Lift The Bar

WHAT ARE ACCESSORY MOVEMENTS?

Accessory movements are complementary movements that you perform in addition to your core activities to improve your performance.

They compliment the ‘big’ lifts and allow us to vary the demand on the muscles, central nervous system and mental capacity.   

They allow targeted work around weaker areas, can be used to help breakthrough plateaus and provide ways to move past a variety of sticking points when we are looking to progress.

We can use them to work smaller muscle groups, less worked ranges and directions of movement and to develop skills.

And they provide variety and stimulation for clients (and us).

 

WHAT CAN THEY LOOK LIKE?

There are no limits to what an accessory movement can be. They can be any exercise, use any equipment or none, be assisted or resisted, full movements or partial movements.  The key is that they are there to provide something other than the primary movement.  This means they can be as individual as the people we are working with, based on their skills, ranges, limitations and goals.  Afterall a bodyweight squat could be a main lift for one person, an accessory for someone else and a warm up for a third person.  They can also change role based on the rest of the programme. 

In addition, accessory exercises can make up sessions on their own or take the form of rehab or prehab sessions. 

 

This means that it is important to remember the principles rather than get hung up on specific movements.    

 

PROGRAMMING CONSIDERATIONS

Accessory exercises aren’t just there to fill the time.  They help with strength, hypertrophy, mobility, recovery, cardiovascular fitness, muscular endurance and more.  By remembering why we are using accessory movements it can assist us in considering the how.  It can be easy to slip into habits with programming and forget the different benefits we can access by a more careful consideration of the exercises we use.

 

 

HOW DOES THE CLIENT’S GOAL IMPACT EXERCISE SELECTION?

Consider how they expect to feel at the end of a session as well as their longer term goals.  E.G. If they have specific body parts they want to work we can use our choice of accessory exercises to leave them feeling they have worked the areas they want to work.  

 

Then consider any limitations to achieving the goal.  What does the client’s ROM look like? What is their skill level? Are there any strength or mobility limitations where smaller muscles impact the ability to perform the more fatiguing lifts? What are the sticking points when performing exercises?   What are the limitations outside of the gym that impact day to day life?  These are all things you can address in your programming and can be a great area to explore when making your exercise selection.

 

WHAT ABOUT THEIR TRAINING HISTORY?

Looking at both their recent training and their longer term training will help you identify the best areas to focus on.  This information allows us to make decisions around planes of motion, ranges of motion & ultimately what accessory movements we can choose to enhance their training results. E.G.  If they have been focusing on a particular set of movements then it can be a good idea to choose exercises that provide movements that may have been neglected.  

Being aware of fatigue, stress levels and factors outside the gym that are impacting your client will assist in decisions relating to the overall complexity and

 

STRUCTURING THE PROGRAMME

You can use any rep schemes with accessory exercises, there’s not any specific ‘rules’ relating to reps or structure. Structures using supersets, trisets, timed blocks, AMRAPs, or any other combination, can all be used with your accessory exercises.

This means it becomes a matter of preference, managing fatigue and providing balance in the overall programme.  It also provides opportunities for providing variety and options for progressive overload over time giving us all the flexibility we want to create effective programmes our clients love.

 

LTB members can access the first part of our new Accessory Movement course now! It covers the role of accessory exercises in more detail and then dives into movements relating to the hip.  We’ll continue to add more movements relating to the other joints over the coming months. For more on programming the Foundations of General Population Programme Design Course is also highly recommended.

New to LTB? Sign up to our 14 day free trial here to access this course and much more.