Category Archives: Conditioning

Improve your conditioning so you can last the whole season.

Start a Strength Training Program

Day 13 of our 21 Days to Building a Better Ballplayer brings a task that many athletes know they should be doing, but often do not “find the time” to implement. So, today’s task is to start and maintain a strength training program.

Practice, Play, Practice, Play

It always amazes me how much time, money, and effort parents and young ballplayers put into trying out for every travel ball team and playing year round. Yet, they make no such effort in starting, learning, and implementing a strength and conditioning program. Baseball is already a sport prone to injury because of how repetitive and unidirectional it is. Add on top of that more practices, more games, and more private lessons, and it’s only a matter of time before Little Johnny breaks down. Don’t get me wrong. I think athletes need to work on their skills (throwing, hitting, fielding, etc.) to improve. However, too much specificity can lead to imbalances and imbalances can lead to injury. A good strength and conditioning program can address these imbalances and serve to keep a player injury free.

If a young ballplayer can learn the importance of strength and conditioning at an early age, then not only will he stay healthier, but he will have a tremendous advantage over his peers. When beginning any strength program, athletes should be able to master their own body weight before picking up a dumbbell or bar. If you cannot master your own body, then you are not ready for a barbell. Instead, begin with bodyweight squats, push-ups, lunges, and pull-ups. Your biggest concern should be form, form, form. Master the simple movements and then progress to more challenging ones.

When you are ready to move on to using weights or if you are an older athlete who has some experience in the weight room, then it’s time to start incorporating squats, deadlifts, and other functional movements. Find a solid strength and conditioning facility in your area and look for a program that teaches fundamentals and demands commitment.

Off-Season, Pre-Season, and In-Season Training

Depending on the time of year, your needs and goals in the weight room will vary. The off-season is your time to get as strong as possible. In addition to lifting, you should be working on your mobility, flexibility, and ironing out any imbalances you may have. During the pre-season (6-8 weeks leading up to the start of the season), your training should be kicking in to high gear so you can start off the upcoming season with a bang. Once the season begins, your in-season training routine becomes mostly about maintaining strength and staying injury free. I touched on these different times of year in a previous post, so you can read more about it here.

Stay Committed, Stay Consistent

So, your actual task for today is simple. If you are not currently on a strength and conditioning program, get started today. Again, you can do push-ups, bodyweight squats, pull-ups, and lunges. Look into a good shoulder tubing routine as well. If you do have a strength and conditioning routine you follow, then work to be as consistent and committed to it as possible. No more missing training sessions or skipping your pre-hab work. No one rep, one set, or one day will make you substantially better. It is the accumulation of all the small tasks done well consistently that add up to great results.

Good luck!

Warm-up Dynamically

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It’s now Day 8 of the 21 Days to Building a Better Ballplayer challenge. Today’s task is to start warming up dynamically.

Move with Purpose

Photo Courtesy of Tulane Public Relations (Flickr)

Many athletes are still missing the boat when it comes to a solid warm-up routine. Whether you are preparing for practice, a training session, or a game, every ballplayer should incorporate a quality dynamic warm-up that wakes up the body’s nervous system and muscles. I’ve discussed how to improve your warm-up before here on the Full Windup, so I won’t go into much detail here on this post.

A warm-up that keeps you moving is much better than a warm-up that includes holding static stretches for prolonged durations. Static stretching facilitates your muscles to relax, while active stretching preserves muscle stiffness. Increased muscle stiffness correlates to better power output allowing you to be more explosive on the diamond or in the weight room. And that is exactly what you want. Better power output equals a quicker and faster athlete.

The bottom line is this – any pre-activity warm-up should be preceded with dynamic movements that take the body through short stretches followed by quick contractions. Static stretching can be saved for post-activity cool down or recovery days.

So, check out Improving Your Warm-up and start priming your body for success.

5 Steps to a Successful Baseball Season – Part 2

Step 3 – Execute

This step may be the most simple, but is often the hardest to stay consistent with. Simply put, execute your game plan. You’ve written down your goals, set forth a plan for hitting those goals, now you need to follow through and begin implementing the plan. Your biggest opponent in following through on this step will be you.

The best way to get started is to eliminate distractions. I know you have the desire, but do you have the determination and fortitude to really go after what you want? There will be distractions everywhere, some you can eliminate easily, others not so easily.

Family and friends will demand a lot of your time, and there is no reason why you cannot have quality time with them. But, you need to be able to balance your family and social life with the tasks that will move you toward your goals.

Here are a few suggestions to help you eliminate those distractions, or at the very least help you keep your social life and your baseball life in balance.

Find a throwing and training partner – Before the 2007 season, I spent a good chunk of the off-season throwing and training all by myself. Man was it tough. I had a bucket of balls and a net that I would set up at a nearby park and throw, and throw, and throw. I had to balance this with work, so some days I was up with the sun and and avoiding sprinklers as I got my work in. It would have been really easy to justify sleeping in a little longer and just throw the next day. If I would have had a throwing partner, he could have kept me accountable with my throwing routine and my training program. Not only would he have made me get my work in, we could have bounced ideas off each other, pushed each other harder, and competed to see how good we could become. It’s amazing what a dedicated partner can do for your success.

Unplug – Lose the cell phone for a couple hours while you get your work in. Trust me, you’re not so important that whoever is calling or texting can’t wait for a reply. There’s no solid reason to bring your phone on the field or into the weight room anyway. You’ll just distract yourself and your training partner. By the way, if your training partner has his phone all the time, you need to find a new training partner who is more committed.

Prepare Ahead – If you live in a warm weather state, chances are you can get out to a field almost anytime of year. For those times when the weather doesn’t cooperate, you need to have a secondary facility that you know you can use to get your throwing/hitting/training done. Talk to your coach and see if you can use the high school gym or find out if there is a local indoor facility that will let you have access to a cage. If you live in a colder weather climate, you know that winter is a tough time to leave the house. Plan ahead, man up, and get to the local indoor facility. When spring rolls around and the season starts, you’ll be glad you did.

These simple tips should help get you started on the right track. It will be tough to stay committed. But if you surround yourself with the right people, stay determined, and stay stubborn, you’ll be just fine.

Step 4 – Trust the Process

Once you begin executing your game plan you need to have trust that what you are doing will help make you a better ballplayer. Many athletes constantly search for the next quick fix or change their game plan because they do not see instant results. Just stay on track.

You took the time and effort to create and write down your goals. Then, you diligently laid out a road map for reaching those goals. Now that you are executing – training and practicing – you don’t need to second guess yourself. You may need to make slight adjustments along the way, but you don’t need to change everything. Keep practicing, keep training, keep improving. One day at time, one session at a time, one rep at a time. Be consistent and put trust in the fact that a lot of small improvements add up to big improvements.

Step 5 – Achieve Success

This is it. It’s time to use the competitive season to hit those goals you set for yourself. Actually, if you have put the time, effort, sweat, blood, and tears into this long process, you have already achieved success. If you put in the work, I guarantee that you are a better ballplayer than you were before you started this process.

The games are now just a platform for you to finish the job. And just like before, you have to trust that all your hard work is about to pay dividends. Don’t forget to continue to follow your in-season game plan to stay healthy throughout the year, and continue to execute, execute, execute.

5 Steps to a Successful Baseball Season – Part 1

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Every year, high school athletes set new goals and dream of big accomplishments for their upcoming season. Some begin new training programs, some spend hours practicing their sport-specific skills, and others change their nutritional habits. But rarely does a high school athlete take the time to break down his year and set up an all-inclusive game plan from off-season to in-season. The result is usually a few non-specific goals that are not written down and a scattered attempt at hitting those goals. Does this really help you become a better ballplayer? How do you know if you became a better athlete or had a successful season?

It’s time to set up a long-term game plan for success that you can follow throughout the year. Let’s break it down into five steps so you can begin taking action now.

Step 1 – Create, Set, and Write Down Your Goals

Basic goal setting will give you a clear purpose and direction. When you have a goal, you will engage in activities that will move you closer to your goal and stay away from behaviors that will set you back. Your time and effort will become focused on the task at hand. There is a very real difference to defining your specific goals than just “doing your best.” How do you know what your best is if you do not have something to measure it against?

Your goals need to be realistic and attainable. Unattainable goals will set you up for frustration and loss of motivation. Goals that are too easily reached do not set you up for success either. A realistic goal should challenge you to reach beyond your current ability level to push your potential to the next level. Furthermore, your goals should be adjustable. Goals are meant to be a personal challenge and motivate you to reach for success. A goal that has been established and then is easily reached, or reached sooner than expected, needs to be adjusted so that it continues to motivate and challenge you.

Okay, it’s time to write down your goals. Yes, literally pick up a pen and write them on a piece of paper. (Better yet, grab a large poster board and a marker. Create a giant poster board that you can hang in your room so you can see it everyday.) When you write down your goals, in essence, you are making a contract with yourself. You, the writer, have thought them through and have committed yourself to positive and specific behavior in order to achieve what has been written down. And when that point comes when you are tired and want to skip a training session, you only need to look across your room at that poster board to remind you what you are striving for.

When you write down your goals, make sure they are measurable. This seems simple enough, but stating that you want to “be a better hitter” does not give you anything to measure against. A better goal would be something like – “Hit .320 for the season.” This is a result-oriented goal, so you will need some task-oriented goals to start moving you toward that .320. Here’s a better visual:

Goal: Hit .320 this Season

Take 200 Swings off Tee 3 times per week

Capture hitting sessions on video and breakdown mechanics

Scout opposing pitchers and learn pitch tendencies

This is only an example, but should give you a better idea of how to set a measurable goal and then begin taking steps toward achieving it. Halfway through the season you’ll be able to see if you are on track, or if you need to adjust your goal higher or lower based on how realistic it is. Can you see how we are coming full circle using our other concepts of goal setting?

Step 2 – Lay Out a Game Plan

Okay, so you’ve established your goals and written them down. Now you need a game plan for success. This is where you take your task-oriented goals and put them on a schedule. You cannot expect results if you do not perform the necessary tasks to achieve those desired results. Every athlete should have his own unique goals and individual game plan set inside the confines of a baseball season – from off-season to pre-season to in-season.

Let’s take a look at what an entire year looks like and narrow it down from there.

Think of the entire year as 3 different seasons: Off-season, Pre-season, and In-season.

Off-Season: Aug-Nov

The off-season is basically your time to become stronger, faster, and more powerful. So many high school ballplayers have the pure talent to excel. Yet so many of them avoid the weight room and miss the valuable opportunity to become strong. I cannot tell you how many good ballplayers could have taken their game to the next level if only they had taken the time to work on their strength. Get in the weight room. Don’t worry about being super baseball-specific just yet. The most important thing at this point is to establish a consistent routine and incorporate major lifts like the deadlift and a squat variation.

The off-season is also your chance to “re-balance” your body. So, take a little time off from throwing and hitting (both single-sided activities) and work on establishing equal strength between your dominant and non-dominant side of your body. Furthermore, this is the time to let your throwing arm recover from the rigors of the previous season. You should be working on flexibility, mobility, and rotator cuff strength and stability.

You’ll have plenty of time later to start a quality throwing program. You can start up your hitting and work on your fielding after a few weeks of just strength training, but keep it light earlier in the off-season and gradually add more hitting/fielding reps as you get closer to the pre-season.

Pre-Season: Dec-Feb

When you get about 6-8 weeks away from the start of the season, you can start to pick up the amount of hitting and fielding practice. In fact, this is usually the time that most high school programs begin “official” practices, so you should have no trouble finding time to work on your baseball-specific skills. Continue with your lifting routine 3-4 days per week. If at all possible, take care of your baseball-specific skill work prior to heading to the weight room.

As for throwing, this is where you really need to get started with a quality throwing program – no matter what position you play. Incorporating a solid throwing program that includes long toss will play an integral part in the quality of your arm strength and durability throughout the season.

The pre-season is where you really need to step up the intensity of your practice and training sessions. Opening Day is just around the corner, and you want to be at the top of your game when that first pitch is thrown.

In-Season: Feb-July

Obviously, the season is your opportunity to finally reach the goals you set for yourself earlier in the year. However, don’t settle for what has yet to be accomplished. You need to continue to put full effort into your practices and drills. Every week should be an opportunity to improve on the one before it. You should also continue to long toss, but the amount and frequency will be different for each position. Infielders and outfielders should try to long toss 2-3 times per week in season, while pitchers will have to schedule long toss sessions based on when they pitch in games and bullpen sessions.

As for your strength & conditioning, an ideal week would have you getting in the weight room two times and working on maintaining what you built in the off-season and pre-season. You should not be looking to make any huge gains here. The last thing we want is for you to be tired and sore for an upcoming game. Instead, your focus should be on staying strong and maximizing your recovery between practices and games. Keep the loads heavy, but decrease your volume by lowering the number of sets you are performing. When in doubt, be smart and listen to your body.

Steps 3-5

In Part 2, we’ll discuss the remaining steps. In the mean time, go grab a piece of paper and pen and get started on writing down your goals.

Improving Your Baseball Warm-up

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Baseball Warm-up

Your old school stretching routine is just that – OLD. And you most likely socialize with your teammates more effectively during your “warm-up” than actually prepare your body for the demands of the game. It’s time to start moving with a purpose and stop going through the motions.

Many coaches and players still like to “circle up” and static stretch prior to a practice or game. However, static stretching prior to playing or training is not the best way to prepare your body for activity. While static stretching has its benefits for post-game and post-workout recovery, it can inhibit your performance if done prior to activity. Studies have shown that static (or passive) stretching can limit force production during performance, which ultimately lowers power output and explosiveness. Why would we ever want to decrease your ability to be powerful? Obviously, we wouldn’t. So why would coaches have their athletes static stretch as part of a warm-up?

Dynamic Stretching for Baseball

Baseball is a sport built on short bursts of activity incorporating quick, explosive movements. Every player needs to be able to produce force quickly in order to throw harder, run faster, and hit the ball farther. But how can players prime their bodies for these activities and even enhance the ability to produce force? Completing a solid dynamic warm-up can help achieve these goals.

Muscle stiffness plays a vital role in force production. When muscle stiffness decreases, the ability of the muscle to produce force also decreases. Static stretching involves a slow, controlled movement followed by holding a stretch for a prolonged period of time (30-60 seconds). The prolonged hold allows increased lengthening with little resistance from the muscle itself. As the muscle lengthens it relaxes, causing muscle stiffness to decrease and thereby lowering the muscle’s capacity to produce force. And if force production lowers, so does the ability to produce power.

When an athlete incorporates dynamic movements into his warm-up, he places his body under a different stimulus. Instead of holding a particular stretch for 30-60 seconds, the athlete may facilitate a stretch in a muscle for 4-6 seconds followed by a contraction (or shortening) of that muscle. (This is very similar to the way a baseball player moves when throwing a ball or swinging a bat. There is a short stretch followed by a quick contraction to generate an explosive movement.) So not only is active stretching more appropriate to the task-at-hand, but these dynamic movements also increase the potential for great neural activity which results in greater muscle stiffness. And as already discussed, muscle stiffness correlates to force production.

You can try understanding this way. The goal of static stretching is to relax your muscles, while the goal of dynamic stretching is to wake them up. By actively contracting your muscles throughout your warm-up routine you’ll be increasing your body temperature and heart rate as well as increasing blood flow to your muscles. Furthermore, your long-term mobility and flexibility will improve as well.

Incorporating Dynamic Movements into Your Warm-up

Once you grasp the concept of dynamic versus static stretching, it’s time to incorporate some new movements into your warm-up. Try out a few of the following next time you are preparing your body for practice or training:

Reverse Lunge with a Twist

Step back into lunge position with right leg. Twist your torso over your left leg with a slight lean back and right arm in the air. Hold the stretch for 2-3 seconds. Face back forward and repeat on other side and continue for 10 yards.

Baseball Backward Lunge with Twist

World’s Greatest Stretch (Spiderman stretch)

Step forward into lunge position with right leg. Place your hands on the ground inside your right foot. Drop you right elbow down toward the ground, keep your back leg straight, and hold the stretch for 3-5 seconds. To continue into next repetition, drop your hips and straighten your torso into a normal lunge position. Step through with your left leg and repeat for 10 yards.

Baseball Dynamic Warm-up

Inchworm

Start in a standing position and then bend at the waist, placing your hands on the ground. Walk your hands forward until you are in a plank position with a solid middle. Perform one push-up. Then, keeping your hands where they are, walk your feet toward your hands while keeping your legs straight. Repeat the movement for 10 yards.

Baseball Dynamic Warm-up

ARMing for Success

Want more information on how to set up your dynamic warm-up prior to a throwing session or practice? Check out ARMing for Success where you will learn a complete dynamic warm-up, 7 essential band exercises for the throwing shoulder, and how to set up your long toss program. You need a game plan when you hit the field, and ARMing for Success will give you the guidance you need. Check it out now!

TRX Row

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The TRX is a very versatile piece of equipment and is being used more and more by strength & conditioning coaches in their athletes’ training programs. There are literally hundreds of movements that can be performed with the TRX. Today, we are going to discuss the TRX Row.

Strengthening the Decelerators of the Shoulder

For the baseball player, the TRX row will challenge the athlete’s back and arm strength, core stability, and grip strength. While the grip and core work is a bonus, the muscles we are looking to strengthen are the latissimus dorsi and the teres major, two major players when it comes to decelerating the arm in the follow-through phase. Furthermore, the scapular retraction taking place during the movement will help stabilize the shoulders.

More baseball players experience shoulder injuries in the follow-through phase of throwing because of major imbalances between the accelerators and decelerators of the shoulder. Baseball players repeatedly train the front of the shoulder with daily throwing while the rear shoulder experiences less development. Hence, an imbalance is created and the chance of injury increases. So, performing posterior chain exercises for the back can help strengthen the rear shoulder and those muscles which help decelerate the arm.

Basic TRX Row

This movement is a great place to start for those younger or weaker athletes who cannot perform pullups. Also, if you have never performed this movement before, it’s best to start with a more basic setup.

Shorten the TRX straps all the way up.
Face the anchor point and set your body in a straight line (similar to a plank). Your ears, shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles should be in a line.
Keeping your arms straight with palms facing each other, walk your feet forward until there is tension in the straps.
To begin the movement, retract your shoulder blades back and down. Then, pull your torso towards your hands keeping your elbows close to your body. Your body should remain rigid and your palms and wrists should stay neutral.
Lower your body back to the starting position and repeat.

If the movement is too easy, move your feet farther forward. If it is too difficult to complete with correct form, move your feet back.

TRX Low Row

When you have mastered the basic TRX row, it’s time to challenge yourself even more with the TRX Low Row. It’s the same setup and movement as the basic row, but with you torso directly under the anchor point. This increases the difficulty by forcing the athlete to lift more of his bodyweight when performing the movement. The photo shows the athlete with his knees bent, which is perfectly okay. However, if you want to advance the movement even more, you can keep your legs straight, or even elevate your feet onto a box.

No matter how you decide to challenge yourself with the TRX Row, make sure you are performing the movement with great form. Examples of poor form include:

Sinking your hips or raising your hips. Keep your core tight.
Crunching the torso at the top of the movement. Keep your body in a straight line.
Curling the wrists. Keep the wrists neutral.

For more information on the TRX, visit the TRX website.