Bret Contreras, PhD, CSCS*D
Biomechanics researcher and coach; practical, evidence‑driven strength training and injury‑smart progress.
Three Glute Days Outperform Mixed Leg‑Glute Sessions
In this reel I explain why I program the way I do for my Booty by Bret app, and why I think three Glute days is better than a quad, ham, and glute day. To me, it’s very obvious. Even if you wanted more quads and hammies, you could simply add in a leg extension and leg curl movement at the end of the glute workout. But for glutes, this is a no-brainer IMO.
Knee Extensions Activate All Vastus Muscles Simultaneously
When you perform knee extension against resistance, all the vastis fire together. You can’t selectively target the vastus medialis over the vastus lateralis or vice versa.
Long Femurs? Use Smith or Hack for Quad Focus
In this video, I mention ways to make squats more quad dominant, and ways to make squats more glute dominant. However, if you have relatively long femurs, you may struggle to make squats feel quad dominant. You might be better...
Veterans Know Barbell Hip Thrust Setup Takes Years
How many years did some of you spend setting up barbell hip thrusts? These newbies don’t know how good they have it! Great post katiesonier
Strength Training Is the Key to Fat Loss
You want your body to change shape? You want to recomp significantly? Or to lose pure fat for weight loss? If so, you gotta get strong. No wimpy weights. Lifting causes you to lose fat, period. Good post @cristinamackey_ 👌🏽
Keep Bulgarians Single‑Leg: Don’t Use Back Leg for Propulsion
Don’t turn Bulgarians into a rectus femoris stretch for the rear leg. If so, you’re hanging on it too much and using that back leg for propulsion. You want the Bulgarian to be a mostly single leg exercise. Unless you’re...
Single-Leg Hip Thrusts: Underrated Power Move, Lift Heavier
Single leg hip thrusts kick ass. Such an underrated and underutilized movement. You’re probably capable of using much more dumbbell load than you’re used to.
More Athletes Testing Rotation and Abduction in Hip Extensions
Love this unique spin. People doing much more experimentation this past year on slight rotation, abduction, and abduction during hip extension exercises.
Horizontal Hip Extensions Maximize Lower Glutes, Spare Leg Growth
The lower gluteus maximus grows the most from strength training, followed by the upper gluteus maximus, and then the middle gluteus maximus. Frankie is crushing it lately by focusing on horizontal hip extension exercises. Not only do they grow the...
Box Squats Enforce Hip Hinge, Prevent Depth Cheating
We do box squats all the time at Glute Lab for two reasons: to teach you how to sit back more and use the hips, and for a a consistent depth marker. People tend to cheat as the set goes...
Mix Failure and Reserve: Tailor Intensity by Exercise Difficulty
Back in the day, it was “take every single set to complete, utter failure.” Recently, it’s been “don’t ever train to failure and always leave a couple of reps in reserve.” The truth is in the middle. More strenuous exercises...
Roundback Lifts: Use Wisely to Prevent Injuries
Roundback lifting: should you avoid it altogether, or should you purposefully do it to safeguard against injuries?
Full Glute Growth Requires Multi‑Plane Hip Extensions & Abductions
How to build total glute development. Is it as easy as picking one hip extension movement and one frontal plane hip abduction movement? Ot do we need a vertical and horizontal hip extension movement to maximize lower and upper glute...
Tailor Workouts to Unique Anatomy, Not One‑Size Fits All
Individuality is really important and we don’t have a lot of objective ways of measuring this as personal trainers. We are all unique and must figure out the optimal exercise variations that suit our anatomy and physiology.
Keep Core Neutral, Avoid Anterior Tilt in Hip Thrusts
What should the core be doing during hip thrust? Many will say staying in neutral throughout the entire movement. Someone will say that you should be in a posterior pelvic tilt at the lockout. Most people agree that you should...
Build Bigger Glutes by Mastering Core Compound Moves
I think this glute growth formula would work very well. The main thing is to get super strong at the big, basic glute growing movements.
Both Hinge and Scoop Moves Build Strong Glutes
Hinge and scoop methods are both incredible. You may like both or you may have a strong preference for one or the other. They both work the glutes very well.
Knee Cave Isn’t Harmful—Ignore the Gym Myth
A little bit of knee cave is NOT dangerous. Even a lot of knee cave might not be. Stop letting Jeremy from Planet Fitness tell you how to lift.
Skip Supersets; Traditional Sets Yield Better Results
Not a fan of supersets. Both exercises are great but you’ll see better results doing them traditionally instead of back to back.
Adjust V‑Squat Machine to Target Specific Muscle Groups
You can modify technique off the V-squat machine to work more glutes, more quads, more adductors, or more hammies.
Either Hypertrophy Happens or It Doesn't—No Middle Ground
An exercise either causes hypertrophy or it doesn’t. Some exercises might be better suited at causing distal versus proximal hypertrophy but I digress. All exercises listed here are great. I’ve seen this topic being discussed since the 90’s and it’s...
RDL Down: Neutral Spine, Up: Thrust Engages Glutes
If you think “RDL” on the way down, you’ll keep the spine and neutral and get more passive stretching of the hip extensors. If you think “Thrust” on the way up, you’ll posteriorly tilt the pelvis and avoid hyper, extending...
Hip Dips Remain Anatomical, Not Fixed by Training
Please explain @fitnessa_coach - where are you adding muscle? Glute max? Glute med? Glute min? Some secret muscle that anatomist haven’t discovered yet? Because I haven’t figured out a way to smooth out hip dips through resistance training and I’ve...
One Set Per Exercise Jumpstarts Post‑Layoff Fitness
Took me a couple of decades of lifting and training others to figure this out. When you return from a layoff, just do one set of each exercise. The goal is to get back on track as quickly as possible.
Don’t Let Grip Limit Your Glute Gains
I think this is a useful tip 👌🏽. Holding onto two heavy dumbbells can be brutal (once you get really strong). You never want your glute training to be limited by grip strength.