Are Assistance Exercises A Waste Of Time?

By: Dean Blackstone Click author's name for more of his/her articles

No doubt about it, muscle building is a macho pursuit. The uglier and meaner looking the lift, the more grunting, cussing and contorted the face becomes, the more macho you are – so some would have you believe. Exercises such as the bench press, squat and dead lift with more plates loaded than a dishwasher are the favorite exercises of the macho – not only because they look the part, but, they are brilliant exercises for adding muscle mass and strength. However, there’s a flip side: many of the same people will look upon lighter assistance exercises as ‘weak geek’ exercises which are a waste of time. More fool them. I’ll now explain why.

Let’s not beat around the bush – heavy weights are what build muscle and strength mostly. But there are other approaches to it, and failure to acknowledge and participate in other approaches will leave anybody short of size and strength gains – no matter how bad ass they think they are.

I always look to the top trainers for advice and tips, and for good reason – they’ve gotten results in countless people, and have reached the top not by sheer brutish and simplistic mottos such as ‘no pain no gain’ alone, but through a thorough understanding of the human body and what effects various training methods have. People at the top of training – be it bodybuilding coaches or power lifting – always recommend assistance exercises. In fact, I’m yet to be made aware of any top coach who doesn’t.

Assistance exercises are any exercise which isn’t one of the big lifts – squat, bench or dead lift – which help to achieve a specific goal, such as the strengthening of a weak body part or making a muscle larger or giving it better endurance. For instance: triceps extensions, one legged squats, hammer curls, etc. It’s a niche exercise.

Such exercises, because they use far less weight than one of the big lifts do often get seen as a waste of time. People often approach training with the mentality of ‘to bench bigger, bench; to squat bigger, squat; to dead lift bigger; dead lift.’

People at the top realize this isn’t the way.

I always recommend to anyone interested in gaining muscle or strength to check out the world famous Westside Barbell and their training methods. At Westside they have a huge catalog of assistance exercises, and they are some of the strongest guys in the world and would make the average ‘top guy’ at any gym anywhere who scoffs at ‘weak assistance exercises’ look like they have the strength of a 70 year old granny.

Getting bigger, stronger and better is more about learning and trying new things for yourself than following anything blindly – everybody gets different results from different exercises and training methods, and it’s your job to find out what gives you the best results.

My final point is: Don’t be afraid of lifting less weight with so-called weaker assistance exercises. It’s the sum of the parts that will ultimately make you bigger and stronger overall. So look after the parts!