WestSide Training: Assistance Exercises

[ZZuluZ]

I've been doing some planning lately in an attempt to make the perfect WestSide routine which I'll be using next year.

I've read tens (maybe even a hundred+) articles about WestSide but there are some things which remain unanswered. Here are some of my questions about assistance exercises:


1.) How much rest between sets of assistance exercises?
2.) I?m really perplexed concerning assistance exercises on DE and ME days. I feel it could be overtraining to train triceps, lats, etc, twice a week including Max Effort PR?s and speedwork. I?ve been thinking: what about training each muscle only once a week? Or what about training rows on ME day and Pull-ups on DE day, etc??
3.) I understand the assistance exercises are not to failure, but how many reps should they be from failure? I guess this ties in with my previous question concerning whether or not to train each muscle group once or twice a week, also.
4.) What about for assistance exercises? Touch n go or pause? If pause; how long?
5.) Do you guys give assistance exercises to your bis, traps, forearms? Or do you only do it if you have a personal weakness in that areas.
6.) How many sets per assistance exercise?

An answer to any of these questions would be really helpful. For the sake of simplicity, it might be easier if we keep them numbered.

Thx a ton guys,

-Zulu

 

[endpoint]

http://www.testosterone.net/html/133per.html

1)read article (on tricep exercises they seem to recommend 15 seconds though)
2)because you arent going to failure the recoverey time is a bit quicker. I have no trouble gaining mass and strength when doing two days a week of assistance(as long as i eat)
3) one or two left in you
4)its easier with the videos.....extensions off the floor are pause and go(explosive)....but the rest a trained fairly quick
5)Depends on the day and how beat you are. sometime i will throw things like that in on a rest day....if i have enough time to recover i will throw them in on a training day.....ore even later that day
6)read article

 

[ZZuluZ]

Thanks for your input endpoint.

I re-read the article, for the third time actually....and it did indeed answer some questions which I hadn't remembered.

1.) It says 1-3 minutes. This is really vague. Are assistance exercises really for hypertrophy (in which case I'd only rest 1 minute) or should I give them sufficient rest. I also think that with 3 minutes rest between assistance exercises (which can be pretty high volume) my workout would last over 45 minutes.

2.) That's what I thought. I guess I'm just a bit skeptical....but I guess it'll work.
3.) Ok, makes sense I thought it might be 3-4 tho

4.) I'm still not sure about this. I don't know whether I should go explosively or whether I should NOT take advantage of the elastic energy at the bottom of each lift.

5.) The thing is, I'd still like to train most of those muscle groups, as I never plan on competing or anything. Do you think adding a few extra sets could lower recovery and damage the routine?? What about a short 20 minute routine at another point in the day just for calves, and bis, forearms, etc

6.) Got it, thx.

-Zulu