I believe that “money exercises” include squats, deadlifts, hip thrusts, bench press, weighted chins, weighted push ups, incline press, military press, chest supported rows, and weighted dips. Please note that I include hip thrusts in the mix.
That said, there are many good exercises out there that aren’t very popular. Here are a few glute exercises that I feel people should incorporate into their programming:
Barbell Hip Thrust
Barbell Glute Bridge
Pendulum Quadruped Hip Extension
Single Leg Hip Thrust
Gliding Leg Curl and Single Leg Gliding Leg Curl
Bret,
I was wondering what you thought about various gymnastic progressions like the front lever or planche pushups for developing total body relative strength
Ben – I think those exercises are excellent for total body strength development, and especially core stability strength!
How’s it going Brett,
I respect you’re no bull look at strength training. You just use your common sense.
When you did your emg test on pecks and triceps, you only used bodyweight pushups. I firmly believe pushups are like glute bridges because they both can’t compare to standard barbell exercises. But when you add resistance, they end up being the “good exercises”.
I would love it if you tested a weighted pushup and matched it against the bench press. I think we may surprise a lot of people.
Thanks for helping me out. Good luck with your research.
Elliot, I totally agree with you! Unfortunately when I tested the exercises I was alone and didn’t have anyone to place plates on my upper back. Also, I had lent my weighted vest to a friend who was training for the fire department physical test.
Next time I have the testing equipment I’ll be sure to test the weighted push up. Thanks for the kind words!
Thank you for answering so quickly.
If you hadn’t become the “glute guy”, I would’ve. You saved me years of research.
I have some always had some tough glute questions of my own and “the glute guy” would be one of the best to ask.
One of my biggest questions is: The “standard for bench” is 1x bodyweight, “standard for sqaut is 1.5-2x bodyweight”. What would you say is the “standard” for the hip thrust, hyper extension, and glute ham raise?
Good question Elliot! I’ve thought about this a lot, and obviously anthropometry makes it tough to “standardize” strength, but I would say that a strong individual should be able to perform 10 back extensions while holding onto a 100 lb dumbbell at the chest level, as well as one Russian leg curl where they control the negative and raise up by themselves without assistance while keeping the back straight and not slouching over. Glute ham raises are hard to standardize due to different models and positions. However, a strong individual should be able to perform several glute ham raises at the most “difficult” settings. Last, I believe that a strong individual should be able to hip thrust as much as they can squat (so 1.5-2X bodyweight). I believe that raw lifters should be able to deadlift more than they can squat and hip thrust as much or more than they can squat, so it goes: deadlift, hip thrust, squat. Of course, then we’d have to qualify the squat in terms of depth. The squat would need to be at least to parallel and preferrably deeper. Hope this helps!
Bret,
I’ve been doing bodyweight glute bridges for a while and today did my first barbell glute bridge … a whole 65lbs. While I was able to perform the exercise, the barbell caused a fair amount of pain where it rested on my body even with a sissy pad on the bar. Is this pain something that should lessen with time and more workouts, do I just need more padding, or ??? I am overweight, if that makes a difference.
Just like with back squats or front squats, the pain lessens over time as the body becomes desensitized to the pressure, however I use a Hampton thick bar pad. Best $30 I ever spent! It makes an excrutiatingly painful exercise completely pain-free. So more padding would definitely be helpful! Hope that helps!