the popularity around the hip thrust in the last decade. There was no debate argument of that prior to 10 years ago. Because of the popularity of the hip thrust, the ability for you to load that, people to connect to it in that, it has become a one of the best exercises to do that.

But the one area that is inferior to the deadlift in the squat is the range of motion. You get a greater range of motion and you can load just like you can, they all three can be loaded very heavy, right? So everybody has the potential to deadlift squat and hip thrust in the hundreds of pounds for both men and women. So that makes it an incredible exercise. But the one limiting factor that the hip thrust has in comparison to the deadlift in the squat is the range of motion.

Now, here's one of the reasons why hip thrust, a lot of people think it's the best, not great, but the best butt builder because it's an amazing butt builder for people who have trouble connecting to their glutes. Yes. So if you're somebody who's like, my butt won't grow. I've done squats, I've done deadlifts, and I just can't develop my butt. Hip thrusts become the best exercise because it's not purely an isolation exercise, but it does connect. It's easier to connect to your glutes with a hip thrust than it is with the barbell. It's a reason why there's so many evangelists around it too because they they're like I couldn't build it. Yeah, they couldn't build it forever All of a sudden they get introduced to hip thrust now they can feel it now they load it now

They build it and then now they go oh man Deadlift suck and then barbell back squats suck for it's all about hip thrust But I would challenge that person that is listening that thinks that to make sure if you're not already Make sure you're still including the deadlift in the in the barbell squat and see what you get from it now because you're exactly right. The reason why I love the hip thrust so much is because it is a great tool to teach somebody to connect. Somebody who can't feel their butt in a deadlift in a squat, then that exercise becomes number one for me.

It becomes number one because even if the squat and the deadlift take the muscle through a greater range of motion and you can load as much, if my client has a poor recruitment pattern and they're driving out of a squat with more quad than they are glued, then they end up just developing their quads and they don't feel much in their butts. And so that means, okay, the hip thrust now

becomes a superior movement at that time. Yeah, I would say to somebody who discovered hip thrust, they're but finally grew, another evangelist, I'd say go and now try to get as strong as you can with the squat and now what happens to your butt development. So, and now this is true for all exercises. Almost all exercises have the potential to be the best exercise for you depending on what you need. But generally speaking, so we're going to speak generally here, barbell squats are number

one. There is no butt building, actually there's no lower building muscle building exercise that's as effective as barbell squats and glutes. You're going to develop, if you have decent movement patterns, you can connect, it's going to build great glutes. And then second would be deadlifts and deadlift variations. So it's a conventional deadlift, sumo deadlift, stiff leg of deadlift, like all those hip hinging exercises, they really develop the glutes and the hamstrings both together.

And I'm a bit partial to a sumo deadlift for building the butt only for the reason that what's really common is from training so many clients is Recognizing how many people's knees cave in with a squat and so that movement Okay, you when you open up your stance like that it kind of forces you to have to pay attention and to you have to push your knees Yeah, and mindfully push your knees out as you as you go to pull the bar up That kind of and that lights up the glute meat. So that's when most people notice that. If you notice when you get down into that movement, you put emphasis on pushing the knees out as you come up with the sumo deadlift,

you're kind of activating that side part of your butt and lighting that up more. And I just find that that's an area that seems to be dormant in a lot of people that can't develop their butt. So, and it's not to say that the sumo deadlift is better than a conventional deadlift or one of their movements, it's a favorite of mine for teaching purposes, just like I would say the hip thrust is a favorite of mine for teaching purposes.

I would agree, I would say I would go sumo deadlift for me, conventional deadlift would be second, and then single leg deadlift for phenomenal. Oh yeah, I love that too. For the glutes because you have to stabilize the knee while you're going down and balance. And you'll notice two places light up your ankle or the muscles in your foot and your ankle and then the glute muscle.

Yes, so I'll tell you a symmetric contraction. I'll tell you a scenario where that's my number one is if I have somebody who is, can't load very well. Yeah. Right, so let's have, so let's say they're, they're recovering from an injury, maybe they're advanced age, but they still have this goal they wanna build their butt

and we're not in a place yet where I could get them to work up to 200 pound deadlifts or something like that, or they're just, they're afraid to hip thrust 300 pounds or something, and I know that I could really challenge that glute with a lot lighter load on a single leg and then it developed. I love that for that type of person. So if you're a client who can't load

for whatever limiting reasons or maybe advanced age or you're a trainer and you're training a client of that, the single leg deadlift becomes one of the best because of how much emphasis it puts on those glutes with a lighter load. Yeah, and it was always the deadlift variation I would do when somebody had a previous back injury that we had to be careful for or we're rehabbing.

Then we'd wanna go deadlift, I would go unilateral. Single leg deadlift, very safe. Lots of glute activation, lower back is in a quite safe position. By the way, when you do that, you wanna make sure you keep your pelvis like parallel to the floor, because what a lot of people will do

is they'll rotate their hips as they go down, and it changes the exercise completely. So when you bend over, you want your hips to still be straight as you bend over to get the glute to really fire. Yeah, one good thing to do with that too is sometimes if you have those furniture mover slides, like you can put one toe on top of that

and try to maintain as straight of a line as possible, like you're drawing a line behind you with that suspended leg, because that's one of the most common things I see as a deviation is the rotation of the hips. You could actually teach it with that leg on the ground. So I've done that before, somebody who really is challenged with stability.

It's just lighten the pressure on the toes. Yeah, so they're just on the toes. That's right. So the back foot is on who really is challenged with stability. Just lighten the pressure on the toes. Yeah, so they're just on the toes. That's right. So the back foot is on their toe to help with stability right now. Totally. But then we're shifting all of our emphasis on the front leg, but still hinging as if they were on one leg. Yeah, not to go off too far on this, but unilateral exercises are really good at highlighting

imbalances between the right and the left. And if the imbalance between the right and left gets too high, and it doesn't have to get that high for this to happen, injury risk goes through the roof and, or your body will start preventing you from kind of being able to add strength. So for somebody listening who's like, oh, single leg deadlift, he said back injury, he said rehab, he said connecting, I'm strong, I deadlift a lot, I squat a lot, but maybe I've plateaued, try the single leg variations

because you may have plateaued at whatever weight you're lifting in those lifts because the right and left side are super balanced. I'm so glad you said that. I'm gonna take it even further and sit, not only try, I think it's necessary if you've ran, let's say six months plus of nothing but bilateral stuff because it almost all of it, none of us are perfectly symmetrical

and there's always an imbalance a little bit. And when you are continuously, progressively overloading the bar, that's when injury potentially occurs and or this like excessive overdevelop development on one side of the other because it's Inevitable that one side's a little more dominant. That's actually one of the key indicators for me that I need to go back to some Unilateral work is when I've been pushing my barbell squat or my deadlift or one of those big movements and I start to notice either nagging on it like tightness on one side more than the other side or even I can see See a physical difference in development on one side or the other. That's always a sign for me to go unilateral work. It's subtle, but I mean, a lot of times, like, when you start substantially adding load

too, you can mask a lot of, you know, the weaker side versus the other side. And when you go down to unilateral training, it really reveals like how drastic the describe and say it. go down to a unilateral training, it really reveals like how drastic the discrepancy is. And you're going to, what you'll see, which is if you do it and you're diligent about it and you're consistent with it where you go, okay, I'm gonna commit to, and I know you just came off this kick,

not that long ago, sour, you're like, I'm not gonna barbell, get lift and squat for while I'm gonna do all, you know, lateral work, what you'll see is, and especially if you work at it consistently enough, you'll get really strong unilaterally. You'll go back to your bilateral.

You'll be not quite as strong as you probably were when you left off, but then you'll surpass what you were before. And so that's gonna happen to me. And then guess what, muscle will come on again. So that's a great strategy. Regardless if you are hindering some sort of injury or your advanced age, that's still a great strategy

to include unilateral work. Yeah, and you know, here's a little, you know, hindering some sort of injury or your advanced age, that's still a great strategy to include unilateral work. Yeah, and, you know, here's a little, you know, here's your clue about what we're talking about. You almost never have the same joint on both sides hurt. It's always one side. It's always at my left knee, my right hip, my low back on the left side. And that's because of the imbalance, right?

If everything was perfectly balanced, you see this kind of symmetrical injury pattern? We fall into patterns. Yes, yes. So the Unilater stuff is great. Great muscle builder, also great to connect to, but overall, barbell squats is the king of butt builders and for functionality as well.

So if you're, let's say we're, because I kind of want to build somewhat of a routine for the listener who doesn't, let's say,'re look because I kind of want to build somewhat of a routine for the listener who doesn't let's say have a mouse program or whatever and We've agreed that hip thrust deadlift variations squat variations are three of the King or sizes We know that the what the research says two to four times a week as far as the frequency that would be in there How would you how would you program that into a week? How would you, how would you program that into a week? Because obviously heavy loading all three of those in a week is probably too much for the average person.

So would you modify, would you modify the intensity and do all three of them? Or would you say each one of them would be on a different week that you heavy load them and then compliment them with all of these? So here's the beauty of those three exercises. If you train, this is for the average person, decent recovery, no big injuries.

Let's say you train Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This is a great order. Barbell squats on Monday, hip thrust on Wednesday, and then you deadlifts on Friday. And it's a great sequence. You get two days of rest from the deadlifts to the squat because that's where you're in isolation in the middle to kind of give your back a little bit of recovery.

100% and you could load them all hard. You could have those are three kind of hard workout days with all those three lifts, probably starting your workouts out, right? Cause it's kind of lower body, big lifts. And you don't have to really manipulate the intensity too much because that sequence seems to be very safe. Now if you mix them up and I did dead dead lifts and then barbell squats, like Monday,

dead lifts, Wednesday, barbell, load starts to see some. So you're a bit fried. So, yeah, you're going to be careful. Yeah. Okay. So, okay. So we, that's perfect. Now, we talk about rep ranges, all rep ranges build muscle.

You've made that case a million times anything from one all the way up to 20 plus. You could even argue all the way up to 30, but let's say one to 20. So we've established Monday Wednesday, Friday, you're gonna load those, we're gonna do those as the primary, the movers for the glutes that week. What do you say, three to four weeks consistently stay in a rep range and then move into another rep range? 100%. I mean, it's what you find, if you follow a maps program, you'll see this trend in a lot of our programs is we'll have rep ranges. And this is not the only thing that goes into phasing the programs.

But one of the key things is the rep ranges. So, you know, weeks one to four, you're training low rep ranges. So, like, let's say three to five, okay? Or three to six. Then the second block would be, let's say, like eight to twelve. And then the third block would be maybe 15 to 20. Now, someone might be asking, why not mix up the rep ranges throughout the week? You could do that.

The problem is that, and if you weren't, once you will start to work out for a while, or for those people who have, you know this, it's a different mentality and it's a different feel and a different skill to lift properly in low mid-range and high end reps. So low reps, it's about the movement, it's connecting, it's generating force, mid-range, a more feeling the muscle, higher range, it's all about the pump. And so it's a different mindset that goes into it. and you're training your mindset and how you work out just as much as you're training the muscles themselves. So my experience phasing with blocks gets the most out of people in terms of performance. I also think for an educational purpose,

I think it really helps you peer into how you respond to certain things, certain stimulus. We're all uniquely different, right? So, you know, some of us, when we do these heavy movements, or do these movements, men, when I do 20s, my body just responds. Or some of us in Saltoxal all the time, boy, my legs just respond to the three to five rep range, right? So it really helps you peer into what kind of responder you are

and or what maybe you've neglected. And so when you kind of mix it up every workout, which we know what the research says, if you compare them in a six to 12 week study, it's pretty much the same thing as if you kind of mix it up every workout, which we know what the research says, if you compare them in a 6 to 12 week study, it's pretty much the same thing as if you were to phase it every 3 to 4 weeks or if you were to just make sure you incorporate All those every single workout. But the one thing you don't get is oh great. I got these great results over the last Three months. Well, what really what helped the most would help the least? What did I need the most improvement on and staying focused on a

rep range and phase in a mindset like Sal was saying for an extended period of time, say three to four weeks, gives me that ability to really peer in to how my body responds to this training. Yeah, there's a there's a big psychological component to that too to really like go in for like your lower set your lower range of reps, and really hype yourself up to be able to generate that kind of force, and to be able to have the right intention going into those workouts, and to consistently do that. It takes quite a few of them to really get into that rhythm and that mode. And the same thing in the high rep range is completely different operating system

that you're bringing into those workouts. So to be able to kind of stay there, get good at it and then move on once you reap the benefits. Let's talk about that a little bit because we do go over that a little bit in other episodes but let's talk about that for the person listening to this specific episode. What is your mindset when you are lifting three to five reps? What is your mindset when you're lifting eight to 12 reps? And what is your mindset when you're lifting 15 to 12 reps?

Well, the low reps, you are looking to be stable. You're looking to generate force, controlled force. You're siking yourself up. You're anchored. You're anchored. It's not about feeling muscle, squeeze, and burn. It's about perfecting the movement. Like's not about feeling muscle, squeeze, and burn. It's about perfecting the movement.

Like power lifters, who train in this power, strength. Yeah, they don't go bench press and think, feel the chest, right? They're like, let's maximize the leverage and technique to lift the most amount of weight. Totally different feel. Then let's say like on the other end of the spectrum,

which would be high rep, with high rep, I'm trying to find a way to pump as much blood into the muscle. I'm trying to build some strength stamina in the muscle, like a way different mindset, way different type of work. It's a lot more of the feel of it. It is, and then the mid-range. It's a blend.

It's a blend. It's a blend, so it's a nice progression. And you'll find, here's what'll happen. I love this too, when you change into a new phase, that first week, you suck. Then the second week you start to get it, the third week you get good at it, and then you get to move into a new phase. So it makes it kind of a fun way to train. But you know, what you mentioned, Adam, about, you know, parsing out what really works for you and what really doesn't, because we're generally telling people three to four weeks in each phase. I mean, you might

be, you know, do better with a six week phase of one of those rep ranges and shorter week phases of other rep ranges. How would you know that? Right. If you mix everything up. When they do scientific studies, they always change, they'll change one thing and keep everything else the same. They're not going to change five different things because then they don't know what

the effects are, you know, that are happening. So if you want to figure yourself out and really know how to train your body to maximize progress. You have a status of baseline. That's right, you want to do it that way. So, yeah, so that's why you want to do that. And then frequency, you know, two to four days a week is best for most people.

I like three, I think I would say probably 80%, maybe 85% of people watching right now, three days a week of frequencies probably perfect. I mean, that's what we laid out, right? We just laid out Monday, Wednesday, Friday, those three movements. That would be a frequency of three times a week. Now, what about total sets for the week? So, we have the hip thrust is in there.

We have the barbell back squat and we have the deadlift. How many sets, I'm saying I'm doing four to five sets to each of those. I go three to five of each, right? But you know, one thing we didn't touch on were all the other but exercises, all the other isolation movements. They're not great muscle builders by themselves, but they do have some value, right? If you have trouble connecting to your glutes, they're, it's a great way to start the workout. Get yourself to feel the muscle. Then when you go to these big movements, you know what to look for with your technique.

You know what you're aiming for, and this is a big deal. Like this, this is priming, but we did this years ago with clients when we found them having trouble to connect into like lats or pecs or whatever, we would get them to kind of feel it with an exercise where it's hard not to feel it. And then they'd move on to the compound lift and then they'd know, oh, that's how I got to feel

that particular muscle. So we have to explain kind of what that looks like. Because I think a mistake that when I've communicated this in the past, I catch clients doing is they then turn that exercise into a fatiguing type of exercise. Again, thinking more is better, and really all you're trying to do is to connect to the glutes.

So let's use an example of this. Okay, you got Barbell Back Squat is the first day of your glute stuff. That's what we're saying. We're programming as an ideal exercise, but you already know you're the type of person of man, when I do squats, I never fill in my butt. Okay, so I'm gonna have you get down on the floor

and you're gonna do floor bridges. And we're gonna do five to 10 reps with emphasis of the squeezing your butt at the top. So you connect and fill it. You could probably do 30 to 50 of those reps. But I just want you to do like 10 really good to one three squeeze and only two, maybe three sets of that. That's it, body weight.

Are you able to feel it now? Are you able to really activate it? Yes. Once you get there, then you go to your barbell squats and then seek out that feeling. That's right. I'm not trying to get you sore from that exercise. I'm not trying to like get you fatigued sweat or make it burn or make you go, oh my god, I couldn't get any more out. We want to leave gas in the tank because the exercise that's going to give you the greatest return is that squat. If you go when you do these exercises as these where you exhaust the muscle so much,

you actually make it a worse muscle. Yeah, and you can then, like, let's say you could load, let's say if you're fresh, you could barbell back squat, let's say 185, then I have you do these floor bridges and you can now only do 125. Well, that's not doing much for us. We're losing out on that load. So you want to do just enough to kind of prime the glutes. So you can, it's more of a mental thing than it is.

If it's a thing. 100% and you take it a step further, if you really fatigue the glutes and then you go barbell squat, your body may actually move away from activating your glutes because they're tired. And might actually make you use more quad. So if you do them at the beginning of the workout and you're using isolation exercises,

the idea is to connect and feel just the stimulant. That's it. Now if you do it at the end of the workout, now you can start adding fatigue. So now you prime, you get into your main muscle builder, barbell squats. Let's say you do three sets of that. And then you want to add a little volume with some isolation exercises. Well now you could train them like a body builder and you can really just use them to add volume but not too much damage because one set of squats requires a lot more recovery than let's say three sets of hip abduction with a cable or something like that, right? Yeah, I feel like the only way I'm really doing

a lot of these other movements is if for some reason, let's say I'm, this is a client training themselves, the next day or two, they recognize that they didn't get enough out of that barbell backsquad the day before. Like, they didn't feel anything in their glutes, and then so maybe I'm gonna add some of those, like how we have in Maps aesthetic, or we have these like focused days where, again, we're trying to connect to the glutes,

we're trying to get a little bit more frequency of the glutes, but really, these three big movements, if you can get connected to the butt and you can load these suckers and you can train on the way we're doing, the amount of glute development you're gonna get just from that alone is amazing. 85% to 90% of people watching right now,

you just did the barbell, the squat, the deadlift, and the hip thrust, and you did three to five sets of each, best results ever. You add anything, you're not gonna get any faster results. There is a 10% out there, advanced people can add more volume, they've got great recovery, they've been working out for a while, we're adding volume like this, can be somewhat beneficial, but most people, it's like, just get better

at those three exercises. I'm glad you said that, and that's why I would lean away from it, is because the tendency that people have when you tell them this, and you go, oh, you could do these like, you know, dog peas and kickbacks and these other, you know, floor bridges and all these other movements to work to glutes. If you do that on the off days, right, the other days, to a point where that does fatigue or get you sore and then you go to do your deadlift day and you can't load the bar the same as you could the previous week, then you're hindering your results.

You're spending 10 bucks to get five bucks. That's right. So you got to be able to pay attention to that. So if you are somebody who believes you can add volume and do more glue exercises throughout the week, another day or two other days of lower intensity, make sure you're paying attention to is that hindering the next big because because those three big, that's your core. Those three big that we laid out as Monday, Wednesday, Friday, as your big, glute developers. If the other little stuff you're starting to do is taking away from you being able to

load that bar on those other days, then you're better off not doing it than adding it into your routine. Totally. Now, total sets per week. These are the all the sets that you did for the week, for the glutes, for working sets, okay? Now, I'm gonna give a range here, but I'm also gonna say this because I know what's gonna happen.

I know people are gonna hear my range, and they're gonna think the low end of the range is, you know, builds less muscle and isn't, as, doesn't work as fast as the higher end of the range. It's not true. The vast majority of people listening right now, even those of you who've been working out for a while, even those of you that go to the gym on a regular basis,

are probably gonna get better results on the lower end of this range, okay? The people who do better at the higher end, you're talking about people who are really advanced, who really have incredible recovery, probably already are pretty developed, and they're just at that level where they need a ton of volume. So this ranges, and the studies will show, and so I'm going to give you kind of like a mid-range, because some show a little higher, a little lower, but about nine to 16 total

sets per week is what you're looking at. Nine to 60. Which is basically three to five sets of those three big movements. I mean, that's what we set right a half percent. And you know, take that step further, the goal, and you've heard me say it on the show so many times, the goal is always to do as little as possible to elicit the most amount of change.

So even if you think I can handle 16, and even if you can, or the other thing that sells as a level of time, just just because you can handle it, doesn't mean that's necessarily optimal. So just because you can technically do 16 sets in the week, doesn't mean that the results are gonna come any faster for you. So you're far better off going towards the lighter end,

starting off with just three sets. So basically nine total for the week, seeing how your body responds, it probably will respond, stay there for a little bit before you start to add, because if you do all of it up front, you've got no room to go, and then you end up tipping over

when you start getting in the 2030 process. Right, there's an optimal dose, and then there's the most you can handle, and they're not the same at all. In fact, as you go above optimal dose, you'll build muscle slower, and you'll get slower results. But you can handle it, but you're getting worse results. If you just like to work out for the sake of working out,

I guess that's okay. But if you want results, but you can handle it, but you're getting worse results. So if you just like to work out for the sake of working out, I guess that's okay. But if you want results, aim for optimal. All right, we got to talk just briefly about diet because if your diet is off, you can do all the stuff that we just said, and you're going to build zero muscle because your diet isn't able to fuel the muscle gains you're looking for. So number one, you have to eat more calories than your body's burning. Otherwise your body has nothing to use to build.

So you have to be in some way of a bulk. Doesn't have to be a big bulk, but you still have to eat a little bit more calories at least than you're burning. So you have extra fuel to build. Say it louder, because that is the number one mistake that, you know, go back, I said all the average client that I got like this middle-aged woman trying to build She also tend to want to lose 15 pounds

So they're in this mindset of oh, I want to lose weight and so they're gonna eat in a chloric deficit But then I also want to build my butt those are conflicting messages sending to the butt and also doing a million reps Right another conflicting message right so if you want to build the butt which And also doing a million reps of it. Right. Right. Another conflicting message. Right. So if you want to build the butt, which by the way, almost everybody, even the clients that want to lose 15 or 20 pounds, we always recommend you build your metabolism first before you go into a cut anyways. Right. So when I would get a client like that, say, Oh, great. Let me tell you what we're going to do first. So I'm definitely going to shred the 15 pound that you want. We're going to focus on building your butt, building muscle, building your metabolism,

and that's going to speed it up and make the fat loss part and the leaning out and the flat tummy thing a lot easier. So let's eat in a calorie, actually, surplus. Let's fuel these the exercise that we're gonna do. Let's grow your butt, and then I'm gonna lean you out. To put it plainly, you can't build muscle without eating enough calories to do so, okay, fact, there's another part to this though. And the other part is you have to, not

have to, but you will get superior results eating a high protein diet, then one that's just low protein. So what's considered high protein? For most people, it's roughly, you know, 0.6 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. I always tell people aim for 1 gram because most people can't hit it and they tend to fall within that range. That by the way, doesn't make a little difference and makes a huge difference. Two equal calorie diets with the same workout, same person, same lifestyle. The difference between them is high protein and low protein. You will see significant difference in muscle and strength gain in the high protein and low protein. You will see significant difference

in muscle and strength gain in the high protein group. So there you have it. You got all the things you need to build an incredible but try them out and you will succeed. Look, you can find all of us on social media. Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm on Instagram at Mind Pump to Stefano and you can find Adam at Mind Pump Adam. I'm on Instagram at Mind Pump to Stefano, and you can find Adam at Mind Pump Adam.

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 Superbundle at Mind Pump Media dot com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and aolic, Maps Performance, and Maps Esthetic. 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 in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having

Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag 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 MindP Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump.