[Sportsandrec] Beginning baseball prescription

[Thornbury, Kelly]

Jennifer, 

Then don't do that.

 

Your baseball prescription depends on the part of the "season" you are in and how much time you have before the season starts. Usually, a year is broken down into an off season (where you do a lot more basic resistance training), pre-season (where your exercises get more sport specific), in-season (where you do a lot of maintenance exercises and real sport specific workouts), then a post season where you rest up. Each of these could be several weeks to several months. 

 

Generally, during the off season is when you are going to work on basic core strength (more weight training for all the general muscle groups), and a little cardio (baseball isn't really an "aerobic" sport). 

In the pre-season you begin to incorporate more sport specific exercises. This might include adding sprints, working with both weighted bats and lighter bats (one works strength, the other speed, and together they produce the power for harder hits). Also keep up with the weights, but not quite as much as before. 

In-season, focuses on the sprints and bat exercises, and cut the resistance training back to a couple of days a week (you just want to maintain at this point, and a couple of days a week of resistance training is fine.)

Stretching and flexibility exercises are important during every phase of the season. To help avoid injuries, always include a good warm-up, and cool down. Stretching is very important post workout, so don't neglect this. The core muscles (especially abs, obliques, and the lower back muscles) should be worked throughout as well. Various wrist exercises are good to. You can generate quite a bit of batting power from the wrists, so include wrist and reverse wrist curls. 

 

Honestly, baseball specific training is not something I've put much research into. I'm sitting here trying to imagine different specific movements, and in general I think a fair amount of shoulder work, back (especially rowing movements), and chest movements are good. Off season leg work should include squats, lunges, leg curls, and calf exercises. Pre-season and in-season should include those sprints, especially running "lines," for training specifically for starting and stopping. High speed bat swings (maybe a broom stick or whiffle ball bat) for swing speed. 

 

Give me a few days to talk to a couple of athletic trainers here who work with baseball teams for better advice, because I'm sure I'm missing something. 

 

Hope this helps a little, and it will be more specific later,

Kel "The stumped, baffled, and confused non-baseball player."