Choose the right weight for your accessories

Ah yes, the age-old question and a topic that in my opinion really defines how much you get out of a training session.  Choosing the weight to use is less of a science and more of an art form when it comes to completing the accessories in your training session. 

First and foremost, you’ve got to understand the intent of the movement and why you’re doing it.  The point of accessory work is to target a muscle, or group of muscles, to strengthen and grow them as a means to support advances in your main lifts.  

Let’s take one of our favorite Look Strong Naked accessories…the Bulgarian Split Squat.  The Split Squat is a great way to target your quads and glutes.  By building and strengthening your quads and glutes your squat is sure to go up as well, right?  Now the challenge here is going to be picking a weight that’s appropriate to get a good stimulus and force those muscles to really work.  Pick a weight that’s too light and you’ll just be able to casually stroll through your reps without much of a challenge…we don’t want that.  Pick a weight that’s too heavy and you’ll have a hard time maintaining your balance and controlling the movement, maybe dropping to the ground too quickly so you don’t get the benefit of the eccentric part of the rep, and then having to use body English to stand back up…we don’t want that either.  In this case you’re going to want a weight that allows you to maintain control and good form in the movement and at the same time challenge your leg muscles to work.  

I like to use the Reps in Reserve method to gage how heavy I should be going.  If I can complete my set and be within 2-3 reps of failure, then I know I’m in a good spot.  If I feel like I’ve got more in the tank than that, I’ll go up in weight for my next set.  If I’m struggling to even hit my prescribed number of reps and hitting failure during my set, then obviously it’s time to drop the weight a little bit.  And you might find you need to drop the weight in the midst of your sets as you get more fatigued, and that’s perfectly fine, it’s important to be able to set your ego aside and get good, quality work in.  

At the end of the day it comes down to how your feel, there are a number of factors that are going to play into it, like what you did beforehand, how much time you’re resting between sets, how deep into the workout you are, etc.  The important thing to look for is progression over the course of time; let’s say at the start of the program you’re doing split squats with a 40lb DB, by time week 8 comes around we want you to be doing more than that.  The Train Heroic App is a great way to track that as well.  Don’t be afraid to push and challenge yourself in order to achieve that progression, but make sure that you’re getting quality reps in.  It will take some trial and error so don’t be afraid to change the weight between sets to find that sweet spot!

Author: Gary Piotrowski