A glute hypertrophy program is a workout routine that focuses on growing the size of the glute muscles. From Flap Jacks 2 Thick Stacks is a glute hypertrophy program designed by Brendan Tietz that is organized as a 4 day upper/lower body part split that uses heavy compound movements and targeted accessory movements to strengthen the full body, not just the glutes.
Spreadsheet: From Flap Jacks 2 Thick Stacks (Glute Hypertrophy Workout Routine) by Brendan Tietz
via Brendan Tietz YouTube Channel
Program Overview
As mentioned above, this glute hypertrophy program is organized into four training days per week, each focusing on a different training goal. Day 1 is a lower body overload, day 2 is an upper body overload, day 3 is for higher volume lower body hypertrophy, and the final training day is focused on upper body hypertrophy.
Both the overload and hypertrophy lower body training days include glute focused exercises: squats, deadlifts, hip thrusts, lunges, paused goblet squats, and cable kick backs.
You’ll be squatting, deadlifting, benching, and pressing overhead twice each week. The program utilizes many different variations of these lifts, e.g. conventional deadlifts, sumo deadlifts, and Romanian deadlifts are all included.
It programs weight both based on a percentage of 1RM for the big three lifts (squat, bench press, deadlift) as well as using the “reps in reserve” (RIR) auto-regulation method. This is described in more detail below in the “Program Tips” section if you’re unfamiliar with RIR.
If you’re looking for some additional ideas for glute exercises based on your available equipment, check out our list of the best gym machines for glutes.
Video Overview: Brendan Tietz 10 Week Glute Hypertrophy Program
To learn how the program works, I highly recommend you watch this video from Brendan.
Program Tips
- The days of the week you are to train are pre set. The schedule must go in the order of the days listed. You can start any day you’d like as long as the days off are kept in the same order.
- In your training program you will see a few acronyms you may not recognize. They are defined below.
- S.S. = super set meaning to do both of the exercises back to back with no rest as 1 set, then you can rest before starting the next set of the super set.
- RIR = Reps In Reserve meaning you are to leave however many reps stated in reserve. So if an exercise says to do “3 sets of 10, 2 RIR” you will choose a weight that you can do for 12 reps however you will only do it for 10 reps since you are leaving 2 reps in reserve. The easiest way to figure out your RIR is to work up in sets of however many reps you are to do. For instance, if your exercise calls for “3 sets of 8 @ 2 RIR” warm up with a light weight doing a set of 8. Keep adding weight doing sets of 8 until you find a weight heavy enough where you only have 2 reps in you at the end of the set. That will count as set 1, continue with that weight from there or adjust down as needed.
- AMRAP = As Many Reps As Possible meaning to do as many reps as you possibly can for the prescribed set.
- AMWAP= As Much Weight As Possible
