Great Question From Guarden:

Why only increase work capacity in your assistance exercises?

This is a great question.

Actually, I am trying to increase my work capacity through, not necessarily in, my assistance exercises.

In all sports, technique is skill. The same is true in weightlifting--the snatch and the clean and jerk; and powerlifting with the squat, bench, and deadlift. These want to be practiced while you're as fresh as possible creating as little fatigue as possible. Why? The secret to great strength according to Zatsiorsky is to train as often as possible, as fresh as possible, creating as little fatigue as possible.

How do you do that if you're not Bulgarian and training five times per day with a nap between each session?

Since your strength is a skill, if you practice your events under fatigue, you will destroy the motor pattern due to systemic fatigue, local muscular fatigue, and stabilizer fatigue. This is why bodybuilders, generally speaking, have large legs, but cannot squat the nearly the same amount as their powerlifter cousins. Since your strength levels are limited by accumulated systemic (read: neural) fatigue, the only way to build strength reserves is through non-CNS intensive exercises and training protocols. This is where assistance work comes in. (This, by the way, as the name suggests, is why it is called "assistance work." It "assists" in the development of the main sporting skill. Not trying to be sarcastic here, just stating a fact.) So, for weightlifters, exercises that are similar to, but not identical to the classic lifts are used: pulls, jumps, back extension exercises, etc. Powerlifters, especially those who subscribe to the "Westside Philosophy" of conjugate loading, use variations of the powerlifts. Some IPF lifters from Russia do increase the total volume of the classical lifts. I don't know enough about the older/experienced lifters training protocols to speak on there training. Weightlifters use the squat as a general strengthening exercise for the snatch and the clean and jerk. And not only that, earlier in a weightlifter's career, both the volume and intensity are increased, according to Medvedyev. As he ages and attains sport mastery, the volume remains relatively constant and the loading is intensified. (I think I'm digressing--it's late...)

So again, the point of building work capacity through assistance work is to spare the CNS from too much fatigue and to preserve the sporting skill, in this case, the lifting of a barbell.

It is also interesting to note that what may be a sporting skill for one sport may be used as an assistance exercise for another sport. For example, powerlifters compete in the squat, but the squat is traditionally used in the US strength and conditioning profession to develop overall strength, but not necessarily limit strength.

So for me personally, because I have so many years under the iron, my body is very efficient at the pulling and squatting motor patterns. They don't need a volume based approach. In fact, from my experience, I can't recover from a volume-based approach. But in order to keep my "wind" or ability to do the work I need to do to progress by using an intensity-based approach, I need to find similar exercises that strengthen the muscles I am using for my sporting events without trashing my CNS and destroying my lifting "groove." That's where kettlebells come in.

Hopefully, that makes sense.