Accessories: The Backbone of Training
Make or break your training program. What are they, how do we maximize them and why are they so important?
After what feels like the longest hiatus of all time, I (Thick) am back. I’ve spent time trying to cultivate what I want to be able to provide for you all and what I’d help everyone who is NOT a professional in the movement space understand and make better training decisions. Professionals also feel open to debate, discuss and get into the weeds on any topics of discussion.
Without further ado, Accessories: the backbone of training.
I’m sure spending time scrolling through reels on instagram we’ve all seen a post one time or another badgering on about accessories “STOP SKIPPING YOUR ACCESSORIES”…. No shit. Of course accessories serve a purpose in all training, but maybe helping people understand the purpose, how to do them, and why you should care might improve adherence and quality of them.
WHY ARE ACCESSORIES IMPORTANT?
First, we need to understand some simple terminology. Training is made up of two primary components from a performance standpoint; skill and output.
I’ll tackle output first because it’s short and sweet. Output is someone’s ability to produce force regardless of skill. Something that is super low skill, high output is a sled push. With little to no weight training experience a relatively strong individual could push a heavy sled that weighs hundreds of pounds. To reiterate, output is just the expression of force.
Have you ever seen someone who has never lifted weights attempt a bodyweight squat? Or better yet someone who has never played a ball sport attempt to throw a baseball or shoot a basketball? ATROCIOUS. They haven’t spent time to develop the specific skill to efficiently move through that pattern regardless of strength or athletic ability.
Skill includes many underlying components, but to keep things simple I will only talk about one. Management of center of mass (COM). As we move through space our center of mass changes, and we need to be able to sense where the body is in space to maintain our COM and express force through those positions. It takes practice.
It makes more sense to look at it from an athletics perspective. Just think about how fluidly athletes move in their respective sports. A soccer player can weave in and out of cones seamlessly with a ball at their feet. Take that soccer player and put them in an environment in which they have no experience, let’s say baseball, and they look lost.
The same principles apply to lifting. All movement is a skill; squats, pull-ups, jumps, sprints. You need to have acquired the skill of a barbell squat to be able to express force in the barbell squat even if you’re already strong.
This is true for most movements that have lower grounding. Grounding for simplicity is the combination of sensory feedback and external support. Sensory feedback refers to things that promote understanding where the body is in space, and external support refers to the physical things we are in contact with during a movement.
Ball sports like soccer and basketball are very low grounding. A squat has more grounding than ball sports, but less grounding than a machine hack squat.
Skill and output are important because in training these are the two components we are always battling to develop.
SKILL + OUTPUT = PERFORMANCE
Do we need more skill or more output? There is a continuum. If you are already proficient in a movement you probably need more output if that movement is the one you want to improve. If you don’t have the skill down pat, that would be the primary focus. Find out which it is you need and this is your A1.
A1 for our purposes will refer to the primary effort. As a powerlifter in a strength or build phase, I would be more concerned with output in training and maintaining skills I’ve already developed. In a peaking phase however I would put the emphasis on skill development slightly over output. Again it’s a continuum.
“The man who chases two rabbits, catches neither.”
In the end you only have a singular A1 slot so pick a focus and place it here. For this example I am going to use Kick’s leg day in the program I wrote him (hehe). He wants to improve the skill of squatting itself, so we squattin’ as our A1.
Once you have A1 set you can build accessories in to compliment it (F***ING FINALLY).
A wise man much smarter than I once said:
“Accessories instill the qualities that primary movements take away and warm-ups inform accessory movement selection.”— Some Guy
For those of you who are feeling like you just read a Confucius quote hang on. Thinking of Kick still (who wants to squat). The squat is a pretty compressive movement. It requires internal bracing and stability, so there is not a lot of opportunity for rotation at the thorax or the pelvis in a squat and rightfully so (you’d snap in half under decent load).
The thorax/ribcage and pelvis need to move to function well. We see this in something as simple as walking, one side of pelvis shifts forward and the other shifts back and simultaneously the opposite happens at the ribs (This is an incredibly simplistic description as ribcage pelvis mechanics are VERY nuanced). This is why when we walk or run it’s natural to have the opposite foot and hand forward at the same time.
Kick in all his glory also trains in multiple martial arts. Rotation at these structures from a performance standpoint is an important component to his day to day. To reiterate barbell squatting is NOT conducive to rotation at these structures. Essentially to reverse the compressive forces that practicing relatively heavy squats exposes him to, I program a unilateral (one-sided) hinging and knee dominant movements where he will focus more on output than skill.
Unilateral training doesn’t have to be single leg, although it can be. But again, I want these movements to be output based, we want lots of force production with little skill required to complete the movement because practicing the squat already filled our skill bucket (thanks squats). Single leg movements tend to require lots of skill, they are low grounding when done with free weights which means little sensory input, little external feedback (at least compared to squats).
Instead of something single leg, I chose a hinging movement that can be done in a staggered/B stance. Having his other leg as external support will reduce the need for him to stabilize, meaning he can focus on producing force. Better yet I can put him on a machine with a fixed track, smith machine, shrug machine, or even a barbell landmine where he holds the bar opposite hand to foot. This will allow him to rotate naturally and also produce tons of force due to the added stability of the bar connected to the floor and somewhat fixed track.
I don’t want to put this out to the public (but I’m gonna). Kick is not the best at hinging… Kind of embarrassing. BUT because I’m a good friend my B1 movement of choice is going to allow him to have high output, lots of grounding so he can own the hinge under some good load.
To refresh:
A1- Barbell Squat
High Skill : Moderate Output
Bilateral = High Grounding + Low Rotation at ribs and pelvis
Free Moving = Low Grounding
B1- Staggered Stance Landmine Hinge
Moderate Skill : High Output
Staggered Stance = Moderate Grounding + Moderate Rotation at ribs and pelvis
Semi-Fixed Track = High Grounding
High grounding means we can place less emphasis on skill and more focus on output.
Now we’ve worked on the skill of squatting (knee dominant), we have done some great output in a hinge. I would like to get him into another knee dominant movement that really focuses on output, but still allows us to rotate effectively because we are still looking to instill qualities that the squat might take away.
Our boy Kick is dying out here and needs us to throw him a bone as he grips onto life. He’s tired, he’s beat up, if I give him something that requires a lot of skill or management of center of mass at this point he’s totally fucked and might fall over.
Don’t fuck your friends over, it’s not cool.
Here is where I bring out EXTRA external stability. The landmine was cool for the hinge, but he can still move away from the axis of rotation so we’re gonna use a machine this time. My choice is a smith machine split squat or static lunge. Both feet on the ground is very stable more so than a rear foot elevated/bulgarian (more bias to one leg).
This movement should still torch his quads, but the fixed track will allow him to continue pushing with minimal form breakdown as he struggles to press through, plus when he approaches failure it’s easy to stop the movement and prevent him from killing himself.
A1- Barbell Squat
High Skill : Low Output
Bilateral = High Grounding + Low Rotation at ribs and pelvis
Free Moving = Low Grounding
B1- Staggered Stance Landmine Hinge
Moderate Skill : Moderate Output
Staggered Stance = Moderate Grounding + High Rotation at ribs and pelvis
Semi-Fixed Track = High Grounding
C1-Smith Machine Split Squat
Low Skill : High Output
Staggered Stance = Moderate Grounding + Moderate Rotation at ribs and pelvis
Fixed Track = High Grounding
Low Suicide Rate
I’m going to call it here for Kick’s programming on this day (he probably can’t handle it anyway). Some people might think this is too little… It might be for some, but I’d argue for most probably not.
Quality of the session depends on the quality of movement not the quantity of movements.
Things to make note of:
I write high, moderate or low output to skill for simplicity, but again it is a continuum. Someone who is very proficient in a squat can get some more of output in that movement. In this example with Kick levels of skill and output are relative to him.
Point above being said— if the goal is to build muscle it seems that proficiency in a movement doesn’t seem to yield significantly more hypertrophy although you will be able to express more force in said movement.
High grounding means we can place less emphasis on skill and more focus on output (this will definitely lead to hypertrophy).
Kick has grit, he will definitely push these near failure even if I told him not to so he will create plenty stimulus to create the right adaptations for his goals. Remember these are HIS goals, but you can use these principles to create the changes that fit yours.
Realistically we might add some hamstring curls, leg extensions, and even maybe a seated calf raise to improve function and strength or add mass, but I wanted to focus on the global movements that have the most bang for their buck.
HOW SHOULD WE PERFORM OUR ACCESSORIES?
This is a loaded question and I will do my best to answer it (I wrote this thing I should’ve omitted it).
Often times in cookie cutter programs accessories are done in 2-4 sets of 8-12 reps which is not inherently a bad thing. The real question you should be asking is what is the goal.
If you are training to get big I would keep it simple and place the things that will be more conducive to the things you want to grow earlier on in the session. You’ll be able to exert more effort on them.
Specificity is king. BUT also, these are accessories so it wouldn’t make sense to train 1RM strength on your accessory if your priority is training maximal strength in that A1 movement. I’m pretty sure I already put the rabbit quote in here.
Generally speaking I’m programming accessories somewhere between 5-30 repetitions for a few reasons:
If I want to prioritize strength in an accessory I can still get it with 5 reps and break up volume over more sets.
Usually I will aim for higher reps and cue slower eccentrics and pauses to work on actually building muscle tissue. I am a huge fan of using hypertrophy principles for accessories because there is an overlap of strength and size of a muscle. Slower eccentrics also allow for better proprioception which benefits everyone. (If you haven’t read my Hypertrophy Guide, click here. I will update it as new information comes out and my opinion shifts with time and experience)
Higher reps equal more practice and time under tension, I find that many individuals need to build some semblance muscular endurance prior to prioritizing strength gains, this doesn’t mean 3 minute sets but it does mean not doing 1-3 rep sets especially if you have a low training age. On the contrary I find that some individuals work better with higher intensities, so working heavier weights in the 5-8 range. Find what works for you.
The caveat to this is if I have a person who is VERY undertrained and does not have the endurance to do a movement I might have them do clusters of a single rep if I think they can get big benefit from said movement.
Accessories should have intention behind them. They require high effort, just like A1. If you neglect them or train them like half assed movements, you are not reaching your full potential.
If you find yourself needing the use of “intensifying methods” (rest pause reps, pre-fatigue, drop sets, etc.) for most of your accessories, take a step back and reevaluate the intensities you are training at. In most cases, for most people training in proximity to failure is plenty, if by chance you have energy after a hard set to perform one of these methods… your set probably wasn’t hard enough.
That being said I do like using rest pause sets for unilateral work knowing that my dominant side is generally slightly stronger. I will perform an exercise on my dominant side to a desired rep range, rest between sides and then get as many as I can on the non-dominant side. If I cannot match the rep count of my dominant side I will use a pause rep set method of taking a pause for a few breaths and finish out the set to the desired rep count. This method allows me to train both my dominant and non-dominant side with an intensity that will promote progress.
Personally I like to use an Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) scale for myself and will train clients up to understand it. Because it is a subjective measure it’s important that we give it some objectivity so that we can all have an understanding. I stole this directly from Killian Hamilton, he will never read this but if he does, shoutout Killian.
Imagine you’re doing an exercise for 5 reps and consider the following:
RPE 7— All the reps are of the same quality and speed
RPE 8— The last 1-2 reps are slower or lower quality than the first 3-4
RPE 9— All of the reps are slow and quality may very, maybe could’ve managed 1 more
RPE 10— Could not have done another rep with smelling salts and me screaming in your ear
In my eyes all accessories should be trained somewhere between a RPE 7 and a RPE 10. Any less and the intensity is not enough to induce change.
WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?
BECAUSE IT MATTERS. If you’re at all interested in being strong or improving a lift, accessories create an environment to continue to consistently lift your primaries for heavy weight. Accessories are not just bringing up weak points or improving the strength of a specific muscle group to improve a main lift. Accessories serve to restore function to be able to do things consistently in tandem with making muscles bigger and stronger.
A powerlifter who neglects training their shoulder from all points (thorax, ribs, scapula, humerus) won’t have a long benching career and probably already has pain. Its not just about strengthening the rotator cuff through rotation.
“Accessories instill the qualities that primary movements take away and warm-ups inform accessory movement selection.”— Some Guy
Putting this here again.
Bodybuilding is weird because they don’t really try to train movements, but rather muscles. An entire session can be done on machines if needed which means they will have the most grounding and is probably the least conducive to rotation at the ribcage and pelvis if all done bilaterally.
Function is still an important piece of training even in bodybuilding. Training in pain is not fun, nor efficient. The body still needs its structures to rotate and move properly to get the most muscle recruitment possible. In short, yes, accessory selection matters in bodybuilding as well from a movement not just muscle standpoint.
Accessory movements are really the backbone of a good training program and they’re often overlooked. Hopefully this is a guide you can refer back to when trying to structure your own training. If you’re just trying to learn be thoughtful, deliberate and intentional. If you’re a trainer or coach it is literally your job, and you have huge opportunities to improve performance or quality of life in many cases. If you have questions or thoughts feel free to reach out.
Feels good to be back.
-Thick