Home Posts tagged "In-Season Training for Baseball"

7 Ways to Maintain Strength During Baseball Season

Today's guest post comes from Cressey Sports Performance - Massachusetts Director of Performance, John O'Neil.

With the off-season winding down, many players are wondering how to maintain the strength they put on during the off-season. Here are seven simple but effective ways to maintain strength during the baseball season.

1. Maintain Body Weight.

Here at CSP, we spend all off-season putting 10, 15, and sometimes 20 pounds on athletes to help increase their ability to produce force. Sports are won by those who exhibit greater Rates of Force Development (RFD), and, the limiting factor for many youth athletes is the ability to produce gross amounts of force. A larger person has a better chance of producing force. If your mass is decreasing throughout a season, maintaining the same levels of force production will be difficult.

Make sure to consistently weigh yourself during the season. If you tend to be a guy who struggles to keep weight on, make sure to bring food with you to the field and stay properly hydrated. Sneaking in extra calories pre- and post-practice, in addition to occasionally having something to eat mid-game, could go a long way in maintaining body weight. Be sure to read EC’s article, 8 Tips for Not Wasting Away During Summer Baseball, too, if you haven’t already.

2. Consolidate Stressors.

This is a fancy way of saying to make your harder days focused on building yourself up and letting your easy days be focused on recovery. If you’re at the field six days a week, a seventh day of rest might be exactly what you need, instead of hitting the gym on day seven. Try and sneak in weight room sessions on the same days that you have extensive on-field work. All stress is stress. For example, a position player who is on his feet for 2+ hours a day six days in a row probably needs the seventh day to rest and would get a much greater benefit from stacking lifting weights on top of a few of the harder days during the week. Know that if you’re not taking care of your recovery modalities (through sleep, nutrition, lifestyle), your body’s ability to absorb and adapt to stress will be diminished.

3. Appreciate Micro-Sessions.

While a majority of off-season lifts will take 60-90 minutes, this doesn’t mean that in-season lifts need to as well. There’s nothing inherently wrong with hitting 3-4 20-40 minute sessions throughout the week. This ensures that the quality of work will be higher; in fact, the quantity of work for four 30-minute sessions might also be greater than just trying to blow it out on the gym the one day you have a dedicated 90 minutes. A typical 30-minute session could be as follows:

A1) Deadlift or Squat, 3x3
A2) Arm Care, 3 sets
A3) Core, 3 sets
B1) Single-Leg Exercise, 3 sets
B2) Upper-Body Push, 3 sets
B3) Upper-Body Pull, 3 sets

By switching to a tri-set format and making the session full-body, you can sneak in extra work and still finish the above session in under 40 minutes. In fact, even getting in two sets of all of the above multiple times a week will probably have greater carryover than going several days between sessions just so you can wait to get in the typical 18-24 set range that we hit during a mid-offseason session.

4. Understand the Difference Between Soreness and Progress.

Not all strength training sessions need to be tough or need to make you sore to create progress. In fact, if you’re constantly sore during the season, you’ll be limited in your ability to output the highest levels of power that you can achieve. Simple ways to avoid soreness from in-season lifts include not including brand-new exercises – the novelty of a new exercise will create more soreness than one you’ve recently done - and avoiding high amounts of eccentric stress. For example, a Bulgarian split-squat is a great exercise, but a step-up might be a better in-season choice because it provides far less eccentric stress.

Not all lifts need to be heavy grinders, either; in fact, maximal strength is the training quality that will have the longest carryover in terms of the amount of times you need to hit it just to maintain it. Issurin’s Residual Training Qualities chart claims that Max Strength will stick around for periods up to 30 +/- 5 days, which means you could theoretically hit Max Strength qualities 1-2x/month and maintain them. A simple action item to scale this would be to take your main lift and hit it within different zones on the force-velocity curve in different weeks: In week 1, go heavy (near absolute strength), in week 2, work on strength-speed, in week 3, work on speed-strength, and just rotate it. The weight room shouldn’t beat up your ability to play the sport during the season.

5. Don’t Waste Valuable Energy on Needless Extra Reps.

To add on the point I outlined in #2, your body doesn’t know the difference between fatigue created on the field and fatigue created in the weight room. If you’re a position player, know that the extra 100 swings you decided to take after practice are going to hinder your body’s ability to adapt to stress you want to add to it in the weight room. When it comes to extra on-field work, pick and choose your battles. We know that fatigue is the enemy of motor learning, so if you are sacrificing quality of on-field technique work because you feel like you need extra reps, you might be just getting worse at your sport. Keep the quality of all swings, throws, and fielding reps high and near the speed of sport if you want them to have carryover. If only the amount of reps that you NEED to take are applied, then you’ll have much more time and energy to get some strength work in.

6. Choose the Right Conditioning Modalities.

We know that baseball is an alactic-aerobic sport. The average work:rest ratio amongst pitchers is close to 1:20 (delivery takes less than 2 seconds, average MLB time in-between pitches last season was 23.8 seconds). The average work:rest ratio for position players is generally far greater given the lack of action they’ll take part in compared to the pitcher. If you’re training for baseball by applying long-distance running, you’re essentially training to be less efficient at the time demands the sport requires. This topic is covered widely in previous articles (here and here) on this site, but it is still amazingly prevalent within the baseball community. To layer on top of the points I made above, you’ve sapped the adaptive capacity of the individual for something that has nothing to do with getting better at the sport. In short, keep your speed work fast and keep your rest time focused on recovery.

7. Maintain Needed Mobility.

While this one may not directly relate to strength as much as a few of the others, it’s important to understand that if you are losing mobility you need to perform your sport at a high level, you now have to choose between spending time gaining that mobility back or maintaining strength. Force, power, RFD, speed, and all the other physiological qualities for which we train are only as good as your ability to use them on field. Simple strategies such as having a daily mobility routine as part of pre- and post-practice can save valuable time that you can use towards increasing the physiological qualities that I mentioned above in the weight room. Five minutes before and after every on-field session can save valuable time later in the season when overuse-related mobility concerns start to arise, not to mention, they’ll keep you healthy and on the field throughout the season.

Wrap-up

John and the CSP team are excited to once again orchestrate the Elite Collegiate Baseball Development Summer Program this June-August. The comprehensive approach to developing pitchers has drawn players from around the country with outstanding results. For more information, click here.

About the Author

John O'Neil (@ONeilStrength) is Director of Performance at Cressey Sports Performance-MA. You can contact him by email at joh.oneil@gmail.com and follow him on Instagram

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Seminar Announcement: In-Season Training Strategies for Baseball

We're excited to announce that on March 4, 2018, Christian Wonders and John O’Neil will be delivering a one-day seminar, “In-Season Training Strategies for Baseball.” This event, which will take place at our Hudson, MA location, is a great chance for baseball coaches to learn about the training process and how communication between a strength coach and a sport coach can help take performance to the next level. Both Christian and John have experience working as on-field baseball coaches and as strength coaches, and they’ve used their ability to speak a common language with great success. It’s also a valuable event for strength and conditioning professionals to learn more about integrating performance training and skill development.

This one-day seminar combines pitching and training information and how to optimally blend the two during the in-season period. The goal is to preserve – and build upon – the athleticism that was built in the off-season while ensuring that players are fresh for the quality work that must take place in practices and games.

Split into both a lecture and practical format, the event will provide attendees with detailed information on both the pitching and training ends, including multiple practical portions that will cover drill work, a bullpen, and technique demonstrations on valuable exercises geared with the idea of not only healthy but also increasing performance.

Additionally, Christian and John will cover how to structure in-between start routines built around both training and throwing, and how such a routine could be individualized and changed throughout the season. Furthermore, they'll touch upon the pitfalls of many in-season training programs and how to better structure yours.

Agenda:

9:00-10:15am: Training Fundamentals: What The Baseball Coach Needs to Know about Performance Training.  In this presentation, we cover an overview of relevant physiology, stress application, training specificity and why certain age-long practices in the baseball community don’t correlate with an improvement in on-field performance. (John- Lecture)

10:15-10:30am: Break

10:30-11:45am: Overview of Elite Pitching Development Philosophies: this presentation includes a breakdown of how Christian teaches mechanics and how he uses his knowledge learned from the gym to his advantage. (Christian - Lecture)

11:45am-12:30pm: Lunch

12:30-1:15pm: Designing an In-Season Training Routine: learn how to structure everything from pre-game warm-ups to team lifts on a daily, weekly, and season-long basis. This talk will cover specific markers the baseball coach can identify to help modify a team program to fit individual needs. (John - Lecture)

1:15-2:00pm: Designing an In-Season Throwing Routine: we'll break down the components of catch play, long toss, and throwing bullpens - both for starters and relievers. (Christian - Lecture)

2:00-2:15pm: Break

2:15-3:00pm: Training Power and Speed Discussion: this presentation includes a breakout of a sprint mechanics and how to coach them. This practical component will also cover a sample team pre-game warm-up. (John - Practical)

3:00-3:45pm: Live Throwing Demonstrations: this segment includes how to coach specific drill work and optimize your pitchers’ bullpen work. (Christian - Practical)

4:00-5:00pm: Q&A

Date/Location:

Sunday, March 4, 2018

Cressey Sports Performance
577 Main St.
Suite 310
Hudson, MA 01749

Registration Fee:

$99.99

Note: we’ll be capping the number of participants to ensure that there is a lot of presenter/attendee interaction – particularly during the hands-on workshop portion – so be sure to register early.

Click here to register using our 100% secure server!

About the Presenters:

John O'Neil (@ONeilStrength) is a Strength & Conditioning Coach at Cressey Sports Performance. John not only has experience training baseball players, but has also coached high school baseball and interned in player development with the Baltimore Orioles. He graduated from Dickinson College with a B.S. in Mathematics. You can contact him by email at joh.oneil@gmail.com.

Christian Wonders (@CSP_Pitching) is the pitching coordinator as Cressey Sports Performance-MA and the owner of Elite Pitching Development. Christian previously worked as a strength coach at CSP-Florida, where he also coached high school baseball. He graduated from Georgia College and State University with a B.S. in Exercise Science. You can contact him at elitepitchingdevelopment@gmail.com.

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Baseball Strength and Conditioning: In-Season Insights

Spring training is underway. College baseball has two weekends in the books. High school teams in warm weather climates have been going for a month, and some schools in the Northeast actually start today. So, it should come as no surprise that we're now getting a lot of inquiries about what to do for in-season training.

With that in mind, rather than reinvent the wheel, I wanted to reincarnate a series I wrote on in-season baseball strength and conditioning.  Check it out!

In-Season Baseball Strength and Conditioning - Part 1: What You Need to Know

In-Season Baseball Strength and Conditioning - Part 2: High School Baseball

In-Season Baseball Strength and Conditioning - Part 3: College Baseball

In-Season Baseball Strength and Conditioning - Part 4: Professional Baseball

Put these tips into action and you'll be healthy and high-performing throughout the season.

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Show and Go for Baseball Strength and Conditioning?

In the past few months, I've gotten quite a few inquiries about whether Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better is a good fit for baseball players. While I never wrote the book with the intention of training this athletic population, it can be quickly and easily modified to fit the unique needs of baseball.  The principal changes are going to be: The big differences are going to be: 1. Use more front squatting, and little to no back squatting (we do use a lot of giant cambered bar and safety squat bar variations at Cressey Performance). 2. Eliminate barbell bench pressing and overhead pressing, instead plugging in some dumbbell bench pressing and pushup variations, as seen here and here.

3. In the off-season, we usually do medicine ball work 2-3x/week.  The medicine ball volume is higher in the early/mid-off-season and lower during the late off-season and in-season phases.  For some exercise ideas, you can check out this post of mine, as well as my YouTube Channel.

Usually, this medicine ball training is incorporated before lifting or movement training.

4. I'd add some rhythmic stabilization work 2x/week - as seen here.

All in all, the program is surprisingly versatile for the baseball player.  In the off-season, the 4x/week template works great.  Then, as the late off-season and pre-season get underway, the 3x/week program is a better fit.  In-season, you'll see more position players and relief pitchers using the 2x/week approach, whereas starters can get in 3x/week lifting.  Obviously, the volume may be reduced, but the exercise selection, overall training schedule, training stress fluctuations, core training, and warm-up sequences are all very applicable. It won't be perfect, but it'll be markedly better than any of the cookie cutter or football lifting programs you'll see out there.

For more information, check out Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better.

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In-Season Baseball Strength and Conditioning: Part 4 – Professional Baseball

This is the fourth installment of a series on in-season strength and conditioning for baseball.  In case you missed them, here are links to check out the first three parts of this series:

Part 1: General Assumptions about In-Season Strength and Conditioning for Baseball
Part 2: In-Season High School Baseball Strength and Conditioning
Part 3: In-Season College Baseball Strength and Conditioning

Today, I'll be talking about what I believe to be the optimal set-up for professional baseball players.  This might be a minority in the big picture of all the baseball players on the planet, but pro guys' responses to in-season strength and conditioning programs can really tell us a lot.

Professional baseball players are the ones with the most accumulated wear and tear on their bodies, so effective programming is essential.  Likewise, they play daily games - often upwards of 200 per year when you combine spring training, the regular season, and post-season play - so you really need to be able to manage competing demands and fatigue if you want to keep pro guys healthy and performing at a high level.

We'll break things down by position.

Position Players

Position players tend to represent the widest range of preferences.  On one hand, you have guys who are completely dragging from having to stand on their feet for hours upon end day-after-day.

On the other hand, I've known guys who literally want to do something every single day - whether it's lifting, med ball, sprinting, or a combination of one or more.  Don't believe me? Here's an awesome email I got from a big league middle infielder who trained 5x/week (3-4 lifting sessions and 1-2 movement training sessions):

I want to thank you for all that you've done for me, EC.  In this my 18th professional season, I can say, without a doubt, this is the best I've felt during any season.  By following your program, I was able to stay strong and explosive the whole season.  This is the best I've felt after the season too.  I don't have any nagging injuries or soreness and I know this is because I followed your programs. I can't express in words how much you contributed to my success this season.

We're talking about a guy in his late 30s with a lot of years of service time under his belt - and he felt better by doing more.  Don't be afraid to make guys work in-season; if you don't, they'll eventually break down.

This, of course, is the rarity; most guys will be best off finding the balance between doing nothing and doing what we did in the above example.  I tend to give position players the most wiggle room in terms of time and day of their lifts.  They can either do it earlier in the day, or after games.  We usually shoot for three full-body lifts per week on non-consecutive days - and never with more than 15 sets in a given day.  One of those three lifts is almost exclusively upper body and core work.  They get in, do their work, and get out.

Some guys, however, prefer to split things up into two upper-body and two lower-body sessions per week.  They are shorter sessions, but are good for ensuring that athletes are going through their foam rolling and mobility drills more frequently.

Catchers

In my high school and college examples, I included catchers with position players' programming needs.  However, when you catch 4-5 games a week, things change - and we take that into account with our programming.

First off, we don't squat our catchers in-season.  Trust me, they squat enough.  We use more deadlift variations and single-leg exercises during the season.

Second, I encourage catchers to lift post-game, if they have the opportunity and energy to do so.  Training before a game might be okay for a pitcher or position player, but crushing a lower body lift right before getting in the bottom of a squat for three hours isn't particularly appealing.  If you can get in the work the night before, you've got a better chance of being fresh.

Third, I think that 2-3 strength training sessions per week is sufficient - and only two of those days have lower body work in them.  It takes far less volume than you can possibly imagine to maintain strength, so a couple sets each of a bilateral and unilateral exercise usually does the trick for catchers in-season.

Also of note, I don't like the idea of guys lifting much on their off-days from catching.  If you're only getting 1-2 days off from catching per week, you might as well use them for full recovery.  In other words, try to consolidate training stress and earn 24-hour "recovery windows" where you can.

Starting Pitchers

Professional baseball starting pitchers might have the coolest job and schedule in professional sports.  It's very predictable - and they should be able to get in a good 12 lifts per month on the following schedule:

Day 0: pitch
Day 1: challenging lower body lift, light upper body work
Day 2: movement training only
Day 3: challenging upper body lift, easier lower body work
Day 4: low-intensity dynamic flexibility circuits only, or off altogether
Day 5: next pitching outing

If they wind up with five days between starts, they can split the day 3 training session up into upper body (Day 3) and lower body (Day 4), then take a day off on Day 5.

Life is tough, huh?

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Relief Pitchers

Describing what I do with my relief pitchers is a mouthful, but I'll give it a shot.

Every reliever has three strength training "options" and one movement training day in each program that I send them:

Long Option (Full-Body Strength Training: 15-17 sets)
Movement Training
Short Option 1 (Full-Body, but Lower Emphasis: 8-12 sets)
Short Option 2 (Full-Body, but Upper Emphasis: 8-12 sets)

Here's exactly how I describe it to them:

"If you go over 20 pitches in an outing, perform the regular Day 1 and then Day 2 in the subsequent two days, as you can assume you won't throw for 48 hours.  Then, progress to Short Option 1, day off, Short Option 2.

"If you make less than 20 pitches, go right to Short Option 1, then Day 2, then Short Option 2, then day off.  This is good for when you think you may be going on back to back days.  You can do the Short option lifts earlier in the day even if you think you may be throwing a bit that night; the volume will be so low that you'll still be fresh.

"If you are going to be a long/middle reliever, most of your work will be the Day 1, Day 2, Short Option 1, Day off, Short Option 2, etc. option.  Listen to your body and take days off when you need to, but at the very least, make sure you're getting in the gym 2-3 times a week.

"If you're going to be a 'face-one-guy' reliever or a closer, you'll be doing more of the short option work."

ECCishek

Hopefully, that makes sense - because our guys have loved it and I know of a few smart pitching coaches "in the know" who have implemented it in their programs with excellent success.

That wraps up this series on in-season strength and conditioning.  It's taken a long time to test-drive these programs and tinker with them to make sure that they work.  At the same time, though, no two athletes are the same, so be sure to individualize your recommendations whenever possible.

Please help me spread these articles around via Facebook, Twitter, and emailed links, as we need to get the word out that in-season training is a must for baseball players at all levels!

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A New Model for Training Between Starts: Part 2

Written on January 1, 2009 at 2:34 pm, by Eric Cressey

A New Model for Training Between Starts: Part 2

By: Eric Cressey

In Part 1 of this article series, I discussed everything that was wrong with distance running for pitchers.  In Part 2, I’ll outline my thoughts on how to best integrate conditioning for pitchers between throwing sessions.  This article will focus on managing starters, but I suspect you’ll find that managing relievers isn’t entirely different aside from the fact that you’ll need to “roll with the punches” a bit more.

I think the best way to introduce this article is to describe a coincidence from the beginning of the year.    On January 5, I received an email from one of my pro pitchers asking me if I could outline some thoughts on my between-start strength and conditioning mentality, as his old college pitching coach had asked for his input from him, as he was a student of the game and had tried some non-traditional ideas. In response to that email, I replied with essentially everything I’ll describe in this article – plus everything I outlined in Part 1 with respect to how bad a choice distance running is.

The coincidence didn’t become apparent until a week or two later when I got my hands on the January installment of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, which featured a study entitled “Noncompatibility of power and endurance training among college baseball players.”

These researchers divided a collegiate pitching staff into two groups of eight over the course of a season, and each group did everything identically – except the running portion of their training programs.  Three days per week, the “sprint” group did 10-30 sprints of 15-60m with 10-60s rest between bouts.  The endurance group performed moderate-to-high intensity jogging or cycling 3-4 days per week for anywhere from 20-60 minutes.

Over the course of the season, the endurance group’s peak power output dropped by an average of 39.5 watts while the sprinting group increased by an average of 210.6 watts (1).  So, basically what I’m saying is that I was right all along – and I’m totally going to brag about it.  Part 1 of this series simply justified all of my thoughts; now it’s time to put them into a framework.

Some Prerequisite Q&A

As a response to Part 1, I got an email from a college pitching coach looking for some further details, and here were his questions (bold) and my answers:

Q: Is running 1-2 miles once a week considered distance running?

A: I’d call anything over 150m “distance running” in a pitching population, believe it or not.  I haven’t had a baseball player run over 60 yards in two years – and even when they go 60, they’re build-ups, so only about 50% of that distance is at or near top speed.

Q: Is running 10 poles in 30s with one minute of rest considered distance?

A: Let’s say it takes 30s to run a pole, and then you rest a minute (1:2 work: rest ratio).  Then, you go out and pitch, where you exert effort for one second and rest 20s (1:20 work:rest ratio).  This is the equivalent of a 100m sprinter training like a 1500m runner.

Q: Don’t you need some endurance to pitch a complete 9-inning game?

A: If all endurance was created equal, why didn’t Lance Armstrong win the New York or Boston Marathon?  Endurance is very skill specific.  Additionally, there is a huge difference between exerting maximal power over 20-25 individual efforts with near complete rest (a sample inning) and exerting submaximal efforts repeatedly with no or minimal rest.

Q: What about guys who are overweight?  What should they do?

A: Fat guys should be paperweights, bouncers, sumo wrestlers, or eating contest champions.  If they want to be successful players at the D1 level or beyond, they’ll sack up and stop eating crap.  Several years ago, I promised myself that I would never, ever try to use extra conditioning to make up for poor diet.

Q: What are your thoughts on interval training?

A: We know that interval training is superior to steady state cardio for fat loss, but the important consideration is that it must be specific to the sport in question.

These responses should set the stage for the following points:

1. The secret is to keep any longer duration stuff low-intensity (under 70% HRR) and everything else at or above 90% of max effort (this includes starts, agilities, and sprints up to 60yds).  For more background on this, check out the McCarthy et al. study I outlined in Part 1.

2. Ideally, the low-intensity work would involve significant joint ranges-of-motion (more to come on this below).

3. Don’t forget that pitchers rarely run more than 15 yards in a game situation.

4. Strength training and mobility training far outweigh running on the importance scale.

5.  If you need to develop pitching specific stamina, the best way to achieve that end is to simply pitch and build pitch counts progressively.  If that needs to be supplemented with something to expedite the process a bit, you can add in some medicine ball medleys – which can also be useful for ironing out side-to-side imbalances, if implemented appropriately.  However, a good off-season throwing program and appropriate management of a pitcher early in the season should develop all the pitching specific endurance that is required.

The 5-Day Rotation

In a case of a five-day rotation, here is how we typically structure things.  Keep in mind that dynamic flexibility and static stretching are performed every day.

Day 0: pitch
Day 1 (or right after pitching, if possible): challenging lower body lift, push-up variation (light), horizontal pulling (light), cuff work
Day 2: movement training only, focused on 10-15yd starts, agility work, and some top speed work (50-60 yds)
Day 3: bullpen (usually), single-leg work, challenging upper body lift (less vertical pulling in-season), cuff work
Day 4: low-intensity dynamic flexibility circuits only
Day 5: next pitching outing

Notes:

1. When a guy happens to get five days between starts, we’ll typically split the Day 3 lifting session into two sessions and do some movement training on Day 4 as well.

2. I know a lot of guys (myself included) are advocates of throwing more than once between starts.  For simplicity’s sake, I haven’t included those sessions.

3.  There are definitely exceptions to this rule.  For instance, if a guy is having a hard time recovering, we’ll take Day 2 off altogether and just do our sprint work after the bullpen and before lifting on Day 3.  That adds a full day of rest to the rotation in addition to the really light Day 4.

The 7-Day Rotation

With a 7-day rotation, we’ve got a lot more wiggle room to get aggressive with things.  This is why in-season can still be a time of tremendous improvements in the college game, especially since you can work in a good 2-3 throwing sessions between starts.  Again, dynamic flexibility and static stretching are performed every day.  To keep this simple, I’m going to assume we’ve got a Saturday starter.

Saturday: pitch
Sunday: challenging lower body lift, light cuff work

Monday: movement training only, focused on 10-15yd starts, agility work, and some top speed work (50-60 yds); upper body lift

Tuesday: low-Intensity resistance training (<30% of 1RM) circuits, extended dynamic flexibility circuits

Wednesday: full-body lift

Thursday: movement training only, focused on 10-15yd starts, agility work, and some top speed work (50-60 yds);

Friday: low-intensity dynamic flexibility circuits only

Saturday: pitch again
Of course, traveling logistics can throw a wrench in the plans on this front sometimes, but the good news is that collegiate pitchers have six days to roll with the punches to get back on schedule.
Closing Thoughts

As you can see, I am a big fan of quality over quantity. Our guys only sprint twice in most weeks – and certainly not more than three times.  This certainly isn’t the only way to approach training between starts, but I’ve found it to be the most effective of what our guys have tried.
References
1. Rhea MR, Oliverson JR, Marshall G, Peterson MD, Kenn JG, Ayllón FN. Noncompatibility of power and endurance training among college baseball players. J Strength Cond Res 2008 Jan;22(1):230-4.

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One Response to “A New Model for Training Between Starts: Part 2”

  1. eugene sedita Says:
    Wow, I’ve got nothing to do with pitching and throwing and still read these articles like a mystery novel, (just couldn’t stop ) Thanks, Eric, very interesting.

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In-Season Baseball Strength and Conditioning: Part 3 – College Baseball

This is part 3 of my series on in-season baseball strength and conditioning programs.  In case you missed them, be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2.

Today, we'll be talking about managing the college baseball player in-season.

There are definitely some similarities between how we manage our college and high school guys (described in Part 2) - particularly with respect to position players/catchers and starting pitchers on 7-day rotations.  The main difference, though, is that the college baseball schedule is largely based on the weekend (Fri-Sun games) with some mid-week games worked in (usually Tue or Wed), while the high school schedule is a bit more unpredictable.  As a result, the days on which guys tend to lift are probably more set in stone for college baseball players.  Let's look at things by position.

Position Players/Catchers

I prefer to have our most challenging lift on Monday (after a weekend series), with another lift scheduled for either Wednesday or Thursday.  This enables a coach to give players a full day of rest on either a Tuesday or Friday before a game day, but do so without interfering with the overall training effect.  I've also known position players who like to go with a full-body lift on Monday, then a lower body lift and upper body lift back-to-back for Wed-Thu or Thu-Fri.  It really depends on the player's preferences and how many innings he's getting on the field.

Pitchers

We manage our college starting pitchers exactly the same as our high school once-a-week starters.  There's no need to reinvent the wheel here.

Relief pitchers, though, are where many college baseball strength and conditioning coaches want to pull their hair out.  Their schedules are very unpredictable; they might throw Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday - or they might only throw on Saturday and then have six days off.  What to do?

I say that when there is chaos, you give people structure - and that's exactly how I manage relievers.  I've found that most guys appreciate having at least one part of their routine set-in-stone - and scheduling strength training sessions can be just that.  So, assume that every reliever lifts Monday and Thursday - even if he may have to pitch Thursday night (you can just pare back volume in the session) in a random mid-week game.  As long as you aren't adding in loads of new exercises, you won't make him sore and interfere with performance.  We have relievers in pro baseball who lift all the time on days that they wind up throwing - and many actually report that they feel better on the mound when they've already lifted that day.  You'll need to do same-day training to get in their movement training, anyway - and nobody has ever complained about sprinting during warm-ups.

Additionally, if a relief pitcher has a particularly long outing and you know he won't be back to throwing for a few days, treat him just like a starting pitcher and lift within 12 hours after the game; you might find that you can squeeze in an extra strength training session for him during that week.

I'll be back tomorrow with the final installment of this series on in-season baseball strength and conditioning: professional baseball.

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In-Season Baseball Strength and Conditioning: Part 1

Over the past few weeks, I’ve received literally dozens of emails, Facebook posts/messages, Tweets, and phone calls on the topic of in-season strength and conditioning for baseball players.  While it was a daunting task to try to organize my thoughts on the subject, I was glad to do so, as all these inquiries mean that people are finally starting to “get it:” in-season strength and conditioning is extremely important!

To that end, over the next four days, I’ll outline my general strength and conditioning approach to dealing with position players and pitchers during the season.  Every athlete and every schedule is different, so it might take some tinkering to make this work for you.

First, though, I want to throw out a few quick FYIs, as some of what I “omit” will actually surprise you.  In terms of my in-season strength and conditioning beliefs, I’m different from many people in that:

1. I’m not big on lots of band stuff at the field – I discussed my thoughts on rotator cuff exercises frequency and overall scheduling in Clearing Up the Rotator Cuff Controversy.  In a nutshell, I tend to stick with 2x/week “conventional” rotator cuff exercises (mostly external rotations) and 2x/week rhythmic stabilization drills.  In conjunction with the rest of our overall program – which includes compound upper body strength exercises ( horizontal and vertical pulling exercises, in particular), deceleration catches, core stability drills, lower half strength exercises, soft tissue work, mobility work, etc – we cover all our needs for keeping an arm healthy.  Why on earth would I add more rotator cuff exercises to my program when I’m already increasing throwing volume, intensity, and frequency?  The cuff is already getting abused – so there is no need to crush it any more with daily tubing circuits unless they are incredibly light and just aimed at improving blood flow.

I firmly believe that many pitchers (and position players alike) overuse their arms during a season simply because they add, add, and add more to their program without fully understanding the outrageous eccentric stress that’s placed on the arm during throwing.  And, for those who insist that doing lots of in-season rotator cuff exercises has kept them healthy, I’d argue that this is probably the case because they weren’t that prepared at the end of the off-season.

2. I don’t do much medicine ball work in-season – If you haven’t already watched my video, the Absolute Strength to Absolute Speed Continuum, watch it now:

During the season, players are about as far to the “absolute speed” end of the continuum as they can be, as they’re hitting, throwing, and sprinting.  With the overwhelming amount of “accidental” power training taking place, I feel that it’s best to stay at the other end of the spectrum.  You can spend more time in the middle during the off-season.

That said, we do utilize a small amount of medicine ball work during the season.  Usually, it’s predominantly done in the opposite direction of a player’s swing/throw; in other words, a right-handed hitter would perform left handed medicine ball throws.  We might also do a small amount of overhead work just to maintain power within this range of motion (as well as the thoracic spine and shoulder flexion mobility that goes with it).

3. I don’t do any distance running for my guys – There’s no need to reinvent the wheel here, as I already barbequed this sacred cow in A New Model for Training Between Starts.  So, this time around, I’ll just be abrasive: coaches who have their baseball players run long distances are either lazy or flat-out stupid (or both).

4. I am a big believer in “less is more” and “quality over quantity” for in-season training – Rarely will an in-season strength training program session last more than 35-40 minutes.  It’s usually roughly 10-14 sets worth of work.  A guy might be in the gym longer than that for foam rolling and targeted mobility drills, though.

5. Volume and intensity should be lower in week 1, but higher for the remaining weeks with in-season strength training programs – I usually keep the volume and intensity lower in the first week of the program to minimize initial soreness.  Then, once the familiarity with the exercises is in place, we can load up a bit more in weeks 2-4 (or 2-6, if you opt to extend the program a bit longer).

6. Strength exercise selection changes a bit in-season, but the basics still apply – We’re still using a lot  of compound, multi-joint strength exercises, but there are a few modifications.

In-season, I tend to utilize more horizontal pulling (rows) than vertical pulling (pull-ups/chin-ups).  We use a lot of vertical pulling throughout the year, but never really go above once a week during the season, as some guys can get a bit cranky in the elbow with the amount of weight it takes to make them challenging.  If you want some of the benefits without the elbow issues, you can always plug in the crossover reverse fly.

This doesn’t mean, however, that I think chin-ups and pull-ups are bad for pitchers.  Far too many coaches have (unsuccessfully) tried to beat that dead horse; let it go, fellas.

Especially with pitchers, I utilize more push-up variations than dumbbell bench pressing during the season.  If we wind up doing three days of horizontal pushing, two will be push-ups and one will be dumbbell pressing.  If we do two days, it’s one of each.  If it’s only one, it’s a push-up.  We have several different variations (as I wrote here and here) from which to choose, so athletes are actually far less likely to get bored with them than with dumbbell pressing, anyway.

7. Don’t overlook maintaining mobility – It’s called “Strength and Conditioning,” but the truth is that we could probably scrap the conditioning part with respect to baseball and replace it with “mobility.”  Guys don’t just get hurt in-season because they lose strength; they get hurt because they lose mobility.  All the eccentric stress leads to significant losses in mobility, as does all the standing around leads athletes to miss out on basic functional movement patterns like squatting and lunging.  Don’t just be a “weights coach;” there are other things to address!  This is probably the primary reason why Assess and Correct has gotten such great reviews among baseball coaches; it's one piece that they were missing!

It took me over a thousand words, but it would appear that I’ve gotten all my prerequisites out of the way.  Tomorrow, we’ll talk about in-season training for the high school baseball player.

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