Am I Regressing or Is It Just Fatigue + The Accessory Work Paradox

“Push your accessory work”, says all modern PL coaches, myself included.

The bitter truth of the matter that is both uncomfortable to discuss and also not as intuitive as other concepts is most lifters who are in year 1-3 of training are limited by muscle mass, not by technique and program design. Are there exceptions, you bet, but funnel 100 lifters of various backgrounds into the same training program and more than likely, the ones with a higher base of muscularity will probably make the most substantial progress.

However, with that comes a cost. A cost in the short term that will be paid back in the long term, but a cost nonetheless. Accessory work, especially of the multi-joint kind, can be incredibly fatiguing when coupled with higher intensity work (squat, bench, dead). So, it harms you in the short term, does not really pay off until much later, and people do very little or none and still make progress on their big 3 barbell lifts. What gives?

We will revisit that, for now, let’s look at fatigue and it’s effect on a lifter’s physiology, their psychology, and when it is intentional vs. not intentional.

Am I Regressing? I’m Working Hard But Not Getting Stronger and Actually Feel Weaker!

Perfectly valid concern, one that is a little more common in newer lifters but still reigns over intermediates and early-stage advanced trainees. It is very hard to apply a ton of effort into training, only for it to produce negative results. But how can this be?

Let’s break it down.

Most coaches enact a strategy, whether they know it or not, called functional overreaching to elicit adaptation. Functional overreaching is essentially applying stress for a temporary timeframe to exceed an individual’s normal recovery capabilities.

Now, you might be thinking, why would you intentionally push someone outside of their recovery capabilities, doesn’t that create fatigue?

Yes! It does. However, fatigue is not always a bad thing and leads us to the over-arching concept of supercompensation.

Supercompensation is a little tricky but I will try to break it down the best I can.

The theory states that you are to apply stress (functional overreaching) for a set period of time, remove stress for a set period of time, then, in theory, performance supercompensates past baseline.

The tough part of using this strategy is it does not scale 1-1 and it even changes for each individual lifter as they progress.

The other issue, is sometimes that can bleed into another concept called non-functional overreaching, which usually leads to maladaptation and in some cases, overtraining which surely will cause regression.

Non-functional overreaching in essence is a non-intentional reduction in performance due to a host of different variables that either can, or cannot be controlled by a training program.

Non-functional overreaching can come about due to any of the following:

• Too much training volume overall.

• Too much training volume, too soon.

• Too much training intensity, too often.

• Poor recovery (poor sleep, poor nutrition)

• A combination of any of the aforementioned.

As you can see, as a coach, you can control for some of these things, however, you cannot account for lifters doing extra work you do not have programmed, not sleeping, barely eating and drinking, thus, making this a concept that can come about seemingly out of thin air.

The problem with overreaching being non-functional in nature, is you cannot elicit supercompensation from it, and it usually requires emergency deloading, which disrupts a training plan. Usually this deload will only get you back to baseline, if that, and we typically don’t want to work twice as hard, feel twice as bad, just to have a net gain of 0.

If none of this makes sense, here is an analogy that might confuse you even more, but makes sense in my brain, so I shall share.

Functional Overreaching: Digging a hole at the beach, you fill the hole back up with the sand used, plus more from outside the perimeter, giving you enough sand to create a sandcastle.

Non-functional Overreaching: Digging the same hole, however the sand you used get’s stolen and you only have 1/2 the amount to fill back in.

Functional = you have the resources to get back to baseline, non-function = you do not have the resources to get back to baseline.

Moral of the story here, is you need a healthy amount of training volume to progress, however sometimes that volume or intensity can temporarily leave you fatigued to the point of reduced performance, this is nothing to worry about, if it was intentional, however if it was not, you might be in need of an emergency deload or lifestyle change.

A good rule of thumb is if you are experiencing an acute downshift in performance, you are fine, if you notice for a good 2 weeks that things just feel severely off, you need to address that.

The Accessory Work Paradox

Now, back to that accessory work thing.

So, by now, we know fatigue and regression kind of mask as each other, and come about in somewhat concrete manners.

Let’s throw accessory work into the mix!

Most training programs these days are “powerbuilding”, in nature, meaning they focus on heavy compounds for performance, and then higher volume single-joint accessory work for aesthetics and injury-prevention.

There is no issue with this approach, and one I default to more often than not, however, if you over-do this concept, it can elicit a massive amount of fatigue.

You see, the two fatigue producing variables in a training program are volume and intensity. When shifts up, usually, the other shifts down.

The main issue with powerbuilding is we tend to shift both up for too long and we experience negative drawbacks as a consequence.

For example:

• You are in a period where you are taking heavy, heavy deadlift singles twice a week.

• You are also doing anywhere from 15-20 sets of back work a week, where as you usually do 8-10.

• More than likely, the fatigue from these 2 compounding variables, will suppress strength on the top end.

Another issue arises in that this might not be a bad thing, but it is tough to comprehend psychologically.

For lifters who just flatout need to get bigger, pushing accessory work, even though it will mask top end performance, is necessary for long-term progress.

However, sometimes lifters will tend to think a higher volume, bodybuilding-esque approach, “didn’t work”, because they did not put 50lbs on their bench immediately after. The truth is you need to teach larger muscles to contract and produce force and that takes time.

The other issue, the main variable I have been noticing anecdotally, is the more multi-joint the accessory or assistance movement is, the more likely it is to generate a massive amount of fatigue.

I look at it like this, if a movement:

• Require multiple joints

• Can be handled for high absolute weights

• Requires a decent amount of training volume to be worth it

• Requires any sort of stability

It will generate much more fatigue than something that is:

• Single joint

• Cannot be handled for high absolute weights

• Does not require stability

Here is a practical example:

Team Hogan athlete, Logan Allaire, is a young lifter who is in year 1 of powerlifting training. As such, being super-specific with his approach will be inappropriate at best, injury-increasing likelihood at worst, so we vary his training with assistance things to yield more muscle mass without doing low bar squats, paused benchs, and coventional deadlifts.

Enter, the hack squat.

Logan is a strong squatter and can handle over 3 plates on the hack squat for a set of 12. We did everything in our power to mask this by using ascending sets, he would not use knee sleeves, adding a pause, etc…

Still he was getting close to 3 plates in this regard and it was really fatiguing him for his primary squats.

However, that was invaluable as this cycle, where we removed it, he is pause squatting 410lbs for a set of 3 @ 4 RPE, and making his comp singles move with pop like he did not have before.

The main point of this concept is if you make the concerted effort to push big, multi-joint movements, you need to be aware it will generate fatigue that can and most likely bleed over into your big barbell lifts. If you want to put stock into your future, this is worth it!

However, if you are peaking for a meet, it might not be a good use of time as you have a deadline to meet.

Should I Push or Should I Not Push?

Assess where you are.

If you have pretty good technique, if you are training each lift a few times a week, and your program design makes sense on paper, and you are slowing down or not progressing at all, it would probably signal to me, you need to put more stock into putting on size, doubly so if it is year 3 or less.

With every push, comes a pull, simply scale your expectation accordingly, you will never be disappointed in that regard.

To Utopia,

Erik