The Effect of Exercise Order and Range of Motion on Gluteal Strength

I completed my EdD in Kinesiology at Concordia University, St. Paul in July 2025. Like my Master's thesis, I never really talked about this work publicly — partly because finishing a dissertation while running a business, managing client sites, and building plugins is not exactly a quiet process. But the research matters to me, and it should be out in the world.

This dissertation grew directly out of questions I had been sitting with since my Master's work on the hip thrust. If exercise order affects outcomes, and the hip thrust occupies this unusual position as an isolation-like exercise that gets programmed like a compound movement — what actually happens when you flip the sequence? Below is the abstract. The full PDF is linked at the bottom.

Abstract

Concordia University St. Paul — EdD Kinesiology, 2025

This study investigated how exercise order and range of motion (ROM) influence gluteal muscular strength and hypertrophy within a Daily Undulating Periodization (DUP) training framework. Specifically, it compared the effects of beginning training sessions with either a glute-focused isolation movement with limited ROM (hip thrust) or a glute-lengthening compound movement with extended ROM (MC reverse lunge).

A 12-week randomized controlled trial was conducted with trained participants divided into two groups based on exercise sequence. Strength was measured using five-repetition maximum (5RM) testing, while gluteal hypertrophy was assessed through circumferential measurements. Both groups demonstrated significant improvements in strength and muscle size.

Notably, the group that began with the MC reverse lunge showed greater hip and thigh circumference increases, while the hip thrust-first group exhibited higher strength gains in the reverse lunge. These findings suggest that exercise order within DUP protocols can influence localized hypertrophic outcomes, with extended ROM exercises potentially offering greater benefits when prioritized early in a session. This study contributes practical insights for fitness professionals and strength coaches aiming to optimize glute-focused training strategies.

Keywords: Glute training, strength periodization, exercise sequencing, hypertrophy, range of motion

The findings were not what I originally hypothesized, and that is what made them interesting. The hip thrust-first group did not produce the hypertrophy advantage I expected. Starting with the extended ROM movement drove greater circumference gains. That has real implications for how coaches sequence glute-focused sessions, and it challenges some widely accepted programming conventions around the hip thrust.