First Meet, 5/3/1, and Basketball

This is my first post, but I have been visiting this site for a number of years and felt like I have learned a lot. Here is my question if someone has any experience with this program and sports; I love basketball, the competition of it, and for me personally it’s the only type of cardio exercise I can do. Jogging, stairmaster type machines are a slow death for me

I have an advantage of having a nice gym about a mile from work, so I have been working out over lunch.
Tuesday-squat
Thursday-Bench
Saturday-Deadlift

I follow the 5/3/1 protocols on these, and have been following this for about a year. I’m 44, and have recently found and I wish I had made this discovery about 20 years ago, that I love this type of workout. As I age, my bucket list has included at least once doing a powerlifting meet. I don’t care how I finish, I just want to try and I want to get all three lifts up to 315 to even think of it, right now I’m at a 285 bench, and 250 for squat and deadlift.

I know the numbers are all screwed up, I was the guy at the gym doing nothing but upper body workouts, with pencil legs. I had a severly broken arm, just below the shoulder blade when I was younger, and because of this, I can’t fully extend my arm straight up. It only affects me trying to do the MP, so I pass on this one.

Is it impossible achieving these type of powerlifting numbers, while still playing basketball on my off days. I don’t lift on the days I play, because my legs just can’t take it.

315 is definitely possible for squat and deadlift, bench might be more difficult since you are so far advanced in that.

315 across the board is very likely if you stick with it. If you’re benching 280 you can surely get that DL and Squat up to 315, just need to show them the same love you’ve shown the BP.

You say you’ve been doing 5-3-1 for about a year now. How have your numbers changed? Have you been doing it consistently? Seems to me that once you work consistently on the DL/squat, the disparity should shrink and pretty rapidly.

If you’ve been doing the same thing for a year and numbers are stagnant, maybe time to consider something new. StrongLifts 5x5, Madcows, WSFSB. Something that focuses on the major lifts and has proven to be succesful for others, but that attacks it in a bit of a different way than 5-3-1.

I feel ya on the cardio man, I’ve never been able to do any sustained running unless a ball and some type of scoring are involved. I’ve actually been looking to join a men’s league myself for a couple nights a week since I can’t bring myself to just run. I don’t see how playing basketball will hold you back. If anything it should help.

Your goal seems easily attainable. In a years time doing 5-3-1 the correct way your lower body lifts should in theory go up 100 lbs. In my opinion i would do this. Do your big lifts like normal and use basketball as your "conditioning " part of the program. You can even do your big lifts on same day as bball as long as its spaced away from it far enough apart in hours.
Good luck.

Thanks for the feedback, my numbers at the start was pretty bad. I was literally starting at the bottom with my squat and deadlift, so I was doing 135 on each. But I can do about 250 for each. Right now I have noticed that my hamstrings have been really bothering me, so I have been trying to do more stretching and ham raises. I was curious if anyone else attempted to do both, I’ve heard the phrase on here, that you can’t serve two masters at once, but I love trying to combine the two areas.