clubhouse chat: squat's up

the clubhouse is open late again. last week's table for one prepped one sunday night; tonight we are prepping twelve whole weeks, and yes, we mean your glutes.

the glow file

how many squats a day actually work? there is no magic number, and that is the good news: the research keeps showing that small doses of movement you actually repeat, spread through the day, beat one heroic session you skip.

a 2025 meta analysis in frontiers in physiology found the glutes grow when you load them progressively over weeks, not days. and a study of women new to barbell training measured real strength gains within four weeks, before the mirror noticed anything. that early jump is mostly your nervous system learning the move. translation: the first wins are invisible, and they still count.

night beat, since it is sunday: ugly sleep is trending, and the club endorses it. mouth tape optional, but the glow-while-unconscious agenda is the cheapest active in your entire routine.

the studio session

new segment, members. every sunday from now on, the club programs your week like a coach and gossips about it like a friend. block one is the glute series, twelve weeks long, and this is week one.

the prescription: monday through friday, twenty bodyweight squats, three times a day. that is it. coffee brews, twenty squats. lunch lands, twenty. kettle on for the night routine, twenty. it is the movement snacks play, strength micro-dosed into a day you were already having. wednesday, add glute bridges before the skincare. saturday, one set of squats to near failure. count it, write it down. that number is your baseline, and we will be raising it all block.

the receipts: squats work the glutes hard under load, per bret contreras' emg research, and week one is deliberately easy so week twelve is not. rookies, squat down to a chair or box, same waves. lifetime members, slow the lowering to three seconds or hold the last rep of each wave for ten. the north star, said honestly: stronger by week three, different in the mirror around weeks eight to twelve. three months, one habit, receipts the whole way.

the piggy bank

a doordash driver named tyler tucked a note into an order: your tip is helping make our wedding possible, it means the world to us, hope and tyler. it landed in the bag of jen hamilton, a delivery room nurse and author with about five million followers, who went on what she calls a kindness stalking mission, found the couple's registry, and buried their porch in wedding gifts. doordash sent a present too. the tip jar has main character energy this week.

heard at the clubhouse

the cincinnati women's title gets decided tonight. saturday's marquee semifinal was iga swiatek against jessica pegula, the comeback summer against the player who has taken three of their last four meetings, and whoever survived it plays for the trophy tonight. game day fit: stormy blue, details below.

dating desk: the new term is soft starts, gentle pacing via shared playlists, short calls, and intentional check-ins instead of week one fireworks. psychologists like it because secure beats spectacular. club ruling: the same applies to your monday.

the sunshine page

two wins to sleep on. a river otter was spotted in the bronx river for the first time in a century, which means a hundred years of cleanup actually worked. and 270,000 square miles of ocean around easter island just became an indigenous managed marine reserve, one of the largest on earth. the planet is quietly restocking.

the night stand

tonight's quote, from the book on the stand: we are what we repeatedly do. excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. everyone hands that line to aristotle; it actually belongs to will durant, who wrote it while explaining aristotle in the story of philosophy. either way, it is the whole glute series in one sentence. twelve weeks is just tonight, repeated.

the dress code

daily fit: block one deserves squat proof. the form high rise seamless leggings in stormy blue are new arrivals at eighty dollars, high rise, seamless, built for twenty reps at a time.

night out: quiet gear, loud bag. the stormy blue set under a long coat, plus the club's fifth hunt: a vintage chanel quilted flap, 185 of them currently sitting on 1stdibs waiting to become someone's heirloom.

what's trending: dramatic brooches are back for fall. pin one to the gym tote and let the pilates girls stare.

the passed note

the sunday night setup, week one edition: lay monday's fit over the chair, stormy blue if you have it. book the week's classes now, not tomorrow. write the top three for the week and leave the list where the coffee lives, because that is where the first twenty squats happen. food beat: the block one bowl. oats, greek yogurt, frozen raspberries, honey, ninety seconds tonight, breakfast tomorrow. phone across the room. squats start with the alarm.

send this to a friend. that's how the club grows.

health is hot.