Find the time

There is always more you can do, or a better way to do what you are doing. The worse thing we hear from a player or a coach is that I don’t have time to condition, to strength train, to work on speed. Planning is the key and then understanding what are the very basic things we need to do to stay healthy and improve our performance. To gain strength, you don’t need 3 hours in the gym. To gain speed you don’t have to run 20 sprints. To gain conditioning you don’t have to run 20 miles. Strength is gained through continuing to challenge the body to adapt to the stimulus you provide. This can be through weight or a change in position or repetitions just to name a few. Find a few movements that are demanding to the body and you can get great strength gains in only a few minutes a day. Take the walking lunge with a knee drive and MB diagonal chop. Here is a simple exercise that requires dynamic balance/ strength of position/ core movement and stabilization; this is a total body super exercise. Do 20 of these and then let us know if this is not demanding. How can we work on speed, always remember it is the little things that matter with speed, especially in baseball. Work on arm swing, body position or even take off from first, that first step can make or break that steal. Remember intensity is the key to great conditioning in baseball. Do those sprints but make them fast and add a few things like bounding type movements, lateral shuffling movements. This way we can increase conditioning but also increase speed, power, coordination and decrease injury rates. So how does it all work together, let’s put together a sample plan:

Lets get a 8 minute workout:

1) 30 yard sprint there and back- 30 seconds
2) 20 Lunge chops- 2 minutes
3) 30 yard spring there and back- 30 seconds
4) 20 lunge chops- 2 minutes
5) 30 second break
6) 30 yard sprint there and back- 30 seconds
7) 30 yard marching arm swings- 30 seconds
8) 30 yard bounds- 30 seconds
9) 30 yard side shuffle- 30 seconds
10) 30 yard Sprint there and back- 30 seconds

Try it out, it’s fast but effective and many things can be substituted. The time is well worth the effort.

Brian Niswender, MA, CSCS
Warrior Sports Training
Baseballstrengthcoaching.com