Baseball Pre-season Training

BASEBALL PRE-SEASON TRAINING

Now that we have turned the corner from 2010 into 2011, it is a clear sign that players & teams should be entering into a new phase of the off-season baseball training plan.  Intensities and preparation for the upcoming season should be changing gears just a bit to better suit the build-up for the season at hand.   Of course, doing so would mean that there has been a specific year-round training plan in place for either a team of for each individual player, consisting of a cycle resembling something like this: In-Season, Post-Season, Off-Season, and Pre-Season.   True success lies in transitioning from one to the next.  I want to spend some time in this article focusing on the time at hand….this 4-6 week period known  as the Pre-Season.

The main focus of this time of year needs to be building on the off-season strength gains made during the previous 3-4 months.  If you gained some muscle strength recently during the off-season, use the next few weeks to sharpen it specifically for baseball.  What does this look like?  It means backing off the intensity a little, increasing the reps, and doing more sport-specific movements.  Let’s take the hips as an example.   Say you gained a lot of leg & hip strength via the squat or leg press during the off-season, doing heavy weight & something like 4-6 sets of 4-8 reps consistently.  Now, take the weight down a bit, and do the same lift in a 3-4 sets of 10-15 rep intensity.  Also, to make it sport-specific, do some resisted cord work around your hips as you run bases or swing the bat.  The idea is to use the new, raw muscle strength you have gained & sharpen it up with a baseball knife.  Make it fit the movements you need.

Another concept of pre-season training that is uber-important to the baseball player is the throwing routine.  A lot of ball players have different ways of keeping or getting their arm into shape.  I say for the experienced player that he needs to do what is best for him.  For the player with little or no experience in this area, I suggest that the next 4-6 weeks be a progression of long toss that culminates in a position-specific throwing plan.  This is designed to get the arm at peak conditioning for the first week of games.  I don not believe that a player needs to be 100% ready to pitch in a game 4 weeks before the first game.  However, there are a lot of programs that advocate “keeping” the arm in shape year-round.  Hopefully, the arm had a chance to rest from throwing during the off-season stage.  It needs time to rest.  Use the pre-season to slowly build up arm strength over the course of 2-3 weeks, then progress to mound work or outfield throwing.  The best way to build up arm strength for a ballplayer is to just throw, but make sure it’s a smart throwing program.

In summary, make a point to get a training plan….don’t just assume that things are just going to get themselves ready for the first game.  Those who jump into baseball without preparation are the ones who are most likely to get injured. 

BJ Maack, ATC, LAT, CSCS

bj@arsportsperformance.com

Twitter: @bjmaack