I grabbed my training partners tonight because I was struggling with a topic for this week's blog post. I have some I'm working through, but I haven't fleshed them out yet. Nate had a great one tonight- the younger generation of lifters, primarily college age USAPL lifters, and what to make of their training methodology.

As a general observation, these kids follow: High Frequency, High Specificity, and Little to No Assistance Work.

Is this good or bad? I guess it depends on who you ask, but if you ask me it leaves a lot on the table in terms of progress. It creates a small window that most of them will not find a way through in terms of getting stronger.

Issues as I see them:

1. Technique- if you train this way and your technique isn't perfect, then you will be hard pressed to improve because whatever muscle groups are strong will get stronger, and those that are lagging won't get any love. Aka you have no way to address weak points if you're technique isn't perfect-and I'll bet my left nut it's not.

2. Flexibility- If your progress stalls, the only thing you can do is change your sets or reps. I guess you could change your frequency but I would bet that a lifter of this experience and mindset would just as soon increase their frequency before backing off.

3. Boredom/Discipline- Who's excited for Sheiko?? No one. Not even the Russians. They do it because they don't ask questions. This is America. You should be asking questions. And you shouldn't be squatting everyday.

Most of you reading this are probably thinking, "yeah, no shit we need assistance work." So in an attempt to formulate a takeaway for those of you who already consider assistance work holy...

1. Are you focusing on your technique when it comes to your assistance work, or are you just going through the motions? I know there was a time in my training where I focused on getting it done, instead of asking what exactly am I getting done? It can be the difference in hand placement on the SSB, or grip width on a bench, or where are those rows targeting your back?

2. Is your assistance work the same as it was six months ago? How about six years ago? Maybe it should be. Maybe you've hit the nail on the head and keep hammering the same assistance work and getting stronger meet after meet. If you're not, have you become rigid in your assistance work?

3. Don't Sheiko your assistance work. Wendler refers to it as majoring the minors. We can go overboard in many facets of powerlifting. Too much specificity or not enough and too much assistance work- or the wrong assistance work.

Stay woke.