Part of what makes CrossFit so fun are the constantly varied workouts that involve your whole body each day. You show up for class, you see the different array of movements on the board, you do it, and then do it all over again tomorrow. While this is fun and exciting, it also leaves room for joints to be exhausted from the daily demand we put on them. That’s where accessory work comes in. If you’re reading “accessory work” and you’re thinking “what in the world is that”, let me explain. Accessory work, or accessory movements/exercises, are essentially the movements that complement the main exercises in order to support those muscle groups and/or help strengthen those supporting, smaller muscles.
If you look at traditional strength training, the focus is on building muscle by performing exercises that isolate muscle groups and progressively increase in weight over a period of time. With CrossFit, though we obviously lift heavy weights as well, the emphasis on performing exercises that isolate muscle groups is not as forward. That’s why having some accessory exercises in your back pocket is so key. We want to make sure that the demand we are putting on those bigger muscle groups and joints are supported by the smaller ones too. If we pair the intentional programming of CrossFit with the intentional design of accessory work, we’re setting ourselves up for longevity and a more pain free state of living. Who doesn’t want that?
In CrossFit, we tend to have four main areas of the body that get a lot of attention: knees, posterior chain, lats and shoulders, and core. I want to offer a couple of different accessory exercises per area that could help keep those areas of the body feeling good, moving smooth, and staying pain free.
Let’s start with knees. Our knees tend to get a lot of action due to the amount of squatting from wall balls, cleans, snatches, overhead, front, and back squats, thrusters, the list goes on. While all of these movements are good, the high demand can catch up over time. Here are a couple of movements to hopefully help keep those knees strong and healthy:
Let’s talk about our posterior chain next. Our posterior chain consists of the muscles on the back side of our body. You see this term more often used for our low back, glutes, and hamstrings. In CrossFit, we love to hammer the posterior chain. Again, this high demand on the posterior chain can lead to back or hip pain, or strained hamstrings (which nobody wants) if we are not intentional about adding in some accessory movements to help our posterior chains stay safe and strong. Some of my favorite accessory movements for the posterior chain are Sorensen Holds and Nordic Hamstring Curls.
With shoulders and lats, a lot of exercises can be interchangeable between the two, benefitting both areas at the same time. I would argue that these areas are the more predominantly used ones, and the ones most likely to need the most pain attention.
Last but certainly not least, core. Core is essential to all movements we do in CrossFit. What a majority of athletes struggle with core-wise is core stability and strength in rotation. We have what we call anti-rotation core exercises and rotational core exercises. Here are two anti-rotation exercises:
And lastly, for the rotational core exercise. Yes, our spine does need to rotate. If our spine needs to rotate, our core does too. Though there is not a lot of rotation in CrossFit, there is in life. And if we want fitness to be functional, we need to train as such.
There you have it. Accessory work is essential to your training to keep your body mobile, strong everywhere (not just the big muscles), and stable. If we want to move big weight for a long time, we must train small to be stable. Take some time, slow down your movements, be intentional with how you move, and do the dang accessory work. Your body will thank you for it.
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