The fundamental goal of a trainer working with athletes is to enhance their performance on the field. To do this, the trainer must fill in the gaps, the physical traits that aren't developed by simply playing the sport.
Too often, trainers get consumed with the idea that “sport-specific” training means mimicking the demands of the sport. In reality, a balance must be achieved by considering the sport itself, training, and the activities therein as part of the overall training volume. Missing this point will often mean leaving the athlete with a big hole in his overall training scheme. Such is the case quite frequently with in-season baseball and softball training programs.
I’ve played professionally as a pitcher for three years, and I’m thankful for an insider's look at the grueling nature of a season comprised of over 100 games and two days off per month, all done in the summer heat. I also own a training academy with a 95 percent baseball and softball clientele. Being able to relate to their training needs has been a major factor in my business’s rapid growth. Though I know how various forms of in-season training affect me personally, it isn't a great idea to make wide generalizations for 100 athletes based on the experiences of one. So let’s appeal to common sense and analyze overall sport and training volumes and look at what these players get on a normal day “at work.”
The sporting movements of a baseball or softball player
Throwing/pitching:
- Explosive concentric-only shoulder internal rotation
- Explosive concentric-only wrist flexion on each throw
- Explosive rotation/extension at core and hips
- Explosive posterior and lateral extension on stride
Fielding
- Squatting, leaning, reaching; movements on virtually all planes
- Jumping and diving
- Short direction sprints and sharp change of direction
Base running
- Sprinting, straight and with left turn
- Lateral changes of direction
- Diving
Batting
- Explosive rotation/extension at core and hips
- Sprinting
- Change of direction
- Swinging a weighted object with hands
What we see here is a pretty straightforward pattern—lots of agile movements, sprinting, and explosive rotation of the core and hips. However, the problem is that trainers make this analysis and thus decide that because agility, explosiveness, and rotation are what ballplayers do, their performance will be enhanced by doing more of it. This is a flawed approach.
Rather, we need to understand that playing the sport itself will take general strength and make it sport-specific, and training the same way the athlete plays is redundant and wasteful. Stronger glutes and hamstrings will make that shortstop’s first step a hair quicker, allowing him to make that play deep in the hole. Agility training won't have this same effect during the season. After all, playing shortstop is agility training in itself.
As a starting pitcher, I’d throw almost 200 full-effort throws (including pre-game and warmups between innings). Many in-season programs for baseball prescribe medicine ball throws to maintain core strength. The day after my start, I scratched my head thinking about this. Didn’t I perform this exact same movement 190 times yesterday? Further thinking about my fielders behind me, did my second baseman really need to run cone drills after chasing down bloopers for nine innings? I think not.
Bob Alejo wrote a fantastic book, Double Play, about his methods as the Oakland A's strength coach. His book was well before its time. In many ways, I think trainers have overcomplicated the programming for ballplayers in the years since his book. What Alejo advocated was simple:
- The season is long; players are tired. Give them short workouts after games to maximize mental and physical energy as well as recovery to the next game.
- Maximal strength must be maintained. Work at 80–90 percent to maintain high levels of strength but at low reps to avoid fatigue.
- Use compound movements to get the most muscle recruitment for the amount of energy expended.
- Position players get enough conditioning by running the bases and fielding their positions. Catchers are chronically overworked. They don’t need to run much, if at all, to be well-conditioned.
- Pitchers need to work on high intensity sprints and striders to best match the metabolic systems used in pitching. Distance running isn't advised.
- Avoid movements that pose excessive injury risk, especially to the throwing arm.
I believe it’s hard to improve on Alejo’s basic template for training baseball players during the season. Ballplayers get agility, explosive sprints, and rotational movements during the game, which for position players is every single day. There isn't any good reason to retrain these movements in the gym.
Maximal strength can take a massive hit over the course of a five- to seven-month season, so a program aimed at maintaining strength is important. We don’t want hitters losing carry on their deep drives or pitchers losing velocity in August, which will certainly happen if they get weak. After all, why build strength and size during the off-season if the in-season program won’t maintain it? Plyometrics, medicine balls, and agility work won’t do the job.
Beyond some of Alejo’s strength-maintenance recommendations, we can fill in a few more of the gaps for this demographic. Yes, pitchers and hitters rotate explosively every single day, but they do so only concentrically and only in one direction. We can use anti-rotation movements, opposite-direction rotations, and anterior core movement for a new stimulus. But, even then, it’s better to stay on the strength side of the strength-speed continuum.
Some higher volume work is ideal to maintain size, but we have to be very careful about which exercises meet the balance of keeping size up and preventing undue fatigue. A few good choices are hip thrust variations, hip hinging movements, and low angle rowing variations. Not all muscle groups are good candidates for higher volumes because of the way they can interact with an already fatigued throwing arm.
Redundant programming
Programs that train exactly the same movements as seen in the game, as expounded upon above, take on the following shape:
A1. Medicine ball rotations, 5 X 8
A2. Split squat jumps, 5 X 8
B1. One-leg shock jumps, 3 X 5
B2. Plyometric push-ups, 3 X 8
C. Ten-minute agility workout
There is a time to develop rotational power and teach kinetic sequencing and agility: the off-season. The in-season continues to train these by requiring them in the sport itself, so maintenance is already guaranteed.
Balance-focused programming
These have a higher percentage of strength work and are designed to fill the gaps of what players develop simply by playing their sport:
A. Romanian deadlift (with three-rep weight), 6 X 1–2
B1. Chest-supported row (with five-rep weight), 4 X 3
B2. One-arm landmine press (with five-rep weight), 4 X 3 each
C1. Pallof press (can also perform more reps on non-dominant side), 3 X 8 each
C2. Sliding leg curls (for hamstring prehabilitation and hypertrophy), 2 X 15
None of these movements, or the strength required to execute them, would be maintained without specific work during the season.
Time efficiency is key
The biggest thing to understand with baseball and softball players is how tired they are or will be. The season is longer than any other and is comprised of an absurd amount of games in the heat and humidity. Whether it's the youth, collegiate, or professional level, there are many long days spent on the road eating fast food and being beaten down by long days. If two or three 40-minute training sessions are all that will fit into a ballplayer’s busy schedule, we must maximize it by training to bring up weaknesses, maintain maximal strength, and restore balance to the body. There isn't any room for redundancy.
The minimum effective dose
This principle only needs a short mention but is a crucial component in program design—only give the athlete what he minimally needs to maintain maximum performance. Many of the hardworking players in sports develop an insecurity—they have to do more than everyone else. It’s admirable but sometimes detrimental.
After a few years of exhausting summer seasons, I realized that I wanted to do exactly as much as would make me perfectly prepared, by my own standards, to take the mound every fifth day. I put aside my pride and did less between starts. My body felt better and my results were better. Trainers need to be constantly reevaluating training volumes and exercise choices to ensure that their players get the ideal dose: the minimum effective dose, which is just enough to get the desired result. Anything more provides only needless fatigue.
Take away
Stop training your baseball and softball players by replicating what they’re already doing on the field. Take a step back and think about what they aren’t getting out on the diamond. Then, talk with players who have been through the grind and have a conversation about what did and didn't work for them. Baseball and softball, more than other sports, have a big gap between what looks good on paper and what actually works after a day-night doubleheader.
