best assistance work for big three

[trapmanjoe]

hey i was wondering what everybody does for assistance work for squat,bench,and deadlift. what workouts were the most effective at increasing increasing the big 3. i find boards for bench work great. rackpulls for d.lift, and pause squats for squats work well. lets hear yours..

[barry mcgalie]

for an exercise to be considered a great assistance movement i feel it really comes down to analysing each of your 3 power moves and figuring out where you are weak. it may be a portion of the total movement or an individual muscle group.

for example, being tall, the weak part of my squat was actually my lockout. i added 50kg to my squat by incorporating heavy lockouts off pins. i also realised that my hamstrings were weak so i added in heavy stiff leg deadlifts - that seems to be doing the trick. i also believe good mornings are an excellent exercise. i include them every 2nd cycle - don't forget that weaknesses are constantly changing - at the moment i'm doing pause squats to improve my technique and get more bang out of the hole. box squats are helping me aswell - i do these b4 my deadlift workout.

for the bench - i find floor presses to be extremely useful and have seen benefit from using board presses, but then again my lockout is my weakness. perhaps u are weak off the chest and would benefit more from speed benches and pauses. again, analyse what muscle groups lag behind and hit them hard eg. shoulders, triceps, lats, chest. i think lats are very important and have seen good gains from incorporating bent rows in my bench routine.

for the deadlift, i think rack lockouts are excellent - i alternate these with platform deadlifts (definately my best assistance exercise, but u may be different). glute ham raises, box squats, reverse band deadlifts, speed work, lunges, chins, shrugs etc

weakest link theory states that if u improve ur weakness, ur lifts go up. it's common sense - WESTSIDE.

[cornelius parkin]

For squat the thing that has brought it up is DE day with lots of bands.
For bench board lock outs.
For deadlift pulls with bands attached.

[Kendrick]

I lift uneqipped and my main focus is power and strength out of the hole in the squat, off the chest for bench and of the floor for deadlifts.

Out of the 3 lifts I find I need to do the most straight lifting for the bench and the least direct work for my deadlift. I tried pulling from the floor more often at the beginning of this year and I found I went backwards rather than gaining strength. Lesson learnt!

Squat- pause squats, low box squats
Bench- floor presses, 2 board, pause bench press, DE work
Deadlift- pin pulls (from mid-upper shins for me), platform pulls.

And GM's as my main posterior chain exercise.

Pretty much what has been said in above posts!

Cornelius, do you use a jump stretch platform to attach bands to when deadlifting? If not how do you? I have tried a could of methods, but not having access to a decent rack (knee height is lowest pin settings), these have resulted in standing precariously on boxes!

[cornelius parkin]

Kendrick yes we use jump stretch platform for attaching the bands:)

[Kendrick]

Oohh well, I'll have to contiune to think on that one :confused:

[steve-o]

You can hold bands down when u deadlift with a couple of heady ass dumbells or plates, the setup may need a bit of tweaking depending how you pull, but on the right flooring a couple of 25's each side work a treat (assuming uve got a few spare plates laying around :???: )

[trapmanjoe]

does gpp work help at all in your experiences, i hear some people say to just do more sets(increase volume). others swear by pulling sleds. ive also heard if your new to the game, dont do westside wait until youve been training a while, or your not moving anywhere in your training.

[Kendrick]

Thats a good idea about the plates Steve-O! Never would of thought of that! Will be pulling on fri so will give it a try.

Don't do any GPP as such but do 2 light assistance sessions a week for mostly recovery reasons and pre-hab work. If I felt I was getting to fat or below average CV fitness then I'd throw a couple of GPP sessions in