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

Brent, 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. How >> fair we were talking about that. Didn't realize how long it's been. >> You're Whenever we talk about uh people that um we like and respect in the space, your names always pops up. A good example of uh being able to combine science with experience. So, it's always good to have you on the show cuz I I appreciate uh your points of view. Always. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> So, I want to open with this. Uh can anybody build a nice butt? >> Hell no. [laughter] Yeah. So, >> okay. Okay. Explain that. Explain that. >> Why can't anybody do it? >> It's I I always say 60% of this is genetics. Um and and I'm getting annoyed at some of these, >> you know, when I started I was the only glute guy and and now I'm like the grumpy old man. I'm like a trend. Yeah. >> Yeah. But now there's like a thousand. But these people are like preying on the genetically disadvantaged acting like it's like everyone can get a a huge, you know, set of glutes. Um it's [clears throat] just your training variables. You're just not training the right way. And if you use their cues and then and then do their fancy exercise, your glutes will grow. And um that's not the case. I remember um >> remember John Meadows, he he he threw me this this client. He's like, "I cannot get this person's glutes to grow for the life of me. Um, you know, I'm going to send them your way. Hopefully, you can." And I I did every 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 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 um fibers but spread out at a longer distance >> better biomechanically. It's more more advantageous. >> They have like huge glutes. is 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, um if you have a really flat sacral slope or if you have like a longer distance between like the, you know, the the femur to 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 pe, you know, 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. I have like top three Miss Bikini olymp Olympia contenders train with me and they walk in, they go, I want her glutes. And it she has the the the girls like to measure their their you know their glutes their hip circumference. >> They all want like 40 inch glutes and Kiana has >> like 34 or 36 and she's the one that everyone wants. >> She's not big around. It's just so round and perky. >> Um 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 a 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 no those are not healthy people but there is some evidence that like if you work out I believe in cyclists um they might have more intramuscular fat but there's more more mitochondria around 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 [clears throat] if you store a little bit more fat inside the muscles and then you store it outside the muscles. >> Um also just some I I in Fort Lauderdale, 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 their butt and their thighs, you know, and it >> and combine that with modern leggings and >> cinches it up real well. It looks like it looks round. So, they gain >> they can gain 10 lbs. It doesn't >> look 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 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 [clears throat] a I do have some Asian clients that have round big round glutes. They tend to have very dense glutes in my experience like 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 uh less intramuscular fat and they also don't have extramus muscular fat there. when they gain a lot of Asians gain weight, it tends to go other places, not their not their hips, not their glutes. And so there's all all these factors, your origins and insertions, which you mentioned, which are going to determine like how how >> a long butt or short butt. >> Yeah. [laughter] Or or like in body in bikini, the lower insertions make or 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 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, that 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 RA in Fort Lauderdale and all the Fort Lauderdale girls are like, "I need more upper glutes." And I'm like, I feel like there's this mass um glute dysmorphia out there. [laughter] Like, these are the best butts ever. And I'm training these girls and they all think they have bad butts. Bad butts. [laughter] Poor glute development. And 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 in 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. Hell, how 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 they're and then you see them year after year. >> Yeah. >> 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 um and you're like a nonresponder, it's 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 sarcomirs and stuff like that. But um [clears throat] 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 the magician. I you just uh you just don't know the secrets. No, >> but you 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 a common or uncommon thing when you get a client and one of the reasons they have trouble growing their glutes is because uh their quads are taking over a lot of like the good movements like squatting and and movements like that. Does is that common or uncommon? >> Super common. And there's even some new research to show like you [clears throat] 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 heavier, 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 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 uh their hip extensors more um for the squat. Whereas other people, the opposite. And and so not not only 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 and 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, external rotation mix where you're kind of doing it 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 cortical motor um like activation and less inhibition. Um >> 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. Now, this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Legion Supplements. So, Legion Supplements are excellent supplements for fat loss, muscle gain, for protein powders, creatine, all the things you want. Third party tested. What the bottle says is in the bottle is in the bottle. It's high quality stuff. And if you go through our discount, you can get uh excuse me, if you go through our link, you get yourself a massive discount. Go to buyleion.com/mindpump. Use the code mind pump. Buy 1 get one 50% off. Maps, abs, and butt. It's happening right now. It's 40% off. Plus, we're going to throw in for free another maps program, Muscle Mommy 15 or Muscle Mommy, plus two free guides. Go to mapsabsandbutt.com. Use the code launch for the discount and the free stuff. Back to the show. I love it when uh I love it when studies support what those of us who've been training clients for decades have have always known. Like when I had clients who had challenges connecting to a muscle, isometrics practiced uh uh you know daily was a surefire way to get them to be able to feel it. Just a good old you know fashion isometric depending on the position and how we activate. >> But it was it's like oh yeah now I can feel my lats. Now I can feel my glutes. Now I can feel my pecs. Whereas before I couldn't. >> Well, do you remember like growing up when you first started lifting weights? Like I mean if you guys were like me I'd be in the mirror like at 15 16 like how do I >> couldn't flex your chest spread my little >> I couldn't flex my chest. I remember my buddy could feel a pinch of painting 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 you're doing an exercise and you're like, "Oh, that you see that connection there that >> I I know how to flex and activate it hard in isolation and now I can incorporate it more into everyday move." 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 uh 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 uh but there are genetics uh that play a big role in the kind of bodies that we tend to look at on social media but for the average person they can build muscle they could get stronger and they can improve. And I just want to say that because someone might be listening be like ah it's a waste of time. >> I I wanted to do that too. I have to [laughter] say, but you can always gain strength, gain function. And >> I've never had a client where you couldn't tell at all. Like there was no even 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. What would you say too, like what's your opinion on u cuz I I feel like this can make a big difference. somebody who wants uh let's say a bigger butt and maybe we don't grow the actual circumference but by training like hamstrings and other muscles we the illusion of the a bigger butt or a better butt it happens. >> I kind of think it's the opposite though. >> Okay. >> 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 formed that strong lifting. It's like just a competition for my cl with my clients that we do. >> And they're so freakishly strong, it's insane. They do six lifts. Squat, bench, deadlift, chin, military press, chin-up, and hip thrust. >> And and the stronger they get at those, the better they look. I remember when we were in in 2020, we took a trip to Tulum. That was during CO. It was like everywhere was abandoned. Like so we you we're on the beach and everyone thought we were celebrities. They're like they see like one guy walking with 30 women. They're like, "Who is this guy?" [laughter] But I'm like, "Oh my god, my clients who are bikini competitors, they look like they could step on stage in about four weeks of dieting. They've never looked that way off season before." And all they were they were I'd put I put the um >> I' I'd had a spreadsheet and I'd put it on the reverse hyper every day so everyone could look at it the numbers and they 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 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 quads and hamstrings. It just makes the glutes look even smaller. So, it's the glute to thigh ratio. So, I have a lot of clients who I I do have them do the 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 and the in fact I've given her a leg press four times. Um, and she's she's doing five plates on the side bags on each side >> for 10 reps. And I'm like, I've given her that four times and yeah, like she 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 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, okay, I love that you brought her up because my experience when I have a an athlete, especially a runner, what we talked about earlier with just quad dominance and we talked about the 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 do 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 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 or 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 posterior chain much and I watched him do a kettle bell deadlift. I'm like he's way more upright than me and then after like a few months of training with me and I I I hit a lot of hamstrings too. Then he's like stiff legging it 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 um he he became more more hip dominant than quad dominant over time through training with me. his first instinct cuz he had mostly just done like leg press and squats and goblet squats and things like that. He was naturally more upright with his deadlift. And that's kind of a good the the the deadlift is a good barometer of how quad versus hip dominant you are. Um >> kind of how natural you would sit to pull it up. >> A lot of people will will want to stiff leg it and then you're like get those hips down a little bit and then and then you start going heavy and they start shooting their hips up cuz they're stronger that way. But anyway, I think half it's also structure. You get these people with um with long long femur, like long legs in general. >> Sure. >> Really long legs. >> Also makes for a good runner. So it's like >> Yeah. And and I remember Mark Ripto talked about this in one of his books or something. it. He had a a a a female lifter pull sumo and she was like she was like her torso was horizontal after satisfying the right conditions with the bar over the midfoot the and the scapula because her structure had had to be that way. You get some people and that's back to what we're talking about. You get these people making these bold claims and it's like you've never trained. Go train some NBA players. >> Like they are so hard to train. They're they're >> what you think you know goes out the window when you're training some 610 or 7 foot one guy that you know is all legs and stuff and so um so anyway yeah I think a lot of it structure not just bone structure skeletal structure like your anthropometry and proportions but also which muscles tend to grow and things like your kneecap. I I know I have a small patella um compared to a lot of guys and that how far your patella sticks out detons determines your knee extension moment arm and so if you have a bigger patella thicker patella and you know it sticks out more then you're stronger at knee extension. That's right. >> Or if you just have the ability to get big quads. I've ne I can't get big quads cuz 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 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 um with your like how big if if the muscle was bigger, you would use it more. And then if a muscle gets bigger, it also gets better leverage. We published a study on that. my my colleague Andrew Vagotssky. I was talking to him about it like theoretically and then he went and like got I think he borrowed a data set from Stu Phillips like on the biceps and modeled it and it's a it's published in Pier J 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 at a 90° angle, that's all the force is effective. >> Yeah, in in many cases that's the case. In some cases, not so much. I think depends on the muscle. You brought up isometrics uh before. I feel like isometrics are one of the most underutilized >> form of strength training. Uh maybe because they don't produce the same hypertrophy as the traditional contractions, but >> new study, >> yes, >> new study just published. Um, I think it was published. My friend Brad Stonefeld throws me these studies before they're published. [laughter] Just don't talk about it. I think this one was published. >> That's all right. >> They did. Yeah. Yeah, it was published. They did um like isometrics in the stretch position. >> Yeah. >> Versus leg extensions and matched for like time of effort, you know? So, >> Got it. >> Like, >> so 30 seconds. Exactly. Versus 30 seconds. >> Yeah. And it was the same growth. >> Yeah. Yeah. isometrics uh >> they they run the same and then they kind of fall off the risk factor and the safety of it >> the I think the value of isome the way that they strengthen tendons uh and uh 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 like the bronze era of strength athletes they used isometrics all the time and they did some incredible 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. We learn every We're bored. You learn every aspect of grip training and the different types of grip. I don't use that knowledge with it. But every once in a while, >> I get to I get to use the the like when I remember this is I'm going to go off topic here. >> Yeah, sure. I was uh training my client Estrella. She >> the rotissery [snorts] hip thrust. You're you're about 30% stronger, but it's a tilting pad, you know, it tilts for you and it and it's it's the Fort Lauderdale squad. It's their favorite. So, when I started when I moved to Fort Lauderdale, my San Diego girls were like, >> "Oh, are you enjoying training those cheaters? Those fakers where they can't they can't hip thrust normal. [laughter] >> The internal competition that you have is >> always like that. They're always [ __ ] too. How are your new bitches?" I'm like, "Well, you'd love [laughter] them. You'd actually love them. Why are they always >> That's hilarious." >> But um the They're like, "Oh, do they like their little cheater cheater pad?" And and they love the rotisserie and it's it's a lot of they're like bros. They >> There's a new glute builder elite with like a Smith machine that moves and they feel their glutes, but they're like, "I don't like that." I'm like, "Why?" "Well, I can only use two or three plates on it." And I'm like, "But do you feel your glutes?" "Yeah, but I can only use two to three plates." I'm like, "Who [laughter] cares? That's less plates to load. They want to load all the plates on. They're like bros with bench press. With hip thrust, they're like bros with bench press. >> And so, um, >> so anyway, Estraa [snorts] is like the strongest at rotisserie hip thrust. She has done >> like >> 765 for eight and she weighs like she weighed 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 rotissery their hips get beat up. You can't then rotissery 2 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 or or single leg hip thrust or they could do part like I could sit on them backwards. Like if I sit on them, they can do partner hip thrust and >> they could, you know, hip thrust me for like three sets of 20 and it's good, but because it's spread out a lot, the surface area, >> but we [clears throat] we can't just do like you can't do retic, you can't do a heavy barbell hip throw cuz you're p. But anyway, she's like, "Yeah, I it's so funny because I come in town like what I mentioned to you guys earlier. I have Fort Lauderdale, San Diego, and Las Vegas. And when I come in town, they know they're gonna hit PRs or they're expected to. They love it, but then I think they're ready for me to leave after a [laughter] couple weeks. >> Gets intense. >> So, I have Estraa and I'm like I've h I've had her do so I don't [snorts] like with barbell hip thrust, they slide back and that's cheating. They 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 started having to use instead of my glute benches the ramp that like glute builder makes. It's like a ramp. >> So it's like almost like a decline or >> almost like a decline bench. >> But I'm like cuz if you if you shift back on it, >> it stops you. >> Well, it stops you, but it's also higher up. So it makes it harder. But then I find them cheating. They find out a way to cheat with everything. But anyway, I had her just do ramp and it's like this. That's how you know what the best lift is in my opinion. If you get stronger at squats, your all of a sudden your leg press went up and you didn't even do leg press. >> You got carryover deadlift goes up. Y >> and and and that's what with barbell hip thrust, it makes the rotisserie go up even though I don't know, it's weird. Retisser is hardest at the bottom but then easier at the top because your body weight >> goes over the top of it and now it's got >> it's like a teeter totter. It's helping you out on >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, you're not lifting as much weight on this side of the fulcrum. But anyway, uh so I said, "Hey, you're going to you're going to we're going to set a rotissery pair." She's like, "No, I haven't done that in like 6 weeks. I haven't done a single set." And I'm like, "Trust me." And I put on it's so funny cuz all they listen to is >> I want to say regatone, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's what it's their their hip-hop. They're like >> Latin hiphop round the clock. And luckily I'm like not one of those like I'm 50. I just turned 50. [laughter] I can still listen to their music and be okay, but it's all day long of, you know, Bad Bunny and stuff like that and, you know, Carol G and stuff. So, anyway, um, but I I put on like Papa Roach, Last Resort. >> That's the PR song. All these girls don't know any heavy metal. So, but Estraa loves the loves Last Resort. >> So, she 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 wrists because pushing the bar forward is hard on the wrists. You know, these these girls are they their hip thrusts. >> 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 [clears throat] remember Vladimir was the guy's name the football player and he was like >> oh that's the program. >> The program. >> Yes. remember he's like >> and he puts the weight shaking. That's where 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 go this is a long story just to get some basic things [laughter] but um 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 I'm going to butcher it, 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 eentrics, it doesn't raise your blood lactate or anything. Doesn't get your heart rate up. Like think of going downstairs. is you don't you're not breathing hard. Eccentrics are mostly elastic, the tighten stuff like that. So it's not >> so you could theoretically I 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 zap them on their first set. But it works. These girls have insane glute development. They're strong as hell. But you wouldn't want to. Theoretically, you should have them do like three sets and on their third go to failure. But this is a psyched up music pumping, 10 people watching. And we also have a PR bell that we ring. We ring the bell when they So it's like the ultimate environment for PRs. Also, everyone's hitting five plates, so it's not weird there. You come there and you're like, I better step it up. It's like Westside for squats. If we train at Westside, we'd be way stronger at squats. Um, but the the hip thrust, like the glute lab is the the west side for hip thrust, you know. So anyway, I had her do eccentrics. I had her do like three sets of five where she would come up with like 315 lbs and then I I I would sit on one end of the barbell on the Thruster Pro. Like it's like a hammer strength plate loaded and then I'd have two two girls sit on the other side. >> So it's like a 700 lb eccentric and she can control it. you're very strong eccentrically in the hip thrust. She could control it. Then we'd step off, she'd go to the top, we'd sit on it, >> and it didn't and she got like three good sets in, very productive sets. And that's where research benefited practice. Usually it's the other way around. You think of something in practice and then you research it. But that's what we were talking about like things 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 coralate for muscle size. It's not perfect, but it's decent. And you'll get some people arguing that you, 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 Leni 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 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 emerged in fact just one emerged in the last year showing very high relationship like very close relationships with strength and hypertrophy. So >> back back in the day we're like well your strength can be a lot of things can increase your strength you know your 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 and 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 the lease." >> That's nice of you. >> Yeah. And and then they don't have me here there. I didn't teach them properly. I realized cuz 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, "Ah, my low back's hurting." We'd be like, "Dude, don't squat." You know, you don't let them squat if your low or deadlift if your low back is hurting. You'd be like, "You go do >> like Bulgarian split squats and and we'll squat and then we'll 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 know, remember before you had a bad low back injury, you just thought you were bulletproof. And it still takes you a couple injuries to even after the first one, you're like, I think I'm good again. [laughter] 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 3x5 at 80 85% of win max they cannot just do three sets of five cuz they're used to training to failure. >> They have to at least the last set they do an AM wrap set and I'd be like I said three sets of five and they're like but it was easy. Some lifts the the the percents nail it. It's perfect. So other lifts not quite as much like military press. It's a some people could do three sets of five with 85% was so easy and other people not. But anyway, they want to get a good workout. They don't no one likes to keep five reps in the tank or even three reps in the tank if you're a serious lifter. So they were so obsessed with the with the big with the big six, you know, I say the big three, but squats, squats, bench, deads, 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 deadlifts. If your knees are acting up, no squats. We do hip dominant stuff, you know, but with me not there, they would push through it. So then a lot of them started experiencing pain and they still have it and they can't get they're more injuryprone now. And >> when I started training my squad in Fort Lauder, I had way more machines. So I taught them because I don't I it's three times the size of Glute Lab San Diego. So, I taught my Florida squad. I want you to care about your belt squat, your hack squat, your pendulum squat, your leg press. We have two leg presses. I want you to care about your single leg strength. I want you to care about your barbell back squat, but also we have two squat machines. So, we have like 12 different squat patterns that we're paying attention to and they feed off each other, you know. >> Um, and and then then same thing with like the deadlift pattern. We have like five plate loaded deadlift pieces. They're all unique. And I I want you to care about your single leg RDL, all your deadlift, also your 45 degree hypers, you know, and these 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 hip thrust. Yes, they will have a favorite, but anyway, so much less injuries. We barely have any injuries there because they rotate stuff around and they're they know that if if you can't back squat, that's fine. Do some belt squats. Uh 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 strength. And then they build up all these things and then if we want to say we have we just had another strong lifting competition two weeks ago. All they need is just, you know, six to eight weeks to focus on that lift and it'll skyrocket. But they're they're because they have the foundation there. They have the specificity reserves left if they wanted to increase it, >> but they're training year round and not getting injured. Where the San Diego squad, >> some of them have back pain and then I'm trying to give them like Jeffersons and stuff like that to build that tissue tolerance, but it's hard with me not there. So anyway, lesson learned when you're obsessed with just strength on a few lifts. Yeah, neat. >> 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 in reserves. So, you have two options. Do more variety like my Florida squad or keep a lot of reps in reserve, which is hard for serious lifters. Yeah. >> How many of us want to keep five ri you're communicating something that um something we talk about on the show a lot with our own our own workouts, right? We we always are talking about the core lifts, >> how they should be a foundation uh of your program, but then we always say like but that doesn't mean you won't catch me on machines all the time doing unilateral >> and the way it looks like for me is here's these are my core lifts similar to your six that we're talking about that I'm always kind of focused on trying to get stronger there. But what I know happens to me and it happens on a probably every other week where I overreach where I have a workout I was pumped up from Papa Roach too many too much and I'm and and then my my knees my back or someone's talking to me coming into Friday's workout and guess where I'm at? I'm on the machines. And so that's a perfect way to kind and so as coaches >> But by the way, how old are you now? >> Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm 45. >> 50? Yeah. >> Yeah. 47 46. >> And so these young these 20-year-old co guys out there, they don't get it. Yeah, >> because we were all bulletproof back then. As as you get into your 40s >> and even more so 50s, you just mentioned you overreach. I do that every week, too. >> Every week something's a little off and you have to pivot and train around it. You don't train through it. You don't go, "Oh, my shoulder'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 it's like a cool art science did is try try to 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 accumulated, you know, potential, right? Just potential for injury, potential for movement patterns. But even for younger lifters, uh if you get really strong at a specific movement, even if it has carryover, if that strength uh so far exceeds, let's say stability going laterally or rotation, you actually increase your risk of injury. >> So you're super strong on the sagittal plane and like you could squat 500 lb, but your lateral stability barely supports, you know, 100 lb. >> 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 and you're like, "What's going on? I can squat 500 lb. How did this happen?" It's like, "Well, it's like a a really powerful car without a reinforced frame and it twisted." And so that can also be an issue is just I'm really strong in one direction. Yeah. >> But I don't have the support. >> Most people don't consider these other planes of motion, rotation, lateral stability. So, yeah, it's always something we're trying to incorporate in their programming. >> Yeah. I also think there's a a genetic element to soft tissue strength. I have friends that if they had strong soft tissue, they could have be become world class powerlifters. But >> you know, imagine if you could just squat, bench, and deadlift as hard as you wanted every week. And when you're 20, you can. >> Yeah. >> But now we can't just go I can't do weighted dips like I used to 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 [clears throat] 40-year-old lifter that's been lifting for 20 years gravitates towards more hammer strength machine more machines in general but the hammer strength is a little easier in the stretch and a little harder in the squeeze and a new study uh that we published showed that there wasn't any difference in muscle growth between making it harder in the stretch versus making it harder in the squeeze like everyone I saw everyone would think that it was a stretch yeah every that the stretch in fact the the researchers who carried the study out all hypothesized that the stretch but we did four muscles. We did rear delts, side delts, pecs and glutes and all four muscles saw the same growth. So >> interesting. >> So I think that and and that that increases your longevity. That's what I loved about Westside. They used a lot of bands and chains. So less hard on the body when you use bands and chains. >> They are they're phenomenal. I got I hit huge PRs using bands and they feel so smooth just adding them to the weights. Um the benefit of training uh increasing or train or or decreasing resistance in the different kind of ranges of motion is just that's how you get stronger then you know you want to get a little stronger in the stretch then train it there you go strong >> by the way that's what I think of with my hip thrust program now it's like >> we have load in different positions >> yeah we have so many devices there like I mentioned earlier the rotisserie is harder at the bottom the bottom heavier in the stretch >> and then but so so the things that get you stronger hip thrust in the bottom are rotissery but also leg 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 what's hardest at the lockout well just regular barbell hip thrust but then if you want to make it even harder you do pauses pulses or bar plus band add the bands to it >> and then also we have the kneeling glute isolator we 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 hands. It's the hardest in the full hip extension. >> How often do you have to uh convince like your clients to uh be in a surplus? >> Yeah. Oh, calories for calories for >> I don't tend to talk to them much about diet. That's up to them. Like, >> well, let's just >> because they go through phases where they need Well, yeah. If I got a client that was, >> you know, starts getting to under 15% body fat, it's kind of a hard discussion to have like, >> yeah, but he's also you got the the bias that he has is that >> you got a self selection. got a lot of bikini competitors that understand macros and diet. Oh, it's so true. I'm I'm spoiled. I don't Yeah. When I used to train >> General Pop was I guess we're talking to work is getting them to understand. >> Yeah. Yeah. General pop is grossly undereating protein, never tracked macro, doesn't weigh food. You got a bunch of girls that are like carrying their their food with them. >> What I do with my clients is I I have like >> they tend to in my experience with a lot of the women don't like the whey protein like we do. I've guzzled down so many whey protein shakes in my life. They tend to irritate their skin and or just they don't digest it well. So, I have like protein yogurts, you know, >> like the oos with 23 g of protein >> and I'll just give it to them on their way out. Hey, take a take a yogurt, you know, >> take take this, take two. >> Yeah. >> Because then that's if they 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 0 but if they hit 7 on a daily basis that's still good you know but yeah a lot of the a lot of people will get.3 grams per protein you know that's limiting their progress >> also we I mean we'll hear this a lot just in you know gen pop and social media it's like I want a six-pack I want to get a bigger butt it's like pick one >> we gota we got to work on one or the other because uh 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. Um, 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 >> Oh, I was talking to Doug. Go ahead. >> Oh, okay. Sorry. Um, 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, 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'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'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 very difficult >> men and women when you've got those abs. See, I never had those abs. [laughter] >> When you have this shredded, >> they want that look. You get addicted to it. >> Um the >> really struggle with putting body fat on and it's so necessary, especially with a a female. Talk about when you have a female >> who's under, you know, 17 18% body fat and she's trying to build her glutes and it's just so hard to build that 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 you don't make your trainer's life a living hell, too. [laughter] >> You know, like if I'm saying you want you're not going to feel it on every set. >> You [clears throat] know, I could put a band around you and have you do super high reps. We're trying to get these get creative, but it's if we want to build your glutes, you're going to have to get, you know, get good at the basic movement patterns, too. Hopefully, we can increase your [clears throat] >> how much you feel your glutes, but if you say that on every set, yeah, I don't want to, >> you know, >> train. And then, real quick, the third is the I don't want to get bulky. >> Oh god. >> And they're [clears throat] like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to get bulky. And >> good luck trying to get bulky. You can't even do >> You weigh 120 and you can't even do a pull down with 70 lbs. >> Yeah. >> I just want you to know that you just described a majority of Jin Pop. >> Yeah. >> I mean, that's that's a majority of the the people that are probably going to listen to this episode, right? >> Spoiled trainer that I >> Well, that that's not my point I'm making that you're spoiled by any means, but I am. But I I 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 only >> Oh, half your conversation is convincing uh to lift weights heavy or 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've 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 that those three things are okay. It's like, I can't tell you how many conversations I have around we need to put body fat on or you 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 gym pop. For sure. I want to bring something to you, Brett, cuz there for a while there, there was this huge debate. It's really not there anymore, but there's a huge debate. What builds the glutes more? Squats, hip thrust. Remember the whole like squats versus hip thrust? There was this huge debate. And then they came out with studies and they showed that they're pretty both pretty darn good at building the glutes. And you're probably better off doing both of them. But you still see people um on social media through their experience who say, "Squats didn't build my butt. Hip thrusts built my butt." theory. 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, uh, and the hip thrust just it's easier to hit the glutes with a hip thrust. It's harder to be quad dominant on a hip thrust than it is on a squat. So, my theory is when people can't build their glutes with a squat, the hip thrust is probably going to do better for them. So, what do you think about that? Well, you still hear that debate by 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 thrusts? And it's always squats or hip thrust. What about RDL's? >> Yeah. >> You know, what about single leg leg press or like a lunge or Bulgarian or a glute dominant step up? Um, 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 and it doesn't injure you. It doesn't beat you up. You can do it more frequently. So, >> good points. Very good points, Brett, because I was just thinking this right now while we were talking earlier about getting strong. >> The stronger you get, you have a higher risk of injury. >> Oh, yeah. >> And some exercises, it's like you got to be very careful is 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 to and then you always injure yourself. It's like you've got a >> 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're you you might strain a muscle or something's give something gives. So, and you can still get that way with hip thrust. 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 deadlifts 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 hard four sets to failure 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 and you have more margin for, you know, once you start getting to that level where you're like, [ __ ] I might snap. I might tear something when I come down. You know, squats and even deadlifts off the floor, you're like, God, please don't [laughter] please don't snap. Um whereas with hip thrust it's it works you at a shorter muscle length and so it 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 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, >> right? >> But I believe periodization is important with hypertrophy. >> Um, but like I like to think I 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 you take two of those balls, one an upper one a lower body ball and one an upper body ball, and you focus on those two, and then you set the other four on maintenance. Maintenance is easy. 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, 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, right? You know, and I'm like, if I want a chin-up PR, I 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 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 degree hypers because it's a similar pattern. But so I 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 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 thrusts. Now, it's hip thrust and chin-ups. Okay? And I used to do deadlifts with chin-ups, but if you do chin-ups after deadlifts, you're they theyaken you a little bit. My my my girls are like, "Don't put chin up after." I get my Buddha barre members get mad at me if I forget and put cuz like during the strong month if I ever put they they love they love their chin-up strength and they know it's affected after deadlifts. So anyway, I put I put uh 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 like then I have the I call it as a glute squad special month where it's a lot of variety in stances. That's where we do sumo, curtsy, rotational, a lot of stuff like that because in theory a sumo stance, you might have heard this everyone's saying well sumo is all adductor. >> Yeah. >> And I'm like when did sumo become all adductor? >> I know. I know. >> But when they say they think about it, here's your stance. When you len when you spread the legs, you're lengthening the adductors. You know what else? You lengthen the lower glute max, but you shorten the upper glute max because the glutes go over the center of rotation. So when you go out, the upper glute max will shorten, the lower glute max will lengthen. Now, when you go deep, because of the way the glutes are, how they wrap under the pelvis, you can get a better stretch going real deep with narrow stance. But with a sumo stance, a lot of stuff we do isn't rock bottom. You know, even like sumo squats, sumo deadlifts, sumo leg press, we're not necessarily going like you [snorts] weren't like >> Mhm. >> So theoretically that might work more lower glutes. And then it's opposite with curtsian, this like single leg rotational RDL where you twist on the way down. >> Yeah. I I think uh >> 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 the upper glute max. And >> you might be saying, is there any evidence that you can target upper versus lower glute max? There has never been until now. Even our plot kin 2023 study that you mentioned earlier, squats versus hip thrust tied for glutam in all three regions. We measured lower glute max, middle glute max, and upper glute max. Squats and hip thrust tight in all three. We we thought that squats would grow the lower glute max more and hip thrust would grow the upper glute max more. No, same pretty similar all three. So, I was kind of wondering maybe you don't 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 it. um Jao Nunes, he had one group do um cable kickbacks and the other group do uh 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 go out in front and then straight to the side. It wasn't back at an angle like the glute medius kickback. It was just straight to the side. And what they found was that the cable kickback group grew mostly lower glute max, little bit of upper glute max, and then not much glute 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 min. >> Based on the research, >> you don't it's kind of the glute meter min might not grow that much, >> but it's upper. It was upper glute max. So we we so basically I've always said throw in your abduction. Throw in your abduction for upper glutes, but I always just said upper glutes thinking it would be glute meat and upper glute max and glute man, but it's it seems to be mostly upper glute max. >> Interesting. It was glute meat. >> So you can target subdivisions. So that's why after the deadlift month, you're beat up. Throw in the curtsy curtsy lunge or the rotational single legardial. Throw in some sumo stance. just get have fun and don't focus on PRs. That's the one kind of de lo where I'm not I 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 2, 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 booty bud Brett and I think it's you 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 tutor bump and all these books and stuff they only talked about manipulating volume and intensity >> and we're like you can periodize anything why not switch the focus of the lifts it's it was always like you're going to do the same core lifts and tinker with tinker with the uh 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 the lifts and the prioritization and then the others go on maintenance mode. So exercise order and then exercise selection variation makes sense and and uh the challenge with studies uh 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 uh helps prevent injury and pain. >> And injury and pain like you get hurt, you're not building anything. >> And so as a as a trainer, having trained lots and lots of people, >> I periodized and I don't care what the data says on hypertrophy. I know when I do it, right, my clients don't get hurt as much. >> But that that's why I did that's exactly why I started doing with booty barrel. I'm like I don't want people getting hurt. I want you training year round injuryree and painfree hopefully. And it's hard to do if you are utilizing progress. 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 joints, I got to ask you this because you're although so there's a confusion around workout programming. People think complex programming involves five uh 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 criticiz criticized like oh that's so basic. Why aren't you doing all these other exercises? Why 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 why I was proud of it. I have a team that does. I was bored and I made it myself. And um >> like still I could do this still. >> Yeah, I still got it. But I made I had her do I had cuz 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 [laughter] by hip flexors. I'm all about getting like gaining hip flexor mobility, but that's not going to make you grow your glutes. >> And I have is that a real post? >> 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 it 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. Um, and then it's like some functional type guy being like, "You're not training your spiral chain or your the Sarra 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 she was in inside the house um drinking her yogurt and I go, "Oh, we 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 clip. I saw I actually caught my attent. What the hell is he doing to the dunk said? 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 Rya's glutes from flat to fat in 4 months. We start off by doing this deep whatever I called it, you know, like deep lunge, deep split squat with lots of bands to to activate the spiral chain and the like what's the spiral [laughter] chain? The spiral chain and the deep core. That's also Yeah, that's also >> Did you not see this? No. >> Oh, it so it so caught my attention. It was on your page and I'm like, what is this? I don't know about >> this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] >> Not Naughty was shaking his head. Yes, now you're on to something. >> But um but uh uh and then I said, "Just kidding. We didn't do any of that." >> What we did do was straight up progressive overload. >> And then I showed her using a lot of weight. And so yes, I do get criticisms and you do get >> in my experience, a lot of women want to do like six to seven exercises per session. >> Yeah. And it's hard to get them not to cuz they but when they really when you really push yourself you four 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 there for lack of effort with more volume, but a lot of it's junk volume. And when you really do have quality volume, you don't you rest more. You don't want as many sets, you know, cuz that's what I train my women. They're like, "Coach, what else should I do? Go home. What I want to do one more." go home. You got to train in two days. You just crushed heavy squats or like leg. What? 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. It's and 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 and you would do death sets like what you do. >> You didn't walk to do that was the test. Did you fall off the curb walking out of the gym? If you didn't it wasn't enough. I couldn't push the clutch on my car. German volume training drop sets >> super setter with it like like it was like there was no like Arnold's book he's like I would go into the forest and do 50 sets of squats like what >> yeah [laughter] so we grew up with that but you try try that three times a week no and that's something I've done in my own training I've eliminated the the the drop sets the the real the stuff I realized I was doing to impress people cuz 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 over for session number one. And then by week two, we aren't doing that. So great. So great. Such a such a such a a veteran trainer move right there. So give them a taste of something. They really wanted to do the bait and switch like we don't need to do that [ __ ] Just so you know. >> Just so you know, I can do this. >> Yeah. Yeah. Just so you know, >> now we're not doing it. Yeah. >> Let's talk about frequency because you said 3 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 real in the real world. When I do five five, I'm stronger. Yes. The volume naturally goes up. So talk about that a little bit because I hate it when that debate comes up. So like when you work out in real world and in the 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, you know, 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 started on day one. So, they're usually eight week studies, 10 week studies. That's it. >> But, uh, they're short-term studies, but also another pitfall is you want to have advanced subjects and you say, I want you to do one exercise It's not going to happen. No serious lifter would just do one or an advanced lifter. I want you with your left leg, we're going to do this and on your right leg I would have like OCD paran like asymmetry OCD paranoia set in and be like wait >> I'm going to be off balance. Newbies or like non-liffters they're they're game for anything. So you so you're going to have way more research on newbies than advanced lifters >> and it's always going to be >> 8 weeks 10 weeks long. >> So is three times a week more effective than twice a week in the literature? Not really. It it might be. We might get that data over time, but it's it's it's not going to be it's it's not going to be like it's crazy more beneficial. But I I I 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 barrett 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 pushup 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 the 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? What if you do more donkey kick? Is that a squat? Not really. So, it's hard to program kickbacks in there then. 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 breath style programming is I alternate the thrust pattern. Oh, by the way, you can do it in any order, too. So, we might do squats first. With the squat pattern, I I I alternate between a double leg and a single leg. The double leg being squats, leg press. And there 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 >> Yeah. >> in my opinion, still the prime mover. Yep. >> Um but then then then then two days later, you'll do a single leg variation, a glute do step up, single leg 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 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 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 do hip thrusts 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 that the four squat lunge hinge pull thrust bridge abduction. Abduction it's frontal plane one day transverse plane the next day. So, if you're thinking of a seated hip abduction machine, one day it's leaning forward, the next day would be bridged or leaning back. >> But there's also a ton of different movements you could do. For the for the leaning, your options would be kind of like basically leaning seated hip abduction, sideline hip raises, uh band seated hip abduction, or the uh 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 then the other day would be the frontal plane. That's all of your um cable standing well your bridge seated hip abduction your cable standing variations and then like the you could do straight out to the side or kind of angled to make it more glute medius kickback and then you have your extra range sideline hip abductions with or without a band or ankle weight. You could do any band any lateral band walk type thing where you're more upright. Um, but yeah, basically with bands, with ankle weights, or uh now we have like the snow angel machine, which I call it, I just made it up. Someone tried to copy the hammer strength seated hip abduction, just made it way too big. So, we just put the seat all the way back and you lay down on it and it's like I call it snow angel cuz you just you're going straight out to the side. >> Um, but yeah, basically it's a good system, but what you talked about, it's a 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 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, um, I'm always like, "Hey," because I'll be like sitting down and I'm like, "Hey, can you grab me a a can you grab me a an energy drink drink or can you grab me a dinner? Can you toss this on your way out? I don't want to get up cuz my [laughter] knees hurt. My knees hurt and I'm trying not to move." But think about it. Remember when you were a kid? Yeah. >> You You could be like jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump 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 Have you seen the viral? I shared it on my story just like 3 days ago of uh your 20s, your 30s, and your 40s and it was like these 20-year-old kids jumping off a roof and I did see that and another one jumping off >> and then and then it's like the 40y old getting out of the truck. Yeah, he's trying to get out of the truck. the t the the bed of the truck. I can relate. So that's me going, uh, if I just jump, I might Yeah, it's better to just sit down and put my leg. >> You know what you got to do because that cuz that's true, but you got to compare yourself against the average 50 in which case, >> but yeah, I'm not too hard on myself, but what I realize it decreases your neat. We always say your metabolism goes down. No, it doesn't drop that much. It's your neat >> and it's because of pain. Yeah. >> If you didn't have any pain, you'd go play sports all day long. You would do everything. Pain. Pain is related to neat. I've seen no studies on this. >> No, no, no, no. That's that's obvious. >> It's obvious. You you you glossed over something I want to highlight for the audience that I think is so important. Um, we talk about this a lot. uh and you and you just went right over it and I think it's it just highlights, you know, what a great coach and and and programming that you do [snorts] is a lot of times when someone will hear an episode like this, they hear us all talking about glut 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 they already did. If you notice that you have a very minimalist upper body. >> Oh 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's 36. What if you do that Monday, Wednesday, Friday, pick these exercises? Pick a squat, lunge, thrust, bridge, hinge, pull, abduction. Yeah. >> And then a 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 [snorts] sets for quads and adductors, nine sets for hamstrings, cuz the squat lunge works your quads and adductors. The hinge works your hammies. So it's nine sets for quads and adductors, nine sets for hammies, nine sets for the upper body pressing musculature, nine sets for the upper body pulling musculature, and 36 sets for glutes. It's a permanent glute specialization program. >> Yes. >> And that way you can recover. If we were trying to do >> everything, 36 sets, you're dead. >> 20 you you could not recover. And by the way, because we're alternating with the things I mentioned, >> like abduction doesn't get you too sore, you know? And like you it's not people say well 20 sets is is enough for most muscle groups. And I agree like chest like I 20 sets a week. I can't do 20 sets a week for chest anymore and still recover. >> Um but think of the delts. The glutes are kind of like you know you've got upper glute max glute max and glute me in. The delts you could do 20 sets cuz it's front delts, side delts, rear delts a bunch of laterals your rear fly and then you got your military presses, your upright rows and then all your delt raises. You could easily do 36 if you're on a delt specialization program which I did in 2024. I didn't increase my weight on anything. I just started doing more volume and I was like I'm going to do cables like with later I've always just done dumbbells. I'm going to do the later machine dumbbells cables and bands. And with cables sometimes just lengthen partials. >> Yeah. >> And my delts grew just from doing more volume. >> That's awesome. Mhm. But yeah, >> but but real quick, you get so sick of it. >> I got so sick of it. >> That's why these guys are like, >> they see a movement, they're like, "Just do a Romanian. Just do a >> just squat." >> Yeah. >> You don't get this. You don't train glutes. Yeah. >> I've been working out for decades and I've been >> Well, the girls, they want different. They want variety because >> Yeah. >> It gets really freaking boring. >> So, you want a new program every four weeks in my opinion. >> Four weeks works out well. >> Yes, you can do an 8week program. Yes, you could do a 12week pro, 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 program three or four weeks. >> Yeah. They f 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. >> Um, and just keep things fresh. Uh, you know, when you work with people, >> it's those two those two things are equally important. 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 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? Well, my my um my client Angela, she's Chinese. I mentioned how I've had Chinese clients with really round glutes. She has great glute development and she hip thrust 600 barbell hip thrust 610 lbs at 120 body weight. That's crazy. >> Yeah. But um she's so freaking strong. >> But anyway, um she once said Brett Brett like Brett Brett doesn't Brett belongs to all of us. not like like [laughter] oh no not not in a sexual manner but like he's I'm always you FaceTime me I I I answer um but I've been single for 18 months now >> and that's um 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 >> um 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, we're going to have to quit training. I mean, who first of all, I go back and Yeah. I go back and forth between I have a house in Fort Lauderdale trying to sell it and it will not sell. It's a bad market there >> right now. It's crazy over there in Florida. >> 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. I really want to fly out. >> It's a 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 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 I make good money. I don't You don't need to work. If 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 realized 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 so gay. And then now I'm like, okay, [laughter] 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 clients send you of their if I want to make a relationship work, I think I have to quit >> training quit training so many women. I got I'm going what do I do? Switch to training bros. But do you know when Fort Lauderdale Fort Lauderdale >> you just need you just need the the ultimate the ultimate confident woman that doesn't she just has like cuz there's there's >> I need 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 >> um and being single I was like and I also moved moved back to Vegas and I've been alone a lot and not to switch and get all sentimental here but you I've got a lot of downtime and I also thought I follow this guy Arthur Brooks and he's always talking about really just talked to Mr. >> Been on the show like four times. >> Oh really? Oh yeah great. Okay. So, he talks about how like so I'm like I need to put my phone down and like live life and not so it's hard for me to just go 20 minutes without my phone, >> but I'll use my jacuzzi or like red light sauna or something and put the phone down and then sometimes I'll be in the jacuzzi for a half an hour and you just think and I've been thinking a lot and you reflect on how I could have been a better boyfriend, how I could have I don't think back and 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 the balls I mentioned earlier juggling. I'm trying to keep everyone happy and >> um and I tease everyone so there I always piss some people off like you know like going too far. So I'm always trying to make everyone happy but I realized I was I never made anyone feel that special and I I could have been a lot better. So, I've been following like the Gotman's. They're like the relationship expert. >> Had them on the show, too. They're awesome. >> You've had them on the show? Oh my god. >> I don't listen to podcasts, by the way. I [laughter] don't even listen to >> I don't expect you Joe Rogan episode or anything. >> That's all stuff we like. >> Like, I love you guys. I love Huberman. I love Joe Rogan. I just don't listen to podcasts ever. >> Yeah, we had the Gmans on a long time ago. >> Okay, so the Gutman's I've been listening to John Gottman. I'm like, man, that's how you're supposed to be? [laughter] Yeah. Now I know why I'm single. Like but yeah. So >> have you have you connect have you uh since you're going down this rabbit hole I mean I find all this stuff interesting this conversation um have you have you connected it to um childhood stuff or like what is what is cuz a lot of times it's there's something that subconsciously you're running from you don't even know it. Have you connected? >> 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 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 52 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 style things like that but also just watching John got me he got through to me >> and I'm like what a loving man and a supportive man and he's like when >> when you know Julia sits down to talk he'll take out a notepad >> I feel like I was always arguing to win in the past >> being the scientist like I want to win >> cool you you won you won the argument and then you're sleeping on the couch that night you know so you lost so have you I'm sure you are fascinated with all the research they've done like they they've done some really cool >> I I've never pulled up the actual studies you got some the most duplicated studies in uh mental health because mental health studies are very difficult to duplicate. I think 60% of them they can't but Gman studies they've repeated their prediction on divorce is like crazy. >> Well, I I quote them like the four horsemen of relationship like contempt being the worst. >> Have you seen back to uh I think it was Arthur Brooks that said this the other day. This this was another I'm going off on a tangent. He said the dark triad. If you have uh narcissism, >> macavlianism, >> macavelianism, and psychopathy, >> it's like that's the dark triad. Like I >> I I it's all about me. >> Y >> the end justifies the means. I will do whatever it takes to get what I want and I will feel no guilt in that guilt. Yeah. >> But anyway, I've been I've been paying more attention to this stuff. >> Have you seen the podcast with Arthur and his wife where they talk 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. Um I'm naturally love if you love something so much. >> You're going to be good at it. >> I 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. [snorts] And you know, Chris Rock said it in a skit a long time ago, like a man is as faithful as his options. [laughter] >> And as I got more popular, I realized, wow, I have more females are into me, but then you reach 50 and you're like invisible. >> I don't get hit on. People will be like, nice thirst trap you posted on your story. I'm like, you think that people respond to me? [laughter] Like in their minds, I'm getting like 50 women being like, heart, heart, heart. Like, no, [laughter] 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 I was getting hit on by, you know, superm models in in Spain and stuff. And I'm like, now I have all the money and I [laughter] I don't get hit on at all. And even I've noticed with my clients like 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 I don't want to date someone in their transition into dad now. It's >> I'm dad now and and the women that come get form the closest bonds with me are the women who had daddy issues >> and I'm like a father figure to them. And it's it's and and I like I love it cuz I like the >> closeness, but then I sabotage my ability to have a a girlfriend >> and I've made a lot of mistakes along the way. It's always been my fault. Um every relationship I had, I feel like I was good at blaming. I'm good at like and everyone takes my side, you know, cuz I can describe things in a way that [laughter] like But then I this whole last 18 months I sit in the jacuzzi. I'm like, "Oh my god, it's been me the whole time. [laughter] I'm the problem. Well, have you have you uh 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 express things but not dwell on them. Like I don't ever want to go down the road of I had a therapist years in 2020 and she was like, Brett, I I what I was going through at the time, she's she said, "I have sympathy for you and I do believe you've been dealt a bad hand here. like you're a victim in this case, but I just can 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 a couple that I've been seeing off and on for 20 years. And the the man and the wife split up. The man went and remarried. He has two kids. He's happy, you know, I barely see him anywhere. He's so happy. He moved on with his life and the woman is still complaining to this day 20 years later about the relationship. That's all she wants to talk about. >> And I 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 the women that I pick um it like I thought it could work out. What I realize is I need to I need to notice red flag not not necessarily like red flags for everyone but like what were what would be red flags for sustaining a relationship for me if you know cuz [snorts] 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 be their photo you're their photographer in life you know >> and I not to mention you've lived that life already. >> I've lived that life. I want to settle down and I want and you think I also think the world changed a little bit >> and men have always been so had the upper hand and it's been all about men and we've been >> um but now women the world changed and women are more picky now and they want they want to have um they they want their men to have the the whole package and I and it's because of Only Fans it's because of social media being an influencer You can crush it as an entrepreneur now if you want. >> You can crush it. Not just only like I have >> people like clients that aren't only 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 vent like this avenue and another two grand this way. and they're they're making 10 grand a month do being influencers, you know, and and having fun and 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 I realize this in South Florida, there's a lot of um transactional relationships and neither side are happy because you have the you have the the woman that's with the man just for money and it's never enough. Um it's never enough. And the man who yeah, he can if he's 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 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 a hundred grand a month if I dated this guy." So she's always comparing >> cuz they tell they talk they tell stories. Things things overheard in my gym sometimes in Florida. >> Oh my god. Um, 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 for. 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 and when you pull from that pool of women, then I think you'll find >> somebody different. >> My therapist says, "Go do things." >> Yeah. >> Cuz I just travel around and I'm always in the gym and I need to do a fan on that. >> I'm also I'm not on dating apps and I don't put out the vibe that I'm looking. I don't >> Well, this episode will come out. We'll see if >> I know you get flooded. [laughter] >> I don't know. >> Too exhausting though filtering through and >> Yeah. [laughter] >> But I also realized that Give me your therapist, your therapist money, and I'll call you once a week and I'll filter all the the data. I'll kill two birds, one stone. I got you. >> There we go. There we go. [laughter] But I also realized, this is kind of funny. >> Um, I I dressed up for a wedding two weekends ago. And then a couple weekends before that, my my squad threw me in my 50th birthday party. And >> and they made me dress up. It was like a fancy dressed. And I'm like, I would have rather had a jort and tank top party, you know. [laughter] But I realized I get way more attention. And I realized this cuz um one time it was like St. Patrick's Day. This is a funny story. I was walking down in San Diego. I was walking down the street and it was St. Patty's Day. And I went to the gym. I'd bring a backpack. I'd have my computer in there so I could work while I lifted. And it was late. I'd lift, this was like 2020ish, and I'd lift weights late at night. >> I don't do that now. Now I try to focus more on sleep and my health. But anyway, I was walking by this bar. Thrusters is kind of by my house and there's this 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 [laughter] his his girlfriend goes, "Babe, listen to me. It's a lot bigger than you." And she and he goes, he looks at his girlfriend. He goes, "Honey, he's homeless." >> What? [laughter] >> It was like, you know, 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 [laughter] George and tank top and a backpack. >> I don't even know what to say right now. And [laughter] you know, I drive >> Oh, man. >> I drive a 2012 Toyota Tacoma. And I drive so little. It's about It's at like 985,000 miles. Like, it's about to get the 100. I don't even have 100,000 miles on my truck, but I like I have a 2024 in San Diego. I like the 2012 more. I I mean, that's truck I couldn't sell it for five grand, I don't think. I don't care about cars. I bought this just to wear for things like this. I don't wear this in [laughter] real life. This Rolex, I don't even know what the heck. >> I'm so glad I didn't ask you the model cuz you are going to be able to answer it. Are you >> nothing about Rolexes? [laughter] 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 that all my people, my family and friends care more about my money than I do. I'm happy. I go to the gym every day. I don't need anything else. I'm not trying to buy a nicer house. I'm not trying I don't care about cars. >> Um and I clearly don't care about dressing. But [laughter] I did notice the two times I dressed up, I got so much attention. And I'm like, "Oh my god, that's just don't look homeless and [laughter] >> don't look homeless and you'll get the lesson." >> Maybe we'll find a wife if you That's all I got to do. >> Get you out of fights, I guess. [laughter] >> So good. >> Well, Brent, this was great, man. >> It's a lot of fun having you on. >> Yeah, it's too long. I I can't believe we let that much time. We won't let that much time go by next time. So, >> but yeah, you're one of the good guys in the fitness space. Uh we we appreciate you. The way you communicate things. Um, you you do a good job and I think we need more. >> It's good to have people like you in our space because there's so much noise >> and you've been doing this for a while, but in through that period of time, you've seen people come up and down. >> Uh, >> you listen to the podcast, you hear how many times we pump your tires. We pump your tires all the time. No, people tell me and I always I always tell if anyone ever says, >> "What podcast would I listen?" I say mind pump for for fitness. >> I don't think there's any better one out there. But um yeah, it's it's we've seen we've seen the industry change and we've seen it's the the era of the fake trainers. Like think about most of these popular people, they've literally never trained anyone ever had a client >> 23 years old and they're million followers arguing with me on on Instagram >> and like imagine >> feeling confident and like arguing with someone when you've never had experience in the field. It's crazy and >> 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 always train people because you know Arnold said that in his like I watched his documentary be useful. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. >> You got to stay useful. That's the secret. >> Yeah. >> So, it keeps me being useful but 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. Like I, you know, Louis Simmons, you knew he really trained people. He >> he'd go, I trained this, you know, this guy, this guy Kenny Patterson had this much. He was benching 600 lb and he'd be reeling off 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 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 I had that epi to close this up, I had this epiphany that if you don't care if you 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 I love training people and being in charge of their fitness. And I love when people are like, I need to step it up. I need to get in shape and they can call me and I will be equally as enthusiastic as they are about it. It's a lucky way to live life. And I think it's the missing element. It's what Arthur Brooks talks about. A lot of the younger generation, they don't have a purpose. They have a missing element to themselves because they're always on their phones. And you don't figure out the meaning of life when you're staring at your phone 24 hours a day. You figure out when you're bored. >> And we came up in an era where we had to be bored. we had to figure stuff out. So, I'm glad that we came up when we did before social media, before the internet was huge, before AI. I'm I I love the prospects of AI and everything and we've benefited very much from social media, but I do like that we've been we've been able to experience two extremes of life, you know. >> Agreed. Agreed, man. Well, Brett, thanks for coming on the show, dude. >> Great time, dude. >> Thank you for having me. Greatly appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> All right. I know you like that episode. If you did, check this one out. One of the keys to fat loss is protein. It's true. If you're not eating a high protein diet, you're not going to burn as much body fat as you can. So, today's episode, we're going to talk about the smartest ways to use protein for fat burn and to build muscle. You got to watch this. I wish [music] I understood this earlier in my career. I think it was probably almost 10 years in when I started to just focus [music] on this with clients. >> I knew it was important, but I don't know how important. >> Yeah, I also did. I knew it was important and but I also