Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2947: How to Build Glutes | Hip Thrust vs Squats What Bret Contreras Says Actually Works

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

MAPS Abs and Butt: https://mapsabsandbutt.com Code: LAUNCH for 40% off. Includes Butt Building Diet Guide, Women's Supplement Guide, at-home dumbbell version and a free second program at checkout (Muscle Mommy or Muscle Mommy 15). Bret Contreras — the man who invented the barbell hip thrust — joins the guys to talk glute building, training longevity and why genetics matter more than most trainers will admit. They also get into his rotating periodization system, the new research on upper vs. lower glute targeting, and why hip thrust beats squats for most people. Plus Bret opens up about being single at 50 and what therapy taught him about relationships. SPONSORS Legion (supplements): https://buylegion.com/mindpump Code: MINDPUMP — new customers buy one get one 50% off, returning customers get 20% cash back. Third-party tested, clinical doses.   GUEST LINKS Bret Contreras: https://www.instagram.com/bretcontreras1 Booty by Bret: https://www.instagram.com/bootybybretofficial   LINKS Mind Pump Store: https://mindpumpstore.com Maps Fitness Products: https://mapsfitnessproducts.com Instagram: @mindpumpmedia   0:00 - Intro 2:05 - Can anyone build a great butt? Bret explains why genetics determine 60% of the outcome 8:03 - Sacral slope, intramuscular fat, insertion points and fat distribution — the real variables 10:14 - Why quad dominant people cannot feel squats in their glutes — and the isometric fix 13:47 - New research: isometric training at stretch produces the same hypertrophy as leg extensions 21:57 - How Bret applies isometric work with clients and why eccentrics don't fatigue the same way 31:31 - How important is getting stronger? The research on strength and hypertrophy has finally caught up 34:11 - Why Bret's San Diego squad got more injured than his Fort Lauderdale squad — and the lesson 39:37 - Training around pain instead of through it — the real key to longevity in the gym 48:56 - Squats vs. hip thrust — why hip thrust wins on frequency, not on muscle activation 53:17 - Bret's rotating periodization system — switching the focus lift every four weeks 58:37 - New research: you can target upper vs. lower glute max through movement selection 1:01:00 - The permanent glute specialization template — 36 sets per week for glutes in 3 days 1:18:33 - Dating as a trainer surrounded by bikini models — Bret opens up about being single at 50 1:27:02 - Therapy, Gottman, Arthur Brooks and why Bret thinks purpose is the real secret to happiness

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 health, fitness, and entertainment podcast in history. 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 Brett Contreras, one and booty by Brett official. Now, this episode is brought to by our sponsor, Legion Supplements. So Legion supplements are excellent supplements for fat loss, muscle gain, for protein powders, cratine, all the things you want, third party tested. What the bottle says is in the bottle is in the bottle. It's high quality stuff. And if you go through our discount, you can get, excuse me, if you go through a link, you get yourself a massive discount. Go to buylegin.com slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump. Buy one, get one 50% off. We also have a brand new workout program right now, Maps, Abs, and But. So if you like this episode, Brett, we talk all about glute building. We have a new Maps program that focuses on this. It's called Abs and But. So it's a full body program. But 90% of the volume is for the abs and the glute. So if you want those two areas to develop and you want them to develop quickly, get this program. It's 40.

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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.

All fair, we were talking about that. Didn't realize how long it'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. So it's always good to have you on the show because I appreciate your points of view. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm going to open with this.

Can anybody build a nice butt? Hell no. Okay, explain that. Why can't anybody do it? I always say 60% of this is genetics. And I'm getting annoyed at some of these, you know, when I started I was the only glute guy. Now I'm like the grumpy old man.

You started a trend. Yeah. Yeah. But now there's like a thousand. But these people are like praying on the. genetically disadvantaged, acting like it's like everyone can get a huge set of glutes. It's just your training variables. You're just not training the right way.

And if you use their cues and then do their fancy exercise, your glutes will grow. And that's not the case. I remember John Meadows? Yeah. He threw me this client. He's like, I cannot get this person's glutes to grow for the life of me. you know, I'm going to send them your way. Hopefully you can, and I did everything.

I tried everything, nothing, you know. I swear glutes didn't grow a centimeter. And it's just, you know, you look at bodybuilding. A lot of bodybuilders have a hard time bringing up weak parts and they're on 15 different drugs. Right. And they have good genetics for building muscle. But if you have a weak part,

but if you think what factors go into making the glutes look nice, I always laugh because, you know, some of my clients, well, some of my best hip thrusters don't have the roundest glutes. They have wider hips. And that's, you think about the cross-section area, that's going to be a lot of, you know, a lot of glute fibers, but spread out at a longer distance. So better biomechanically, it's more advantageous. They have like huge glutes. It's just not round perky glutes. What people want is the round perky glutes.

And so that's a lot of your. skeletal structure, you know, your sacral slope and then like distances between, well, that's muscular touch, but just with your skeleton, you know, if you have a really flat sacral slope, or if you have like a longer distance between like the, you know, the femur to like the sacrum, if there's more distance, it might make it look more round. But also just like, think about if all four of us flexed our biceps. Some would bulge more. You know, some, some are peak more, some are more flat. Some glutes are like that too.

Like they just project outwards more. And I'm going, what makes them, I've got, I have this one client that just everyone wants her glutes. If you have like top three Miss Bikini Olympia contenders train with me and they walk in, they go, I want her glutes. And it, she has, the, the girls like to measure their, their, you know, their glutes, their hip circumference. conference. They all want like 40 inch glutes and Keana has like 34 or 36 and she's the one that ever wants. She's not big around. It's just so round and perky. And 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. Yeah. Okay. And like in and it's not it's a sign of like disease and like not

not being healthy, but there are people who have 50% intramuscular fat, like not outside the muscle, inside the muscle. Even healthy? No, those are not healthy people, but there is some evidence that like if you work out, I believe in cyclists, they might have more intramuscular fat, but there's more mitochondria around it or something. Okay. 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 Laude, I swear some of these, these are the ones getting accused of having BBLs. They don't. They just, their fat doesn't go to their stomach. It goes to their butt and their thighs, you know, and combine that with modern leggings and cinches it up real well.

It looks round. So they gain, they can gain 10 pounds. It doesn't look bad. It looks good. And they'll be like, coach, I lost six pounds. And I'm like, good job. And they're like, no, not good job. I want to get that back.

I go, okay, let's eat. Like, let's eat more. But they want to reclaim that six pounds. Whereas I have, 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. And so there's all these factors, your origins and insertions, which you mentioned, which are going to determine, like, how, how, like a long butt or short butt.

Or like in bikini, the lower insertions make, are like coveted. But also, like there's studies on, yeah, different people's, like 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 like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model or a Victoria's Secret model. And you, you wanted to be thin. but you did want glutes, but you wanted that upside-down heart-shaped butt, the teardrop, you know, look, no one talked about upper glutes.

And now it's all about the shelf and everyone wants upper glutes. And I feel like that's very genetic. I have this client Raysa in Fort Lauder, and all the Fort Lauder girls are like, I need more upper glutes. And I'm like, I feel like there's this mass glute dysmorphia out there. Like, 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, like, your glutes are amazing. What are you

talking about? And they're like, well, look at race. And I'm like, okay, race is, you know, she's Brazilian. And yeah, I don't even do progressive overload with race. 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 and then mix it up all the time and they're going to look amazing. But it's So genetic and not everyone can help. 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 like developing muscle on a whole, but there's also individual weaknesses. Like 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 like a non-responder, it's tough. You can gain strength. You could gain density. Like I'm sure, you know, if you get way stronger at different glute exercise, I'm sure your density goes way up. You probably do build more, you know, more, more sarcomeres and stuff like that. But, um, but it doesn't project outwards. It doesn't end up with much rounder glutes. Yeah. 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, I'm, I'm, I'm, you just, uh, you just don't know the secrets. No. You've worked with a lot of, uh, of clients that, uh, 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, they, 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 like 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. Like, you know, some people use a lot more quads to squat. I mean, it's like, it's common sense, but it's nice having research to support it. That, you know, you can look as they go heavier and hever, their glute activation doesn't go up more and that you could say, well, EMG doesn't mean anything. Sure.

But they can break down the, you know, like the, the. 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 hips, 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 like brain adaptations to isometrics in particular. You know, like get on all fours, put a band on, do like a kind of like hip extension, abduction, extra rotation mix. We're kind of doing a kind of looks like a fire hydrant. but also kicking back. And they hold that for, you know, for like, like 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, like corticotor like 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 I've always known.

Like when I had clients who had challenges connecting to a muscle, isometrics practiced, you know, daily was a surefire way to get them to be able to feel it. Just a good old, you know, 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 could feel my pecks, whereas before I couldn't. Well, do you remember, like, growing up, when you first started lifting weights, like,

I mean, if you guys were like, man, I'd be in the mirror, like, at 15, 16, like, how do I... Could flex your chest. I remember I couldn't flex my chest. I remember my buddy could just feel a pinch a penny between there, and I'm like, I couldn't even flex my chest. And then you learn by, like, flexing the muscles, and you build that mind muscle connection. And then you, and then you're doing an exercise, and you're like, oh, that you've, you've, to say 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 could build muscle. They could get stronger and they can improve. And I just want to say that because someone might be listening to be like,

ah, it's a waste of time. I wanted to do that too. 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. Yeah. What would you say, too, like what's your opinion on? Because I feel like this can make a big difference. Somebody who wants, let's say, a bigger butt. And maybe we don't grow the actual circumference, but by training like 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 here. Like if you, and that's something that pisses men off. And men and like, and like hardcore, female lifters, they get so mad. Like, why would you want to just get strong at everything? And that's kind of how I try to, what I try to do with my clients.

In fact, I form 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. That was, during COVID, it was, like, everywhere was abandoned. Like, so we were on the beach, and everyone thought we were celebrities. They're like, you see, like, one guy walking with 30 women. They're like, who is this guy? But I'm like, oh, my God, my clients who are bikina 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, um, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, a spreadsheet and I'd put it on the reverse hyper every day 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 got to beat it. And it was like the ultimate tool to like keep them competitive. But 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,

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 like just can 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 sidebacks on each side for 10. 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. Yeah. And we've achieved that.

But we have to do a lot of hip thrust, 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. 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 talk about the neurological studies that you talked about.

Like 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 is because she's gotten so good at running. And that's like,

I think it's part, what makes someone quad dominant is like, like half of it's like practice, what you said, they spent their life playing soccer. Are they only? Yeah. I mean,

I remember my, my, I have an identical twin brother and I watched him, um, he was only doing like legs. He wasn't doing poster chain much. And I watched him do a kettlebell deadlift. I'm like,

he's way more upright than me. And then after like, like a few months of training with me and I, I hit a lot of hamstrings too. Then he's like stiff-legging up. 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-domin overtime through training with me. But his first instinct, because he had mostly just done like leg press and squats squats squats and things like that, he was naturally more upright with his deadlift. And that's kind of a good.

The deadlift does 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 that's also structure. You get these people with long femur, like long legs in general. Sure.

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're so hard to train.

They're, they're, what you think you know if goes out the window when you're training some six, 10 or seven foot one guy that, you know, is all legs and stuff. And so, um, so anyway, yeah, I think a lot of it's structure, not just bone structure, skeletal structure like your anthropometry in proportions, but also which muscles tend to grow. And things like your kneecap, I, I know I have a small patella, um, compared to a lot of guys And 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 than you're stronger 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

with how big. 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 Vagotsky, I was talking him about it, like theoretically. And then he went and, like, God, I think he borrowed a data set from Stu Phillips

like on the biceps and modeled it. and it's published in Pierj, 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 a 90-degree angle, that's all the force is effective. Yeah, in many cases, that's the case. In some cases, not so much. I think depends on the muscle. You brought up isometrics before. I feel like isometrics are one of the most underutilized form strength training,

maybe because they don't produce the same hypertrophy as the traditional contractions, but yes. New study. Yes. New study just published. I think it was published. My friend Brad Schoenfeld throws me these studies before they're published. Don't talk about it.

I think this one was published. That's all right. They did, yeah, yeah, it was published. They did, like, isometrics in the stretch position. Yeah. Versus leg extensions and matched for, like, time of effort, you know? So, like...

So 30 seconds. Exactly. Versus 30 seconds. Yeah. And it was the same growth. Yeah. Yeah, Isometrics... They run the same and then they kind of fall off.

Well, the risk factor and the safety of it. I think the value of it, 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. And nobody utilizes them. I mean, if you go to the bronze era of strength athletes, they use isomest. metrics all the time. And they did some credible feats of strength. We don't use them enough. I don't, do you use them with any of your, with your clients?

No, but I do. I mean, I'm a student of the game. I love, I love everything. I miss training males too, because I could, I used to love you. When we learn everything, we're bored. We learn every aspect of grip training and a different types of grip. I don't use that knowledge with it. But every once in a while, I get to, I get to use the, the, the, like when, I remember this is, I'm going to go off topic here. Yeah, sure. I was training my client Estreya. She, the reticesterity hip thrust, you're, you're about 30% stronger, but it's a tilting pad.

You know, it tilts for you. And it's, it's the Fort Lauderdas squad, it's their favorite. So when I started, when I moved to Fort Lauderdale, my sane day girls were like, oh, are you enjoying training those cheaters, those fakers? They can't, they can't hip thrust normal. The internal competition? You have a spray, dude. They're always bitches, too.

How are your new bitches? I'm like, well, you'd love them. You actually love them. Why are they always teachers? That's hilarious. They're like, oh, do they like their little cheater pad? And they love the reticery. 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 glute? Yeah, but I can only use two to three plates. I'm like, who cares? That's less plates to load.

They want to load all the plates on. They're like bros with bench press. With hip thrusts, they're like bros with bench press. And so, um, so anyway, Estreia is like the strongest at reticestery hip thrush. She has done like $7.65 for eight. And she weighs like one, she went like $120 back then. Now she weighs like 108. She's so strong.

It, in fact, people always talk about like what's dangerous for hip thrust and stuff. We don't ever get low back injuries. We get hip bruise. Like with the reticry, their hips get beat up. You can't then reticry two days later after you do something like that. Wow, 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 dress or they could do part. Like I could sit on them backwards. Like if I sit on them, they could do partner hip dress and they could, you know, 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, we can't just do, like, you can't do reticester, 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 in Las Vegas.

And when I come in town, they know they're going to 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 Estreya 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 want to slide back when they do it Yeah you want to go straight up You want to hinge and not slide back on the machine

So I start having to use instead of my glute benches The ramp that like like glute builder makes. It's like a ramp. So it's like almost like a decline or incline. 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 to 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 all of a sudden your leg press one up and you didn't even do leg press.

You get carry over. It carries over. It carries over. Yep. Yep. And that's what with barbell hip thrust, it makes the rotisserie go up, even though, I don't know, it's weird. Reticry 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 going to, you're going to, we're going to set a rotissory pair. She's like, no, I haven't done that in like six weeks. been 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 want to say regatone, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's, what is their, they're, their hip, they're like, Latin hip hop, round the clock. And luckily I'm like, not one of those

stuff. 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 buddy 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. That's a PR song. And these girls don't know any heavy metal. But Estrella loves the last resort. So 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 girls are, they're hip thrust. Heavy metal and PRs is. 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.

I can't remember. Latimer was the guy's name of the football player. And he was like, oh, that's the program. The program. Yes. Remember? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he puts the way.

Oh, I remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what it reminded me. 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, coach. 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 thing 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 acetrics, it doesn't raise your blood lactate or anything. It doesn't get your heart rate up. Like, think of going downstairs. You're not breathing hard. Ecentrics are mostly elastic, the titan, stuff like that,

so it's not. So you could theoretically, I reason that she could do eccentrics, even though she feels like she's going to 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.

Ten 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 hit in 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. But the hip thrust, like the glitab is 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 350 pounds. And then 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 eccentricly 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 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 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 Lennoxie that was bringing, bringing to the, like 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 asking him and he would never answer the question. Then why are there powerlifting weight classes? Yeah. And the guy 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 in the day we're like, well, your strength can be, a lot of things can increase your strength, you know, your, a lot of neural factors. Half of it's like the neural factors. And then technique, skill, coordination, your intramuscular coordination, all that stuff.

and then also like, you know, stiffness and all these things in your, 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 going to 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 lease that's nice yeah and and then they don't have me here there I didn't teach them properly 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 go do like Bulgarian split squats and we'll squat

and then we'll do leg extensions together, 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 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 85% of one at max, they cannot just do three sets of five because they're used to training to failure. Yeah.

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 percent's nail it. It's perfect. So other lifts not quite as much. Like military press, some people could do three sets of five with an 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 even three reps in the tank if you're a serious lifter. So they were so obsessed with the big six, you know, I'll say the big three, but squats, squats, bench, dads, military chins, and hip thrusts, and they would train through pain instead of around it. And when I was there, if your low back is acting up, no squats or dead up. So 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're more injury prone now. And when I started training my squad in Fort Lauder, I had way more machines. So I taught them, because I don't, it's three times a 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? And then the same thing with like the deadlift pattern. We have like five plate loaded death lift pieces. They're all unique. And I want you to care about your single leg already all, all your deadlift, also your 45 degree hypers. You know, because they kind of feed into each other.

And same thing with hip thrust. I don't want you just worship the barbell hip thrust. I want you getting strong at all the hipters. 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 know that 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 hard or your leg press or whatever, you're not going to just lose all your squat strengths. And then they build up all these things. And then if we want to say 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, 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. 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, yeah.

How many of us want to keep five RIR? All right. Yeah, yeah. You're communicating something that, something that we talk about on the show a lot with our own workouts, right? We always are talking about the core lifts, how they should be a foundation of your program. But then we always say like,

but that doesn't mean you won't catch me on machines all the time. And the way it looks like for me is, 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 probably every other week, where I overreach, where I have a workout. I was pumped up from Papa Roach, too many, too much.

And then my knees, my back or someone is 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 kind of, and so as coaches. But by the way, how old are you now? Yeah, yeah, I'm 45. 50. Yeah, 47. 46.

And so these young, these 20-year-old guys out there, they don't get it. Yeah, yeah. Because we were all bulletproof back then. 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's killing me on this movement. I'm going to 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 cool art science did. How can I maintain my strength while my shoulder heals up or something? Well, there's two parts of that. One, as you get older, you just have a cute.

accumulated, you know, potential, right? Just potential for injury, potential for movement patterns. But even for younger lifters, if you get really strong a specific movement, even if it has carryover, 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 are these other planes of motion, rotation, lateral stability. So yeah, it's always something we're trying to incorporate in their programming. Yeah. I also think there's 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 a squat, bench and deadlift as hard as you wanted every week. And when you're 20, you can. But now, we

can't just go. I can't do weighted dips like I used to. 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. 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 that we published showed that there wasn't any difference in muscle growth between making it harder in the stretch versus making it harder in the squeeze. Like everyone would- I saw that. Everyone would think that it was a stretch. Yeah, that the stretch, in fact, the researchers who carried the study out, all hypothesized 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 I think that, and that increases your longevity.

That's what I loved about Westside. They used a lot of bands and chains. It's so less hard on the body when you use bands and chains. They are. They're phenomenal. I hit huge PRs using bands and they feel so smooth. Just adding them to the weights. the benefit of training, increasing or decreasing resistance in the different kind of ranges of motion

is just that's how you get stronger than, you know? You want to get a little stronger in the stretch, then train it there. You go stronger. You're more stable. By the way, that's what I think of with my hip thrust program now. It's like we have in different positions. Yeah, we have so many devices there. Like I mentioned earlier, the reticry 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 stretch. stronger at hip thrust in the bottom are rotissary, but also deep leg press and squats. 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'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. You can load, it's like a kneeling hip thrust, but you can load it with plates or bands

if you load it with all bands. it's the hardest in the full hip extension. How often do you have to convince, like, your clients to be in a surplus? Oh, calories. I don't tend to talk to them much about diet. That's up to them, like, well, let's just be in a surplus. Because they go through phases where they need, well, yeah, if I got a client that was, you know, starts getting under 15% body fat, it's kind of a hard discussion to have.

Yeah, but he's also, you got the bias that he has is that you got a self-selection model. a lot of bikini competitors that understand macros and diet. Yeah, they're already going to know. Oh, it's so true. I'm spoiled. I don't. Right.

Right. When I used to train. General Pop. Jim Pop is way different. Yeah, I guess we're talking from General Pop. Your work is getting them to understand. Yeah, yeah. General Pop is grossly under-eating protein.

Never tracked a macro. It doesn't weigh food. You get 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, a lot of the women don't like the weight protein like we do. I've got. guzzle down so many weight protein shakes in my life. They tend to irritate their skin 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 yogurt, you know, take this, take two. Yeah. Because then that's, if they drank 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 for protein. You know that's limiting their progress.

Oh, we also, I mean, we'll hear this a lot, just, you know, Jen 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 got to 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, and I'm so glad I don't have to, that I'm at the point where I don't have to, I was talking to Doug. Go ahead. Oh, okay. There's, there's three, 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, you know, know, 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 and they're, they've been shredded for three straight years. Like, you can tell they're at like 12% body fat, you know, how are we going to build your glutes when you're 10% and they're, they're, 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

they want that look. You get addicted to it. Yeah, yeah. They 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, you know, 17, 18 percent 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. It's like you have to realize like you have to make you don't make your trainer's life a living hell too. You know like if I'm saying you want you're not going to feel it on every set. You know I could put a band around you and have you do super high raps or trying to get these

great creative but it's if we want to build your glutes you're going to have to just get you know get good at the basic movement patterns too. Hopefully we can increase your how much you feel your glutes, but if you say that on every set, yeah, I don't want to, you know, and then that real quick, the third is the I don't want to get bulky. Oh, God. And they're like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to get bulky. Good luck trying to get bulky.

You can't even do, you weigh 120 and you can't even do a pulldown with 70 pounds. Yeah. I just want you to know that you just described a majority of gin pop. Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a majority of the people that are probably going to listen. to this episode. I'm a spoiled trainer that I have. 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, yeah, with like reality because I do. I would be oblivious to half the problem if I don't. Oh, half your conversation is convincing a woman to lift weights heavy.

Yeah, you just to eat in a surplus. Yeah, you just talked about those three people that you won't train is literally a majority. And 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. Like, 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, and yeah, Jen Pop is like, I got to convince those three people or those three, 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've got to consistently hit that protein intake. We have to get stronger. I mean, those are like your repeated conversations

when you're talking about Jim Pop, for sure. I want to 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 thrusts, 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 thrusts built my butt. 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 thrusts just, it's easier to hit the glutes with a hip-threat. It's harder to be quad-dominate 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-thress is probably going to do better for them. What do you think about that?

Well, you still hear that debate, by that. 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-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're 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've got to be very careful. Well, think about the most. It's really safe. Yeah, think about the most weight you've squatted, you know. Yeah. 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 get back, you start getting it, and then you'll always injure yourself. It's like you've got to, 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 thrusts, not like you're going to injure yourself. It's just you hate, you get so sick of hip thrusting,

doing all the volume. but if the four of us when we're if we were doing top sets really hard sets how many really really hard sets of squats could we do a week yeah and how many really hard sets of deadless could we do a week right probably twice a week max twice a week maybe two really hard sets yeah i can't do four hards four sets to failure no and then do it three days later like you might we could have in our 20s maybe but like 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, you know,

once you start getting to that level where you're like, shit, I might snap, I might tear something when I come down, you know, squats and even deadless off the floor, you're like, God, please don't snap.

Whereas with hip thrust, it works you at a shorter muscle length. And 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 like, 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, you know, 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 of 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. You know, 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 it, 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 pair, I've got to 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've got to 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 going to do deadlifts hard three times a week. No way. 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 get, it's a well-rounded program. Get focus 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 thrust. Now it's hip thrust in chin-ups, okay? And I used to do deadless with chin-ups, but if you do chin-ups after deadless, they weaken you a little bit. My girls are like, don't put chin-ups after. My booted-upers members get mad at me

if I forget and put, because like during the Stronglander-Dum month, if I ever put, they love their chin-up strength and they know it's affected after deadless. So anyway, I put, 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 just a glute squad special month where it's a lot of variety and stances. That's where we do sumo, curtsey, 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. Yeah. And I'm like, when did sumo become all adductor?

I know, I know. 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 glumax 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 Kurtzian, this like single leg rotational RDL where you twist on the, 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 glumax. 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 thrust, tied for glute dvum in all three regions. We measure lower glumax, middle glumax, and upper glute max. Squads and hip thrust tight in all three.

We thought that squats would grow the lower glumax more and hip thrust would grow the upper glumax 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 going to be published real soon. The researcher posted about it on social media, so I can mention Zhao 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, you know, kicking the leg back. And then the standing abduction was leg would go out and go out in front and then straight to the side. It wasn't back at an angle like the glute medias kickback. It was just straight to the side. And what they found was that the cable kickback group grew most. mostly lower glute max, a little bit of upper glute max, and then not much glute meter men at all.

And then the standing abduction group grew mostly upper glute max, barely any lower glute max, and not much glute meter men either. We always thought abduction is more glute meter men. Based on the research, you don't, it's kind of, the glute meat and men might not grow that much. But it was upper glute max. So we, we, so basically, I've always said, throw in your abduction,

for upper glutes. But I always just said upper glute meat, thinking it would be glute meat and upper glute max and glute me in. But it seems to be mostly upper glute max. Interesting. So you can target subdivisions. So that's why after the deadlift month, you're beat up. Throw in the curtsy lunge or the rotational single leg artery.

Throw in some sumo stance. Just get, have fun and don't focus on PRs. That's the one kind of delode 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 a all-time PR on the focused lift. And they, anyway, that's my system with Bouti Bar-Brett, and I think it's, you know, 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 bump and all these books and stuff, they only talked about manipulating volume and intensity and where you can periodize anything, why not switch the focus of the lifts? It was always like you're going to do the same core lifts and tinker with the volume and the effort and all that. But instead, I think you should, I think a better way to periodize is switch the focus of the, switch to the lifts and the prioritization.

and then the others go on maintenance mode. So exercise order and then exercise selection variation. 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 benefit. 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. care what the data says on hypertrophy. I know when I do it right, my clients don't get hers much. But that's why I did, that's exactly why I start doing with booty my breath. 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. And it's hard to do if you are utilizing progress. 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, you don't get, speaking of boring, I got to ask you this, because you're, although, so there's a confusion around workout programming,

people think complex programming involves five, you know, million different exercises, when really it's, 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? So that was the, I keep talking about this post

I made two days ago that did really well. It got like, you know, it was just, I made it myself. That's what I was proud of it. I have a team that does. I was bored.

And I made it myself. And I'm like, I could do this still. Yeah, I still got it. But I made, I had her do. I had,

because lately I'm hearing all this stuff, and you guys might see it and it annoys you. Like, the secret to building big glutes, you see these influencers say the most obnoxious, literally like the most obnoxious stuff I've ever heard. The most like unhinged stuff. And it's like,

the reason why you're not building glutes, is because you're not training your hip flexors. By hip flexors. I'm all about gaining hip flexor mobility. That's not going to make you grow your glutes. And I have... Is that a real post? Is somebody who said that?

Yes, that was going around. And it's like when one person says it, 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...

This is now out there. And then it's like some functional type guy being like, you're not training your spiral chain or your serrape effect or your posterior oblique sling or whatever they say. And so what I did with this post, like it was my client Ryan. She was in 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 made, I put a band around her knee, like laterally. Oh, I saw that. Yeah, I saw it. I actually caught my tip. What the hell is you doing? Brett went to the dark side. And then another band like 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. 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 fans to activate the spiral chain and the, like, what's the spiral chain? The spiral chain and the deep core. Because that's also, yeah, that's also going. Did you not see this? No.

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? Would you? Is this a functional pattern? Yeah, yeah. Notty was shaking his head. Yeah, he's like, yes, now you're under something. But, but, uh, I, and then I said, just kidding.

We didn't do any of that. What we did do was straight up progressive over. 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 they really, when you really push yourself, you four, 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 its 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 that are 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 other 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 he'd do like, like, you'd like to do. That was the test. Did you fall off the curb walking out of the day? If you did it, it wasn't enough.

I didn't push the clutch on my car. German volume training drop sets. Yeah. Super centered with it. Like, it was like there was no, yeah, like Arnold's book. He's like, I would go into the forest and do 50 sets of squats. Like, what? Yeah.

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. and 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, like, 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 a. over for session number one and then by week two we aren't doing that so great so great let me ask such a veteran trainer move right there so yeah yeah give him a taste of some of the lot of then do the bait and switch like we don't need to do that shit just so you know so you know can do this yeah yeah just so you know now we're not doing it yeah let's talk about frequency because you said three days a week and you'll see some data that says uh so long as the volume is controlled you know 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, five on Wednesday, five on Friday. Yes. And you can't control the volume in the real world. When I do five, five, five, I'm stronger. Yes. The volume naturally goes up. So talk about that a little bit because I hate when that debate comes up. So when you work out in real world and in real life, breaking it up, you just tend to have

better workouts. So it's kind of what you said earlier. Like, 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 know, you've got a 16-week-long semester, but you can't just have them start in on day one. So they're usually eight-week studies, 10-week studies.

That's it. But there's 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 paranoid, asymmetry OCD paranoia set in and be like, wait, I'm going to be off balance. Newbies are 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, ten 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, 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-up rep, 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, you know, some shoulder press variation. And then it's a chin up, a pull down, or a row, you know? And they do three sets of that, okay? The glute component is four, 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 by Brett 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 as the. And then with the thrust bridge pattern, it's a full range movement and then a lockout focus

because the lockout focus doesn't beat you up as much. And hip thrust don't beat you up in general, but get really strong at hip thrust 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 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 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 like hip 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. Okay, and then the other day would be the frontal plane. That's all of your cable standing, or your bridge-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 medias 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 bandwalk 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. Oh, wow. And it's like I call it Snow Angel because you just going 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, 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 1,200 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. You know, he's, he's like, now, 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, because I'll be like sitting down. And I'm like, hey, can you grab me a, can you grab me an energy drink? Or can you grab me a dinner?

Can you toss this on your way out? I don't want to get up because my knees hurt. My knees hurt. And I'm trying not to move. But think about it. Remember when you were a kid, you could be like jump, 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 the viral video? I shared it on my story just like three days ago of the 20s, your 30s and your 40s. And it was like these 20-year-old kids jumping off a roof. I did see that. And then another one jumping off. And then it's like the 40-year-old trying to get out of the truck. Yeah, you're trying to get out of the truck. Yeah, yeah.

He's like sitting close ambulance. Yeah. But that's me going, if I just jump, I might, yeah, it's better to sit down. You know what you got to do because that's true, but you got to compare yourself against the average 50. Well, no. By the way, 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. I agree. And it's because of pain.

If you didn't have any pain, you'd go play sports all day long. You would do everything. It's pain. Pain is related to neat. I've seen no studies on this. No, no, no, no. That's obvious.

It's obvious. 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 and I think it's it just highlights you know what a great coach and programming that you do is a lot of times when someone will hear an episode like this they hear us all talking about glit and they want to build their glutes they go take all this

these great exercises that you're throwing out and 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 my god that's what I didn't finish I that's what I meant so I was describing my system so think about it it. It's 36. If you do that Monday, Wednesday, Friday, pick, pick these extras, pick a squat lunge, thrust bridge, hinge pull, abduction, and then an upper body press and 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,

There's nine sets for hammies, nine sets for the upper body pressing muskulchure, nine sets for the upper body pulling muscle, muscular, 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 dead. You could not recover. People don't get that.

And, by the way, because we're alternating with the things I mentioned, like, abduction doesn't get you too sore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and like, so it's not. People say, well, 20 sets is enough. for most muscle groups. And I agree. Like chest,

like 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 glute max, and glute medium in.

The delts, you could do 20 sets because it's front delts, side delts, rear delts. You could do a bunch of lateral, yeah. And then you've got your military presses, your upright rows, and then all your dealt raises.

You could easily do 36. If you were on a dealt specialization program, which I did in 2024, I didn't increase my, my weight on anything. I just started doing more volume. And I was like, I'm going to do cables. Like with lateries, I've always just done dumbbells. I'm going to do the ladderies machine, dumbbells, cables, and bands. And with cables, sometimes just length and partials. Yeah. And my delts grew just from doing more volume. That's awesome. But yeah, but real quick, you get so

sick of it. I got so sick of it. That's why these guys are like, competitive. They see a movement. like just do a Romanian, just do a, just squat. You don't get this. You don't train glutes. Yeah. I've been working out for decades. Well, the girls, they don't want different, they want variety because 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 program. But like four weeks, that's what, another thing I learned from Louis Simmons. Like, they would pick a movement, stick with it for three. weeks and then switch. All of our master.

All of our programs. Three or four weeks. Same. Exactly. Every phase. There's different phases every three or four weeks. Within the same program. And that's part of the reason.

The other part of the reason is avoid injury and just keep things fresh. You know, when you work with people. Yeah. It's, it's, those two things are equally important. That's right. Avoid injury and keep it fun. That's right. 100%.

Otherwise, you won't be, 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. Talked 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 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 thrusts 600, barbell hip thrusts, 610 pounds at 120 body weight. That's crazy.

Yeah, but she's so freaking strong. But anyway, she once said, Brett, like, 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 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 work, I'm going to have to quit training. I mean, first of all, I go back and forth between, 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. Wow. I want to fly out today. It's a great life. But I do miss, 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. I'm a little lonely. Like, I don't mean, I wanted to just say lonely, but I like watching. I love watching Netflix with someone that is interested.

And I feel like there aren't a lot of us left that like to watch TV at night. I'm going, can I get a girlfriend? I make good money. I 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 and give me quality time. And I realize over time that I like, you know, the love languages when I first learned about it years ago. I was like, this is like, this is like. 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, um, I like physical touch.

It might be all the pictures that your, your client send you of their, of their glutes all day live. Well, I think I want to make a relationship work. I think I have to quit training, quit training so many women. I'm going, what do I do? Switch to training bros, but, you know, in Fort Lauderdale, You just need the ultimate confident woman. Yeah, you need a real confidence. She just has, like, because 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 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. time. And I also thought, I follow this guy, Arthur Brooks, and he's always talking about... A good friend of our boy. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. I just talked to Mr. It's been on the show like four times. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. This guy's great. Okay, so he talks about how, like, so I'm like, I need to put my phone down and, like, live life.

Yeah. 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. you reflect on how I could have been a better boyfriend, how I could have, I don't think back of like, 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 balls I mentioned earlier juggling. I'm trying to keep everyone happy. And I tease everyone, so 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 could have been a lot better. So I've been following like the Gottman's. They're like the relationship experts. You've had them on the show too? You've had them on the show? Yes.

Oh my God. Yes. I don't listen to a podcast, by the way. I don't even listen to. I don't expect you know that. Joe Rogan episode or anything. That's all the stuff we like that. Like I love you guys.

I love Huberman. I love Joe Rogan. I just don't listen to podcast ever. Yeah, we had the Gottman's, on a long time. Okay, so the Guttmans, 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, since you're going down this rabbit hole, I mean, I find all this stuff interesting, this conversation. Have you connected it to childhood stuff or like, what is, what is, because a lot of times it's there's something that subconsciously you're running from. You don't even know it. Have you connected it to me? So 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's it like luckily 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 for the last two weeks a year you're looking at 26 000 a year just for therapy therapy but anyway um 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 got me he got through to me 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. Oh, cool. You won the argument and then you're sleeping on the couch that night. So you lost. You lost. So have you, I'm sure you are fascinated with all the research they've done. Like, they've done some really cool.

I've never pulled up the actual studies. Oh, dude. You got to get. Some of the most duplicated studies. in mental health. Because mental health studies are very difficult to duplicate. 60% of them,

they can't. But Gaughtman studies, they've repeated. Their prediction on divorce is like crazy. Well, I quote them, like the four horsemen of relationship,

like contempt being the worst. Yes. Have you seen... Back to, I think it was Arthur Brooks that said this the other day. This was another, and I'm going off on a tinder.

We said the dark triad. Yeah. If you have narcissism, Machiavellian, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. it's like that's the dark triad like I I 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 yeah like

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 phenomenal it's it's it's 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, if you love something so much, you're going to 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 that 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 women being like, heart, heart,

heart, like, no. I'm posting that for me. I'm making myself feel good. I'm invisible. And in my 30s, I didn't make any money in my younger 30s, but I was getting hit on by, you know,

supermodels. 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 if I've noticed with my clients, like, I feel like they all have admiration for me and they love me, but they, like the 30-year-olds, I'm too old.

I don't want to date someone in their 20s. You've transitioned 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. And I'm like a father figure of them. And it's, 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, because I can describe things in a way. But then I, this whole last 18 months of sit in the jacuzzi, I'm like, oh my God, it's been me. time. I'm the problem.

Have you, any, any recent breakthroughs going through 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. I had a therapist years in 2020, and she was like, Brett, I, what I was going through at the time, she said, I have sympathy for you. And I do believe you've been dealt a bad hand.

like you're a victim in this case, but I just can implore you, never have victim mindset. Yeah. 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 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, but that's all she wants to talk about. And I want, oh, I do not ever want to be like that. So for me, it's like realizing I need to take time.

And the women that I pick, like, I thought it could work out. What I realize is I need to notice red flags, not necessarily like red flags for everyone, but like 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 them. I don't want to read their photographer in life, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And I want to mention you've lived that life. I live 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, the world changed and women are more picky now and they want, they want to have, they want their men to have the whole package. 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 are on only fans. They don't post nude. they post sexy pictures, but it's never, it's not nude, and they might make four grand a month that way, and then two grand a month in this, like this avenue and another two grand this way,

and they're making 10 grand a month to being influencers, you know, 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 going to be with a man, what do you add to my, 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 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 has money, he can upgrade. He might be a six and he can date a 10, but he knows he has to pay for it. So the woman is like, man, I could date this short king in Dubai paying me a million a month.

This guy's giving me 10 grand a month. I could get 100 grand a month if I dated this guy. So she's always comparing because they talk, they tell stories. 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. Not 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 when you pull from that pool of women, then I think you'll find somebody different. Yeah. And that's what my therapist says, go do things. Yeah.

Because I just travel around and I'm always in the gym and I need to do. I'm also not on dating apps and I don't put out the vibe that I'm looking. I don't. This episode will come out. I know. You're going to get flooded. I don't know. Too exhausting though, filtering through and yeah.

But I also realize that. Pay me your therapist money and I'll call you once a week and I'll filter all the dating. Yeah. I'll kill two birds one stone. I got you. There we go. But I also realized this is kind of funny. I dressed up for a wedding two weekends ago.

And then a couple weekends before that, my squad threw me my 50th birthday party. And they made me dress up. It was like a fancy dressed. And I would have rather had a jorts and tank top party, you know? But I realized I get way more attention. I realized this because 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 20-20-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 thruster as 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, uh, you know, I was like, excuse me, can I get through? He goes, walk around.

And I'm like, you know, I don't need your permission, right? I could just remove you. And his, his girlfriend goes, babe, listen to me. He's a lot bigger than you. And he goes, he looks at his girlfriend. He goes, honey, he's homeless. It was like, normally at the end of the movie where the mug drops in slow motion and you have all these realizations.

Oh, my God, I've got this scraggly beard. George. Jords and tank top and a backpack. I don't even know what to say right now. And, you know, I drive a 2012 Toyota Tacoma. And I drive so little. It's about, it's at like 98,000 miles. Like, it's about to get the 100th.

I don't even have 100,000 miles on my truck. But I have a 2024 in San Diego. I like the 2012 more. I mean, that's a 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 wear this in your life.

This Rolex, I don't even know what the heck. I'm so glad to ask you the bottle because you are going to be able to answer it, are you? I know nothing about Rolex. 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.

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 to, I don't care about cars. And I clearly don't care about dressing. But I did notice the two times I dressed up, I got so much attention.

I'm like, oh, my God. That's just don't look homeless. Don't look homeless and you'll get your chance. Maybe we'll find a wife if you can. That's all I got to do. Get you out of fights, I guess. So good. Well, Brett, this was great, man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lot of fun having you on. Yeah, it was too long. I can't believe we let that much time. We won't let that much time go by 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 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 through that period of time, you've seen people come up and down. You listen to the podcast. You hear how many times we pump your tires.

We pump your tires all the time. We do talk about you quite a bit. Yeah. No, people tell me. Okay. And I always tell, if anyone ever says, what podcast, which I listen, I say mind pump for fitness.

Yeah. I don't think there's any better one out there. But, yeah, it's, we've seen, we've seen the industry change and we've seen that's the era of the fake trainers. 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. Imagine feeling confident and like arguing with someone when you've never had experience in the field. It's crazy. And that's what we're dealing with. So it's nice to, that's why we can have. And that's why I always say, I will always train people because, you know, Arnold said that and is like, I watched his documentary.

Be useful. 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. What are what you talking about? What are you talking about? You know, Louis Simmons, you knew he really trained people. He'd go, I train this, you know, this guy, this guy, Kenny Patterson had this much, he was benched 600 pounds, blah, blah, blah, he'd be real enough numbers. And I realize 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, I 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 say. stay marketable when you're 50 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, and then training other people, which is the most important component. And it's what I love doing anyway. So I had that to close this up. I have this epiphany that if you don't care, 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 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 love the prospects of AI and everything,

and we've benefited very much from social media, but I do like that we've been a real experience to extremes of life. you know. Agreed. Yeah, agreed, man. Well, Brett,

thanks for coming on the show, dude. Great time, dude. Thank you for having you. Greatly appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body,

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