Every Weightlifter Needs These 4 Accessory Exercises
Weightlifting is an amazing sport and fitness activity, but without strengthening key accessory muscles even the most jacked people have deficits in shoulder and hip stability groups that can lead to poor form, increased risk of injury, and joint pain.
As with most fitness activity pursuits, weightlifting is heavily biased towards frontal plane strength, or strength in the front and back muscle groups. As such, if the lifting athlete or gym fan focuses only on their main lifts (squat, deadlift, overhead press, chest press, snatch, and clean & jerk), they are neglecting the side and rotatory muscle groups that provide stability for these dynamic movements.
For most people, this blind spot in training may not even initially pose a problem and cause them grief. However, over time and increased loading, the imbalance increases as you build strength in the frontal plane without focusing on the accessories.
This first set of exercises focus on building up the gluteus medius, or what I like to call your side butt. I have found that lifters can be super strong in their gluteus maximus, quadriceps, and hamstrings but still fail a strength test in this one muscle. This is incredibly significant since gluteus medius is our key hip and knee stabilizer.
Exercises 1 and 2
Target muscle = Gluteus Medius
(picture of the monster walks)
(picture of standing hip abduction)
The second set of exercises focus on your shoulder stabilizers, the rotator cuff. Specifically, within the rotator cuff complex, I have commonly found that athletes are weak in their shoulder external rotator, the infraspinatus muscle. Its primary job is to rotate the arm outwards, but it is also the part of the cuff that is responsible for keeping your shoulders from rotating inwards as well as stabilizes your shoulder with lifting tasks, both at waist height and in overhead patterns.
Exercises 3 and 4
Target muscle = Infraspinatus
(picture of pulley neutral ER)
(pictures of pulley D1 and D2)
For heavy lifters, I recommend completing these accessory exercises after training so that you don’t contribute to form failure with your lifts. If you’re not lifting heavy right now, these make great exercises for active recovery in between sets or as a warm-up.
Next time you’re in the gym give these exercises a try and let me know what you think.
If you’re currently struggling with lifting related pain that you suspect might be due to accessory muscle undertraining, feel free to reach out to me or schedule an assessment today. We will create a specialized plan for getting back to lifting pain free!
Reach out to me at:
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info@equilibriumpt.clinic
206-867-0288
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