Accessory work is the same for all of the lifts. Find out which lifts are you worst and work them. In regards to the squat: if you are terrible at good mornings, work these into your routine. If you have weak hamstrings and glutes, start hitting the glute ham raises. Admitting to yourself you have a weakness is a huge step forward.
Everyone has them, and they should be addressed. Many guys will do what allows them to do the most weight; however, this is going to build deficiencies. I didn’t do much training for my quadriceps for a long period of time, and I developed a huge deficiency. This lead to a slew of injuries because I was compensating for this with other muscles.
Mick Manley’s Twelve-Week Training Cycle
By MICK MANlEy
I pick an accessory movement and stick with it until it stops making progress. Some may not agree with this and switch it up every three weeks or so, but I think a lift can increase steadily for a lot longer than three weeks.
Some of my favorite accessory movements include:
• Good mornings: 3 sets of 8
• Weighted planks (abs): 3 sets (30-45 seconds)
Your accessory work shouldn’t be as hard as your main movements. If you are doing all of the sets, you should be very tired and not even want to do the assistance work. You should have 3-5 more reps left when doing your assistance work.
DEADlIFT:
You take your most recent one-rep max to depth.
Ex: Let’s say it’s 733 pounds. You then take this and multiply it by .95. This makes the base number 695.
Week 12: 70-75%, 4 sets of 3, 60-65% standing on one 100-pound plate for 4 sets of 3 Week 11: 65-70%, 4 sets of 4, 70-75% pulls off a 2-block (rack pulls are ok) for 6 sets of 4 Week 10: 75-80%, 4 sets of 3, 75% pulls off a 3-block for 5 sets of 3
Week 9: 80-85%, 4 sets of 3, 65-70% standing on one 100-pound plate for 3 sets of 3 Week 8: 75-80%, 5 sets of 3, 70-75% pull off a 2-block for 3 sets of 3
Week 7: 85-90%, 4 sets of 2, 75-80 pull off a 3-block for 2 sets of 2 Week 6: 75-80%, 2 sets of 4 (this is your down week)
Week 5: Max out: you want to hit a minimum of 100% for 3 singles. I would usually go up to 100%, and if it’s easy, make another jump. If it’s easy yet again, I’d go up.
Week 4: 95%, 2 sets of 1
Week 3: 70-75%, 4 sets of 2 (you are now de-loading) Week 2: 60-65%, 4 sets of 2
Week 1: 50-55%, 4 sets of 2 (this is done Tuesday, the week of the meet)
Just like in the squat, you want to make sure you are getting the work in. It is not going to be fun doing almost 40 working reps in a workout, but IT WORKS! If you are feeling weak, do the lower end of the percentages. Just make sure the work is done.
I usually put my suit on every week during my training cycle. The straps will go up for anything over 500 pounds, but I don’t wear briefs under my deadlift suit either. I like to make sure every pull looks the same, so I think wearing straps up will help ensure this.
My accessory work is pretty minimal on these days because I am usually destroyed from this routine. I would
usually do some ab work, a little light lower back work to get the blood flowing, and also some quad work.
• Front squats: 3 sets of 5
• Hyperextensions: 3 sets of 8
• Ab wheel: 3 sets (I usually do 2 kneeling sets and 1 standing set)
BENCh:
Most of you will probably stop reading after this because my bench sucks! Haha! It has come a long way, though. During my first meet, I benched a whopping 303 pounds in a shirt. During my latest training cycle, I hit 485 pounds… and it was very easy.
For my bench workout, I don’t have a set percentage I use. I just picked some numbers that allowed me make progress with the setup I designed. You should start with weights that are easy and will get harder over time.
I still used the three-week waves, so I wasn’t constantly going heavy. I worked up to a heavy 3-board and then went down in boards. I think this method gets you pretty close to what you would feel like after doing a squat in a meet since you are overloading with the 3-boards and coming down to your chest.
You will start over with your light week every third week. Your light week weights will be the same weights as your last medium week.
3b = 3-board 2b = 2-board 1b = 1-board
Here is a copy of the exact weights I did for my last training cycle:
Week 12 (light) 405x2, 3b 455x2, 3b 475x2, 3b then 2b 455x1, 1b Week 11 (heavy) 455x2, 3b 495x2, 3b 520x2, 3b, 475x2, 2b then 1b 455x1, chest Week 10 (medium) 455x2 3b
495x2, 3b 455x2, 2b then 1b 435x1, chest
Week 9 (light)
505x2, 2b then 1b 485x1, chest Week 1
Work up to 95% of your opener to your chest or 1b (1b if you touch easily, chest if you don’t)
At Big Iron, we wear our shirts every week. Rick Hussey was a huge advocate of this, and I’ve stuck to it.
My accessory work is dependent on my weaknesses. I recently found that I am terrible at the standing military press, so I started working those in. Find what you are bad at and work it! Since my deadlift day doesn’t have any upper back work, I usually do about four back movements on my bench day.
Some of my favorite accessory movements include:
• Incline barbell: 3 sets of 5-8 reps
• Chest machines: 3 sets of 8
• Hammer dumbbell press: 3 sets of 8
• Dips: 3 sets of 8
• Dumbbell lateral raises: 3 sets of 8
• Reverse flyes: 3 sets of 8
• Military press: 3-5 sets of 5-8 reps (these can be tough, so choose sets and reps based on how you feel)
• Pulldowns: 3 sets of 8
• Pull-ups: 3 sets of 8
• Low rows: 3 sets of 8
• Face pulls: 3 sets of 12
When doing my accessory work, I will usually do one to two exercises for chest, two to three exercises for shoulders, and three to four exercises for back.
Fourth training day—Lockout work and additional accessory:
Since I don’t do a lot of accessory work after my bench and dead lift days, I add most of the accessory work onto this day since I’m usually pretty beat and am usually at the gym for over two hours each time. This allows me to get in and out of the gym in a timely fashion and allows more quality accessory work.
Rick always stressed lockout work for bench. Some of the bench-only guys would be in their shirts twice a week—once on bench day and the other on lockout day. For me, it causes too much stress and my weights go down, so I don’t usually shirt up on my lockout day.
I will usually pick out a movement that works on the lockout first. On many weeks, we are doing some form of close-grip bench press (CGBP). There are a lot of different variations you can do with this movement. You can do them to your chest, to boards, against bands, reverse bands, with chains, against bands with boards, reverse bands with boards, or with boards and chains. You can also vary the grip you are using—three fingers in from your regular bench grip to shoulder width.
I will usually do three to five reps and three to five working sets. You want to keep these pretty easy and fast as this is not a main movement—it is an accessory day.
Next, I will usually do something like weighted dips. I prefer doing compound movements that hit the majority of the muscles I’m training that day. Thus, since dips hit chest, shoulders, and triceps, it’s a very good lift. I do three sets of eight reps for weighted dips and try to increase the weight a little bit each week.
Next, I would move on to standing dumbbell shoulder press or the military press. I would usually do three sets of five to eight reps. My next movement would be a rear delt movement, like the reverse fly machine or reverse dumbbell flyes. I do three sets of eight reps on these.
After my shoulder movements, I move on to back. I like to do weighted pull-ups or some sort of row first. If I do pull-ups, I try to do at least 30 reps total. Depending on the weight, I may do six sets of five or four sets of eight. It doesn’t matter; I just go for 30 reps total. If I’m doing a rowing movement, I do three sets of five.
Next, I will usually do pulldowns supersetted with face pulls. Pull downs are three sets of eight, and face pulls are three sets of twelve.
As you can tell, this day is not as structured as the other days; however, since it’s an accessory day, a lot of it is determined by how you feel. If you are feeling really run down, then you will want to do the lower end of weights and sets. If you are feeling good, you can push it a little.
The best piece of advice that I can give anyone who has started lifting, has been lifting, or is thinking about lifting is this:
Stay consistent. That is the hardest thing to do, in my opinion. Whether it’s lifting, dieting, sleeping, or stretching, all of it needs to be consistent. Set a reasonable goal and get it done. It’s great to have long-term goals and to dream big, but in this sport that usually takes a lot of time. So setting short-term goals is going to keep the progress steady and the discouragement at a minimum!
The NFL combine and numerous pro days punctuate the dreadfully long hockey and basketball seasons and provide us with the glimmer of gridiron we desperately need—following the hangover of bowls, bandwidth burdening fantasy football leagues, and heated bar side debates. The NFL combine and pro days, specifically the battery of performance indicator tests, reinvigorates the training spirits of weekend warriors that seemingly froze over during the barren and frigid winter months. Legions of meatheads, hailing from every training sect and athletic background imagin-able, undeservingly attempt to hold themselves to the standards of college football’s elite. Some-times curiosity and male bravado temporarily encroach on our training focus, forcing many of us to surrender to the question of where we’d stand among NFL prospects. One test, in particular, has had a mystifying stranglehold on meatheads and strength training brethren—the 225-pound bench press test.
Some coaches swear by it. John Lott, the very animated Arizona Cardinals strength coach and unofficial combine bench press cheerleader, feels that if a player performs well on the test, then it’s evident that they busted their ass preparing for it—exemplifying the requisite accountability and dedication it takes to become a professional football player. Some feel that the test is a measure of unearthing shoulder health issues. Others denounce it, questioning its validity and correlation to on-field performance. A number of the all-time top performers in the 225-pound bench press didn’t even crack a game day roster, and those that did didn’t necessarily enjoy noteworthy careers.
Either way, it’s a test that’s going to be cemented in football combines and showcases for a while, so all of the football players reading: You better get damn good at it. Fair or not, your athletic, aca-demic, and financial future will unnecessarily hinge on tests to measure your speed, agility, power, and in the case of the 225-pound bench press, muscular endurance… even if you have some electrifying game tape and an impressive résumé.
ThE 225-POUND BENCh PRESS
Whether your goal is to have a bronze bust in Canton or to get enshrined into the Commercial Gym Meathead Hall of Fame, you better possess a workable foundation of strength and a rock solid technique on the bench press. If you can’t bench 225 pounds for a single, you might want to hone-in on improvhone-ing your limit strength. Moreover, if you register fewer than 10 reps of 225 pounds, or can’t perform a one-rep maximum with 300 pounds, you should invest in getting stronger before you worry about tackling 225 pounds for more reps. These numbers may appear as if they were plucked out of the sky; however, they represent numbers of which a majority of dedicated lifters and football players should be capable. Although research indicates that local muscular endurance does not correlate well to one-rep maxes in trained subjects (2), it should be noted that this holds true when repetitions are performed below 75% of 1RM.
MUSCUlAR ENDURANCE
Again, the 225-pound bench press is a test of muscular endurance. Muscular endurance is defined as the ability of a muscle or muscle group to sustain a specific force of power output. A person’s muscular endurance is determined by a constellation of factors which include: limit—or maximal strength, muscle mass, muscle physiological cross-sectional area, muscle fiber type distribution,