Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2792: Squat & Hip Thrust Butt-Building Master Class

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Squat & Hip Thrust Butt-Building Master Class Address your technique FIRST and then build strength. (1:59) The TWO most important exercises to BUILD your glutes (How to do them RIGHT, so you can finally build that butt you want!) 1. Squat:  Bar position. (7:57) Core activation. (14:05) Not being able to go low enough (heel raises). (16:31) 2. Hip thrust: How to pick a bench and use a plate if too high. (20:55) Tuck pelvis and go up. (22:27) Related Links/Products Mentioned Build Your Butt Masterclass: Visit https://www.mapsbooty.com/  Get a free Sample Pack of LMNT's most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase! Find your favorite LMNT flavor, or share with a friend. As always, LMNT offers no-questions-asked refunds on all orders. Visit: DrinkLMNT.com/MindPump February Promotion: Feb 1 - Feb 14th - The Couple's Bundle (Aesthetic, HIIT, Muscle Mommy, No BS 6-Pack Abs), $498 value, only $197!  Visit: https://www.mpvalentine.com  Mind Pump Store Mind Pump #2777: Why Your Butt Is Flat Mind Pump # 2770: 4 Reasons Your Butt Isn't Growing ! Mind Pump # 2135: Barbell Squat Masterclass Mind Pump # 2791: This Simple Rep Technique Doubles Your Results Mind Pump # 2517: Hip Thrusts vs Squats… Which Builds a Rounder Butt? Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Corinne Schmiedhauser (@mindpumpcorinne) Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today we're talking about a master class, the squat and hip thrust masterclass, to build your butt.

It's actually a free video you can watch with Adam and one of our top trainers, Corinne. And we talk all about it, but we break it down. But if you want to watch the exercises, you want to watch the cues, you want to learn how to do those exercises in a way that maximizes glute development, butt development. Go to map's booty.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsor element. So this is an electrolyte powder that you add to your water. There's no artificial sweeteners. There's no sugar.

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right now, hit pause, head on over to MindPumpStore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. We're going to do a master class on butt building, and we're going to talk about the two most important exercises to build your glutes. The hip thrust and the squat. By the way, we did a master class, an actual class you can watch. We're talking about it right now.

We're talking about those two exercises and how to do them right. So you can finally build that butt you want. Let's go. Did we really? Do you have a friend in your pocket or what? What? We? We is because you represent.

I'm just teased. Yeah, it's a collective. I'm just teased. No, so. Adam and Corinne took one of our top trainers, Corinne, and they put together this master class video and broke down the hip thrust in the squat.

So, you know, here's a deal. Building the butt is not hard. It isn't. However, if it is hard for you, we know why. And it's almost always a technique issue. And there's some underlying reasons that's why the technique with those two exercises are a challenge.

Because those are the exercises that build the butt. There are no two other exercises as good. There's no deadlifts are good. There's other exercise that will build the butt too. Yeah. But if you just did good squats and good hip thrust with good technique, your butt will build. Yeah. And that's the issue. Yeah. The issue is a lot of people have issues with the technique around them. With both of those, in particular, the squat though. Yeah. I mean, even when we, we created the video, I tried to keep that in mind, right? Like, this is if this is somebody who was coming to me who was that maybe knew about these movements but complained that my butt's still not growing most often than not it was a technique issue that

I had to address first and then we could build from there because if if there's poor technique doing these movements many times people don't feel at all in their butts and that's super common. Yeah, and a lot of times, you know, it's, it's because of things taking you out of alignment or, you know, certain muscles are carrying most of the load. And the recruitment is, you know, off. And so we're not really targeting the glutes specifically for this movement when it should be, uh, more of the main mover. Yeah. If you, if you look at like the squat, for example, the barbell squat involves, um, pretty much the entire lower body all the way down to the calves, even the calves are involved and stabilizing to an extent.

But all the major muscles of the lower body, you also have lots of stability in the back, core stability. You, and of course glutes, hamstrings, quads, are the prime movers, and then you have stabilization at the bottom, the calves and the solesiose. What determines how much of each of those muscles you use is your technique.

Yeah. So if you don't fix your technique first and you just get stronger, because getting stronger is how, you build muscle, especially in the first few years of training. Like if you want to build and sculpt and shape your body, like just get stronger. That'll do it faster than anything. But if you just get stronger with the wrong technique, then the muscles that are doing most

of the work, to put it plainly, are going to get most of the development. In other words, if I'm doing a squat and I'm super quad dominant, my quads are doing a lot of the lifting. And I add, I don't know, 30 pounds to my squat. Most of where you're going to notice is my quads. So you're going to look at me and you say, wow, I could tell your quads have changed quite a bit. But I don't see any development in the area you want, which is your glutes. In other words, you can squat in a way that makes you quad dominate or one that makes you kind of glute and hamstring dominant.

And if you're listening to this, it's because you want to build your glutes. You want to build your butt. So before you get to or try to get stronger, because you've probably heard by now, this is now a popular message. It wasn't so much maybe 15 years ago. But people get it now, even women. Like, I want to build, I want to shape, I want to sculpt, I got to get strong. But if your technique isn't ideal, you'll get stronger, but you're going to build your body in the way that you don't necessarily, you're not necessarily trying to. You're going to hardwire bad patterns.

That's right. And that's the second part is as you get stronger with the technique that you're using, that becomes your technique. That becomes your default technique. Anytime you load the bar heavy, it's going to go to the way that you always practice it. So before building strength, it's technique, its connection, super important. The class that you did with Corinne, you really, really broke down the parts of the squat, especially the depth of the squat and how important that is for glute development. Yeah, one of the hardest things about doing a master class like that that,

that we know that, you know, thousands of people are going to see that are all unique and different is trying to cover the things that I think were the ones that I covered, the most with someone that I was helping with technique. Like, what are the biggest offenders? Right. Because there's, I mean, I've watched a lot of great squatters and coaches online that have taught technique around the squat. My thought process was trying to remember, okay, all the clients that wanted to build

their glutes that I was trying to teach squat, where were the most common breakdown? And I think about how they got underneath the bar was always a huge one. Ankle mobility has to be 80% of the people. lack good ankle mobility. So many people collapse at the knees. So many people don't wedge the bar down to where they keep their scapula down and back. So they end up too forward. And so they come too forward, which then makes the bar over the quads more.

And so that was what I tried to distill it down to is like, okay, when I think of the most common things that I needed to address technique-wise for the client who was trying to build glutes, these are the ones. that came to mind that I had to work on the most. And I couldn't think of anything else that was, unless you guys, I mean, you guys saw it. No, that was perfect. You guys watched. No, I think the first, so like, let's talk about the first thing.

The main ones. Let's talk about the first thing that you did with Corinne in this master class. You talk about bar placement and how to get the bar nice and wedged in the right position, nice and tight with good stability. Yeah.

If you don't, if you're unable to do this or you don't do this properly, you're limiting factor to how much weight you can lift how much you can drive becomes that part right there. In other words, if I'm rounding, I'm going to exaggerate, if I round forward at my upper back or my elbows are back here because it's really hard for me to hold the bar, my shoulder blades rolled forward,

that's going to dictate how much weight I can lift. Not my glutes, not my quads, not my hamstrings, but the fact that I'm holding the bar the way that I am. It's already pulling you forward. Right. With that positioning. And straining your neck. Your neck and your head's reaching into it.

So everything gets a, affected. Think of a pole that you want to push something with, but in the middle of the pole is a sponge. And you push as hard as you can, and the pole bends down. You can only push as a sponge will allow you to before it folds. Well, if your bar placement is wrong, and nobody thinks about this with the squat. That's why I'm so glad you showed this. And it's funny when you train clients, this is a big area of focus. You have to focus on. Because a lot of times is a big discomfort there. And shoulder mobility obviously is a big lacking component for some people. Just to be able to place it like right there,

especially in that meaty part once you get that contraction there in between your shoulder blades. You want it to rest right there. But it's hard sometimes for people to achieve that. I also think it is a neglected cue. I was neglected when taught to me. I remember the first time. I was just assumed. Yeah, exactly.

It was just like assumed, oh, just put the bar on your traps. That was like what I was told when I first started squatting. And so I really had all this kind of play. Like the bar could roll back and forth, but it was resting on my traps. I wasn't taught to lock it in. Like that wasn't something I learned until much later from like really good squatters. And I remember what a world of a difference that made on my squatting technique was just putting emphasis on, don't just get, don't just put the bar on your traps.

Like get in there and get in that lock position because of the way it retracts, depresses the shoulder, locks you in a position. It puts the chest up right, really puts you in this more optimal position to load the bar. Huge difference. The more secure you have it, the list of variables you have to account for, which, you know, the bar will travel. Like the most minute movement is going to place you in a bad position. And it shouldn't hurt. If the bar on your back hurts, you have bad placement.

It's not, you don't have enough muscle on your back. Yeah. Corinne is a petite trainer. She doesn't have this big old muscular back. She holds the bar on her back. No problem. I've trained many clients, beginners, people without lots of muscle, lots of padding on their back or whatever.

And they place the bar and it feels right once we get it right. So if you put the bar on your back and it hurts or you have to use a squat pad, here's how you know you're not positioning the bar right. You have to use a squat pad. Yeah. If you're using a squat pad, your positioning is bad. And the squat pad makes your positioning worse. Yes.

The squat pad raises the center of gravity. You've now added a few inches to the bar and essentially given yourself a different looking squat and then you start training that pattern. That has to be one of the worst tools ever invented. That's right. Oh, man. Like if I, like looking back now, again,

and I didn't know this. Well, I'll bring this one up. There's a pad for the back of a kettlebell for your arm. That's worse than that. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, even this is like, it's less of that because,

it is so important for your ability to retract, to press, and get in that position, that if a client can't do that and they're putting a pad and it's resting on their neck, I'm not loading them like that. No. I'm like working on that first before we even get to a barbell back squat. So crutching something like that,

not to mention your point that you're making that it's, where you're loading it is not a good place. You're adding inches of discrepancy. Yeah. It's also implying, a squat pad implies that it, If a bar hurts your back, because you think about it. If you never have done this before, it kind of makes sense, right? Well, it's a hard bar.

I'm putting on my back. Of course it's going to hurt. No. It doesn't hurt if you do it right. It doesn't hurt. If you do it right, it's actually a good, tight position. You shouldn't have to feel like you're holding me up with your hands. Here's another key that you know what's wrong.

You feel like you have to hold it up with your arms. No, it sits there. Yeah. It sits there. It's tight. It's not going anywhere. And so the bar pad implies, oh, this hurts because it's a hard bar. put this on, it makes it comfortable.

When in reality, the bar pad doesn't teach you to fix your technique. It actually makes it worse. And then, God forbid, you get strong using a bar pad. Now you've got a terrible squat that you've got to back. Many times what that is is it's resting on someone's spine. And that's why they feel that. It hurts their neck is what they normally will say, oh, it bothers my neck or my upper back. And it's like, oh, it's resting on that bone.

It should be your muscle. If you retract the shoulders back, it'll rest across the back and the And you teach it very well. When people go to it's a free master class, by the way. When you go and watch this, you'll see Adam teach the technique. But I remember as a kid, it's Mapsbooty.com. Doug just reminded me just in case what I like Corinne's tip. I actually never queued that way.

So I don't know if you saw it. So after I queued, I asked her, is there anything that like you've queued? Because obviously she's been a trainer for a long time too. And so she's like, oh, I love like a lap pull down. You know, kind of looked at her like, what? And then she got in the bar where she hung under the bar. And then she did like a lap pull down. I thought, I don't know why, which I love that.

Absolutely. Especially if someone really understands how to do a good lap pull down, that pulls you up into that position really well, which is another great way to cue it too. Absolutely. And so again, when you place the bar right on your back, you've set yourself up now for a good squat. If the bar placement is wrong, you have the wrong activation.

The rest of the squat's going to fall apart. Yeah. Okay. The next thing is cueing core activation or staying tight in the midsection. This is very important because if your spine isn't thoroughly supported, the squat is going to cause problems for you. You can't put much load. No, no, you'll hurt your back. You're going to get movement in the pelvis you don't want or you'll get the dreaded, you know, the tailbone tuck, excessive tailbone tuck at the bottom.

And you want to brace your core. And there's a couple ways to cue this. The way you queued it in the video I thought was hilarious. The way I used to cue it with my clients, as I would tell them, like, pretend like someone's going to poke you in the mid-tech. That's the other way. Yeah. You just, uh, your brace.

Punching the stomach. Yeah, it's important to brace. Now, some people wear a weight belt. Look, if you're going to compete in powerlifting or if you've always trained with a weight belt, that's fine. But if you've never used the weight belt, there's no need to use one. In fact, it changes your muscle recruitment patterns. Because rather than kind of drawing and embracing, your core pushes out against the belt,

which creates that stability. And if that becomes your default pattern, well, then squatting without a belt becomes... I think I've worn one since the 90s. I mean, I haven't worn one a while. I would want to teach to be able to do it without it, even if you do decide to do it. Like the skill to be able to draw in your core

and activate like that to support your spine is so beneficial in so many other things than just what we're talking about. And so no matter what I want my client to have that skill set to go, regardless if we end up using a belt down the road to load even more or use the advantage of that tool. But to teach it, to get that technique down, to be able to, and to your point, and this reminds me again, my own journey, another thing that wasn't really cute to me or told to me, like how important it was that I was so rigid and stiff in my upper body. Yeah, yeah.

Like, because if you, if there's, if the bar is wobbly, if your core is not activated and tight, and there's movement in that everywhere, you're not going to be able to. load it. You're probably going to, your low back is probably going to bother you and hurt you. And at the very least, you're going to feel it in areas that you're not supposed to feel it. You've taken an exercise that is so amazing for developing the lower body, especially the glutes, and you've completely turned it into something else because of your inability or your lack of knowledge on how to place the bar, how to brace your core. That's why it's so important you start there. A lot of people even look at that. They just look at the squat and focus and everything else. Another thing you did on the video, Adam, which I thought was great, was you talked about,

using a heel lift. Which seems a little controversial because typically when I use a heel raise today, I use it to become more quad dominant. Right. Okay. So I, so I'm because what you're, you raise the heels, you are going to shift a little weight towards the quads typically. But again, what I was thinking in my mind when I was teaching this is when I think of the client who comes to me who wants to build a butt that is that lax this, I would say a good 80% of them. And I addressed this in the video after I go through this tip. If you're not this person, right, then you don't need this. But I'd say most people that I train, in particular, my female clients that wanted to build a butt, lacked ankle mobility. Yeah. A lot. And could barely

break 90 degrees. And what this looks like is you can't squat all the way down. Or if you do, your heels come up or your feet twist out or you have torsion in the knees or you get weird stuff happening in your low and your lots of compensation as a result. And you do. And your heels. as a result. Lots of compensation. So as you're squat, you might not think of ankle mobility, but when you're looking at the squat, the ankles have to have a good amount of mobility. Otherwise, you're not going all the way down. Well, you're always looking for stability. Yes. I mean, your body's naturally doing that. Like you said, your feet are going to turn out. Your knees are going to bend way forward with your body. And there's all kinds of downstream effects to that if you don't have stability in the area.

Right. Now, why is this so important to address? Because most of the gains that come to your glutes from a squat comes from a deep squat. So if you look at in this position, that's right. So in fact, if you look at the studies that compare hip thrust to barbell squats for glute development, the reason why they're head-to-head competitive, because if you look at the hip thrust, biomechanically speaking, you would think like that's straight glutes. Like, that's got to be the one that builds the most. And yet squats compares head-to-head. And in some studies, it might even build a little bit more.

Why is that? Because it loads the stretch position. That's right. A hip thrust loads, is really good in the squeeze. The barbell squat deep is you get in that stretch position. And the data shows that a loaded stretch in a rep range builds two to three times more muscle. Okay. There's two to three times a hypertrophy from there.

So if you're not doing a full squat, you're still working the glutes. I don't want to freak everybody out. Be like, it's a waste of time to do them then. But if you want to build your butt and you can't do that full squat and it's probably due to ankle mobility, That's almost everybody listening right now. If you can't squat all the way down, it's probably because your ankles, don't let you.

You do a little heel lift. You can either get a ramp like the one that you showed in the video or you could put plates under your heels and squat down and suddenly you can go all the way down. Now you're activating the glutes. Now you're getting maximum.

And Justin said something I think is so important too is another reason why I like to start someone there. I address this in the video where I go, listen, if you can, and I demonstrate because I can get all the way down in regular flat shoes. comfortably with good technique. I wasn't like that before.

But if you can do that, then disregard this point right here. But in my experience, almost everybody in a really deep squat that I was trying to help do this had breakdown. Either one, they couldn't do it at all, or the heels lift,

or their feet squirm around like crazy, or their knees collapse in, like you see all this breakdown. And if you have all this breakdown and the squat like that, the glutes are not going to be driving out. You're going to be compensating all over the place, which many times is the reason

why this person is struggling with that. You said something else that it highlights why these two exercises. Because there's a bunch of great butt exercises, and this wasn't designed to be like, let's give you all the best butt exercises. It was, hey, if I could just pick two exercises that I'm going to teach a client who wants to build their butts. These are the two to go get really good at.

And you can do them in the same workout. Yes. And you bring up the point of the glutes do such a good job of loading the glutes in a stretch position. and the hip thrust does such a good job of loading it in the contracted position. That's right. These are both phenomenal. They complement each so well.

That you can do in the same workout. And to be honest with you, it doesn't matter which one you do first. Typically, I would tell someone to squat first. Honestly, it's not going to make that big of a difference. You could do hip thrust first and squat second. You do these two exercise in a workout. This is a great. You can load it.

You can do low reps. You can do high reps. That's right. Most of these other exercises, you're just bound to doing high reps. That's right. And then it brings us to the hip thrust. And I love the way. Corinne, there's a couple things that I didn't really consider with the hip thrust, mainly because

hip thrust wasn't popular when I was a personal trainer, except for correctional exercise purposes. And so I didn't run into this issue that much. Now, I hip thrust myself, but I don't run into this issue either because I'm a six-foot-tall guy. But here we have Corinne, petite female trainer. She talked about how to pick the right size bench. All right. Makes a lot of sense.

You get a bench that's too high. You're not going to be able to do a proper hip- not optimal. So she talks about how to pick the right size bench, and then if the bench is too tall for you, how you can put a plate underneath you so that you can go down and be in a nice full range of motion, but not overdo it. I thought that was great. Well, it's such an example of the point you just made of...

We don't think of those. We, I mean, honest, complete transparency, we were trainers. We used to do hip bridges. Yes. That was popular for priming, but the hip thrust was not popular when we were all trainers. And so that's why I had her teach the queuing on that. Obviously, I've taught a lot of people how to squat. And so that's, I would consider that an area that I'm pretty good at.

But I was really genuinely curious to hear her because she's been a training for the last eight years. And she's probably taught a lot more hip thrust to a lot more women than I ever have. And so hearing her cue that, I was like, oh, that's such a great point that I haven't considered. And so, yeah, the combo of her and I ping ponging off each other in the video worked really, really well. She's so good on camera, too. She is. She is. She is.

Such a good job. And then the other cues that are we like were to tuck your pelvis and then go up. So if you have an excessive arch in the back and then you try to come up, you get this kind of over extension. Right. And you'll hear people complain sometimes that the hip thrust bothers the low back. Which is interesting because it doesn't have direct load on the low back necessarily. But what's happening is they've got this, what's called an anterior pelvic tilt or this overarch. Then they come up hard and they're like, why is my back hurt when I do this?

Also, by the way, deactivates the glues to an extent. So she teaches how to tuck the pelvis and then go straight up. Activity first. Then, yeah. That's right. That's right. Listen, you guys all have to watch this. It's Mapsbooty.com.

It's a 20-minute video. Adam and Koran break down the two best exercises for your glutes. It's free. It's free. It doesn't cost anything. Then you can go do it yourself. Watch what happens. You'll add inches to your bus.

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