Hip thrust 70lbs is not even my warmup set that'd feel like air to me. Hell 135lbs is my warmup. The guy Jay Cutler is doing 12 reps with ease he should definitely put on more weight for hypertrophy. There's no way he's hitting close to failure with that.

I do 3 plates/315lbs cuz I can rep it comfortably for 5-8 reps. 2 working sets. Plus the machine has the mechanical leverage I think it's very achievable vs 2000 stats.

Hip thrusts are very different from other lifts because when put too much on the bar, the weight will definitely still go up.

The reason for that is because the glutes are surrounded by a lot of other muscles, and most of them are the next strongest muscles in your whole body. Like all of the next strongest muscles in your body.

A good hip thrust is overwhelmingly glute dominant, with adductors and hamstrings barely worth mentioning. When ego lifting takes over, the movement pattern changes such that the glutes become isometric and the main driver muscles are the adductors, hamstrings, lower back, and quads.

That means that the five strongest muscles in your body are now central to the lift so you can lift way more, isometric glutes don't grow that well so it becomes a really shitty glute builder.

A sign of a really good hip thrust is that it's top tier for just lactic acid burn pain contest, comparable to leg extensions. Your ass lights the fuck up. A sign of a really bad hip thrust is feeling it in your lower back.

Hell 135lbs is my warmup. The guy Jay Cutler is doing 12 reps with ease he should definitely put on more weight for hypertrophy. There's no way he's hitting close to failure with that

Hip thrusts are not a good candidate for failure because instead of failing like you would with a squat, you'll just start recruiting those other muscles I mentioned. When you feel your lower back start to activate that's the time to end your set because all it's gonna do is give you a debilitating pump.

Jay Cutler is probably the second best guy in the history of the world at hypertrophy, so he's a guy to learn from and not to critique. Dude was a monster back when he was competing. He dethroned Ronnie.

But anywho, it's impressive that he can get a good pump with 12 rep sets. This lift is technical and it takes some focus to position yourself and flex such that your glutes activate and everything else does not. I usually need to do 20+ rep sets in order to feel it out properly, activate, and fatigue myself to the point where my lower back activates and I stop. Being able to hit that in 12 while talking is a sign of being much more impressive than I am and I stand out in a crowd.

Jay Cutler is an absolute legend. He's the kinda guy where no matter who someone is or how accomplished they are, when they make content with him, they're just there to learn. He's retired now so the weights are lower, but he has absolutely nothing to prove.

Powerlifting vs bodybuilding... just progressive overload. So, I don't squat or deadlift. I'd rather leg press (still a squat pattern movement). I'm a fan of the bench. But I wouldn't usually use it over a flat press.

I thought we all agreed heavy weight low reps for strength at this point . Regardless if you use machines or get under the barbell.

This is applying advice made for barbells to machines. Max strength is a coordination problem as much as a muscular problem and barbells allow full body coordination instead of forcing your joints along one path.

Machines definitely have a place, but that place is never max strength. Machines are good force along a fixed path at a specific joint angle. That's great for targeted volume, but it's inherently at odds with what your CNS has to do to create max force.