Posts Tagged Training
Soliciting Feedback from You!
As my various partnerships and deals with facilities get wrapped up (I wish I could talk more about this, but can’t at the moment), I’ve been focusing quite a bit on marketing the blog and the training that we do at Driveline Baseball for Seattle-based athletes. With that comes a steady increase in traffic to the blog and a lot of hits to our training sites – both our Pitching Program and our Strength and Conditioning subpages. (Our hitting page is coming soon.)
Those subpages were written quite some time ago, and while I’m mostly happy with the content on them, they definitely need to be updated. And that’s where you come in – the reader! I want to know what you would like to know about our business: How we train athletes, what we do for corrective exercise, how we use motion capture, etc.
I’d also like to hear suggestions for main blog content, as I plan on ramping up posting frequency over the next few months.
The way I see it, it’s a win-win situation: You get more insight as to how we train baseball athletes, and I get some great ideas for blog content!
Feel free to comment to this post, or if you want to share your details privately, visit our Contact page for ways to get in touch with me.
Programming Mistake Numero Uno
We’re right in the middle of the busiest time for our athletes – Summer baseball season is here and Fall Ball is just around the corner! With it comes diminished time for Strength and Conditioning training, as I pointed out in In-Season Training: A Difficult Task. However, too many athletes get wrapped up in not being able to follow what they think they should be doing for strength training and end up doing nothing. Don’t overthink it!
Yes, you’re going to lose some strength during the season if you play competitive baseball (unless you’re a rank novice). Don’t sweat it! If you can get two training sessions in per week with heavy barbell implements, you’ll be doing alright. Just remember to get a heavy squat session and a heavy deadlift session in. Don’t worry so much about pressing, as it can interfere with baseball – especially if you’re a pitcher!
Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t. If you’re too worn-down to squat heavy weights, go lighter and turn it into a metabolic conditioning workout. Do interval training centered around bodyweight movements. Focus on those flexibility and mobility drills that you’ve been ignoring (I know you have, don’t even act like you do ankle mobility drills and sleeper stretches every day). Pull some resistance bands.
Above all – do something!
Our Stance on Nutrition
I get a few emails once in awhile asking me what they should eat, what supplements are good, how many calories they should eat in each meal, and so forth. I’ve decided to spend a long time putting together the comprehensive answer to all nutrition-related questions and make it available on my blog, for free. Here we go!
First Step: Determine your ideal caloric intake. Use a Basal Metabolic Rate calculator (link) to figure out a reasonable estimate given a “sedentary” lifestyle, then multiply it by 1.5 (assuming you are an athlete; I am using a modified version of the Harris Benedict equation). So if your BMR is 2000 calories, multiply that by 1.5 and you have 3000 for your “maintenance level.”
- To gain weight: Eat 15-20% more than your maintenance level.
- To maintain weight: This should be obvious.
- To lose weight: Eat 15-20% less than your maintenance level.
What About Macronutrients?
Eat about 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass. If you weigh 200 pounds and have approximately 25% body fat (be liberal with your estimates; no one is below 10% body fat for very long despite what you’ve heard), you have about 150 pounds of lean body mass. Eat 150 grams of protein per day. Space it out if you can and eat more of it around your workouts, but it’s really not that big of a deal.
As for carbs and dietary fat, we don’t care.
Seriously.
What else?
That’s it. That’s the list. In summation:
- Set and meet your caloric intake goals.
- Get 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass per day.
- Victory.
“But what about the Glycemic Index, Ketogenic Diets, HFCS, and [insert hot topic here].”
Simply following the three rules above will capture 90-95% of an “optimal” nutrition plan for your average athlete. All that other stuff either doesn’t matter or barely matters. When you can go for six months following the plan above, you can start worrying about the smaller things that only matter if you’re an elite competitor trying to differentiate yourself from others.
It really is that easy, folks. In fact, we can sum up an optimal exercise and diet plan like so:
Exercise:
- Squat.
- Press.
- Pull.
- Go to #1.
- (optional) Some sort of high-intensity or low-intensity (not medium-intensity, like jogging) cardio work
Diet:
- Get an appropriate amount of calories.
- Get an appropriate amount of protein.
It’s not rocket science. And to distill it down even further, there’s really only two constants you have to follow: You must squat, and you must eat enough protein. Simple stuff, really.
News: Strength and Conditioning Coming to NSBA Facility!
Great news: Driveline Baseball will be moving all of its strength and conditioning equipment into the NSBA facility at 8512 20th Ave NE in Seattle! There is ample room in the facility to set up our full suite of equipment, and we’re extremely excited to announce the start of what will be an excellent partnership between Driveline Baseball and North Seattle Baseball Association.
What you can expect from this partnership:
- The lowest rates for batting cage time in the Seattle area – as low as $20/hr without bulk purchasing plans required!
- Use of a fully-equipped strength and conditioning facility.
- Free classes being offered to Seattle-area coaches and instructors on how to set up proper resistance training programs for youth athletes.
- On-site computers that track your workout progress and allow you to review your standard and high-speed video files.
- Low-cost weight training sessions and workout programming assistance.
We’ll also be permanently setting up our kinematic analysis equipment at the NSBA facility to improve turnaround times when developing high-speed video and finishing your kinematic reports.
Here’s a comprehensive list of the strength and training equipment you will soon find at the NSBA / Driveline Baseball facility:
- Full power cage with straight chin-up / pull-up bar (appropriately knurled)
- Deadlift / Olympic lifting platform (rubberized surface)
- High-quality barbells and dumbbells
- Kettlebells in varying weights
- 1000+ pounds of iron plates
- Bumper plates in varying weights for Olympic and “quick” lifts
- Medicine balls in various sizes and weights
- Weight sleds, sledgehammers, tires, push-up bars, and other general physical preparedness (GPP) equipment
- SPRI resistance bands in all tensile strengths (including O-bands for specific scapular work)
- Jumpstretch bands for X-band walks, assisted chin-ups/pull-ups, Pallof presses, other core work
- Inflatable swiss exercise balls for core and mobility work
- Foam rollers for self-myofascial release
- Massage table for initial assessment use and stretching demonstrations
We’ll be sure to keep you updated with progress (and pictures!) of the facility as it’s coming along. If there’s strength and conditioning equipment that you want but don’t see, please leave us a comment and we’ll definitely take a look into it!
It’s an exciting time to be working with or training at Driveline Baseball. Off-season and in-season training programs are available, though room is running out as we partner with the NSBA and sign up their athletes! Contact us today to get started immediately.
Find Us on the Web!
Location
Kyle’s Hardball Times Articles- Chris Sale and his faulty elbow May 14, 2012
- Ubaldo Jimenez: A quick mechanics review May 7, 2012
- Ubaldo Jimenez and his missing 96 mph heater: A mechanical look May 4, 2012
- Scouting Mark Appel: the possible first pick overall in 2012 April 11, 2012
- The 39-year-old who won’t give up on his dream February 21, 2012
