Why 3×10 Accessory Work Doesn't Work

July 12, 2025

So the reason that your accessory work is so important is because it is where you are able to get into positions and to get into movements that you otherwise would not get into. And what I mean by that is, let's you have your main lifts, you have your main moves, which is like a press, a pull, a hinge, a squat, a sprint, a jump, whatever, right? 

You have the more global moves that are more output-based. If you never get into the small areas and the smaller tissues in your accessory work, like you never work, you know, end range adduction, end range abduction, end range hip internal and external rotation. You never work like flat. Extension of the toes, you never work any of these small areas.

We literally never get those joints into their end ranges because everything that we're doing is that high output type of stuff. So, if you look at your accessory work and it's like three or four exercises that are done for like two or three sets of 10, understand that you're missing out on the ability to actually get into those smaller tissues to access those. 

Full ranges, so they can then support the more global moves that you make. Because if you don't do that in your accessory work, there's never going to be a period of time where you're able to actually do that because that is where that happens. Right. So the accessory work is not something to be to be brushed aside— it's not something to be taken lightly; it's not something to just be done and be like, 'I got it done in 20 minutes.' It's as important or more important than that higher output stuff you do because it is what supports it.

Right? But you have to actually physically do it— like you have to actually physically put yourself in very difficult positions in the ranges. Allow your body to see that it's okay. It can be comfortable there. It doesn't have to freak out when it's there, right? 

And that will then allow those to be accessible to you when you go into your sport or when you go into whatever else it is that you're doing. But again, you have to actually physically do it. You have to actually physically put yourself in those positions.