Too much weight on accessory lift?

Training Q&A [Moderated]
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Howdy!

Is it ill advised to do a relatively heavy accessory lift, provided it is still in the estimated RPE?

48 year old male, 215lbs, 6’2”

I have been doing weighted hip thrusts with 495 lbs. for reps of 10, still in the 6-7 RPE range. (my best squat is 1x410 and my best dead was 495x1. This was over 2 years ago, and I dont max out anymore because I find I loose strength for a few weeks after each 1 rep max. My estimated 1 rep max are higher now, but nowhere close to being able to do 495x10 at an RPE of 6-7). Should I be doing something else with less weight?

“well, is this working? Are you seeing progress in your deadlift and squat?”

I was seeing a big jump in my squat and deadlift, but that seems to have stalled. I’ve had a few small low back tweaks that might slow me down for a week, and then I gradually build back up.

“Why not do something like a good morning as an accessory lift?”

Well, I have found that good mornings (and Nordic hamstring curls) tend to irritate my proximal hamstrings attachments by the ischium. I also found that when it comes to legs, I generally do better with a little less axial load; I don’t mind it during the workout, I just feel my overall strength sometimes stalls in the long run if I’m doing two deadlift exercises in one day (e.g. paused deadlifts for main day 4 lift, and then Romanian deadlifts as a accessory lift, although I really enjoy Romanian deadlifts). I exercise in my garage (extended power cage so I can bench/press in one area and deadlift/squat in another). However, it can be difficult to find some single joint isolation exercises. Still doing the gen 1, 4 day low fatigue program (I purchased version 2, but I think the workouts will take longer than I have time for).

I am totally open to going back to good mornings or Romanian deadlifts, or slowing the tempo of the hip thrusts to limit the load. The other secondary assistant exercise I always do is lunges, either with a belt squat attachment or with dumbbells. I wouldn’t mind doing two variations of lunges for my accessory lifts, unless you guys think that that is too much stress? Most likely I am overthinking this, but would appreciate any insight or guidance.

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Craig,

Thanks for the post. I like these sorts of questions, as I usually learn something when going through my thought process.

To start, let’s take a step back and define an “accessory” lift. I define it as any lift we are not prioritizing, which is typically evident by placement later in the workout, shorter rest periods, etc. I don’t really differentiate “supplemental” and “accessory” lifts, though I do use this nomenclature to indicate a medium priority exercise (supplemental) and a lower one (accessory).

Next, what’s the purpose of an accessory lift? In a strength-focused template, an accessory lift should contribute to improved strength potential via adding muscle mass in a key muscle/muscle group, improving technique in a priority lift, and/or reducing injury risk via training an otherwise underdeveloped/underexposed muscle/muscle group.

With that in mind, how do we go about picking a good accessory exercise? We’d generally want an accessory lift to have pretty good specificity (for a strength program) and maximize training load (not cause too much fatigue).

It seems like you may be concerned that the hip thrust is causing too much fatigue (from the weight) and subsequently hampering your squat and deadlift progression. This may be true, so one option is to change to a paused hip thrust (at the top) or single leg version and see if your hypothesis is correct.

Alternatively, it’s possible that the hip thrust is not specific enough to either lift to really cause much overlapping fatigue or fitness adaptations. In that case, modifying what you do with the hip thrust is unlikely to matter and you should either change the exercise to something more specific or allocate more training load to the priority lifts.

Lastly, it’s possible the hip thrust load is unrelated to your squat and deadlift progression and due to other factors.

From my perspective, I don’t think a high (or low) absolute load of an accessory lift bothers me with respect to training load management. Instead, I think issue regarding your squat and deadlift progression is more likely related to other lifts’ programming and execution vs. anything to do with the hip thrust or that exercise slot at all. Still, the hip thrust is pretty non-specific. If we’re needling on it, I think a more specific variation would work well here, likely something with a tempo component and low proximity to failure given your reported history of back tweaks and recovery concerns.

FWIW- I suspect gen 2 will actually be shorter in workout length than gen 1.

2 Likes
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Wow! Thank you for this well thought out answer, Dr Feigenbaum. This helps to clarity a lot of my concerns.