Accessory Work as Virus Control

Why are you skipping your accessory work? It’s in the program for a reason.  Is it because you are lazy? You must not be, you came looking for a hard program or coach that would help get you to the next level.  You just completed 4 sets of squats and 5 sets of benchpress.   You go to the gym 4x per week for 1-2 hours, I don’t think you are lazy.  It’s possible that time is the issue.  If that is the case, do everything you can to control rest periods throughout the session.  30-60s of less rest per set can go a long way by the end of the workout, leaving time and mental energy available for accessory work.  If it is physical energy, use your programed accessory work to get your ass in shape.  Powerlifting meets are 2-3 hours long and they move faster than people expect, especially as you climb the competitive ladder, train for it.  Perhaps no one ever clearly laid out the reasons that this work is in the program.  Maybe no one explained the positives of completing all this work, or the potential negatives of not completing it.  Hopefully this ramble can improve your understanding of why and how certain movements are included in the program, increase your buy in, improve adherence, and most importantly increase your total. 

Virus Control

This may not be the first thing you think of, but my main reason for including the accessory movements that I do in my client programming is the hope that the exercises I choose will make my clients more robust to the forces of hard training, and subsequently the forces of our sport.  The best metaphor that I have heard describing this is that your accessory work should mainly be treated as virus control.  Select movements or muscle groups that when loaded and strengthened will decrease risks of mishap when attempting a 1 rep max or completing a hard set that might include a technical imperfection.

I have said this again and again, but we aren’t practicing knitting.  Shit can happen when you are trying to lift the heaviest weight you have ever lifted.  Shit can happen warming up, shit can happen misgrooving a rep during a set of 5-10, or as a set approaches failure and weaknesses become exacerbated.  We have many tools available to us that can help doing everything we can to make sure if and when these misgrooves, accidents, freak reps, misses, and RPE 11 grinds happen, that our body is robust enough that nothing terribly negative happens.  We have built up our virus control for this moment, not only are there no negative outcomes, but our body is strong even outside of technical perfection and this allows us to get through a misgrooved lift or true 1RM. Think of your accessory work as prehabilitation exercises in case something bad happens.  Expect the best, but plan for the worst. 

Weak Points

These misgroove or technical breakdowns will tell us where weak points may lie, and that is the second main purpose of including accessory work in a program.  Accessory work is in your program to purposely draw extra attention (stimulus) to a weak area on your body in the hope that if that weakness is improved this will transfer to a bigger lift and total.  This area needs extra attention either due to genetics, biomechanics, or neglect.  Doing some extra isolation work will if nothing else teach you how to contract that muscle.  If isolation work can help improve your mind muscle connection, this improved connection can help with using these muscles more effectively in your competition lift, like staying tight and rigid during your comp lifts.  If we do have weak points or power leakage in the chain of our lift, we need to address those areas.  Our lift will only ever be as strong as the weakest link in the chain. 

Strength Through Extended Ranges of Motion

In powerlifting we are constantly working to find ways to shorten the range of motion, working on the assumption that a shorter range of motion will allow us to lift a heavier load.  Because the majority of our training will exist in these shorter range of motions, it is important that we spend time training the range of motion that goes passed the degrees of flexion required to complete our competition lifts.  Taking joints through a greater motion with lighter weights than used in competition will allow us to improve the strength of our tissues so that if we do get outside of our normal ROM in training or in competition our joints are prepared for it. 

This can either be done by decreasing the stability and increasing the range of motion, limiting load use, or increasing stability while increasing the range of motion, allowing us to use more load on the target area.  An example of decreasing stability would be something like DB Ipsilateral Front Foot Elevated Split Squat.  The offset loading decreases stability and forces your trunk to work harder to stabilize your hips, while at the same time the elevation of the front foot increases hip and knee flexion requirements, therefore turning the exercise into a loaded mobility and stability drill.  Something like a single leg press might allow us to do this, or you could complete the FFE split squat while holding on to something, or in a smith machine.  The increased stability allows us to use the drill to teach people to push hard through a controlled range of motion with greater load than the ipsilateral front foot elevated split squat would.  There are advantages of both types of drill, both are also very valuable in a rehab or post rehab setting. 

Imbalances

If you have spent any real time in powerlifting, prioritizing the squat, benchpress, and deadlift in your training, then you have probably developed some kind of imbalance along the way.  Whether from front to back, side to side, or top to bottom, putting most of our training time and attention towards getting stronger at 3 main movement patterns tends to lead to some kind of imbalance along the way.  Unfortunately, we aren’t perfectly anatomically symmetrical, and this can become exacerbated with injuries or wear and tear along the way.  The tiniest difference in something like ankle flexion, or shoulder depression, can lead to tiniest difference in stance or bar position, and when compounded over months and years of heavy squat, bench, and deadlift, can lead to a greater imbalance over time.  Using either dumbbells or unilateral training methods can make these tiny imbalances far more glaring and point us in the right direction in attempting to decrease these imbalances.   

I try not to freak out when I see imbalances like this.  Your body is moving this way for a reason.  While we can use cueing, practice, and accessory work to bring things back into balance, don’t let it cripple you mentally.  Keep the goal the goal.  We can still focus on getting stronger while we work to improve these imperfections. 

Hypertrophy

At the end of the day, the contraction of muscle tissue moves the weight.  The completion of accessory work will yield a greater stimulus for growth (mechanical tension, metabolic stress).  If you can grow larger muscles, this should build your base bigger so that you can build your pyramid taller in the future.  While having the biggest quads in the world may not yield the biggest squat, building bigger quads for yourself will yield greater potential for strength.  Simultaneously, if completing your accessory work helps you squat, bench, and deadlift more weight in the future, these heavier weights will also create a stimulus for growth, and the cycle will feed forward on itself until you are the strongest and most jacked human in the universe

Work Capacity

For the most part, powerlifting meets have become faster and faster over my career.  If you lift an IPF affiliate, the 2-flight competition session moves faster than ever these days.  With greater accessibility to competition equipment, volunteers have become more adept at loading faster, most of the time these people are racing each other for fun or trying to get the day over with.  From warming up in the squat through to finishing your last deadlift, meets can be complete in 2-3 hours.  You must work up to a 1RM in all 3 lifts in 3 hours.  That is if you are lucky and there are 14 people in each flight.  Shorter flights and lifters dropping out as the day goes on can make things even more difficult. 

The opposite end of the spectrum would be lifting in a 3-flight session or a day that does not move as quickly.  You must be in good enough shape to string along 4-6 hours of effort without wearing out mentally.  Physically needing to warm back up because of the number of flights in the session creates havoc as well.  If you think I am over stating how difficult it can be to complete a powerlifting meet, you must also factor in the heat, humidity, excitement, energy, noise, anxiety, and stress that comes with being at a powerlifting competition.  All these things are going to add up, and a stronger more efficient cardiovascular system is going to help you more than you know. 

At some point, you just need to do the work at the end of your workout because it will help you thrive on meet day.  If you are short on time, circuit this stuff and just get it in.  If this negatively impacts load that is okay, eventually you will be in better shape and you will progress loads for your circuit training, or you will have more time and energy at the end of your session, or both.  Powerlifting meets move faster than you think, train for it. 

Points of Emphasis

• Greater Range of Motion (hips, knees, shoulders, elbows)

• Increased and/or decreased levels of stability depending on the goal (machine vs free weight)

• Offset loading (unilateral, contralateral/ipsilateral)

• All the upper back (every angle, every movement, strict, less strict, pull the strings attached to elbows).  Train your upper back every session, if nothing else you will have a big back at the end of all this. 

• Your trunk needs to be strong af.  Your trunk transfers force of your feet down into the ground up through the bar.  Anti extension/flexion/rotation, lateral flexion, flexion, extension, train it all.  Train it every day. 

At the end of the day the goal is to become more mobile, stronger, and more stable through all ranges of motion.   This will have general transfer over to your powerlifts, but also keep you strong and healthy when your training is putting you through the ringer.  Make sure you update your virus control on your physical interface.  Try to be stronger in all directions and through greater range of motion than you need.  Address your imbalances, but don’t obsess over them.  Build bigger muscles so that you have potential for greater strength.  Lastly, get your ass in better shape for future hard training and competition day.