Best Squat Assistance Exercises?

What are the best assistance exercises you have tried that have helped increase your squat poundages. I think glute/ham raise has really helped me but I have a friend who did not thinked it helped him much at all.

Front squats for me

good morning variations, glute ham raises and reverse hypers

Where are you weak?

High-rep front squats did massive things for me for a while. Now they do nothing, that weakness is fixed.

more squats

45’ back ext
glute ham raise
box squats
good mornings
Lots of ab work

And I squat with an oly stance

box squats
ghr’s
gm’s
power squats (machine) are dank

I tend to abuse our cambered bar fairly often, also.

[quote]DragnCarry wrote:
Where are you weak?

High-rep front squats did massive things for me for a while. Now they do nothing, that weakness is fixed.

[/quote]

x2. The “best” assistance exercises change along with your current weaknesses. That said, GHRs, hypers, and reverse hypers are good to do all the time and are pretty easy on your CNS. A stronger posterior will always help at least some.

[quote]Stronghold wrote:

power squats (machine) are dank

[/quote]

I have one of these available, should I start using it again once I’m done with the Tate routine?

good mornings have definitely helped to improve my squat.

it depends on how you squat - wide vs narrow, Atg vs parallel
and where are your weak points
tell us

lateral raises supersetted with biceps curls.

[quote]stallion wrote:
lateral raises supersetted with biceps curls.[/quote]

is that part of that new giant set that includes leg extensions and reverse cowgirl dumbbell swings?

[quote]totti13 wrote:
it depends on how you squat - wide vs narrow, Atg vs parallel
and where are your weak points
tell us[/quote]

i’m tall (6’5) with long legs, so i definitely need to squat out wide. I squat down to about an inch below parallel. My low back was a weak point but I fixed it. I’d say my abs and my only real weak point right now.

I’m thinking of giving front squats another shot as an assistance exercise. I"ve tried them before and couldn’t use any weight at all as they were very uncomfortable for me.

Anyone here know good squat/quad focused assistance lifts for guys with long legs? (I’ve been using the leg press a lot but don’t really care for it that much.)

[quote]The Austrian Oak wrote:
totti13 wrote:
it depends on how you squat - wide vs narrow, Atg vs parallel
and where are your weak points
tell us

i’m tall (6’5) with long legs, so i definitely need to squat out wide. I squat down to about an inch below parallel. My low back was a weak point but I fixed it. I’d say my abs and my only real weak point right now.

I’m thinking of giving front squats another shot as an assistance exercise. I"ve tried them before and couldn’t use any weight at all as they were very uncomfortable for me.

Anyone here know good squat/quad focused assistance lifts for guys with long legs? (I’ve been using the leg press a lot but don’t really care for it that much.)

[/quote]

im 6’4 with long legs squatting wide, i use front squats, gm’s and stiff legged deads as my assistance working well so far

[quote]bignate wrote:
The Austrian Oak wrote:
totti13 wrote:
it depends on how you squat - wide vs narrow, Atg vs parallel
and where are your weak points
tell us

i’m tall (6’5) with long legs, so i definitely need to squat out wide. I squat down to about an inch below parallel. My low back was a weak point but I fixed it. I’d say my abs and my only real weak point right now.

I’m thinking of giving front squats another shot as an assistance exercise. I"ve tried them before and couldn’t use any weight at all as they were very uncomfortable for me.

Anyone here know good squat/quad focused assistance lifts for guys with long legs? (I’ve been using the leg press a lot but don’t really care for it that much.)

im 6’4 with long legs squatting wide, i use front squats, gm’s and stiff legged deads as my assistance working well so far[/quote]

on my squat day I usually follow up with leg presses, GM and some kind of standing ab work. I am currently on my second month of 5/3/1.

[quote]The Austrian Oak wrote:
bignate wrote:
The Austrian Oak wrote:
totti13 wrote:
it depends on how you squat - wide vs narrow, Atg vs parallel
and where are your weak points
tell us

i’m tall (6’5) with long legs, so i definitely need to squat out wide. I squat down to about an inch below parallel. My low back was a weak point but I fixed it. I’d say my abs and my only real weak point right now.

I’m thinking of giving front squats another shot as an assistance exercise. I"ve tried them before and couldn’t use any weight at all as they were very uncomfortable for me.

Anyone here know good squat/quad focused assistance lifts for guys with long legs? (I’ve been using the leg press a lot but don’t really care for it that much.)

im 6’4 with long legs squatting wide, i use front squats, gm’s and stiff legged deads as my assistance working well so far

on my squat day I usually follow up with leg presses, GM and some kind of standing ab work. I am currently on my second month of 5/3/1.[/quote]

drop the leg presses, they will add size but no carryover what so ever in my experience to squat and it seems we have similar stats. I would try his assistance program which is 3x10 on squats after the 5/3/1 reps but with no more than 70% of 1RM i think, just sqautting more and getting more time in the grove really helped me and ive struggled and am still struggling with squatting

[quote]husker29 wrote:
What are the best assistance exercises you have tried that have helped increase your squat poundages. I think glute/ham raise has really helped me but I have a friend who did not thinked it helped him much at all. [/quote]

The best assistance exercise is the one that tells you to stop thinking of this assistance crap and actually start squatting like the REAL squatters do. (cough* olympic weightlifters)

[quote]bignate wrote:
The Austrian Oak wrote:
bignate wrote:
The Austrian Oak wrote:
totti13 wrote:
it depends on how you squat - wide vs narrow, Atg vs parallel
and where are your weak points
tell us

i’m tall (6’5) with long legs, so i definitely need to squat out wide. I squat down to about an inch below parallel. My low back was a weak point but I fixed it. I’d say my abs and my only real weak point right now.

I’m thinking of giving front squats another shot as an assistance exercise. I"ve tried them before and couldn’t use any weight at all as they were very uncomfortable for me.

Anyone here know good squat/quad focused assistance lifts for guys with long legs? (I’ve been using the leg press a lot but don’t really care for it that much.)

im 6’4 with long legs squatting wide, i use front squats, gm’s and stiff legged deads as my assistance working well so far

on my squat day I usually follow up with leg presses, GM and some kind of standing ab work. I am currently on my second month of 5/3/1.

drop the leg presses, they will add size but no carryover what so ever in my experience to squat and it seems we have similar stats. I would try his assistance program which is 3x10 on squats after the 5/3/1 reps but with no more than 70% of 1RM i think, just sqautting more and getting more time in the grove really helped me and ive struggled and am still struggling with squatting[/quote]

thanks.

would you recommend keeping the weight constant for all sets on the assistance squats or ramp up to a top set? I’m also considering giving front squats another go.

[quote]The Austrian Oak wrote:
bignate wrote:
The Austrian Oak wrote:
bignate wrote:
The Austrian Oak wrote:
totti13 wrote:
it depends on how you squat - wide vs narrow, Atg vs parallel
and where are your weak points
tell us

i’m tall (6’5) with long legs, so i definitely need to squat out wide. I squat down to about an inch below parallel. My low back was a weak point but I fixed it. I’d say my abs and my only real weak point right now.

I’m thinking of giving front squats another shot as an assistance exercise. I"ve tried them before and couldn’t use any weight at all as they were very uncomfortable for me.

Anyone here know good squat/quad focused assistance lifts for guys with long legs? (I’ve been using the leg press a lot but don’t really care for it that much.)

im 6’4 with long legs squatting wide, i use front squats, gm’s and stiff legged deads as my assistance working well so far

on my squat day I usually follow up with leg presses, GM and some kind of standing ab work. I am currently on my second month of 5/3/1.

drop the leg presses, they will add size but no carryover what so ever in my experience to squat and it seems we have similar stats. I would try his assistance program which is 3x10 on squats after the 5/3/1 reps but with no more than 70% of 1RM i think, just sqautting more and getting more time in the grove really helped me and ive struggled and am still struggling with squatting

thanks.

would you recommend keeping the weight constant for all sets on the assistance squats or ramp up to a top set? I’m also considering giving front squats another go.

[/quote]

i alternate for bench and its working well, like say i do 3 sets of ten with 135 week 1, then 3 sets of ten with 145 next week, 155 the week after, ill try to test my new 10RM and go for like 165-175 if you can get the idea from that. You could do straight sets on 3 weeks on, 1 all out set on your deload week if it doesnt affect you to much.

i just started front squatting again and for seom reasont he form is actually good this time around and its the fourth or so time ive tried them, hoping to go beyond 225 this time
good luck