jozko
Level 6 Valued Member
I was thinking a lot about assistance exercises recently. The opinions on this topic differ greatly, from "assistance work is overrated" to "variety is the key".
Depending on your background, occupation and leisure time activities, you might fall anywhere between this. If you are very active person, then your everyday life is your assistance work and you do not need to worry about it as much as I do.
The answer for me lies somewhere in between - I like my training to be structured and well-defined, but my body definitely does not like doing only 2 or 3 exercises.
After quite a bit of experimentation, I identified my big three for assistance work, which is pretty compatible with all protocols I like (RoP, DFW, Red Zone, S&S,...):
So - what are yours? How often do you do them?
Depending on your background, occupation and leisure time activities, you might fall anywhere between this. If you are very active person, then your everyday life is your assistance work and you do not need to worry about it as much as I do.
The answer for me lies somewhere in between - I like my training to be structured and well-defined, but my body definitely does not like doing only 2 or 3 exercises.
After quite a bit of experimentation, I identified my big three for assistance work, which is pretty compatible with all protocols I like (RoP, DFW, Red Zone, S&S,...):
- horizontal rowing. My shoulders crave for it! I like gorilla rows, because they can be done with two kettlebells and they do not put much stress to lower back.
- single kettlebell overhead squat. Shoulders, basically whole back, hips and knees.
- split squats/lunges - at the first sight redundant with the one above, but as a sedentary guy I apparently need both.
So - what are yours? How often do you do them?