My guest is Dr. Bret Contreras, PhD, CSCS, a world-renowned expert on muscle and strength building for women and for men. Bret is known as “the glute guy” for his expertise in helping people build their ideal physique, including how to grow and/or strengthen their gluteus muscles. He explains how to resistance train to improve strength, hypertrophy and aesthetics, and to overcome genetically or injury-induced weaker body parts. We cover ideal training frequency, exercise selection, sets and repetitions and periodization. Our discussion is for women and men of any age and experience level seeking to maximize their aesthetics, performance and longevity. Read the episode show notes at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AGZ by AG1: https://drinkagz.com/huberman Rorra: https://rorra.com/huberman Carbon: https://joincarbon.com/huberman LMNT: https://drinklmnt.com/huberman Function: https://functionhealth.com/huberman David: https://davidprotein.com/huberman Timestamps (0:00) Bret Contreras (2:43) Resistance Training for Beginners, Tools: Training Frequency; Sets, Progressive Overload, “LULUL” (10:45) Sponsors: Rorra & Carbon (13:57) Frequency & Exercise Flexibility, Tool: Switch Exercise Focus (21:31) Individual Recovery, Women & Adjusting Variables, Tool: 4 Training Patterns (31:37) Maximum Recoverable Volume (MRV), Determine MRV, Tool: Flexing & Loadless Training (40:41) Low-Load Glute Activation; Life-Long Strength Gains, Avoiding Pain & Injury (48:52) Sponsors: AGZ by AG1 & LMNT (51:54) Tool: Brett’s “Big Six” Lifts; COVID Pandemic, Competition & Exercise Variety (1:00:18) Difficult Final Reps; Tempo & Hypertrophy; Autonomy & Progressive Overload (1:11:16) Progressive Overload, Quantity & Quality, Injury (1:13:22) Gym vs Real-Life Constraints, Motivation, Tool: Individual Training Frequency (1:23:38) Exercise Enjoyment, Genetics, Long-Term Strength, Injury & NEAT (1:28:37) Tool: Realistic Consistent Schedules & 5-Year Review (1:33:00) Sponsor: Function (1:34:49) Glute Function; Abduction vs Adduction; Glute Vectors, Tool: Rule of Thirds (1:45:26) Upper vs Lower Glute Maximus Exercises, Frequency (1:49:26) Common Mistakes of Hip Thrusts (1:52:06) Exercises to Grow Glutes, Women & Men, Hypertrophy (2:02:14) Hip Thrust, Barbell, Hip Anatomy; Glute-Focused Hyperextension; Glute Medius Exercises (2:08:07) Training Lagging Muscle Groups, Maintaining Strength, Muscle Memory (2:14:23) Neck Training; Focused Training & Maintaining Strength (2:22:06) Sponsor: David (2:23:20) Periodic Training, Strength, Pain, Desire to Train; Tool: Training Layoffs (2:34:24) Tool: Rep Ranges for Lagging Body Part; Growing Calves (2:37:35) Can You Build Muscle After 40?, Perimenopause, Menopause; Pregnancy (2:40:44) Saggy Glutes; Gain Muscle & Lose Fat?, Mini-Bulks & Cuts, Recomp, Hormones (2:47:46) Lifting or Pilates for Strength?; Grow Glutes Without Legs; Hip Dips (2:51:48) Spot Reduction, Abs & Fat Loss; Wide vs Narrow Hips & Training; Grip Strength; Tool: One Set to Failure (2:57:48) Acknowledgements (3:01:32) Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow, Reviews & Feedback, Sponsors, Protocols Book, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Brett Contreras. Dr. Brett Contreras holds a doctorate degree in sports science and is a certified strength and conditioning specialist.
He has over three decades of experience training everyday people, athletes, and coaches on how to get stronger and develop larger muscles. These days, Brett is best known as the glute guy for his pioneering of exercises for women and men to strengthen and build their glutes in order to be able to move better, prevent and heal pain and injuries, and of course, for aesthetic reasons.
Today's discussion is a very important one because anyone interested in their immediate and long-term health needs to resistance train. The science is extremely clear on that. However, there are a lot of questions about how best to resistance train.
Today, Brett clarifies how often to resistance train, what movements to do, and how to make continual progress, and in particular, how to build a resistance training program that is tailored to your unique aesthetic and performance goals. For example, we discuss how to prioritize the growth and strengthening of your glutes,
or arms or shoulders or calves or back, basically whichever body part or parts you need to emphasize while not losing progress in other areas, and in many cases, while still making progress in other areas.
We also explain how to gain muscle while getting leaner, why the speed of your weight movements probably matters less than selecting the proper variety of movements to target all parts of a muscle, and Brett explains exactly which movements you should do in each workout to ensure well-rounded development of the various muscle groups, including of course the glutes.
Dr. Brett Contreras is considered one of the most trusted voices in this entire space. And that's because he's highly credentialed, meaning he knows the science inside out. He also has trained thousands of people and he gets them spectacular results. In fact, the before and afters of his clients are nothing short of extraordinary.
So if you currently resistance train or you want to start resistance training, and perhaps you're one of those people who's wary about getting too big, or you want to just grow one part of your legs and not another, or just your glutes but not have larger legs, or maybe if you just want to be bigger overall, today, Dr. Brett Contreras shares the knowledge that anyone, novice or experienced, can incorporate into their fitness routine to achieve better results faster.
Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Brett Contreras.
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