Assistance exercises involve smaller muscle groups like the upper arm, abdominals, calf, neck, lower back, etc., and involve only one primary joint. These tend to be considered less important to improving sport performance because they are involved in finer types of motor coordination.

It’s worth mentioning though, that these muscle groups are more often subject to chronic fatigue and, thus, injury. In this sense, assistance exercises play a primary role in prevention and rehabilitation. Also, they are useful for correcting muscle imbalances

These exercises recruit one or more of the large muscle groups, e.g. chest, shoulder, back, hip, or thigh, involve two or more primary joints, and should receive priority when selecting exercises due to their relative importance in regards to movement. In this sense, “core exercise” does not refer to abdominal work.

However, the different types of core exercises can be further broken down to:

• Structural exercise: These tend to demand loading the spine directly or indirectly. It involves stabilization of posture during the lift and maintenance of a rigid torso and flat back.
• Power exercise: Furthermore, a structural exercise that is performed explosively is called a power exercise.

Typically, neither of these are really appropriate for untrained individuals. Those who are trained should still be particularly mindful of technique, as well as the load being used, in order to avoid injury.

Here, an athlete performs a snatch, one of the most difficult power exercises to perform.

This is assuming you have a solid understanding of the nature of various types of resistance training exercises. The number of people that believe push-ups work your biceps is troubling…

For this reason, it’s vital you learn the basic principles of structural kinesiology. As complicated as that sounds, its really pretty simple and resorts to common sense once you grasp some of the fundamental concepts. Review chapters 1, 2, and 3 here for some general concepts in the development of motion.

Although you should have already laid out, and analyzed your “requirements”, this is where everything comes together. In other words, this is your specific training goal, which should transfer over to accomplishing your movement goals. The language here may seem a bit conflating, but understand that these are two different things. Typically, you will use the requirements gathered from the physiological analysis to lay out your primary goal:

• Strength
• Muscular Endurance
• Power
• Hypertrophy

There will probably be a desire to make improvements in more than one area at a time. While improvements might be made across the board in untrained individuals, you should still maintain focus on one, and only one, area of improvement. Again, there’s levels to this shit…don’t get caught up trying to do too much too quick.

Thanks to the principle of periodization, which should be a characteristic of all training programs, you have plenty of time to focus on those other areas at a later date.

Or at least that’s what Meek Millz and Kendrick Lamar keep saying…

But seriously, there is no “quick fix” when it comes to resistance training. You need to plan out the steps according to your needs and expectations. In other words:
http://youtu.be/59RSLhdGWQM

There are a number of assessments you can (and should) perform. Arguably the most important tests to perform, for all individuals, are alignment assessments. You might also include strength, endurance, flexibility, or body composition assessments.

Whatever assessments you choose, they should:

1. Apply specifically to an individual’s goals and requirements
2. Be consistent with current skill level
3. Based on equipment available.

Here is a list of fitness tests commonly used, but don’t be afraid to make up your own test if absolutely necessary.

Although they can seem troublesome at first, these are for your benefit. Without pertinent and reliable baseline data, you are going into this completely blind. There’s no way of knowing what to expect and, more importantly, to what extent you have progressed and what may or may not have been the factors related to that progression.

Training status refers to the level of resistance training experience an individual may have, as well as their current training level. A general classification scheme might go something like:

Always remember specificity. Someone who’s been training in ballet for 10 years is still a beginner with respect to resistance training. For athletes, or those who require a very specific time-table and model of progression, the current needs should be taken into account. This might look something like:

Now that you’ve fully assessed the functional goals and their requirements it’s time to assess the individual who will be working towards those goals. In certain cases you can assess yourself, but you will often need at least some assistance from another person.

Preferably, untrained individuals will see their family doctor for a medical physical before beginning any program but a more general assessment of the individual is required, either way.

In this sense, the injury analysis should only include general information regarding common sites of muscle or joint injury as it relates to the specific goal, as well as the known causative factors of those injuries.

Example

Let’s say you work at a factory or warehouse where you are often required to bend down and pick up heavy objects from the floor. An injury analysis of this requirement would include factors such as the incidence of back injury and what causes those problems.

There won’t always a common or well-established incidence of injury involved in your sport or activity, but that doesn’t mean an injury analysis is unnecessary. Always establish potential points of injury by applying your understanding of basic biomechanical principles.

If you don’t have access to a professional, here are a few resources to help with that:

• Structural kinesiology
• Basic principles of sports injuries
• General causes of musculoskeletal injury