This past weekend I went to a local power lifting meet – strictly as a spectator, for the first time in many years. But the opportunity to watch James Strickland Bench Press 700 lbs Raw was something the meat-head in me just couldn’t resist seeing first hand. Unfortunately James didn’t make his 700 lb goal but it was still a great learning experience to watch James and his coach Josh Bryant in action.
While at the meet I heard a great piece of advice that I wanted to share with you – “If you continue to train small muscle groups as if they were small muscle groups…..they will remain small muscle groups.”
Apparently the original source for the quote was IFBB pro Evan Centopani when he was being interviewed about his insane calf development. The gist of the interview was that when he stopped treating his calves as secondary body parts that got casually and haphazardly trained at the end of the workout – they started to grow.
Now, I know that most of you reading this are not aspiring body builders and this isn’t an article on training the calves. However, even for (and maybe especially for) a strength athlete, there is much you can learn from changing your approach to training “secondary” muscle groups like the lats, triceps, low back, hamstrings, etc.
How many of you work the big lifts hard, but when it comes time to hit your Dips, Lying Tricep Extensions, Barbell Rows, Back Extensions, Glute Hams, etc, etc, you just simply “punch the clock” and knock out your obligatory 3 x 10 or whatever with plenty of gas left in the tank on that exercise.
If you even do the assistance work you had planned…….it’s half-assed at best. Always a few reps in the tank, always a few pounds left on the bar.
Well stop doing that.
The longer you train, the more valuable the role of assistance exercises will become in your training regimen. Over time it becomes more and more difficult to elicit the adaptive response we want from our training simply by hitting the Squat, Bench, & Deadlift on repeat. Sure, there is an almost infinite amount of volume / intensity / frequency arrangements we can tinker with but many lifters will simply go stale with this approach. Continual progress will require dedication to the training of the big lifts, but also to steady progress on the assistance exercises as well.
Progress will mean that you have to push yourself on these lifts. You need to constantly be trying to add weight, add reps, add sets, and make these exercises harder and harder. When you go stale on one, switch it out and push another for a while. This is the best way I know of to add muscle mass and thereby strength.
James Strickland is a perfect example of this. He didn’t build up to hitting 672 lbs on the bench press just by doing bench presses (this was his final warm up set this past weekend).
Here is a guy that weighs 290 lbs that also does weighted dips with 260 lbs. He does chest supported seal rows with 405 lbs. The list goes on, but the moral of the story is that he treats the assistance exercises that work for him with as much tenacity and effort as he does his heavy bench press work sets.
We can all learn from this.
If you aren’t doing so already, and your lifts are not progressing, select a handful of assistance exercises and start working the hell out of them on a regular basis. Start where ever you are at with each exercise and every week hit the movement hard and try to add weight or reps. When you go “stale” on a movement, switch to a different exercise in that category, and then revisit the original exercise later in the year.
If you aren’t sure what to choose, here is a quick guide that can help you narrow down your choices:
- Supplemental Pressing: DB Bench Press, DB Incline Bench Press, Seated DB Press, Dips
- Tricep Extension: Lying Tricep Extension (ez curl bar), Lying Tricep Extension (DBs), French Press (ez curl bar), Cable Pressdowns
- Row: Barbell Row, Old School T-Bar Row, One Arm DB Row, Chest Supported Row
- Hamstrings/Low Back: Romanian Deadlift, 45 or 90 Degree Back Extension, Glute Ham Raise, Lying Leg Curl, Reverse Hypers, Goodmornings
Of course if you are already following some sort of assistance template then keep on keeping on, but see if you can’t pick up the intensity a bit and start hammering home some new progress on some of those exercises where you are currently just “punching the clock.”
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