Research and Development, Part 4

Accessory Lifts

Mark Brown

August 23, 2022

Accessory lifts stay more stable in a program because they support the supplemental lifts and are just good gpp for any lifter. The important part to remember about them is that they support through developing the muscles that do the lifting. To do this, most accessory lifts are done to failure or well passed it. Main lifts and supplemental lifts aren’t typically taken to that level, even the ones done at max effort, because the joints would become far too damaged. The term “max effort” doesn’t hold singular meaning in strength training in terms of reps. Whatever effort is needed to get to a get to the strain threshold is what “max effort” means. A lifter finds out the specifics of it after a period of experimentation with all of the variables that encompass it: weight, reps, sets, equipment, time under tension, rest between sets, etc. Accessory lifts being more about the muscular development means that the weight part of the equation will be lower because a load that is too heavy will force technique that puts too much strain on the joints and ligaments. That is when the most gym injuries happen. However, the strain level has to be significant for growth to actually occur in recovery. It also has the effect of making fatigue harder to get to over time in both the gym and in the other places life is lived.

Experimentation of accessory lifts is generally safer than on major compound movements because of the sheer weights alone. When a lifter also considers how much movement is actually done in 1 rep of an accessory lift, it is also easy to see why too much weight is dangerous. Tendons and ligaments can take a beating but their stop sign usually is a tear or rupture. Part of the experiment is finding out how much weight can be used to stimulate growth without causing injury. There really is a fine line between them. Even when a lift is done well with the right calculated load, the tendon or ligament can go from wear and tear. Lifters get close to that ledge when intense muscular development is the name of the game. Most lifters in the gym will never do enough accessory lifts to get the muscular definition that is seen on movie screens, comic books, or competitive bodybuilding stages. They simply don’t put in the amount of effort and time to develop the shape and definition. That includes diet, water and potentially PEDs in addition to the thousands of reps a lifter would need to do to have bulging biceps and/or giant triceps. The lifters who spend their energy to develop well defined muscles do so at the cost of strength. Time makes itself very well known by essentially giving lifters the choice of greater strength or greater muscular development.

For lifters whose goal is strength or power, accessory lifts will always be about finding the exercises that aid the development of the parent lift with the least amount of time and energy put towards them. This usually leads to lifts that mimic, at least somewhat, the parent movement. It puts the muscles in the positions they would be in when doing that lift. For example, a flat tricep press, aka skull crushers, puts the triceps in the position they will be in during the bench press. The lift then serves 3 purposes: technical, strength and muscular development. The same goes for its upright cousin, the seated overhead tricep press, in regards to overhead presses. Lifts that don’t serve much in the way of technical development are lower on the priority list. These would include tricep pushdowns/pulldowns in all of their variations over different pieces of equipment. They are killer strength and muscular development lifts that really put bulk on the arms so they really should be part of any strength training program. Just understand what they bring to the program and what they don’t.

Biceps just don’t matter that much for traditional strength development. The way the pec tendons are attached to the arms means some bicep work is necessary to aid in bench pressing. To what extent? I’ve never felt much of issue from lack of bicep size/strength when pressing. I also don’t have a very high 1RM max on bench press, so take what I say accordingly. I lift a heavy amount of volume when I press and haven’t felt a lot of bicep tendonitis during my sets. I do know that the biceps and its tendon take the brunt of impact when I have too much weight out in front of me, either when deadlifting or doing curls, so be I am careful when focusing on biceps. I also feel a lot of stress on my left bicep and tendon when squatting with a straight bar. Strongman, as a sport, puts more emphasis on biceps than powerlifting does. I have seen a lot of events at Strongman competitions that are about holding or picking up weight out in front of the lifter. That is the most vulnerable position for the bicep to be put in. Here is where training biceps has the same level of value that a skullcrusher does for a bench press.

For bodybuilders or lifters focused on muscular development, accessories might well be where the bulk of a training session is spent. As a result, experimentation here will focus more on what piece of equipment will bring the most bang for the buck. It could take a long time to find that one magic piece of equipment that just feels right. The results of that experimentation won’t be seen for weeks and months. Time also rears its head in as an enemy because lifting past failure as much as has to be done to attain a high level of muscular growth, assuming no PEDs, eats into a lifter’s natural energy reserves like nothing else. The result is that muscles reach the finish line quickly causing sessions to be shorter, especially when one considers that rest times between sets of main/supplemental lifts and accessory lifts are much different. The latter are my shortest sessions by far. It’s not even close. Finding the pieces of equipment that deliver the best results is a never ending experiment that only concludes when a lifter wants to end it. I started out doing pushdowns primarily with the v-shaped cable attachment for years but I have used straight bar attachment more since 2020 because it’s closer to a bench press hand grip than the v-shaped one is. That’s just one example of small changes I have made to my lifting strategies.

The key to getting all of that muscular development is working past failure. That is by far the most important concept to understand when training accessories, regardless of what they are being used for. Lifting to failure is a fairly easy idea to understand and execute because it’s as simple as going till one can’t. Going further than that puts a lifter in a danger zone where the muscles have to go into into overdrive to do mere parts of a lift. That danger zone is where the most growth is made. It is also where the most danger from injury exists. There’s a certain mentality a lifter has to have to make lifting past failure a reality during a session. It’s quite easy to stop when a lifter can’t complete a rep fully. It’s much harder to remember keep going until they can’t complete half a rep. Sometimes it doesn’t even take that many half reps to get to the absolute failure point. Strength training isn’t a zero sum game. Reps add up over time. Lifters develop faster with more half reps at the end of sets. Simple as that. The same concept can be applied to failed reps during main and supplemental lifts.

Another part of time that is in this equation is how rest and time literally spent lifting figure into it. Time under tension is one of the ways to make the muscles work harder in any given lift. By extending the amount of time under which a muscle is under some strain, the lifter forces it to keep working. This is another way lifters can work past failure safely. Reps done for a long time tend to be done at lowest ranges of weight because of the effect of the constant strain on the muscle. This includes lifts that are slow in their completion but never stop as well ones that feature a pause and hold at the end of the eccentric or concentric phase before transitioning to the other.

Rest times play a large role in the length of lifting sessions and impact of the lift done on the body. Main and supplemental lifts require more time between sets because heavier loads cause more stress on the body. The length of rest time between sets is often times linked to how heavy the load of the previous set was. I decreased the rest time for sets of squat and deadlift twice a week during February of 2022 to 2 minutes between sets. The sets were being done in the 85% 1RM or up range and they initially felt good but my body couldn’t take the strain for more than 4 weeks. Experimenting with rest times like this will lead to learning a lot of information a lifter didn’t know. I’m glad I did it so I know how to do it better next time I do it. Accessory lift sets can be done with very short or no rest. Remember, the goal of an accessory lift is to support the main and supplemental lifts through increased muscular development. Lifting with less rest between these lighter sets will help a lifter hit that failure point sooner so they can push through it. The body will get stronger over time and push that failure point back further. This also makes getting through accessory lifts faster and sessions that feature them take less time.

Both lifts and sets that feature time under tension and decreased rest times are all about effort. These are max effort lifts that should be treated very seriously because muscles under this level of strain for the length of time they are become increasingly vulnerable. That’s why these lifts are done with the lowest weights in the range. Increasing the load would needlessly increase the chances of injury. Experimentation doing these lifts needs to be done safely so that a lifter doesn’t miss sessions for injuries that could have been avoided. Muscles may grow in the recovery phase, but the lifter has to be able to get to the gym to tear down down them down first. That doesn’t happen if a lifter misses sessions due to injuries.

Part of understanding how to train properly is to learn basic physiology. Figuring out what muscles do what and how goes a very long way to properly programming lifts for maximum results. Professional and high level amateur athletes do this to stay at that tier for as long as they can. Average gym lifters should apply the same thinking to their programs and plans. Lifts that fall into the accessory category tend to be on muscle groups that do a lot of work on a daily basis, inside and outside the gym. That’s why they are so hard to make visible progress on when PEDs aren’t part of the game plan. Shoulders, arm and legs do a lot of work during the day if one works on their feet, like I do. It explains why they need to be almost overtrained to see visible progress in the muscular development. Working past failure and training hard definitely helps a person fight fatigue better than a person who doesn’t do either. It’s part of the mission of this blog to help people understand how to train and why it is important to do so.

Doing the due diligence is part of every lifter’s responsibility to themselves and the people they train with. Research and development through both experimentation and from secondary resources are the primary ways that gets done. The benefit of each human being relatively unique is that not everything works for everybody the same way. Finding what works best for the individual requires a lifter to repeatedly experiment with all of the variables to find the exact combination of lifts to make progress. It’s a large part of what makes strength challenging and fun. Becoming stronger through eliminating weaknesses and making weaknesses is stronger over time is a satisfying feeling that can’t be understated. Know what’s better than that? Passing on that information to others so they can benefit from the research and development that has been done.