Take A Moment

Why do playoff games take so long? Why to Yankee vs. Red Sox games take so long? The answer is the title of this article…Take A Moment.

The casual baseball fan gets frustrated with the down time during the game, like the time between pitches. For the more intense fan, the time between pitches can be the most interesting. Notice what the players do between pitches. Do they change their routine? Do they take more or less time? In pressure situations, like the playoffs of a Yankee vs. Red Sox game, the time between pitches increases. Why? The pitcher and hitter need to take a moment.

This moment allows the players a chance to process all of the distractions and get down to what matters, the execution of the play. The distractions increase as the pressure increases. Examples include: more crowd noise, colder weather, knowing the importance of each play, and more detailed scouting reports.

What can you learn from this? When pressure comes, take a moment. Use it to take a deep breath or focus on something small. Use a pressure moment to learn how to gather your thoughts when you need them most. No matter what the outcome, if you can gather your thoughts you are on the way to a solid mental approach.

Matt Krug, MA
Sport Psychology Consultant

Staying In The Moment

It has been a really long baseball season. I hardly remember the first talk coach had at the beginning of the season. I do remember him writing on the board “8/25 - ??.” Those question marks are a symbol of the end of the season.

The nice thing about the beginning of the season is that most everybody has those questions marks that will end of their season. The beginning of the school year means fall baseball, inter squads that seem to never end, six a.m. workouts that make you want to throw up, and what seems to be the endless amount of drills that make you think that the spring season will never arrive.

You take a deep breath and the spring season has finally begins and everyone has a new life. Multiple outings for the bullpen pitchers, high pitch counts for the starters, catchers beaten and bruised, and position players that have legs that feel like lead.

You have put all the work in to make it to this point. The post season has arrived (and probably gone) for some of you. Those endless hours have got you to this point, because not everyone makes it to this point. Although you still have work to be done, stay in the moment. Use those positive experiences of the past (those workouts and endless scrimmages) to guide you through to a positive ending. You might be experiencing some things in the postseason that you have not been through – that’s ok. Guess what – the baseball is still round and the infield is still going to have the same dimensions. You are still going to tie on the cleats and play the game as hard as you can. So sit back for a minute and enjoy the moment. The game is the easy part - dealing with the external activities is what gets everyone.

Sorry to keep this short. My team has a practice to go to in Omaha . Wish me luck.

Chris Ham, MSA, ATC, CES
Athletic Trainer
Vanderbilt University Baseball

Recovery from Baseball Activities

Recovery from a baseball game is easy. Let’s take a look at the facts. How long is the typical baseball game, at the pro level 3 to 3.5 hours, college 3 hours, high school 2 to 2.5 hours, little league 1 to 2 hours. These are just rough estimates but for the most part pretty fair, how much time minus the starting pitcher is there activity? Let’s break that down. Typically a player will get 3 to 4 at bats per game, and let’s say that each player will see on average 7 pitches per at bat. That gives the player 21 pitches to focus, swing and potentially get a hit. If that player gets just one hit in the game they will be batting .333. This player will now only have to run the bases once and the chances the player gets all the way around and scores are slim, considering that most baseball games are in the single digits. The maximum the player will run around the bases is 360 feet or 120 yards, basically the full length of a football field. How about running on defense? In the infield, if the player can cover 5 to 7 yards on either side of the position, the defender is doing good. That means the player covers 40 total feet. In most cases a player will get 7 or fewer balls hit to them per game. So, if they covered the total area just to one side of their position the player may run 140 feet in a game, or about 40 yards. Outfielders, on the other hand, must cover more space so we will go as high as 50 feet either side of the position. Again, if the player makes 7 plays, the player would potentially cover about 350 feet or about 116 yards. Let’s put this in context, on average let’s say the outfielder will be asked to run at 100% 240 yards in a typical game, the infielder will be asked to run 160 yards in a typical game. In most cases not even half of a lap on a track. So is the game really physically grueling, meaning energy expenditure and calories lost from activity high? The truthful answer is no, but why is the game so exhausting.

I’m going to throw something out there that not many coaches that I have been in contact with talk about, mental recovery. What is mental recovery? The ability of the mind to come back to a resting state is the best way I can describe this mechanism. Training a player to calm the mind,rest the thoughts, and allow the body to recover and heal from day to day activities. All the physical recovery is still very, very important. The body needs fuel and hydration and with out them the mind cannot focus. But, there is a lot of information on this type of recovery. I just want to get this concept out in the open and if anyone has been doing any work on this please let me know, we have started to do some work with this concept and so you may be hearing more from us in the future.

Brian Niswender MA, CSCS
Co-Founder
BaseballStrengthCoaching.com

Preparation = Confidence

I know that the Vancouver Games have been closed for over a week, but one particular athlete’s story stood out in my mind. Immediately after winning the gold medal in the Women’s Moguls event, skier Hannah Kearney was interviewed and she talked about a “special note” that one of her strength coaches had sent her on the morning of the finals. Kearney was known to keep a diary of detailing each of her workouts over the past year. Her coach secretly went through the diary and summed up her work:

- 2,500+ Jumps
- 250 hours on the Bike
- 5,800 stairs climbed in ski boots while jumping into the pool

At the bottom of the note, the coach wrote “You are ready.”

Performance is a test of your training and skills. I know it’s a cliché, but don’t you feel better about taking a test if you’ve studied for it? Preparation for next season begins as soon as this season ends. Preparation for your next outing or game begins as soon as your last one was over. The goal is to maximize recovery, review what went right and what went wrong, develop a game plan, and then execute the plan. Simple right?

Not always. But, Hannah Kearney is on to one trick that can help…keeping a Training Log. Maintaining a log of workouts can help you recognize patterns and better understand when it is time to change movements and adjust the volume and intensities for optimal training benefits. Keeping a diary of previous performances can help you identify successful strategies and prevent falling into predictable patterns.

When you see it on paper, it is easier to recognize that you’ve done everything you can to prepare yourself for. And then you’ll know… “You are ready!”

David Yeager, ATC, CSCS
Co-Founder
BaseballStrengthCoaching.com

The power of "Power Talk"

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
-William Shakespeare

As I sit here watching the Olympics this week, I can’t help but think about the countless hours of training and practice that these athletes put in for only a handful of competitions a year and this ultimate event only once every four years. With so much time between competitions, they remain motivated and push on to achieve their dreams of Olympic gold.

Yet, how many of us work with athletes, both young and more mature, each day that it is a chore to motivate them for each practice or training session? The Olympians are at the pinnacle of their sport and still find the will and resolve to perform their necessary day-to-day routines. Most of our athletes still have a long way to go before they reach their elite levels. Even some of those who have cracked the professional ranks, still require a significant amount of our energy to nudge and drag them through their training sessions and put in at least enough effort to get something out of their workouts. Why do athletes often view these activities as a necessary evil? A colleague of mine said it this way, “It’s like some of them just don’t want to work.” I usually put it a different way. They just don’t understand the importance of the “behind the scenes” work and day-to-day grind that can have a huge impact on their on-field performance.

Shakespeare asks, “What’s in a name?” Language is a systematic means of communicating ideas and feelings. The words that we use should clearly designate our purpose and direction. The subconscious mind records everything. A person’s experiences provide a context for the emotions and behaviors that result from the words that are expressed. If an athlete has a history of negative experiences related to training or is constantly bombarded with negatives in his environment, then this will ultimately lead to negative thoughts, emotions, and behaviors about training and workouts. For example, when a coach uses conditioning as punishment, this serves to frame strength and conditioning as something the athlete should not want to do. Our mission should be to provide an environment both physically and with the language that we use to motivate and encourage our athletes to strive for their best both during competition and during their day-to-day routines.

I read an article several years ago that really got me thinking about the concept of language and positive self-talk. The article described a shipping company that was losing almost a million dollars per year in late, damaged, and wrong shipments. They hired a consultant to analyze their warehouse operations and to recommend changes that they could make in order to maximize their profits. After a couple of months the consultants made only one suggestion…change a word. What the consultants determined was that in the warehouse, the workers were segregated into different roles (packers, loaders, drivers, etc.). These roles isolated the workers and limited their interest in the work they performed. The consultants suggested that the company do away with each of the workers’ designated roles and replace them with a single job description, “craftsmen”. The shipping company took the advice and began referring to each employee as a “craftsman”. They even altered their training and business manuals to refer to “craftsmen”. Over time, the company began noticing big changes. The employees began taking more pride and ownership in their work, warehouse morale improved, and the next year’s analysis showed that the money the company was losing due to poor work and shipping errors was virtually gone.

What are some words that we can change in our business? Since reading the article, I have made the following power changes to my language when I’m communicating with athletes:

Strength and Conditioning >> Performance Enhancement
Practice >> Training Session
Rehabilitation >> Reconditioning
Coaching Staff >> Performance Team

Professional baseball seems to also begun to embrace this concept of “Power Talk”. Many teams shun the negative, second-tier persona of the minor leagues by referring to it as “player development”.

David Yeager, ATC, CSCS
BaseballStrengthCoaching.com

Burn The Ships!

This week I wanted to give you guys a story I came across, one that I hope impacts you as much as it has impacted me.

There was a great warrior that had to make a decision to ensure his success on the battlefield. He was about to send his armies against a powerful foe, whose men outnumbered his own. He loaded his soldiers into boats, sailed to the enemy’s country, unloaded soldiers and equipment, then gave the order to burn the ships that had carried them. Addressing his men before the first battle, he said “You see the boats going up in smoke. That means that we cannot leave these shores alive unless we win! We now have no choice---we win or we perish!” They won. Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to burn his ships and cut all sources of retreat. Only by so doing can one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as "a burning desire to win", essential to success.

As a coach or a player, have you left yourself no way to retreat? Have you made the decision to make whatever your doing a success. Whatever you want, go get it. Cortez used this strategy when he came to the new world.

Brian Niswender, MA, CSCS
Co-Founder, BaseballStrengthCoaching.com
Owner, Warrior Sports Training