First you had the silly "clams" and leg raises brought to you by Jane Fonda et al. These got a much-needed upgrade by combining them with a resistance band.
Then you had the clam raise brought to you by Bret Contreras – a highly effective exercise for the glutes that trains hip external rotation and abduction. Now try this twist: the hybrid glute-raise.
We're taking the clam raise to an incline bench, working the bottom leg. We're then combining it with some straight-knee abductions working the top leg at the same time. We're also take it into a slight deficit since your bottom hip will drop slightly while your top leg is taken behind.
Even if you train your glutes regularly, this is an extremely humbling exercise to perform correctly.
I'd recommend nailing clam raises off the floor before progressing to these. Once you're hitting double-figure reps (10-plus) with the hybrid clam raise then you can start using a small ankle weight for your top leg or even a booty band around your thighs.
As if these aren't painful enough, you could even make a form of mechanical drop-set out of them:
Once you hit near failure with the hybrid glute-raises, continue with just with the straight-knee abductions to failure. Notice in the video I'm trying to keep tension on the bottom hip too. By not allowing the bottom hip to touch the bench, your glutes get a nice pump from the isometric contraction.
If you're particularly masochistic, you'll get a lot of kicks out of these. Just 2-3 sets of 10-20 reps on each leg will make for a perfect glutes finisher.
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