Last Sunday, we hosted the Powerlifting Fundamentals seminar at 212 Health & Performance in Rumford, Rhode Island. It was my first ever “solo” seminar and it was beyond awesome. Great turnout, great energy and great lifting.
During the lecture portion, I spoke about training philosophy and program design. I preached the importance of choosing the right accessory exercises to bring up the main lifts, and one of the attendees asked a question that sparked some good conversation:
How do you choose the right accessory exercises to bring up the squat, bench and deadlift?
This is a fantastic question. Powerlifting is only three exercises, and everything you do in training needs to bring up the squat, bench and deadlift. Here are four rules to make sure your accessory exercises do exactly that:
RULE #1: SPECIFICITY
I made it exceptionally clear to the audience that in powerlifting, specificity is king. The more your accessory exercises resemble the competition lifts, the better.
When choosing an exercise for your program, ask yourself: “Will this improve my technique?” If the answer is yes, then it passes the rule of specificity.
For example, a front squat is fairly specific to the competition squat, but a leg press is not. The former improves technique, the latter does not. It doesn’t mean the leg press isn’t useful – you just can’t justify using the leg press using the rule of specificity. My latest Technique Tuesday explains why:
RULE #2: HYPERTROPHY
Next, ask yourself: “Will this exercise help me build muscle?” If the answer is yes, use it.
Greg Nuckols of Strengtheory fame is right on the money when he says that powerlifters should train more like bodybuilders. That doesn’t mean using machines all the time and wearing Zubaz pants to the gym. But it does mean purposefully training to increase muscle size.
So once you’re done training your competition lift and other competition-specific accessory exercises, focus on the muscle groups that will drive up your main lifts. Chest, shoulders, lats, quads, hamstrings – hit ’em all and hit ’em hard. Increased cross sectional area is a surefire way to enhance a muscle’s force output potential, so get pumping.
Most importantly, choose exercises for these muscle groups that allow you to get a pump and reach muscular failure. These two things will promote muscle growth faster than anything else.
The exercises should pass the right link/wrong link test, meaning that the target muscle fails first. For example, 1-arm rows pass the test because the lats will fatigue first, whereas pull-ups fail the test because the forearms and biceps will fatigue first.
RULE #3: LOADABLE
Next, ask yourself: “Can I load this exercise enough that it will elicit strength gains?” If the answer is yes, use it. If not, it’d better abide by rules #2 and #4.
If specificity is our main priority, performing a 1-rep max is the most specific thing we can do in the gym. The more reps we perform and the lighter weight we use, the less specific the exercise becomes. So to abide by the law of specificity means using exercises that can be loaded heavily.
That’s why nonsense like trying to see how many times you can rep out 135 pounds in a minute is utterly useless – that is, if you want to get stronger. The weight is too light and the reps are too high to have much carryover to maximal strength.
On a similar note, there are many great exercises that are self-limiting and purposefully shouldn’t be loaded heavy. Recently, Eric Cressey used the example of a side-plank row – a fantastic core exercise – but it’s simply not good for strength because you can’t load it very much. A powerlifter won’t derive much benefit from it.
However, you can’t simply attempt a 1-rep max every time in the gym. That’s testing your strength, not building it. You need intensity and volume to get stronger, so some degree of submaximal training is necessary.
What’s the best combination of weight, sets and reps? Prilepin’s chart is a good place to start, and this article I wrote for STACK explains why.
RULE #4: RECOVERY
Finally, ask yourself, “How will this exercise effect my ability to recover before I train the main lift again?” If your accessory exercises leave you so banged up that you’re unable to train the main lifts effectively, you’ve chosen poorly.
How can you measure recovery? A few simple objective measurements include:
- Bodyweight
- Resting heart rate
- Soreness
- Rate of perceived exertion for the main lifts (read this excerpt from Mike Tuchscherer’s Reactive Training Manual to learn how to measure RPE)
Track all these over time and see how they react to fluctuations in volume and intensity of your training program. Do one or more variables change when you push a certain accessory exercise especially hard?
Logically, the volume, intensity and modality of an exercise will effect the amount of fatigue it elicits. A big barbell accessory exercise like a heavy floor press will hinder recovery more than a bodyweight push-up. One clearly will have more carryover to the bench press, but only if it’s not used and abused to the point that your bench press performance suffers the next time you train it.
Some exercises fail the specificity or muscle-building tests, but are good choices purely because they facilitate recovery. For example, band pull-aparts can help recover from a tough bench day and a slideboard hamstring curl can keep the knees happy after heavy squats. Neither build the main lift or build much muscle, but they help you feel better.
RECAP
Your accessory exercises must do at least one of the following:
- Improve technique on the competition lift
- Build muscle
- Build overall strength
- Improve recovery
If it doesn’t contribute to one of these, toss it out and pick something new. Remember, specificity is and always will be king in the kingdom of powerlifting.
