Off-Season Part 1

Right now is an exciting time with the team and off-season training. For the first couple weeks it was a lot of regeneration work and getting everyone rested up and healed from the season. Now, we have began our Accumulation phase. They really need a lot of work capacity in order to set them up for the Winter program. Some of the things that I have taken into consideration with this block of the program:

Time under Tension (TUT):

This, for hypertrophy reasons, as well as hypertrophy of certain muscle fiber types is very important. The goal is to increase cross section size of slow/oxidative fibers which will increase speeds at AT. This is extremely important to build this capacity in a sport where there are many repeated bouts.

Corrective Work:

In no way is this inclusive to only focus on corrective exercises for specific areas, though we do hammer those, it also includes making sure we correct many imbalances that occur from the sport itself. We focus a lot on the quality of our horizontal pulls as well and getting our main hip stabilizers up to par as well.

Team Building:

One of the main ways I have instilled some quality team building within our workouts is simply how I grouped the athletes. In previous years we had set times and lifting partners. This was alright but not effective if both partners weren't very intrinsically motivated. Now, we have three larger groups (skill, semi-skill, Bigs) and since we have enough equipment they all are performing the same lift at the same time. The results have been great and the decibel level has risen significantly. When your athletes are being held accountable by the team they usually start to make sure they don't embarrass themselves and most of the time lifting with great effort will be the cure or that.

We are rapidly approaching Christmas break and when we get back we have testing. I am exited to see the results and seeing where we have to build off of. But as of now, the most important aspect of the whole program so far has been the team building or the emotional readiness of the team. Psychology can do wonders for the human body in terms of readiness, stimulation, and personal accountability. I will get some videos up soon with some example exercises/template and how we are utilizing them. Besides that GO HAWKS...BCS victory awaits!

Accumulation mesocycle...what is it?

If you are familiar with the current block periodization concept, you will know that there are three basic phases. Accumulation, Transmutation, and Realization. A great general explanation of BPC is that the training workloads are concentrated down to one or two qualities to be developed. This is to produce sufficient stimulus needed to allow adaptation of an advanced athlete. Each block or mesocycle is sequenced to develop a specific ability based of the residual effect of the preceding block, allowing you to focus on new qualities while maintaining others. Now lets get into the Accumulation phase.

Accumulation mesocycles/blocks are to enhance the athlete's potential, that is to improve basic motor abilities, as well as basic technique. . (Zatsiorski 1995) This compared to others is usually done with high volumes and relatively lower intensity. In a majority of sports this would imply that a primary focus of your training would be to enhance aerobic capacities and maximal strength. Usually this is the longest block as well it has the longest residual, it mainly depends on the athletes needs and time available before competition. With this logic it follows that an increase in sports results upon entering competitive exercise (transmutation) because of the level achieved in general preparation. (Bondarchuk 2007)

Results of Accumulation block due to its ability to expand the aerobic capacities would be lower heart rate, improved sleep quality, increased parasympathetic state, increased endurance. As stated before the expanded capacities will allow for more room to develop the following block.

Some things to avoid is exercises over anaerobic threshold. High intense glycolitic exercise cause profound metabolic response and hormonal shift that can last 2 or 3 days. (Viru 1995) This is one of the training qualities that would conflict with aerobic EST and therefore should be avoided.

Following the Accumulation Block, you would follow with transmutation. This is where the benefits of your expanded capacities will pay off as you use them to develop into more specific qualities to your sport.

Start of Block 1 Accumulation phase

Tomorrow marks the first day of my annual plan. It will begin with trying to expand the potential of my systems while maintaining max strength and power. Some key things i hope to improve are eccentric hypertrophy of the cardiac system as well as expanding my fast twitch capacity.
This will involve lots of tempo work to build mitochondria in my slow twitch along with low volume strength work. My energy systems will include steady state sled drags, circuits, and med ball drills for time as well as some loaded short duration activity for FT capacity. All under anaerobic threshold. Looking forward to a great training block.
I got many great ideas for this plan from collaborating with Bill Hartman and from several valuable resources on these methods. Some suggested reading would be anything from Issurin, Viru, or Zatsiorsky.