Posts Tagged ‘baseball training’

Today I received a package from Texas, one that I had been eagerly awaiting for a number of weeks now. The good folks at Phantom Weight Technologies were nice enough to send me multiple sets of their newest products for a full review. My weight Sleeves have finally arrived, and right out of the box I am excited about the possibilities.

Working at a serious baseball academy is giving me the opportunity to run these things through a gauntlet of tests, and I already have high school, college and pro guys lined up as willing participants. Phantom won best in show at the Dallas ABCA convention this past January, so there is a lot of buzz about them in the baseball world right now. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s that time of year when you take all of the size and strength you’ve built in the weight room and start making it move…..FAST!

Plyometrics and ballistic movements are the name of the game, emphasizing the movement patterns that baseball players use most.  For my pitchers, this means exploding toward the plate and teaching their bodies to throw medicine balls at the speed of light.

Featured today are depth jumps and pitching push-offs.  Both work to build explosiveness in the lower half by developing greater Rate of Force Development (RFD) and muscle reactivity.

Depth jumps are simple and don’t require any added load, but are very neurologically demanding nonetheless.  Your reaction to the ground has to be lightning quick – as soon as you touch down your body needs to get back up as high as possible.  On our first day of our ballistic program we started with 3 sets of 6 reps, and we will be building on that in the coming 8-10 weeks.  People add inches to their verticals and improve their speed with this type of training, provided they already have the requisite strength.

Above we have Joe Lloyd, a pro pitcher who trains with me, performing push-offs. The goal here is simple: get out as far as you can as fast as you can.  Our goal is to build up the leg abductors and help launch the body toward the plate.  Pitchers who want to throw as hard as possible need to tap every possible avenue, including their push off down the mound.

Another angle…

Now these push-offs aren’t actually plyometrics, but rather just explosive movements.  The drill starts with the stride foot crossed over and in contact with the wall and the balance foot about 6-12 inches from the wall.  This allows us to load the back leg as the hips start to move forward, and the back leg powers the body forward right before balance would be lost .  This drill can help you lengthen your stride, if necessary, as well as get going forward with more power.

There are a ton of ways to vary and progress this exercise as well, which we will likely come back to in the near future…

Here is a tough drill that I run with my baseball catchers.  Catchers are some of my favorite clients to develop programs and exercises for, because I can be creative and come up with some really functional strength and conditioning work.

This video is of John Scott, a high school catcher of mine who really wants to get better.  He pushes himself, pays attention to detail and works til the whistle, which makes my job easy.

This drill is a great starting point, and there is plenty of room for progression. As John’s conditioning improves, we will load the exercise and incorporate some rotary medicine ball throws into his sprawl to knee-pop.