Best Squat Assistance Exercises?

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
Front squats for me[/quote]

If you are going to count front squats as an assistance exercise and not supplemental, then i’d agree and also add box squats.

But if you are looking more for accessory type stuff, then it will depend on where you are weak, your technique and if you are geared or raw.

Stepup
leg ext
GHR

unilateral leg presses have given my squat a nice increase

[quote]TYPE2B wrote:
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]

Dumbass. You realize the squat (back or front) are assistance exercises for the olympic lifts, right? So, how would this help a powerlifter?

[quote]elih8er wrote:
TYPE2B wrote:
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)

Dumbass. You realize the squat (back or front) are assistance exercises for the olympic lifts, right? So, how would this help a powerlifter?[/quote]

x2

What an anus. OLers that dont use assistance lifts like GHR, GM, rev hyper and back extension are few and far between. only squatting will lead you to stagnation pretty early.

In other news: what are you Sn and ClJking these days type2?

-chris

I like doing these
Box Squats
Reverse-Band Squats

After my main squat movement I hit exercises for Quads, Hams, and hips

[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]

If you know your abs are weak, fix that before you push fronts squats in my opinion.
I found higher rep front squats were really tough for me with weak abs, I had issues with losing posture mid-set.

[quote]TYPE2B wrote:
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.

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]

You’re a genius.

I’m 6’5 and you’re 5’6. I can’t squat oly style because my femurs are probably as long as your whole legs.

[quote]TYPE2B wrote:

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]

Wow…

probably whatever sucks for you the most at the moment. Whatever you’re worst at probably needs the most attention. After hearing this enough times from people much more knowledgable then myself, I decided to apply it.

For a while I did nothing but GMs and ab work for Squat and DL assistance. That seemed to help my box squat (more on that later). DL still sucked. GMs started to suck a little less and sqaut progress stalled a bit, so I ditched them.

I thought 5x10 GMs were brutal until I tried bulgarian split squats. My squatting is coming along nicely since adding 5x10 BSS after squats, and I haven’t even been able to add much weight to the BSS. Definately feel “tighter” in my hips, ass, and upper quads. Some of my pants are quite a bit tighter while I’ve dropped 5lbs of bodyweight. Not exactly scientific, but I do feel stronger and squat is progressing again.

I am still trying to figure out what I should be doing for DL assistance. I did sumo DL for awhile, but my hips were taking a beating. I am dabbling with single leg DLs and Natural GHRs right now. I am partial to single leg stuff at the moment becuase I am extremely weak at it, but the GHRs will probably win out. I really suck at them. Worse than the BSS.

If you do decide to do box squats, I would watch your progress carefully. I switched entirely to box squats for awhile. I really like doing them but they did absolutely nothing for my squat. I thought all was well becuase my box squat numbers were increasing. Might have contributed to increasing my miserable DL numbers though. Back to free squatting for me.

I am 5’10 with a 29" inseam, so take the above for what it’s worth. I am also not a competitive PLr. Just someone who tries to make reasonable progress in the gym on the big three.

Today was my squat day and decided drop the leg press as my quad focused assistance movement in favor of squats in the 10-20 rep range with lighter weight. I am still looking for more assistance lifts for the squat and deadlift that focus on strengthening the quads, so keep posting suggestions.

I posted today’s workout in my training log.

lunges with short strides for quads, but if you squat wide id focus more on hams glutes, splits squats for instance would be excellent

[quote]bignate wrote:
lunges with short strides for quads, but if you squat wide id focus more on hams glutes, splits squats for instance would be excellent[/quote]

I was thinking of lunges, split squats or step ups. Unilateral work has usually served me very well.

Has anyone mentioned single leg squats + ab work?

Edit: If single leg squats are a problem due to long legs, you can try them off a bench/box (I’m 5’ 3’', so pistols are not a problem).

Don’t forget about pause squats and heavy chain squats. You don’t always have to change to a completely different lift to fix a weakness.

Pause squats work great for me.