Baseball Workout Routine

Baseball Workout Routine

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I need help with a workout routine!?

I want to have a workout routine that is good and will benefit for a baseball player (and that will be good for a centerfielder that bats leadoff). Especially helping with throwing the ball farther/with more velocity, sprinting faster, and being able to hit the ball harder. I’m looking for a 3-4 day routine.

This isn’t going to be a mechanical analysis of hitting, but rather to clear up some air on using weighted bats, and also some good things to do to help make your swing more repeatable.

First, does swinging a heavier bat make you swing faster when you go back to your normal bat?

No it doesn’t.

Weighted bats are one of the worst things you can possibly use.

They are fine to use on deck to loosen up shoulders, wrists and other joints via swinging lightly (before swinging your normal bat on deck), but when used a training device they are harmful to the swing.

Any time you use an impliment 10% or greater (this is even lower if the said individual is particularly weak) your mechanics in that movement change. So essentially when you swing a heavy bat your training a seperate swing from your normal mechanics. You’re training a different pattern that’ll negatively affect your normal swing. (This is true with heavy balls as well. But that’s another topic for another day. )

For most hitters this will have a severe negative impact on performance.

At first glance weighted bats are an easy sell because people think that if weight training can make someone “stronger” then a weighted bat will make the swing “stronger”.

This is a perfect example of poor application and understanding of how the human body functions. In order to increase bat speed and power one must train certain movement patterns and aspects of strength that can carry over to the swing, not trying to mimic a specific movement itself. Training the swing specifically for “strength” will simply lead to poor mechanics and a slower swing speed.

Sure the bat feels “lighter” but if you check bat speed it’s actually slower after swinging the heavy bat. This is because you just taught your body how to move slowly. Remember you can teach your body how to move slower, just like you can teach it to move quicker.

Bukreseva, 1955; Farfel, 1958: “the speed rate in any joint relects not so much the speed qualities of a certain muscle group [or groups], but rather the general motor capability for making maximum quick movements” (Genov, 1970a).

3.6 of The Science and Art of Baseball Pitching: “Otsuji, Abe, And Kinoshita (2002) and Southard and Groomer (2003) studied the effect of swinging with a weighted bat on normal-bat velocity. As would be predicted, the weighted-bat had a negative effect in that it slowed the velocity of the normal bat swing despite subjects reporting the normal bat feeling lighter and being swung faster. In accord with the principle of specificity of neuromuscular patterning, Southard and Groomer also observed that the swing pattern with the normal bat was alterted significantly after using an overweight bat.”

Now to work on hitting.

What I suggest doing is, get someone to video tape you swinging, and then have it analyized by someone who knows what they’re talking about. Then have them help you with what you need to work on.

To make the most out of your practice, I suggest using mental imagery (as well as doing so on deck and even after each pitch once you’ve got it down where you can do it quick enough).

First I’ll tell you why they work, and then I’ll help you in what to do.

“Each skill trial [swing] lays down catecholamines at the nerve synapses in the evoked neuromuscular pattern ["muscle memory"]. On the next trial, nerve impulses find it easier to follow the “chemical trail” than when there was none. That is why specific skill warm-ups and mental imagery work. They invoke the appropriate chemicals pattern of a movement and make it easier to perform the skill reliability.”

11.4 of The Science and Art of Baseball Pitching:

“Mental imagery (rehearsal) is a procedure that can be used to learn strategies and to assist in the control of mental focus before and during a game. Mentally rehearsing a physical skill sets the body to respond better in the action that is imagined or rehearsed. The perception or imagination of a motion in a person produced impulses in the neuromuscular pattern to perform that motion (Bakker, Boschker, & Chung, 1996; Harris & Robinson, 1986) and excites the same areas of the brain used in real ations (Lacourse, Randolph Orr, & Turner, 2003). The benefit that occurs from this pheneomenon is called “neuromuscular facilitation” and is known as the “Carpenter effect”… The effect of this imagery is not as great with intermediate or novice level atheletes as it is with élite performers. Teaching imagery skills increases the use of imagery and is associated with performance improvements, particularly in difficult skill elements (Rogers & Buckholz, 1991).”

What you’ll want to do first is (and if closing your eyes at first helps, go ahead) see yourself in your mind. See the field, the pitcher, players. Look as if you’re watching yourself via bird’s eye view (like a movie). See the pitcher throw the ball, and see you hit the ball successfully.

Then, imagine it through your eye. You’re in the batter’s box. The pitch is coming, and focus on your mechanics, not all of it, but make sure you’re swinging in your mind like you would in a game. Don’t go through it slow, because then you’re laying down the neuromuscular pattern to go slow.

For me, I focus on a little twitch in my left knee (I bat RH, throw left, I’m weird), firing the hips, and then my shoulders (so I stay connected. I don’t use the term firing the hands, because it never really worked for me. My hands would get too far away from the “box”), and then crushing the ball.

As you practice this more and more, and more and more and more, you might notice your muscles start to twitch a bit when you’re using mental imagery. This is good.

So! You think about it in your head, then take a swing. Then repeat after you go through it in your head again.

Also, another tip. When you’re in the hole, start doing this, also, talk positively to yourself. “I WILL hit this guy. I WILL get on base. I CAN DO THIS!” Etc…, because positive self-talk is good, and negative self-talk, “I think I can hit this guy. I don’t want to let my teammates down,” etc… Is bad.

So, you’re doing that. Guy gets on or whatever, and you’re on deck.

Pick up a bat, mental imagery, swing, I WILL get on base. Mental imagery, swing, positive self-talk, etc…

It’ll help in making sure to replicate the swing you want. It’ll give you a better chance for success, and it helps in improving your mechanics.

To wrap this up, when you’re hitting off the tee, don’t hit 500 balls in a row. Hit about 5-10. Take a little break (so you don’t get tired, as fatigue hinders learning and skill development), then repeat. As you get the mechanics you want down, then start hitting 15-20, take a break, another 15-20, so that you’re doing it in fatigued states as well.

For skill learning to occur, learning has to take place in blocks so that feedback from one trial can be used to modify the next trial. That feedback gradually causes good elements to be retained and poor elements to be altered. The essential feature of learning is that the proximity of trials allows the learning benefits (the feedback) from one trial to transfer to the next.

As your mechanics are improved, and your skill improves, then start hitting both in non-fatigued and fatigued states. “Arnett, DeLuccia, and Gilmartien (2000) showed that males and not females benefit from practicing in fatigued conditions. Performance in fatigued situations improved after condition-specific practice. A coach must be wary not to practice only in fatigued states but to balance the two experiences and to err on the side of too little rather than too much fatigued practice.”

For workouts:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AmsFum29zRfMcyiJOZiQOjHty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20080225182944AALfEgZ&show=7#profile-info-wioxLD6baa

If you want to throw the ball harder, get someone to videotape your throws from CF so that you can analyize your mechanics. Are you moving as fast as possible while still keeping in control of yourself, your arm getting up and ready to throw as soon as your front foot lands on the ground? Is your lower body opening up first before your upper body (which is good)? Then you just have to continue making the throws and working hard at it.

Top 3 Exercises For Athletes – Sledge Hammer Edition

It is very easy to get into the habit of pulling off the ball. This is especially true for power hitters. Have you ever seen a power hitter hit a home run and thereafter, he can’t couch the ball? What happened? The home run took him out of himself. So as he pivots, he is also pivoting his head. Read the rest of it here: Click Here