Accumulation Critique

This my plan for accumulation. I am really trying to focus on improving my absolute strength, specifically lower body, current 1rm below parallel squat=270-275),with a little bit of work on my speed and reactivity simultaneously. I was planning on sticking with this for anywhere from 3-6 weeks, or whenever my gains start to stagnate: (On a 7-day schedule)

Day 1-Bench4x6-8 @70-80%

Chins 4x6-8

Upper back/traps/arms

Day2- Low Depth Jumps onto box (6-12")
4-6x3

Back, Front or Box Squat (depending on how I feel)-Using different things like medium rep clusters, isos, pause squats etc. at 80% range

Lunge Variation 2x8, Leg Curl 3x8,

Day 4-Sprints <200 yards

Bench, Incline, or Floor Press etc. and have some leeway using isos, eccentrics etc. for 3-4 sets in 75% range

Horiztonal Pull/Rear delts/ arms

Day 6-Box Jumps 4-6x3
Back Squat 4x6-8 betwen 75 and 85%

Bulgarians 2x6-8, RDL 3x8

I should also note I’m playing twice a week, practicing 3-4 days additionally, and tempo twice a week but I don’t think these things take much away (college sports seem to have a way of shooting your work capacity to the moon). Regeneration techniques are also being utilized frequently (contrast shower, cold tub, foam roll, naps). Any feedback would be really appreciated. I want to make sure I’m doing this right. Thanks!

I would make several changes but i will only list a couple of the changes i would make:

1: drop the depth jump, no need during acc phase:

2: use the Prilepin’s Chart to help you guide volume.

3: I wouldnt start out at 80%, acc phase should be between 50-80% intensity. maybe you could go 65-70-75-80 over 4 weeks.

4: I wouldnt switch lifts like you are doing, keep the bp, bs.

5: Also u could keep the intensity the same for the week, for example tue: squats 5x6x70%, fri: squats 3x6x70%.

My thoughts –

  1. Drop the leg curls and lunges.

  2. 200M sprints? Some flying 30s will do, and maybe drop those if your game play and practice take the speed out of you.

  3. Agreed that 80% is too high to start at for accumulation.

  4. I’d drop depth jumps entirely.

  5. Why do box jumps during accumulation?

  6. Pointless, taxing and risky to rotate so much btw. squat variations. Possibly alternating back squats w/ front sq IF you notice an imbalance btw hammies and quads developing.

Also, you say your work capacity is high, but what about when the increase in output you expect during intensification kicks in? You may be surprised at how much your recovery needs change. Just a tiny example, I found max bench day took way more out of me at 280 lbs. max than it did at 240.

I dont see a problem with jumping onto a box and other simple jumps (lunge jump, squat jump etc).

It’s less important than my other points but my thought is that you are losing some quickness during acc so jumps may entrain a lower level of explosiveness. A minor point IMO --could go either way on this.

Alright, thanks fellas. So my changes are as follows:

-Drop the depth jumps. I’ll sub in either some normal vert jumps or some running 1 or 2 leg jumps.

-Keep the intensities the same in each week using Prilepins as a guide for sets and reps and increase each week by 5%. so wk. 1-70 wk. 2 75 wk. 3-80. Should I keep the set and rep scheme for both sq and bp the same for both workouts each week? Like wk.1- sq twice at 5x6 and bp twice at 5x6?

-Keep back squat and bp as main movement throughout.

-Is there a place for isometrics or med rep clusters in an acc.? CT says so. What are your guys’ thoughts? Thanks.

BTW, that’s not 200 m sprints. It’s 200 total yards of sprint work, which could be 8x 10 yd. 6x 20 yd.

bp could be 5x8 and bs 5x6 etc.

i havent done iso work and clusters i perfer in the max strength blk. be careful with some of ct stuff.

Juggler-

I don’t quite understand what you mean here, with the loss of some quickness. Could you elaborate a little? Are you referring to a potential loss of quickness in a depth jump? Thanks.

His point is during the acc phase you are doing higher strength volume which may cause some fatigue = slower ground contact times for ur jumps. This is why I said to perform simple jumps in this block - squat jumps etc.

Cool. Thanks Tam.

OK, while everything has been going good, I just found out today I’m going to be trying out for the US Maccabi team coached by Bruce Pearl June 7-8.

This obviously changes my planning for the off season. I had been planning on accumulating for 3 weeks, then intensifying for three weeks etc. in the near future.

I now have 30 days until the first day of the tryout. My idea for how to structure this is to continue accumulating for the rest of this week and the next (so 2 weeks total acc.). Then, intensifying for 2 weeks, which will leave me a week out from tryouts, where I’ll have my last lift roughly 5 days out, while I’ll just keep my basketball routine the same. Does this sound right?

I know conditioning is going to be huge at the tryout. I was thinking for the next 30 days, I’ll be playing 3 days a week and do tempo twice a week (5,000 yards between the two sessions) with increasingly lower recovery times (but should I stay below lactate area the entire time?) Let me know your thoughts. Thanks.

if you gonna have any speed/power test you should be in a maint phase for at least 2-3 weeks before the tryouts bc after going through a intense blk of training it normally take 3-4 weeks before you reach ur peak performance.

I agree, you don’t want to try to be at your best, usually, that soon after hitting really heavy weeks. I’ve had throwers that respond that way(but then they are not doing the plyo/sprint volume either) but most athletes need some maintenance/conversion time. You might consider just a week of accum followed by a week of strength and then two weeks of conversion. I’d probably say 1 or 2 weeks of accum followed by 2-3 weeks of mainten/conversion as I don’t know if you’d have time to even make a go of any strength weeks. If it’s five weeks total you could go one week accum., two weeks strength, two weeks of main/conversion or two weeks of strength and three of main.

What would either of you recommend for a maintenance/conversion phase for a point guard?

strength training total body 2-3 times per week, hitting squats once a week with 3x2x70-75%, also this is where ol lifts are huge bc they hit alot of muscle units.

But since OL’s are not already being done they should not be added at this point. There is enough already to adapt to.