Can ratios of assistance lifts to main lifts be used to indicate weaknesses?

deadlybuzzman

I'm asking this based on what I only figured out over the last few weeks. For a long time my deadlift which was always the lift that I had the most steady progress on had stalled.
I thought the problem was that I had weak hamstrings as I was very quad dominant in the deadlift and if I stood closer to the bar and pulled more with the posterior chain I was far far weaker.
Then the penny dropped only a few weeks back that maybe my glutes were the weak link. Fast forward a bunch of sessions that included low rep glute bridges and things have started moving again.
So I'm wondering in general by looking at what someone's numbers are in assistance work as percentages of the big lifts can a person figure out for themselves what is holding back their progress? Eg pause squat to regular squat, board press to bench, rack pull to deadlift etc

drdeadlift

Its a big puzzle,but its a nice feeling putting your finger on the problem then fixing it

Alf Veedersane

I don't know if you could say more than a weakness at certain lifts might indicate specific areas to be addressed.

For example, does a relatively weak front squat or high bar squat indicate that your quads need to be brought up? Or could it just be that you don't train it enough or your technique for those is off?

Maybe a combination of watching the big 3 in action along with comparing assistance exercises, you could diagnose.

deadlybuzzman

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

I don't know if you could say more than a weakness at certain lifts might indicate specific areas to be addressed.

For example, does a relatively weak front squat or high bar squat indicate that your quads need to be brought up? Or could it just be that you don't train it enough or your technique for those is off?

Maybe a combination of watching the big 3 in action along with comparing assistance exercises, you could diagnose.

The front squats a great example of something that could throw a spanner into the works of my idea, although that said maybe from a coach's point of view if two clients had similar squat numbers but dissimilar numbers on for example the same hack squat, it could be used where the sample size is more than just one person maybe?

Alf Veedersane

deadlybuzzman wrote: »

The front squats a great example of something that could throw a spanner into the works of my idea, although that said maybe from a coach's point of view if two clients had similar squat numbers but dissimilar numbers on for example the same hack squat, it could be used where the sample size is more than just one person maybe?

It might be useful then. But it depends.

For example, my high bar numbers were terrible in relation to my low bar. But then I usually avoided high bar.

When I had a block of high bar earlier in the year, I brought it up to where I did 4x4 at 82% of my 1RM with low bar and I would have been confident of a single at ~90% of low bar.

When people end up GMing up out of the hole on a squat, it's often because the quads are weak and the knees get extended too quickly so that the posterior chain gets the lion's share of the work. But it might also be that there isn't enough upper back tightness and the person lets the upper back fold over and pushed down in the hole and they end up with a GM.

So, I think you could use relative intensity of certain assistance exercises to try and identify weak points but in isolation I'm not sure they'll tell you a whole lot.

Caliden

Paused variations of the big 3 as well as pin squat/bench and rack pulls can highlight where you're weakest. (or where you have room for improvement)