Favorite Accessory Movements and Techniques for weak points

Lots of variety here. It’s so much more individualistic than I would have thought.

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
Lots of variety here. It’s so much more individualistic than I would have thought. [/quote]

As my lifts have progressed, so have my sticking points, and therefore so have my accessory movements. Even when I talk to really high level lifters, they often say that a lot of times they “chase their tail”. They hammer their weak points only to find out that they have created new ones.

[quote]Acrophobia13 wrote:

[quote]frankjl wrote:
I don’t know what you’d call these – deadlift to lockout, lower to knees & pause for a second, then back to lockout[/quote]
Dimel deadlifts: elitefts™ - Teaching the Dimel Deadlift - YouTube
[/quote]

Very similar except I do a pronounced pause about 2 inches underneath my knee (hold for about 2 seconds) and then pull to lockout. Usually when talking about Dimmel deadlifts, it’s a very quick motion – dropping the bar to your knees and snapping it back up to lockout without a pause. I also do this with much heavier than what many people suggest for Dimmel deadlifts.

Not that I’m an exercise snob or care to correct you, I just figured since it worked for me I’d elaborate on it a little bit. It actually probably looks more like this (except I’m fatter, don’t use as much weight, and my upper back is probably rounded over):

high rep 1 arm tricep pushdowns have made my bench and overhead press lockouts feel like nothing, weight goes up consistently. I do 5x15 once a week. Also a big fan of 1 arm barbell rows

Heavy dips for sets of 8-10. High rep incline DB.
Front squat, start off a squat day working up to a heavy FS then start back squat right after.
Heavy pullups and T-bar rows seem to help my deadlift.

Floor presses with chains to build up strict press!

[quote]frankjl wrote:
As my lifts have progressed, so have my sticking points, and therefore so have my accessory movements. Even when I talk to really high level lifters, they often say that a lot of times they “chase their tail”. They hammer their weak points only to find out that they have created new ones.[/quote]

Absolutely.

Right now, I’m hitting lockouts and pause squats for my squat. Close grip vs chains, weighted dips, and incline dbs for my bench. Block pulls, heavy shrugs, swings, and more pause squats (close stance, SSB) for my deads.

Along with the competition lifts, I cycle through these every 2 weeks.

For the lower body I’m big on good mornings. My squat has been sticking as I come out of the bottom with the anything north of 275lbs so that means my posterior chain needs work. I just increased the weight on the good mornings by twenty-pounds so we’ll see what happens in the next six weeks.

For the upper body I like Kroc rows, however, I don’t focus too much on the assistance lifts there. If I want to bench heavier I need to bench more. If I want to press heavier I need to press more.

In order to help my deadlift speed from the floor, I began performing weighted box jumps. 50lb kettlebells in each hand onto a 20" box, then adding a 40lb vest. I also supplemented with glute ham raises, adding extra weight if I was feeling good.

While this really strengthened my initial pull, my lockout was then found wanting - ain’t that something? So, I started incorporating good mornings at 135lbs on the bar, adding up to 100lbs of chains on each side. Also kettlebell swings (since they’re there) in order to train my hip extension.

My mentality is that if I have a weakness in my squat, bench or deadlift I squat/bench/deadlift more. I choose a variation of the lift but remain close to is as possible in terms of ‘assistance’ but I follow SHEIKO so the volume is calculated already I just slot a different variation as my second lift on the exercise later in the ‘workout’ and maybe alter the % a little bit. But what works for me:

Bench:
3 - board
2 - board
more bench pressing

Squat:
more squatting
going to add in SBB and front squats over my next meet prep cycles soon

Deadlift:
mor deadlifting
rack pulls/block pulls
going to add in deficit pulls over my next cycle

One thing that HAS made a big differnce to myself though is kettlebells. I do 3 sets of 5 swings, cleans, snatches before my training session and on my off days I do low itensity swings and double swings to build up more capacity and ballistic power in my body. Results have been a stronger deadlift and overall much tighter in all my lifts.