Each player reaches a point at some time or another when they seem to hit a plateau. They have met and exceeded the strength standards needed to play baseball. Getting stronger will no longer lead to noticeable gains on the field. Their mechanics are where they would like them to be. As a result, they are hitting/throwing very good for where they are at. Still, for some athletes this level is not high enough for them to advance to the next level. They are good, but not good enough to get recognized and a promotion. What do they do in this situation?
I originally got the idea for this article because of my own situation. In the weight room I can squat over 400 pounds and deadlift well over that at a body weight under 200 pounds. My bench is 1.5 times my body weight. At the plate I am very confident in my swing and able to repeat it without needing to work on the mechanics side for an hour every day. However this past season I still did not perform well enough on the field to get what I am looking for. I say this not to brag about myself, but instead to use as an example that good is not good enough. So what am I doing this offseason to bring about the results I need next year? Let’s get into it.
First, let’s start in the weight room. I felt that I have stagnated here since I know simply gaining strength will not be advantageous on the field. As a result I have been in maintenance mode for far too long. In search of some new ideas to test out, I heard about a guy named Frans Bosch. Although I have not yet read his book, Strength Training and Coordination: An Integrative Approach, I did a ton of reading up on reviews of his stuff, listened to podcasts he was in, and tried to understand what he does differently with his athletes. In essence, he feels that strength training needs to be transferable to the sport. This sounds obvious and makes sense, but how do we go about doing that? Here are some things that I came up with:
- Replace squats with quarter squats from pins. How often do we get down to parallel in the sport of baseball?
- Replace traditional deadlifts with raised deadlifts. Again, the goal here is to work more in the range of motion that the sport of baseball is played in.
- Include split stance quarter squats from pins. I feel this one is huge. In both throwing and hitting, we basically land in a split stance. Makes a lot of sense to get strong and explosive there.
(Notice the lower body. Partial split stance lifts anyone?)
- Include single leg deadlifts off pins. Once again, this is training the contraction of the lead leg in throwing and hitting that will allow us to block force and transfer it up to the upper half.
- A good finisher for a lower body day: sideways tire drags for ten yards followed by sideways rotational hops. Focus on landing on a sturdy leg on the hops. Many times lateral movement is neglected in a training program, and that misses a huge part of what our training should include.
- A good finisher for an upper body day: tire swings. Do some over the top as if chopping wood, and also some from the side as if cutting down a tree.
- Still do one day a week with full range movements. This is VERY important. We don’t want to lose the strength we have gained. Maintain it, while making it more usable for the sport. Some may need more full range work than others, it depends upon the individual.
So we have the weight room covered, good. Next: what can we do differently in the cage? First of all, let me say that being a 5 o’clock hitter is fun…at 5 o’clock. Not seeing your cage work transfer to in-game results is very frustrating. If you haven’t experienced it, take it from me, I know. Instead of doing the same thing in the cage this offseason, I will be trying different things with the goal of seeing more transfer come game time. Previously nearly all of my cage time would be spent on my swing. Now that I am comfortable with my mechanics and where they are, and I can hit a ball reasonably far, the goal has changed. I will now spend much less time, maybe 25% of my time depending on the day, focusing on getting my swing right. This is for several reasons. First, I have found a warm up routine that reinforces the movements I want and I do this everyday before hitting. I have found these to be magical and I plan to try and release one “movement drill” per week so that you may see the beauty as well. Secondly, once my movements are right for the day, I have no problem crushing BP fastballs so it’s time to mix it up a little. Here are some ideas I have been using:
- Start with 3 or so rounds of regular swings, to get the feel going for the day. (Similar to what happens on game day, no?)
- Following those rounds, mix it up. We have options here.
- Option #1: use weighted bats, sometimes randomly. There is a ton of research and support behind the use of weighted bats. They do not yet get the recognition they should. Use them.
- Option #2: include offspeed pitches, thrown randomly. Force yourself to make the adjustment. I currently am in a very good situation in that I can get two pitches, a fastball and a curveball set up on a pitching machine, and have it throw them randomly to me. The speed, movement, and reaction time is all very realistic. It is helping me a ton in learning what I need to do to adjust to offspeed pitches. If you do not have this option available, at least get your BP thrower to mix up the speeds. Learn how to adjust.
- Option #3: Experiment with different starting positions and try to still use the same movements. In other words, imitate a lot of different hitters, and force your body to still find the correct movements you are looking for. Motor learning research has indicated that it is not necessarily about doing the same thing over and over again, it is about challenging your body to find new ways to get to the same result from a different starting position. Some examples:
Normal Swing/Start:
Close Stance:
This type of variation can be mixed up more than just these two ways. Start further apart, try no stride, etc. The goal is simply to reach the same movements, just with a different starting position, allowing the body to find news ways to organize itself to get the end result.
These are some of the things I have been including in my practice. Obviously, it is not a complete list and you can use your imagination to come up with some on your own. Just make sure it doesn’t end with the hitter standing on a Bosu ball swinging a broomstick please. Make it close to the sport.
Finally, I want to emphasize again that the majority of players do not need this type of training. Hitting a fastball consistently hard is paramount. Once that is accomplished, the player can start working on some of the other stuff. Getting very strong is paramount (2x BW Squat and Deadlift, 1.5x BW Bench, at least).Once the player is strong and getting stronger isn’t producing any more gains, then more variation with the above methods and others can take place. Most importantly, experiment. Get to know what works for you and use that as your progress.
Have questions or want help on how this material can apply to you? Shoot me an email at brady.volmering@cornerstone.edu or leave a comment below.