Assistance Exercises for Beginners

After you've been training for a while, you may find it necessary to add in some assistance work. This is because it is no longer enough to just do the main lifts to get stronger, and you need some extra work to bring up the main lifts. Since the point of assistance exercises are to assist the main lifts (squat, bench press, overhead press, deadlift), we don't want to do any exercises which won't have any benefit.

An effective assistance exercise trains the same muscle groups involved in the main lift, but through a different range of motion.

Below is a list of the most useful assistance exercises for beginners.

Assistance exercises you should be doing:

• Ab work: any ab exercise besides situps and crunches. Prone bridges, hanging leg raises and using the ab wheel are pretty good options. Train the abs hard, because if they're weak then your lower back will do more of the work in the squat, making it look more like a good morning (look it up if you don't know what this is). You can never have abs that are too strong in my opinion.
• Barbell Rows: if you're benching, then you have to do this exercise, no excuses. The bench press hits the front deltoids (front of the shoulders), whilst the barbell row hits the rear deltoids (back of the shoulders) thus balancing out the stress placed on the shoulder. The barbell row also trains the lats, and will give you a thicker back. All reps should start from the floor, and keep your torso as parallel to the floor as possible for all reps, if you're almost vertical when you're rowing, lower the amount of weight. You should be able to row roughly how much you're benching.
  
• (Weighted) Pull-ups/Chin ups: this exercise doesn't necessarily assist the main lifts, but everyone should be doing pull-ups in my opinion. They're a great upper body exercise and will give you a wider appearance. Having strong lats will also give you a stable base to press from when you do the overhead press.

Assistance exercises you could do depending on your needs:

• (Weighted) Dips: these are harder to do than pushups because you are supporting your entire body. If you don't have any shoulder problems do this exercise. Dips target the chest, shoulders and triceps, making it an assistance exercise for both the bench press and overhead press, which is pretty good. You need to be doing these with weights for this exercise to be beneficial to the bench press and overhead press however. You should eventually be able to dip with more weight (bodyweight + how much weight is strapped on) than you can bench press.
• Good Mornings: this exercise can help with the squat and deadlift because it trains the posterior chain (lower back, glutes and hamstrings). No need to use heavy weights for this exercise, you want to perform quality reps otherwise you won't get anything out of this movement. Keep the reps relatively high, 3 sets of 10 reps with a weight light enough to allow you to maintain good form.
  

The following guideline should be useful for beginners to determine which assistance exercise to do depending on their needs:

• If your bench press is about 80% of your squat, you need to work on your lower body more e.g. if you're benching 100kg but only squatting 120kg, your lower body is weak in comparison to your upper body. Do good mornings at the end of your session.
  
• If your bench press is about 50% of your squat, you need to work on your upper body more e.g. if you're benching 70kg but squatting over 140kg, your upper body is weak in comparison to your lower body. Do dips at the end of your session.

Typically guys with short arms will be better at benching, but worse at deadlifting and will fall into the first category. Guys with long arms will be better at deadlifting, but worse at benching and will fall into the second category. I compare the squat with the bench press in those guidelines because the squat isn't really affected by how long your arms are, making it a good reference point.

For the good morning people, your routine would look like this:

Session A

Squat

Bench

Row

Good Morning

Session B

Squat

Overhead Press

Deadlift

Pull-ups/Chin-ups

For the people doing dips, your routine will look like this:

Session A

Squat

Bench

Row

Dips

Session B

Squat

Overhead Press

Deadlift

Pull-ups/Chin-ups

I bet some of you can't do dips or pull-ups however. I know I couldn't when first starting out. Here's a simple way to build your strength on these movements:

During your sessions, do 10 sets of 1 rep. Space these out as far apart as you need to. Do these sets in between the sets of your other exercises. If you got all the reps successfully, add one rep to each set. If you can't get all the reps for all the sets, try again next time. The progression will look like this:

• 10 x 1
• 10 x 2
• 10 x 3
• 10 x 4
• 10 x 5

If you can't even do one rep, do negatives. That is, jump up to the top position of the movement, then slowly lower yourself down. Don't use the assisted pull-up/dip machine.

Once you can do 10x5 you're ready to do the movement with weight strapped on. Start out with 3 x 5 with 1.25kg strapped on. Add 1.25kg next time and so on, so it'll be:

• B.W + 1.25kg
• B.W + 2.5kg
• B.W + 3.75kg
• B.W + 5kg
• etc etc.

The weight increase is slow, but it's better this way because you won't stall as easily. If you stall with a weight 3 times, deload and work your way back up. You should be able to get up to around B.W + 20kg for 3 sets of 5 reps. If you cannot progress any further at this stage, you may wish to ramp the sets instead, e.g. B.W + 10kg x 5, B.W + 15kg x 5, B.W + 20kg x 5. Ramping the sets will allow you to handle heavier weights on the last set.