Accessory work, to me, is the MOST IMPORTANT reason to follow a program or hire a coach. Anyone can figure out a template for main lifts that more or less works, especially as a beginner, right? 5x5 works. Hell, 5 sets of 10 works. 5/3/1 progression works. Etc. There are a zillion set and rep schemes that can work for the main lifts, which is usually around 4 different lifts. If getting that right was all that was important to becoming big and strong, we’d have a lot more big strong people out there. And we’d have a lot less use for coaching.
I hired a coach a year ago because I couldn’t figure out how to program my accessory work, specifically as it relates to my sport. And I’m not an idiot, lol. There’s just A LOT that goes into thoughtfully planning accessory movements. Accessory movements are ESSENTIAL to preserving and improving mobility, maintaining joint health, and yes, getting stronger.
So, if you pick a program that was meant to be run as a COMPLETE program combining main and accessory lifts, and you choose to eliminate half of that equation, you are guaranteeing yourself sub-par results.
As much as I want to rip into you, I’ll just respectfully reiterate what others have already said: No, it’s not okay for you to drop the accessory lifts. They’re in place for a reason. Look at ANY successful power lifter, and you’ll see that NONE of them strictly stick to the big 3, they ALL use accessory work to boost certain aspects of those lifts.
Squats and bench presses are awesome, but what happens if you have specific weaknesses within them that need to be addressed? Do you just bench and squat more in the hopes that those weaknesses go away? No, you add accessory work.
I’ll use the barbell row as an example, because it’s the accessory lift you happen to have mentioned. The barbell row gives you a big, strong upper back which will give you a nice shelf to rest the bar on for squats, allowing you to get tighter and maintain that tightness. A big upper back also gives you a good “shelf” to press off of for the bench and, again, trains you to keep your shoulders tight.
And if you’re absolutely stuck on not increasing the reps because the program says so, just increase the weight by a few pounds whenever those accessories start to feel easy at the prescribed rep range. You’ll have to regulate that yourself, though.
Also, since you seem keen on making sure that the prescribed reps aren’t altered because the program “says so”, it also means you can’t drop those lifts.
Accessory work is there for a reason. So keep it there.
OP is right, all you guys are wrong. I mean, Yury and Malanichev don’t do accessories and they’re at the top, right? Clearly, we just need to do exactly what they do.
Don’t be discouraged but for me you have to try and put accessory back on your program. Accessory isn’t necessary for going heavier and heavier what accessory targets the most is smaller groups of muscle for a good tear, muscles that cannot be stimulated effectively from the compounds. Don’t worry for the weight(even a kilo up its OK) and the progressive overload there so much but work on your mind-muscle connection when doing any accessory, to the movement itself, accessory is fun cause it’s main goal is to help on hypertrophy so try to find the fun in it;)
Maybe in an ideal world all we would have to do is the Big 3 to progress at them but in real situations your body falls apart at a certain point but the body could still do some assistance Fluff and Puff that will have a significant carry over to the Big 3.
If you want to strip it to bare bones I would modify it to the Big 3 plus Pullups and Barbell Rows.
Side Points:
Nobody REALLY knows why a big strong back is good for Bench but nobody can really deny that it is either. My theory is that the body wants to be balanced and will make its best and healthiest gains while being so. Another popular theory is that the back in fact helps move the weight. The way my lats get pumped Benching sometimes I cant definitively say that isn’t true either. Maybe it’s both.
This carries over to the actual point which is that the entire body is used in each of the big 3 in varying degrees. Any weak link is a weak link.
If all the Assistance does is keep you a little healthier that is helping significantly.