This is Brent of the Brookbush Instititue and in
this video we're bringing you the
ultimate glute bridge, or should I say
the evidence-based glute bridge. That is,
all of the modifications we've made in this
glute bridge exercise to maximize the
amount of glute max recruitment. I'm going to
bring my friend, Melissa, out, and she's going
to help me demonstrate this exercise. Now,
the first thing we're going to talk
about is in research we've seen that hip
abduction, specifically isometric hip
abduction, against resistance seems to
increase glute max recruitment, while
decreasing the relative recruitment of
synergists, the biceps femoris and the
erector spinae. So, I have this nice, super
thick monster band for you to put above
your knees to resist hip abduction. She's
really, really strong, so, of course, we're
going to torture her as much as possible.
Now, we also need to consider that the
glute max is primarily Type 1 muscle
fiber. In fact, it's almost seventy
percent Type 1 muscle fiber. To me, that
means fatigue resistant. These muscle
fibers are good in endurance, which means
from a stimulus standpoint, how we're
going to try to get an adaptation from
these fibers, we need to stay in our
endurance acute variables. That's 12 to
20 repetitions, slow tempos of 4, 2, 1 or 3, 2, 1 to
maximize time under tension. Now, since
I'm maximizing time under tension, my
load is going to decrease a little bit,
which means I can up the stability
component of the exercise and further
increase motor unit recruitment. So out
comes the stability ball. You can go
ahead and take a seat on the stability
ball. Now, the last thing we want to
consider is the fact that the glute max
is the largest muscle on the human body.
That's not just somebody's, that's
everybody's. The glute max is a super
import muscle. Hip extension is a very
important joint action when it comes to
function, daily living,
those activities like walking, standing,
sitting, stairs, and all sports, glute max
is super important. So we have this
super strong muscle that is probably
going to need significant load to fail
within 12 to 20 reps. The idea that just
a floor bridge to 50 reps is going to be
sufficient to create an overload on this
muscle is actually not thinking far
enough ahead in the future. When we look
at how much the glute max has to work
just to get somebody up stairs, which is
essentially a single leg quarter squat,
doing a portion of our body weight from
the floor is not good enough.
So, Melissa, I got this 80 for you. Now,
you guys need to plan ahead a little bit
on this, because otherwise this becomes a
Three Stooges parody. She's going to
deadlift this weight with great form.
I've already taught her how
to deadlift well. Melissa deadlifts very
well, in fact. But to keep that ball from
rolling away while she picks this weight
up,
just use your hand towel. Go ahead and
stand up, and throw it behind your stability
ball.
That way she can stand up, the ball
doesn't roll away, she can sit down, and
we don't have any accidents. We also
don't have a situation where every time
she picks up the dumbbell, the ball rolls
away, and she has to put down the
dumbbell and go get the ball.
Alright, you can go ahead and
roll out. Now, remember, I said slow tempo,
so I want you to hold at the top for two,
and we're going to go down for four
seconds. Down, two, three, four, and up. Now, a
couple things as she finishes this
wonderful set of 20 repetitions. You'll
notice that her feet are a little wider
than hip width. I have seen some studies
that show really, really wide hip angles.
I've even seen some- I saw one study
where they they were on the outside
of their feet and their their legs were
turned out.
The one thing you have to think about is
in all of those studies, adductor magnus
activity was not recorded. Your
adductor magnus has a propensity to become
very overactive, contribute to hip
pathology, as well as sacroiliac joint
pathology, and despite the fact that the
glute max recruitment might have
increased with these wide hip angles. so
did adductor magnus activity, if I had to
take a guess. Now, we need further
research to prove that, but from our
perspective at the Brookbush Institute, we're
going to go slightly wider than hip width
and use the band to increase hip abduction
force. Then beyond that, leave it at a
fairly normal angle, something that's a
little closer to how we would see in
function, like when you squat, or when you
run, or when you jump. The other thing
worth noting here, guys, is Melissa is
very comfortable with this weight on the
top of her thighs just below her ASIS
and she's using her hand to keep the
weight there. Don't take your hands off
the weight. If this wasn't comfortable
for you, you could potentially use a
bath towel. Notice, this is several layers
thick, or you can use an airex pad, or
you could even use a rolled-up yoga
mat to try to soften any pointy edges
digging into your lap.
My point is to make her glutes very
uncomfortable, not to have her thighs
very uncomfortable. Now, the last thing I want
to talk about is- I need to give a shout-out
to Bret Contreras for making loads like
this far more popular, but let's talk
about the differences between doing hip
thrusts with a really large amount of
weight and low rep ranges versus what
we're showing you, which is a high rep
range glute bridge that would be used
more for core activity. I think when I
spoke to Bret Contreras, he
talked about there being more motor unit
recruitment with more load, regardless of
what the muscle fiber type of the glute
max is. I agree.
More load and chances are you're going to
get more motor unit recruitment, but what
is your end goal? What is your use of
that exercise? If you're doing hip
thrusts as part of your
hypertrophy resistance training portion
of your program, I would say go with the
Bret Contreras style- stable, very heavy
hip thrust activity. We tend to use
bridges as a core exercise, so we're
almost thinking more towards our
movement prep. This is coming right after
our isolated activation exercises. We're
using this more as a way of integrating
the glute max into a multi joint
movement pattern. And then when we get into
resistance training, we're usually
thinking more on the performance side of
things, and more of our triple
extension movement patterns, like squats,
deadlifts, lunges, step-ups. We don't see
as many hypertrophy athletes at the
Brookbush Institute as, maybe, Bret does.
So there's an audience
thing there, there's a use thing there.
I'm not saying one is right and one is
wrong. In fact, I think you guys should
try both.
I think you guys should try this as part
of your core activity. I think there's
more than a few tips here of using the
stability ball to do your hip thrusts,
using the band to resist hip abduction,
starting to put some weight on this
activity that you probably could do way
too many reps of before. If you're not
failing at 20 reps, it's not heavy enough.
And, once you get down glute bridges as a
core activity, more on the endurance side
with lower weights and an unstable
environment,
well, good. Now you're nice and stable and
ready to start thinking about getting
a little more hypertrophy in my glute
max, using something like a hip thrust as
part of my resistance training program,
after I've done
my movement prep. I hope you guys enjoyed
this video, The Evidence-based or
Ultimate Glute Bridge, stability ball,
resisted abduction, hip thrust with a
significant amount of load. I look
forward to seeing your questions. I want
to see who can do a 20 reps set with the
heaviest dumbbell in their gym. Is that a good
challenge? That's a good challenge. I
think that's a good challenge. I can do 130
for 20 reps, 130 pound dumbbell.
Is that good? I think
that's good. That's an 80 pound dumbbell,
guys, just in case, so all you guys out there
not putting up 80 pounds,
she's got 80 pounds for 20 reps. I'll
talk to you guys soon.
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