2947: How to Build Glutes | Hip Thrust vs Squats What Bret Contreras Says Actually Works

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MindPump. MindPump. With your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded health, fitness, and entertainment podcast in history. This is MindPump. Today's episode, we had Brett Contreras on the podcast. You know who he is. He's one of the best trainers in the world. Famous for building butts. He's actually an excellent trainer all the way around. You can find him on Instagram at BrettContreras1 and BootyByBrettOfficial. Now, this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Legion Supplements. 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. If you go through our discount, you can get a free bottle of Legion Supplements. If you go through our discount, you can get a free bottle if you go through our link, you get yourself a massive discount. Go to buylegion.com slash MindPump. Use the code MindPump. Buy one, get one 50% off. We also have a brand new workout program right now, MAPS Abs and Butts. So if you like this episode, Brett, we talk all about glute building. We have a new MAPS program that focuses on this. It's called Abs and Butts. So it's a full-body program, but 90% of the volume is for the abs and the glutes. So if you want those two areas to develop and you want them to develop quickly, get this program. It's 40% off because it's brand new. So it's a discounted program right now. And we include a free, another free MAPS program, Muscle Mommy 15 or Muscle Mommy, plus two free guides. Go to mapsabsandbutt.com. Use the code launch for the 40% off discount, the other free MAPS program, and the free guides. Here comes the show. All right, real quick. If you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at Paws? Head on over to mindpumpstore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. Brett, welcome back to the show, man. Thank you for having me. I think it's been a while. Three years. It's been three years. My fair, we were talking about that. I didn't realize how long it's been. Whenever we talk about people that we like and respect in the space, your name always pops up. A good example of being able to combine science with experience. So it's always good to have you on the show because I appreciate your points of view always. Thank you. Thank you. So I want to open with this. Can anybody build a nice butt? Hell no. Okay. Explain that. Explain that. Why can't anybody do it? It's, I always say 60% of this is genetics. And I'm getting annoyed at some of these, you know, when I started, I was the only glute guy. And now I'm like the grumpy old man. I'm like, you started 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 huge, you know, set of glutes. It's just your training variables. You're just not training the right way. And if you use their cues and then, and then do their fancy exercise, your glutes will grow. And that's not the case. I remember, um, remember John Meadows, 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 everything. I tried everything, nothing, you know, I swear glutes didn't grow a centimeter and it's just, you know, you look at bodybuilding, a lot of bodybuilders have a hard time bringing up weak parts and they're on 15 different drugs. Right. And they have good genetics for building muscle. But if you have a weak part, but if you think what, what factors go into making the glutes look nice, I always laugh because, you know, some of my clients, well, some of my best hip thrusters don't have the roundest glutes, they have wider hips. And that's, you think about the cross-section area, that's going to be a lot of, you know, a lot of glute fibers, but spread out at a longer distance. So better biomechanically, it's more, more advantageous. They have like huge glutes. It's just not round perky glutes. What people want is the round perky glutes. And so that's a lot of your skeletal structure, you know, your sacral slope and then like distances between, well, that's muscular touch, but just with your skeleton, you know, if you have a really flat sacral slope, or if you have like a longer distance between like the, you know, the, the femur to like the sacrum, if there's more distance, it might make it look more round. But also just like, think about if all four of us flexed our biceps, some would bulge more, you know, some, some are peak, 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. If you ever have like top three Miss Bikini Olympia contenders train with me and they walk in, they go, I want her glutes. And it, she has the, the, 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 ever wants. She's not big around. It's just so round and perky. And then there's the fat content. I think the glutes have the highest intramuscular fat content out of all the muscles. I did not know that. Yeah. Okay. And like in, and it's not, it's a sign of like disease and like not, not being healthy, but there are people who have 50%. Intramuscular fat, like not outside the muscle, inside the muscle, even healthy. No, no, those are not healthy people, but there is some evidence that like, if you work out, I believe in cyclists, they might have more intramuscular fat, but there's more mitochondria around it or something. 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, a little bit more fat inside the muscles and then you store it outside the muscles. 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 pounds. 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, 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, less intramuscular fat. And they also don't have extra musc, 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 these factors, your origins and insertions, which you mentioned, which are going to determine like how, how the long butt or short, or, or like in bikini, the lower, insertions make are like coveted, but also like there's studies on, yeah, different people's like, some people have way more upper glute than lower glute. It's funny. Cause when I was growing up in the nineties 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 shape, but the teardrop, you know, look, no one talked about upper glutes. And now it's all about the shelf and everyone wants upper glutes. And I feel like that's very genetic. I have this client race, uh, 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. Like these are the best butts ever. And I'm training these girls and they all think they have bad butts, bad butts, poor glute development. And, 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. Uh, some of these influencers that look so good, you just don't injure them. They just need to train hard. Don't follow any system. Just kind of go hard at a few exercises and then mix it up all the time. And they're going to look amazing, but it's so genetic and not everyone can help. How many times you go to the gym and you see guys that don't even look like they've ever touched a weight. And then you see them year after year. It's not easy for people to build muscle. And so there's the whole like developing muscle on a whole, but there's also individual weaknesses. Like we all have muscles that grew easily and ones that didn't. If you're someone whose glutes don't grow easily, um, and you're like a non-responder, 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 sarcomeres and stuff like that. But Um, but it doesn't project outwards. It doesn't end up with much rounder glutes. 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. 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're doing a lot of the exercises that they're supposed to. Would you say it's a common or uncommon thing when you get a client? And one of the reasons they have trouble growing their glutes is because, uh, their quads are taking over a lot of like the good movements, like squatting and movements like that. Does, is that common or uncommon? Super common. And there's even some new research to show, like, you know, some people use a lot more quads to squat. I mean, it's like, it's common sense, but it's nice having research to support it that, you know, you can look as they go heavier and heavier, their glute activation doesn't go up more and that you could say, well, EMG doesn't mean anything, but they can break down the, you know, like the, the, the joint torques and stuff and show that they're relying on strategies to lift heavier. They're relying on knee dominant strategies and they don't end up using their hips, 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, cuz 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, extra rotation mix, where you're kind of doing a, 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 corticomotor, 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. I love it when, uh, I love it when studies support what, uh, those of us who've been training clients for decades have, I've 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, fashioned isometric, depending on the position and how we activate, but it was, it's like, oh yeah, now I can feel my lats. Now I can feel my glutes. Now I 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. I remember when I spread my lats. I couldn't flex my chest. I remember my buddy can just feel a pinch of penny between there. And I'm like, I couldn't even flex my chest. And then you learn by like flexing the muscles and you build that mind muscle connection. And then you, and then you're, you're doing an exercise and you're like, oh, that you see that connection there that I, I know how to flex it, activate it hard in isolation. And now I can incorporate it more into everyday movement. And that's what some of the research found too, through doing these isolated glute movements. It then carries. It 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 could build muscle. They could get stronger and they can improve. And I just want to say that because someone might be listening to be like, ah, it's a waste of time. I wanted to do that too. I would 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. Yeah. What would you say to like, what's your opinion on? Um, cause 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 with the illusion of the, a bigger butt or a better, but it happens. I kind of think it's the opposite though. Oh, 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 client 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. Yeah. And the, 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 COVID. It was like everywhere was abandoned. Like, so we, you were on the beach and everyone thought we were celebrities, but like, they see like one guy walking with 30 women. They're like, who is this guy? But I'm like, oh my God, my clients who are 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, but I put, I put the, um, I'd, I'd add 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 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 S 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 D in fact, I given her 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 don't want the glutes growing more. Yeah. And we've achieved that, but we have to do a lot of hip thrust, a lot of abduction, a lot of kickbacks, a lot of the special machines that I have now, these kneeling glute isolators and the 3d abductors and stuff that are awesome. You guys should get them now talking about a client like that. Okay. I love that you brought her up because my experience when I have a, uh, an athlete, especially a runner, uh, what we talked about earlier with this quad dominance. And we talked about the neurological studies that you talked about, like they have done so many repetitions of quad dominant running, right? That you then take that person and they go squat. It is so difficult to get that client to connect to the glutes. Would you think that that's part of her challenge? I know genetics play a role, but would you think that was part of her challenge of developing glutes? Cause she's gotten so good at, at running. And that's like, I think it's, what makes someone quad dominant is like, like half of it's like practice, which you said they spent their life playing soccer or they only, 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 kettlebell 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 hit a lot of hamstrings too. Then he's like stiff, lagging it up. He's like, he's lagging 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 post your chain dominant. But, um, he, he became more, more hip dominant than quad dominant over time through training with me, but 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, the deadlift is a good barometer of how quad versus hip dominant you are, um, kind of how naturally you would sit to pull it up. A lot of people will want to stiff leg it. And then you're like, get those hips down a little bit. And then they, and then you start going heavy and they start shooting their hips up cuz they're stronger that way. But anyway, I think half that'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 Ripa toe 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 mid foot, the, and the scapula, because her structure had, had to be that way. You get some people and that's bad. to what we're talking about you got these people making these bold claims and it's like you've never trained go train some nba players like they're so hard to train they're they're what you think you know if goes out the window when you're training some 6 10 or 7 foot 1 guy that you know is all legs and stuff and so um so anyway yeah i think a lot of it's structure not just bone structure skeletal structure like your anthropometry and proportions but also which muscles tend to grow and things like your kneecap i i know i have a small patella um compared a lot of guys and that how far your patella sticks out determines your 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 no i can't get big quads because my knees hurt i have knee pain and it's so frustrating because i can do like you know i can't get big quads i can't get big quads because my knees hurt i have knee pain 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 if a muscle gets bigger it also gets better leverage we published a study on that my my colleague andrew i was talking to him about it like theoretically and then he went and like god i think he borrowed a data set from stew 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 it a 90 degree angle that's all the forces effective yeah in many cases that's the case in some cases not so much i think depends on the muscle you brought up 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 hold on attractions but yes study yes new study just published um i think it was published my friend brad schoenfeld throws me these studies before they're published and says 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 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 run the same and then they kind of fall off well the risk factor and the safety of it i think the value of something 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 use isometrics all the time 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 when we learn everything we're bored we 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 gonna go off topic here yeah sure i was uh training my client estrella she the rotisserie hip thrust you're you're about 30 percent 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 same day girl girls were like oh are you enjoying training those cheaters those fakers what they can't they can't hip thrust normal the internal competition that you have is always like that they're always bitches too how are your new bitches i'm like well you'd love them you actually love them why are they that's hilarious but um they're like oh do they like their little cheater cheater pad 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 do you feel your glutes yeah but i can only use two or three plates i'm like who cares that's less plates to load they want to load all the plates on they're like bros with bench press they're like bros with bench press yeah and so um so anyway estrella is like the strongest at rotisserie hip thrust she's done like seven or eight times in a row and she's done like six or seven sixty five for eight and she weighs like one she was 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 rotisserie their hips get beat up you can't then rotisserie two days later after you do something like that well 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 the best way to do it and then we have to do the glute isolator which is the best way to do it and then we have to do the kneeling glute isolator which is a kneeling machine or or or single leg hip thrust or they can 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 yeah the surface area but we we can't just do like you can't do rotisserie you can't do a heavy barbell hip thrust because you're but anyway she's like yeah it's so funny because i come into like what i mentioned to you guys earlier and i'm like i'm not going to do that i'm not going to do that i'm not going to do that i have fort lauderdale san diego and las vegas and when i come in town they know they're going to hit prs or they're expected to they love it but then i think they're ready for me to leave after a couple weeks so i have estrella and i'm like i've had i've had her do so i don't like with barbell hip thrust they slide back and that's cheating they want to slide back when they do it yeah you want to go 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 almost like a decline bench but i'm like because 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 how you know what the best lift is in my opinion this is how you know what the best lift is in my opinion if you get stronger at squats you're also in your leg press one up and you didn't even do leg press you get carry over it carries over yep yep 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 rotisserie is hardest at the bottom and then easier at the top because your body weight goes over the top of it and now it's got it's like a teeter-totter it's helping you out on yeah so you're not lifting as much weight on this side of the fulcrum but anyway uh so i said hey you're gonna i'm you're gonna we're gonna set a rotisserie pair she's like no i haven't done that in like six weeks i haven't done a single set and i'm like trust me and i put on it's so funny because all they listen to is i want to say reggaeton but maybe it's not maybe it's what is their their their hip they're like latin hip-hop around the clock and luckily i'm like not one of those like i'm 50 i just turned 50 i can still listen to their music and be okay but it's all day long of you know bad 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 that's a pr girls don't know any heavy metal so but estrella loves the loves last resort yes so she put 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 it 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 okay and she's like a total bro and she takes 10 minutes to psych up and she'll wrap her wrists these these girls are they they're hip thrust so then so i have her do i think it was yeah 765 and she hits 10 reps and then afterwards she's so god there was this movie back in the day i can't remember latimer was the guy's name the football player and he was like oh that's the program the program yes remember he was like yeah yeah and he puts the weight that's what it reminded me she finished her set and she's like shaking and then like i go out 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 gonna throw up yeah and god this is a long story just to get some basic things so she's like i feel like i'm gonna throw up well that's something you encounter as a trainer sometimes especially with newbies you know they're gonna 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 gonna butcher it but i think i'm gonna butcher it 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 eccentrics it doesn't raise your blood lactate or anything doesn't get your heart rate up like think of going downstairs you don't you're not breathing hard eccentrics are mostly elastic the titan stuff like that so it's not so you could theoretically i reason that she could do eccentrics even though she feels like she's gonna puke so she's like i want to do more i don't just want to do one set and then she's fizzled out and that's probably my bad as a coach i literally zapped them on their first set but it worked 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 west side for squats that's cool if we train at west side 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 pounds and then 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 pound 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 i say things like isometrics and all these things that you know every once in a while they come in useful as a trainer how important is getting stronger because you've talked a lot about hitting prs lifting more weight and this discussion doesn't come up as much these days but it still kind of comes up about you know strength is a decent correlate for muscle size it's not perfect but it's decent and you'll get some people arguing that you know strength you don't need to chase it as much but i hear you talk all the time about getting stronger get these girls stronger in my experience if you get stronger consistently you build muscle it just happens so talk about how important strength is so that's another area that this was like 10 years ago there was a guy jeremy lenicky 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's this guy in the field that kept kept asking me he would never answer the question then why are there power lifting weight classes and the guy would never answer it but he did point out there's not a good there's not good research showing a good relationship a good correlation between strength and hypertrophy and now since then we've had studies emerge in fact just one emerged in the last year showing very high relationship like very close relationships with strength and hypertrophy so back back in the day we're like well your strength can be a lot of things can rate 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 you're there's things other than that that 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 gonna have to train in other gyms where they don't have this equipment i can't do that to them so i just kept the gym open i didn't take on clients i just said you guys just i give you all keys you guys just keep using the gym and i'll pay the the lease that's nice yeah and and then they don't have me here there i didn't teach them properly i realized because they always had me there so it's just like if the four of us were training and we're all doing this and you know one of us was like oh my low back's hurting we'd be like dude don't squat you know you don't let them squat if you're low or deadlift if your low back is hurting you'd 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 it still takes you a couple injuries to even after the first one you're like i think i'm good again and so they they they so then they started pushing and i remember i would give them if i tried to give them like three three by like three by five at 80 85 percent of 100 max they cannot just do three sets of five because they're used to training to failure yeah they have to at least the last set they do an amrap set and i'd be like i said three sets of five and they're like but it was easy some lifts that 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 where the 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 three 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 injury prone now and when i started training my squad in fort lauderdale i had way more machines so i taught them because i don't 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 the same thing with like the deadlift pattern we have like five plate loaded death of 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 thrusts i don't want you to worship the barbell hip thrusts i want you getting strong at all the hip just yes they're not deadlifts they're deadlifts they're deadlifts 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 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 an 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 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 yeah they're doing way more reps and 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 yeah how many of us want to keep five rir yeah yeah you're communicating you're communicating something that um something that we talk about on the show a lot with our own our own workouts right we always are talking about the core lifts how they should be a foundation uh of your program but then we always say like that but that doesn't mean you won't catch me on machines all the time i'm 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 then my knees my back or something like that i'm like oh my god what am i going to do i'm not going to do anything i'm just 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 cut 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 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 is 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 it's like a cool art science did is try to how can i maintain my strength while my shoulder heals up or something yeah 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 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 yeah so you're super strong in the sagittal plane and like you could squat 500 pounds but your lateral stability barely supports you know 100 pounds you know you're playing with your kids or something happens you need to cut to the left next thing you know you twist your knee you're like what's going on i can squat 500 pounds how did this happen it's like well it's like a really powerful car without a reinforced frame and it twisted and so that can also be an issue it's just i'm really strong in one direction yeah but i don't have the support most people don't consider are these other planes of motion rotation lateral stability so yeah it's always something we're trying to incorporate in their programming yeah i also think there's a genetic element to soft tissue strength i have friends that if they had strong soft tissue they could have become world-class power lifters but you know imagine if you could 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 deep like you know deep weighted dips i've just stopped at parallel and be real strict even weighted chin-ups aggravate me a little bit now so that's where the machines become more yeah every 40 year old lifter that's been lifting for 20 years gravitates towards more hammer strength machine more machines in general but the hammer strength is a little easier in the stretch and a little harder in the squeeze and a new study uh that we published showed that there wasn't any difference in muscle growth in the stretch between making it harder in the stretch yeah versus making it harder in the squeeze like everyone i saw that 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 that that increases your longevity that's what i loved about westside they used a lot of bands and chains yeah it's so less hard on the body when you use bands and chains they are they're phenomenal i got uh i hit huge prs using bands and they feel so smooth just adding them to the weights um the benefit of training uh increasing your train 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 stronger you're more stable by the way that's what i think of with my hip thrust program now it's like we load in different positions yeah we have so many different positions we have so many different positions we have so many devices there like i mentioned earlier the rotisserie is harder at the bottom it's really hard at the bottom heavier in the stretch and then but so so the things that get you stronger hip thrust in the bottom are rotisserie 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 you do pauses pulses or bar plus band add the bands to it and then also we have the kneeling glute isolator we can load it's like a kneeling hip thrust but you can load it with plates or bands if you load it with all bands it's the hardest in the full extension how often do you have to uh convince like your clients to uh be in a surplus yeah oh calories for calories 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're the the bias that he has is that you got a self-selection you got a lot of bikini competitors that understand macros and yeah they're already gonna know oh it's so true i'm spoiled i don't right yeah when i used to train general pop and jim jim pop is way different getting them to understand yeah yeah general pop is grossly under eating protein never tracked a macro doesn't weigh food you got a bunch of girls that are like by the way carrying their their food with them what i do with my clients as i i have like they tend to in my experience 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 oikos with 23 grams 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 but if they hit 0.7 on a daily basis that's still good you know but yeah a lot of the a lot of people will get 0.3 grams for protein you know that's limiting their progress also we i mean we'll hear this a lot just 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 yeah we gotta we gotta 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 no i was talking to doug go ahead okay so 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 yeah yeah like you can tell they're at like 12 body fat yeah you know how are we gonna build your glutes when you're 10 and they're they're going to build your glutes when you're they're there's they can't have an off season they can't raise their body fat they're addicted to being lean yeah and it's so hard for some very difficult men and women when you've got those abs see i never had those abs when you have this shredded they want that look you get addicted to it yeah um they really struggle with putting body fat on and it's so necessary especially with a female talk about when you have a female who's under you know 17 18 body fat and she's trying to build her glutes and it's just so hard to build that lower 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 and it's like you have to realize like you have to you don't make your trainer's life a living hell too you know like if i'm saying you want you're not going to feel it on every set yeah you know i could put a band around you and have you do super high reps or trying to get these good creative but it's if we want to build your glutes you're going to have to just get them you know get good at the basic movement patterns too hopefully we can increase your how much you feel your glutes but if you say that on every set yeah i don't want to you know and then real quick the third is that i don't want to get bulky oh god and they're like i don't want to do this i don't want to get bulky and good luck trying to get both you can't even do you weigh 120 and you can't even do a pull down with 70 pounds yeah i just want you to know that you just described a majority of gen pop yeah i mean that's that's a majority of the people that are probably going to listen to this episode i'm a spoiled trainer that i well that's not my point i'm making that you're spoiled by any means i am but 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 don't oh half your conversation is convincing uh yeah you just yeah you just like 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'm 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 i'm saying and so and yeah gen pop is like i got to convince those three people are 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've got to consistently hit that protein intake we have to get stronger i mean those are like your repeated conversations when you're talking about gen pop for sure i want to bring something to your breath because for a while there there was this huge debate it's really not there anymore but there's a huge debate what builds the glutes more squats hip 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 thrust built my butt and my 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 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 thrust and it's always squats or hip thrust what about rdls yeah you know what about single leg leg press or like a lunge or a 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 in It doesn't injure you. It doesn't beat you up. You can do it more frequently. good points very good points Brett because I was just thinking this right now while we're talking earlier about getting strong the stronger you get you have a higher risk of injury oh yeah and some exercises it's like yes you gotta be very careful think about this 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 that 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 no and then do it three days later like you might we could have in our 20s maybe but like now that we're all in our 40s and me in my just turned 50 it's just harder now and and you have more margin for you know once you start getting to that level where you're like shit I might snap I might tear something when I come down you know squats and even deadlifts off the floor you're like god please don't please don't snap whereas with hip thrusts it's it works you at a shorter muscle length and so you don't have that injury risk and you can do more volume but you still have the same issues of then 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 agreed 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 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 it and I realize there's kind of a separate strategy for each lift if you guys were trying to go for a chin-up PR you could probably hit an all time chin-up PR you just start training the chin-ups frequently 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 thrusts and chin-ups okay and I used to do deadlifts with chin-ups but if you do chin-ups after deadlifts you're they weaken you a little bit my my my girls are like don't put chin-ups after I get my booted by brent team members get mad at me if I forget and put because like during the strong energy 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 but you're not feeling it after deadlifts so you're not feeling it after deadlifts so it's a good time to do variety and single leg like then I have the I call it just 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 that I know I know but when they say they think about it here's your stance when you length when you spread the legs you're lengthening the adductors you know what else you lengthen the lower glute max but you shorten the upper glute max because the glutes go over the center of rotation so when you go out the upper 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 weren't like so theoretically that might work more lower glutes and then it's opposite with curtsy and this like single leg rotational rdl where you twist on the way down yeah 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 this shelf more of 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 Plotkin 2023 study that you mentioned earlier squats versus hip thrusts tied for glute to them in all three regions we measured lower glute max middle glute max and upper glute max squats and hip thrusts tied in all three we we thought that squats would grow the lower glute max more and hip thrusts 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 nunez 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 would go and go out in front and then straight to the side it wasn't back at an angle like the glute medius kicked back it was just straight to the side and what they found was that the cable kickback group grew mostly lower glute max a little bit of upper glute max and then not much glute metermin at all and then the standing abduction group grew mostly upper glute max barely any lower glute max and not much glute metermin either we always thought abduction is one glute metermin based on the research you don't it's kind of the glute metermin 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 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 leg rdl throw in some sumo stance just get have fun and don't focus on prs that's the one kind month where i'm not i would say focus on the mind muscle connection get some quality workouts but we don't have to beat prs that much because every other month we're focusing on setting records and it's daunting but i also try to periodize the individual weeks week one learn the lifts week two three and four go up with week four hopefully culminating in a all-time pr on the focused lift and they anyway that's my system with booty by brett and i think it's you know i think it's really smart and wise to do i've just never heard anyone periodize that way back in the day we read all the books on periodization all the russian texts and 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 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 to the lifts and the more you're going to do the same core lifts and the prioritization and then the others go on maintenance mode so exercise order and then exercise selection variation yeah it makes sense and uh the challenge with studies uh because i think periodization does help with hypertrophy but the problem with studies they're not long enough to show the benefits so So periodization helps prevent injury and pain. And injury and pain, you get hurt, you're not building anything. And so as a trainer, having trained lots and lots of people, I periodized, and I don't care what the data says on hypertrophy. I know when I do it right, my clients don't get hurt as much. But that's why I did, that's exactly why I started doing it with Booty by Brett. I'm like, I don't want people getting hurt. That's right. I want you training year-round, injury-free and pain-free, hopefully. And it's hard to do if you are utilizing progress. So I 100% agree with you. And I see these people that are like, you don't ever have to switch your lifts around. You can do the same lifts year-round. Okay, are you using progressive overload? Because A, that's boring as hell. But B, you don't get achy joints. Speaking of boring, I got to ask you this. Because you're, although, so there's a confusion around workout programming. People think complex programming involves five million different exercises. When really, it's fewer exercises. But there's variability. There's variables that we're playing with. You mentioned your favorite six. Do you ever get criticized? Like, oh, that's so basic. Why aren't you doing all these other exercises? Why aren't you doing it? That was the, I keep talking about this post I made two days ago that did really well. It got like, you know, it was just, I made it myself. That's what I was proud of it. I have a team that does, that was bored. And I made it myself. You're like, see, I can do this still. Yeah, I still got it. But I had her do, I had, because lately I'm hearing all this stuff. And you guys might see it. And it annoys you. You're 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. My 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? Did somebody ever see that? Yes, that was going around. And it's like, when one person says it and it goes viral, then. Interesting. 50 of them crop up. And you can't. And because it's entertainment algorithms, you can't, a scientist can't keep a lid on it. It's just this, this is now out there. And then it's like some functional type guy being like, you're not training your spiral chain or your, the serape 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. I was drinking her yogurt and I go, oh, let's go back out to the garage. I want to film something real quick. And she's like, I'm all sweaty. And I'm like, no, we just have to do this one thing. And I made, I put a band around her knee, like laterally. Oh, I saw that. Yeah. I saw it. I actually caught my, what the hell is he doing? And then another band like wrapping around her body and she's holding it out like this and a dumbbell. And I said, and I put up her before and after picture. I said, here's how we took Raya's glutes from. From flat to fat in four months. We start off by doing this deep, whatever I called it. Like deep lunge, deep split squat with lots of bands to add, to activate the spiral chain and the like, what's the spiral chain, the spiral chain and the deep core. Cause that's, that's also, yeah, that's also. Did you not see this? No. Oh, it's so caught. It's so caught my attention because it was on your page. And I'm like, what is this? I don't know about you. Is this a functional pattern? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not, not, he was shaking his head. Yes. Now you're onto 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. And it's hard to get them not to cause they, but when they really, when you really push yourself, you, you, four, four is good enough, maybe five, but yeah, there, a lot of times they're not pushing themselves hard enough. So they try to compensate their, 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, cause that's what I train my women. They're like, coach, what else should I do? Go home. Well, I want to do one more. Go home. You got to train in two days. You just crushed heavy squats. So like leg, what you just killed it today. If you train Monday, Wednesday, Friday, sometimes I'll give them a little more on Friday, but a lot of 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 the, and you get guys chiming in wanting to be expert at it, but then there'll be like, here's what I like to do. And like, cause remember back in the day, it was like. 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. That was the test that did you fall off the curb, walking out of the gym, you did it. It wasn't enough push the clutch on my car, German volume training, drop sets, super center with it. Like, like it was like, there was no Arnold's book. He's like, I would go into the forest and do 50 sets of squats. Like what milk? Yeah. So we grew up with that, but you try, try that three times a week. No, and that's something that 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. Cause 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. Well, it's so great. Let me ask you such a veteran trainer move right there. So yeah, give him a taste of some of the water, then do the bait and switch. Like we don't need to do that shit. Just so you know, I can do this. Yeah. Yeah. Just so you know, we're not doing it. Yeah. Let's talk about frequency because you said three days a week. And you'll see some data that says, uh, so long as the volume is controlled, you know, two days a week versus three days a week versus four, all builds the same amount of muscle. I always disagreed with that because I know if I do 15 sets for back on Monday, it's not the same as if I did five on Monday, five on Wednesday, five on Friday, and you can't control the volume in real, in the real world. When I do five, five, five, I'm stronger. Yes. The volume naturally goes up. So talk about that a little bit, because I hate it when that debate comes up. So like when. 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, week, week long semester, but you can't just have them start in on day one. So they're usually eight weeks studies, 10 weeks 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 parent, like asymmetry, OCD, paranoia set in. And be like, wait, I'm going to be off balance. Newbies are like non lifters. They're, they're game for anything. So you can, so you're going to have way more research on newbies than advanced lifters. And it's always going to be eight weeks, 10 weeks long. So is three times a week more effective than twice a week in the literature? Not really. It might be, we might get that data over time, but it's, 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 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 by Brett, 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. Okay. One upper body press, three sets and one upper body pull, three sets. So it's any compound press and any compound pull. So basically either push up or bench press with dumbbells or barbells or overhead press, you know, some shoulder press variation. And then it's a chin up, a pull down or a row, you know, and they do three sets of that. Okay. The, 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, but 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 of sets of kickbacks, but I do a thrust bridge pattern, a squat lunge pattern, and a hinge pull pattern. What I like to do, if I'm just training someone in real life and we're not doing like booty by Brett style programming is I alternate the thrust pattern. By the way, you can do it in any order too. So we might do squats first with the squat pattern. I, I, I alternate between a double leg and a single leg. leg the double leg being squats leg press sure and they're 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 um but then then then then two days later you'll do a single leg variation a glute dominant step up single leg press reverse lunge i try to stick to more on friday because you get two days off you do it on the day where you have two days afterwards because those beat you up pretty good or a bulgarian but then you alternate between those now if you do the the hinge pattern alternate between a vertical and a horizontal meaning one day it's already all our 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 thrust don't beat you up in general but get really strong at hip thrust and they do start to beat you up so the lockout focus is a little less daunting so the lockout focus would be bar plus band which is my favorite or pauses or pulses pulses being just the top half or the top third and then with the abduction pattern so it's yeah with the abduction did i mention 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 three diabolos abductors that are getting more and more popular okay and then the other day would be the frontal plane that's all of your um cable standing or 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 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 oh wow it's like i call it snow angel because 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 1200 square foot studio up there and i'm like you 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 no 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 can you grab me a an energy drink or can you grab me a dinner can you toss this on your way out i don't want to get up because my knees hurt my knees hurt and i'm trying not to move but think about it remember when you were a kid you you could be like jump jump up right now and try to touch the ceiling and then take off in a sprint you could do that right now if the four of us tried that we would have you seen that have you seen the viral video i shared it on my story just like three days ago of uh the 20s your 30s and your 40s uh and it was like these 20 year old kids jumping off a roof and i did see that jumping off and then and then it's like the 40 year old yeah trying to get out of the truck yeah he's trying to get out of the truck the the the the bed of the yeah yeah i can relate yeah that's me going uh if i just jump i might yeah it's better to sit down and you know you know what you got to do because that because uh that's true but you got to compare yourself against the average well no in which case by the way but yeah i'm not too hard on myself but what i realize it decreases your neat we always say your metabolism goes down no it doesn't drop that much it's your neat and it's pain yeah if you didn't have any pain you'd go play sports all day long pain is related to neat i've seen no studies on no no no that's that's obvious it's obvious 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 programming that you do is a lot of times when someone will hear an episode like this they hear us all talking about glit and they want to build their career they want to build their glutes they go take all this these great exercises that you're throwing out and what we're talking about and they pile it on to their kind of routine area if you notice that you have a very minimalist upper body 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 pick these extras pick a squat lunge thrust bridge hinge pull abduction yeah and then upper body press in an upper body pull do that three times a week three sets each that ends up being 36 sets for glutes nine sets for quads and adductors nine sets for hamstrings because the squat lunge works to your quads and adductors the hinge works your hammies so it's nine sets for quads and adjectors nine sets for hammies nine sets for the upper body pressing musculature nine sets for the upper body pulling musculature and 36 sets per glutes it's a permanent glute specialization program yes and that way you can recover if we're trying to do everything 36 sets you're dead 20 you you could not recover people don't get and by the way because we're alternating with the things i mentioned like abduction doesn't get you too sore yeah yeah you know and like it doesn't fry you like it's not people say well 20 sets is is enough for most muscle groups and i agree like chest like 20 sets a week i can't do 20 sets a week for chest anymore and still recover um but think of the delts the glutes are kind of like you know you've got upper glute max lower glute max and glute meet them in the delts you could do 20 sets because it's front delts side delts really a bunch of laterals yeah your rear fly yeah and then you've got your military presses your upright rows and then all your dealt raises you could easily do 36 if you're on a dealt 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 gonna do cables like with laterals i've always just done dumbbells i'm going to do the laterals machine dumbbells cables i'm going to do dumbbells and bands and with cables sometimes just length and partials yeah and my delts grew just from doing more volume that's awesome but yeah but real quick you get so sick of it i got so sick of it that's why these guys are like competitive they see a movement they're like just do a romanian just do us 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 don't want different they want variety because yeah again it's really freaking boring so you want a new program every four weeks in my opinion four weeks works out well yes you can do an eight week program yes you could do a 12 week 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 that's how we get all of our master all of our programs three or four weeks exactly every day the different phases every three or four weeks within the same program and that's part of the reason the other part of reasons avoid injury um and just keep things fresh uh you know when you work with people yeah those two things are equally important that's right avoid injury and keep it fun that's right 100 otherwise you won't be you won't be consistent i gotta ask you a question not glute related but you brought something up and it just makes me laugh talked about if you have a girlfriend or when you have a girlfriend how is it dating women when you do what you do and you're surrounded by bikini models and stuff all day long like all your posts champion bikini models yeah like how is that for you as a guy trying to date are they okay with it does it cause problems my 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 pounds 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 doesn't brett belongs to all of us not like like not not in a sexual manner but like he's i'm always you facetime me 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 we're going to have to quit training i mean first of all i go back and yeah i go back and forth between i have house in fort lauderdale trying to sell and it will not sell it's a bad market there right now it's crazy over there yeah and then i have two houses in san diego and one in vegas and i just go back and forth between my three houses and train my clients and i don't have any schedule it's when i get bored and i get a flight like that day wow i want to fly out that's pretty cool 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 yeah 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 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 a movie and then i'll go to bed watch some tv with me and give me quality time and i realized over time that i like you know like the love languages when i first learned about it years ago i was like such a great this is like this is so gay and then now i'm like okay i realize i like all the love well not gifts but i like quality time i like words of affirmation i like um i like physical touch it might be all the pictures that your your clients send you you think i want to make a relationship where i think training quit training so many women i got i'm going what do i do switch to training bros but you know fort lauderdale yeah you just need you just need the the ultimate the ultimate confident woman she just has like because there's there's a lot 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 i also moved moved back to vegas and i've been alone a lot and not to switch and get all sentimental here but yeah i've got a lot of down time and i also thought i follow this guy arthur brooks and he's always talking about good friend of ours oh really yeah i just talked to mr it's been on the show like four times oh really oh yeah this guy's great okay so he talks about how like so i'm like i need to put my phone down and like live life i'm 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 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 of like be like i was a victim this person never loved me i don't think that way i always think of i'm used to being like i've got like five people mad at me at all times and i'm always trying to use humor to gloss it over and keep everyone happy it's like the the balls i mentioned earlier juggling i'm trying to keep everyone happy and um and i tease everyone so they're 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 gotmans they're like the relationship you've had them on the show too they're awesome you've had them on the show oh my god yes i don't listen to podcasts by the way i don't even listen to it i don't expect you to know that rogan episode or anything that's all stuff we like i love you guys i love huberman i love joe rogan i just don't listen to podcasts ever yeah we had the gotmans on a long time okay so the gotmans i've been listening to john gotman i'm like man that's how you're supposed to be yeah now i know why i'm single like but yeah 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 because a lot of times it's there's something that subconsciously you're running from you don't even know it have you connected 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 two weeks a year you're looking at 26 000 a year just for therapy therapy but anyway um yeah so i've i've figured out a lot of things about myself like an anxious attachment stuff things like that but also just watching john got me he got through to me 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 oh cool you you won you won the argument and then you're sleeping on the couch that night you know so you lost you lost so have you i'm sure you are fascinated with all the things that you've done in the past all the research they've done like they've done some really cool i've never pulled up the actual studies but some of the most duplicated studies in uh mental health because mental health studies are very difficult duplicate 60 of them they can't but gotman studies they've repeated why they're their prediction on divorce is like crazy well i quote them like the four horsemen of relationship like contempt being the worst yes have you seen back to uh i think it was arthur brooks that said this the other day this this was another and i'm going off on a tangent we said the dark triad yeah if you have uh narcissism machiavellian machiavellianism and psychopathy it's like that's the dark triad like i i i it's all about me yep the end justifies the means i will do whatever it takes to get what i want and i will feel no guilt no 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 taught esther no those are the ones you gotta watch really they're phenomenal they're you realize all right what what was i good at in life i was good at personal training go figure i love it i'm naturally love if you love something so much you're gonna 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 and you know chris rock said it in a skit a long time ago like a man is as faithful as his options and as i got more popular i realized wow i have more females are into me but then you reach 50 and you're like invisible i don't get hit on people will be like nice thirst trap you posted on your story i'm like you think that people respond to me like in their minds i'm getting like 50 women being like heart heart heart like no i'm posting that for me i'm making myself feel good i'm invisible and in my 30s i didn't make any money in my younger 30s but i was i was getting hit on by you know supermodels in in spain and stuff and i'm like now i have all the money and i 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 someone in their 20s into dad now i'm dad now and the women that come get formed the closest bonds with me are the women who had daddy issues and i'm like a father figure them and it's it's and i like i love it because i like the closeness but then i sabotage my ability to have a girlfriend yeah and i've made a lot of mistakes along the way it's always been my fault 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 because i can describe things in a way 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 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 know 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 said 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 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 she said i have sympathy for you and i do believe you've been dealt a bad hand here like 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 and 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 what like i thought it could work out what i realized is i need us i need to notice red not necessarily like red flags for everyone but like what were what would be red flags for sustaining relationship for me if you know because i'm older and people are sometimes like you should be with this influencer i don't want to date a popular influencer it's all about them i don't want to read their foot you're their photographer in life you know yeah and i want to mention you'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 But now women, the world changed and women are more picky now and they want to have, they want their men to have the whole package. And it's because of OnlyFans, it's because of social media, being an influencer, you can crush it as an entrepreneur now if you want. You can crush it, not just Only, like I have people, like clients that are on OnlyFans, 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 event, like this avenue and another two grand this way. And they're making 10 grand a month to being influencers, you know, and having fun and they wake up, they don't wake up to alarm, they don't have a boss breathing down their neck and they're loving life and they tend to get free stuff all the time. So they're loving their life and they don't need a man. So if they're going to be with a man, what do you ask? How do you add to my, how do you add to my life? And so in Florida, I realized this in South Florida, there's a lot of transactional relationships and neither side are happy because you have the, you have the woman that's with the man just for money and it's never enough. It's never enough. And the man who, yeah, he can, if he'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. Cause they tell, they talk, they tell stories, things, things overheard in my gym sometimes in Florida. Oh my God. So they tell stories, but then the man is going, I could get someone who just loves me and wants to be with me. He 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 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 does a wife, what are the qualities I'm looking for in a wife? And when you pull from that pool of women, then I think you'll find somebody different. Cause if it's like, my therapist says, go do things cause I just travel around and I'm always in the gym. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 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 and we'll see. I know, right? You're going to get flooded. I don't know if I'm right or wrong. It's almost too exhausting though, filtering through and yeah. But I also realized that. Well, you pay me your therapist, your therapist money and I'll call you once a week and I'll filter all the dating stuff out. I'll kill two birds with one stone. I got you. There we go. There we go. But I also realized this is kind of funny. Um, I, I dressed up for a wedding two weekends ago and then a couple of weekends before that, my, my squad threw me my 50th birthday party and they made me dress up. It was like a fancy dressed and I'm like, I would have rather had a jorts and tank top party, you know, but I realized I get way more attention. I realized this cause, 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 20, 20 ish and I'd lift weights late at night. I don't do that now. Now I try to focus more on sleep and my health. But anyway, I was walking by this bar thrusters is kind of by my house and there's a big old long line. And I'm like, excuse me, I need to get through. And this guy was drunk and he's like, he's like, uh, you know, I was like, excuse me, can I get through? He goes walk around and I'm like, you know, I don't need your permission, right? I could just remove you. And his, his, 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. It was like the end of the movie where the mug drops in slow motion and you have all these realizations. Oh my God. I've got this scraggly beard. George, George and tank top and a backpack. I don't even know what to say right now. And I drive, I drive a 2012 Toyota Tacoma and I drive so little, it's about, it's like 98, 5,000 miles. Like it's about to get the a hundred. I don't even have a hundred thousand miles on my truck, but I, I have a 2024 in San Diego. I liked the 2012 more. 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. This Rolex, I don't even know what the heck. I'm so glad I didn't ask you the bottle because you aren't going to be able to answer it, are you? I know nothing about Rolexes, 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 to, I don't care about cars. Um, and I clearly don't care about dressing, but I did notice the two times I dressed up, I got so much. Attention. I'm like, oh my God, that's just, don't look homeless. Don't look homeless. And you'll get, that's the lesson. You're maybe we'll find a wife. If that's all I got to do, get you out of fights. I guess so good. Well, Brett, this was great, man. Yeah, it's a lot of fun having you on too long. I can't believe we let that much time. We won't let that much time go by next time. So yeah, you're one of the good guys in the fitness space. Uh, we, we appreciate you, the way you communicate things. Um, you do a good job and we need more. It's good to have people like you in our space. Cause 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, but you listen to the podcast. You hear how many times we pump your tires, pump your tires all the time. No people tell me, okay. And I always, I always tell, if anyone ever says what podcast, which I listen to, I say mind pump for, for fitness. Yeah. 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 that's the, the era of. 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 a million followers arguing with me on Instagram. And like, imagine feeling confident and like arguing with someone who you've never had experience in the field. It's crazy. It's crazy. And that's what we're dealing with. So it's nice to, that's why we can, and that's why I always say I will always train people. Cause you know, Arnold said that in his, like, I watched. His documentary be useful. Yeah. You got to stay useful. That's the secret. Yeah. So it keeps me being useful, but 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. You know, Louie 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, but he was benched at 600 pounds and he'd be reeling off numbers. And I realized 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 guy, put two inches on this person's glutes doing this. You have actual, have stories to tell. And so you will, it's how to stay marketable when you're 50 and on social media, I don't understand social media the way the younger crowd does anymore. Yeah. And so I have to stay competitive. I do that by staying on top of the research, lifting weights myself, and then training other people, which is the most important component. And it's what I love doing anyway. So I had that, to close this up, I had this epiphany that if you don't care, if you've saved up enough money and you don't really care about it that much, and you found what you like to do, and, you know, I would be doing this if I won the lottery or if I was dirt poor. I love training people. I love 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 it out when you're bored, and we came up in an era where we had to be bored. We had to figure. We had to figure stuff out. So I'm glad that we came up when we did before social media, before the internet was huge, before AI. I love the prospects of AI and everything, and we've benefited very much from social media, but I do like that we've been able to experience two extremes of life, you know? Agreed. Yeah, agreed, man. Well, Brett, thanks for coming on the show, dude. Great time, dude. Good having you. Greatly appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. The RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is MindPump. We'll be right back.