Learn with Bret Contreras

Here’s a reaction post to Jeff Nippard’s latest video where he ranks glute exercises from best to worst. I have so much respect for Jeff; he has tremendously helped spread strength training science and scientific thinking to the masses. I enjoyed hearing his logic and rationale and hope he enjoys hearing mine too. Cliff notes: make sure to do your walking lunges, your barbell hip thrusts, and your glute medius hip thrusts for lower, mid, and upper glute growth, respectively.

Back in the day, when I wanted to grow my delts, I’d push it really hard on military and shoulder pressing and make sure to be crushing bench press, dips, and rows/pulldowns too.

More recently, I completely changed tactics and decided to have the following split: Lower Body, Chest/Back/Arms, Shoulders. I do this twice per week but on chest/back/arm day I only do 8 total sets and with shoulder day I do 10-12 total sets. So I’m prioritizing delts like never before in terms of volume and frequency.

Here’s a new stretching movement for the glute that I’ve been doing at Glute Lab Fort Lauderdale. The Glute Squad loves it. I first introduced this exercise on Instagram on February 28th, which another post on March 14th. At this point the non-working leg remained free (in the air) which negatively impacted balance and stability. 

It is very easy to perform a highly challenging glute workout from home. With just a band, some common furniture, and your own bodyweight, you can still hammer the glutes from all angles. Upper glute max, lower glute max, and glute medius - this workout you’ll see with Nicole Osoria hits it all. There are so many great bodyweight and band glute exercises. I’m excited to teach you all of them over time.

In this video, I break down the research pertaining to knee banded squats and hip thrusts, discuss why there’s so much hate surrounding them in our industry, and mention future research we need in order to be more confident on the topic.