Accessories for a beginning lifter
Mike Tuchscherer recently posted this on facebook and I believe it’s an interesting discussion:
Is anyone interested in challenging the paradigm that novice powerlifters should train with very little assistance exercise? Of course they need to practice the competition lift and develop adequate technique. I don’t think anyone would argue against that. At the same time the power lifts are not technical enigmas. And including a wide variety of assistance exercises would help to improve overall skill with the barbell, reduce pattern overuse, and produce a more well-rounded athlete. And then there’s the boredom factor. You are going to lose a certain percentage of lifters if you tell them that their training is only going to include three or five basic movements for the next two years. Caveat: I’m not sure exactly what my own personal views on this are. I just find it interesting that it’s quite easy to make a case for assistance exercises for novice lifters yet almost no one presents that view. It’s possible that I’m missing something obvious here. It is also possible that the current paradigm has simply become accepted and unchallenged.
While not being “technical enigmas”, at least compared to plenty of other athletic activities, the three basic powerlifts when taught competently involve quite a bit of technique. The less coordinated and athletic the individual, the more time needs to be spent practicing and honing various technical aspects of the lifts even before they are fully individualized for technique on maxes.
I really support the use of assistance movements right off the bat. Useful accessories for beginner to intermediate powerlifters?
1. anything to teach good core positioning. Hardstyle planks, body saw, hollow body holds, pallof presses, front loaded carries and squats, ab wheel
2. anything to teach proper lat engagement and awareness, especially bilaterally. Any rows or pulldowns or pullups are good for this, hollow position pullups or proper bodyweight rows are great for combining lat and core engagement, a very necessary skill for the powerlifter.
3. anything to strengthen the posterior chain. Bonus points if it also teaches good hip ‘snap’. Kettlebell swings (and properly done romanian deadlifts) are king, but back raises and reverse hypers are great too.
4. Basic single leg exercises. Split squats, reverse lunges (do these front loaded to kill two birds with one stone), progressions to single leg deadlifts, various sled pushes and pulls if possible.
5. Extra upper body small muscle work to balance out the shoulders, build up the grip a bit, and help with general hypertrophy is always useful. Think of your basic bicep and tricep movements plus a lot of rear delt and some rotator cuff work. The most important thing here is not doing anything that’ll annoy elbow and shoulder joints.
Finally, once technique is fairly solid on the 3 competition lifts (mobility for good squat depth, can bench without arch collapsing, etc.) it’s good to have a cycle focusing more on the heavy variants of those lifts. Military press, front squat, RDL, the ‘opposite’ squat and deadlift variant–high bar for a low bar squatter, sumo for a conventional deadlifter–etc.
For a beginner to intermediate lifter? Practice 1-2 of the big lifts, then pick 1-2 accessories for each. Do this 2-4 days a week. Pretty simple and there are a ton of flexible options to play with in terms of how to set that up.
