Player development is the holy grail of baseball. Velocity, movement, command, injury prevention: the teams that can develop these traits better and faster than others are the ones that will be, theoretically, hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy more often than any others. This doesn’t just play at t...
Individualization is seen as a must have with training programs. While this is good, it doesn’t come without some misunderstandings. We’ve touched on some of those issues before, but it sometimes seems like people get confused by what individualization means in relation to sports. At times, individu...
Velocity Based Training – or VBT – has slowly been gaining popularity as athletes and coaches look for the most cutting edge methods to train their athletes. With VBT, instead of training for maximal strength, athletes train for maximal speed. In theory, this trains more fast-twitch mus...
Last time, we discussed the importance of having a movement screen and a few of the options that are available to coaches. If you missed that article, check it out here, as a few of the concepts we touched on will come into play throughout this article as well. Strength and Power For starters, let’s...
Absolute strength is a crucial stage in an athlete’s development; however, the stimulus will need to change as an athlete gets further into their career. Absolute strength is a great tool for young athletes to develop high force production, neuromuscular efficiency, and lean-body-mass gains. S...
There are many different ways to select and utilize exercises in order to compose a successful strength-training program. Regardless of which variations you select, the staple movements of most complete programs include the following: Squat Hinge Lunge Pull Push/Reach Carry Rotation In this series w...
Go to just about any baseball field in the country and you are bound to hear the term “Sport Specific” a handful of times in reference to strength training. Whether it be players, coaches, or parents, they all want the same thing: performance training that adequately matches the demands...
In the first piece of this three-part series we discussed the overall importance of in-season training for the high school baseball player, and how it fits, philosophically, within the context of the spring baseball season. Part two covered the considerations that should be taken when planning out t...
The competitive high school baseball season is nearly upon us. As 2017 has finally arrived, many southern states are merely a handful of weeks away from tryouts, leaving very little time left for planning. Even the northern states who observe a true winter will see their first pitches thrown sooner...
In the previous post we discussed the importance of a ballplayer’s first year of strength-training, and how to go about making the most of that first year. Today we will extend from that topic by discussing further the great window of adaptation that novice athletes possess, and why it is impo...
