Is Your Baseball Coach In It For You? Or For Themselves?

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Is Your Baseball Coach In It For You? Or For Themselves?


Over the years I have seen and played for a lot of different coaches spanning various sports. Most of us have. And they can be categorized in many different ways – a yeller versus a quiet, thoughtful approach; more technical versus motivational; organized versus “winging it”; and so on. I submit to the readers now a new category – coaches that work for you versus working for themselves.

What I mean by this category is the following – does the coach ramble on and on with no apparent organization to their sermon, or do they come across as having a clear and concise goal for that particular session? The human mind – as powerful as it is – has a very difficult time being consciously aware of more than one new concept at a time. So is the coach focusing their efforts on a singular, EFFECTIVE goal or are they taking every opportunity to just spew information, whether germane to the overall intentions or not, just to show how knowledgeable they are to the masses? Is it truly about you? Or them?

In my opinion, the greatest coach who has ever lived (at least in North American contemporary times) is the college basketball legend John Wooden (did you know his favourite sport was baseball?). Coach Wooden called himself an average game coach but a great practice coach. Why? Well no matter how many championships he won (10 NCAA titles by the way) he maintained the humility and discipline to prepare for every practice. He even kept the practice plans for every single one he ever conducted until the day he died. He never thought he was too good to prepare. He had a clear and concise goal or goals for every practice and every drill, whether they were individual or team based. Certainly after 10 or 5 or even 2 or 1 National Championships he could have easily just cruised a bit and gone on without a plan wowing them every day with his knowledge and what he had accomplished in the past, right? But would that be serving the players or him?

Wooden and other great, genuine coaches are not victims of what some have coined “The Me Disease” – the belief that things happen (good or bad) because of who you are, not because of what you do. With Wooden it was never about who he was. It was about the responsibility he took in his position of leading young men, and developing and maintaining the constant effort and discipline it took to provide them with what he felt they deserved. It was about what he did and he knew how easily that could slip away if he started believing it was about who he was. It was that humility and LACK of self-importance that kept him so great for so long.

So the next time you are deciding on a new coach or deciding whether or not to keep a coach, ask them – and yourself – what they are doing for you when you are not working together. Are they taking time and putting forth great effort to synthesize, prepare and implement a development plan for you? Or not? Are they planning out the next practice or groups of practices for the team or group? Or not? Are they of the mind that it is an honour for them to be working for you? Or the other way around? Is success about what they do? Or who they are? Simply put – Are they in it for you? Or are they in it for themselves?

Good luck in searching for a coach you deserve. I hope this helps.

Mike McCarthy, Co-Founder - The Baseball Zone

Using The Off-Season For Professional Growth

The professional baseball job market has been a focus in the media since the 2011 season ended. Similar to those in the MLB free agent pool, many MiLB strength and conditioning coaches are goal setting in hope of career advancement within a competitive field. Common year-end goals for MiLB strength and conditioning coaches include:

- Obtaining a full-time position with benefits
- Getting promoted in level (i.e. Rookie, Single-A, Double-A, Triple-A, MLB)
- Receiving raises in salary, live-out stipends, and meal money per diem
- Becoming a Minor League Strength and Conditioning Coordinator

With career goals in mind, improving your stock within an organization relies upon your ability to perform your job well. The off-season is an ideal time for adding to your skill set. Being proactive towards education and preparation is an effective way to focus on career variables which are in your control.

Continuing Education

The NSCA requires professionals to maintain and report CEU’s every 3 years, which provides added motivation to sign up for a conference or seminar each off-season. Conferences cover a variety of topics, for those wanting to see what has been occurring elsewhere in the field. Whereas, seminars are often focused on a single topic or specialty. Networking can be an added benefit of attending professional meetings.

Learn and apply a new skill or specialty every off-season. Why would anyone ever promote someone who isn’t willing to advance their knowledge?

Program Evaluation

It is important to reflect back on the previous year and determine what went well and what did not. Was there a program or circuit you relied on more heavily than others because it just seemed to work well in the baseball day? Identify that program and use the reasons for its success to develop further tools. Also, did any strength and conditioning coaches in your league use exercises that could be a complement to one of your programs?

Be a good self-evaluator. Make the most of your strengths and resources. Identify and improve upon your weaknesses.

Planning

There is an attitude in professional baseball that because of the rigors of playing every day, the ability to put together a structured strength and conditioning program is limited. Although off-days, rain-outs, day games, fatigue, and injuries can make scheduling in-season training a challenge, the more prepared routines you have ready for the variety of situations that occur, the more comfortable you will be when the situation dictates you need to adjust the schedule on-the-fly. If you have a gym routine you like, ask yourself, what will I do to complete this on the field and/or without equipment available?

Anyone can improvise a routine arbitrarily. The more prepared coach can improvise while remaining goal-oriented, sport-specific, and focused on individual training needs.

Thanks for reading.

Eric McMahon, MEd, RSCC
Minor League Strength and Conditioning Coach
Texas Rangers

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

New Year’s Resolutions (Recommendations)

Welcome back and happy New Year!

Every year we all make New Year’s resolutions or try to make personal goals leading into the new year or the new season. At this point I am hoping it’s not to start training for the season sooner – because you are getting ready to report back to class much quicker than you think. I will make a couple suggestions if you are looking for a couple goals for the upcoming year and season.

• Have a mental routine prior to your baseball activity – there are very few good athletes that just show up to the ballpark and turn it on. Most of them are preparing hours before they show up to the ballpark – mental preparation can help in many aspects of the game.

• Have a physical routine for your baseball activity – I know most people think runners and track athletes are pretty much crazy, but they have a set routine before they line up for a race.

• Get a massage – most parents are going to kill me for suggesting this, but soft tissue quality has an effect on your overall performance. There is a reason that massage and other soft tissue treatments are so successful and popular. Self-massage can be very beneficial – a golf ball, tennis ball, baseball, PVC pipe, and foam roller can help your legs out in the long run and can be an aid in the recovery process.

• Stretch your arm when you get done throwing – the benefits and effects of stretching have been debated and argued for as long as I have been around this profession. When, How long, mobility work, PNF stretching, etc, etc etc. Studies have documented the range of motion lost during an outing that a pitcher puts together. If you neglect to take care of this before you throw again, you are putting your shoulder in an awful position – a simple way to put it is to take care of your assets.

I can’t say that these things will give you the ability to throw 96 mph with sink, or give you the ability to hit .400 over the course of the season. It will help you feel better in the long run. Good luck this season it’s right around the corner.

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

Don't Blow It!

How important is a first impression? As a baseball player it might be the only time you get to show a coach what you are made of. This is not limited to only your skills on the field but also what you are made of as a person. I have seen and heard many stories of how athletes have blown a great opportunity, and in the last 6 months I have witnessed 3 or 4 missed opportunities because the player doesn’t think it will matter. A word of advice, everything you do matters, from what you eat to how you dress. Let me give you a few stories.

I was at a camp watching a few players. This camp was hosted by a very well known coach at a college is Nebraska, which has a husker as a mascot. During a meeting with the players, the coach was explaining how the recruitment process goes and how it’s hard to see all the players out there. During this meeting the coach explained that while traveling to see players many times they are strapped for time and will only be able to stay a few minutes. During this time everything you do as a player can make or break you. If he saw a player during warm-up messing around, he would pack it up and leave and go to the next game. "Ladies and Gentlemen this is warm-up.", as he said. This might be the only time he has to see a player that day. If that first impression is bad, he may never return. Can you afford to make that impression?

Recently I had a player that had set up a try-out with a college coach. This player had 2 months after the summer season to prepare himself for the try-out. But what did he do instead? He decided to play golf. Don’t get me wrong. Golf is a great game. But, he did not touch a baseball for 2 months. When he returns to me before his try-out we had a week to prepare. Now, he failed to inform me 2 months earlier that he had set up this try-out. So, to my surprise we are trying to get some work done before that try-out. This player went to the try out with a minor sore arm and a weak bat. So how did the try-out go? Not so well. His arm was weak and lacked a lot of power. What will this coach do? We don’t know as of yet. But, did he put his best foot forward?

These are just a few examples and I could go on. But I think I have made the point. Please, if you get nothing else out of this blog this week, know that coaches are always watching. Take the time to prepare. That first impression could be your last impression.

Brian Niswender
Co-Founder Baseball Strength Coaching.com

The Energy Balance Equation

As a Performance Enhancement Coach, I am frequently fielding questions from athletes who are trying to gain weight. What kind of workout should I do? What supplements should I buy? How much protein should I take? What kind of protein should I take? All of these questions can and should be addressed. But, there is one question that should be asked before all others…How many calories do I need?

The concept of weight management through Energy Balance is not a difficult one to convey. First, if an athlete’s goal is to maintain his weight, then the amount of energy (calories) that he expends through activity and exercise must equal the amount of energy he consumes (food). If his goal is to lose weight, then he must expend more energy than he consumes. And finally, if the athlete’s goal is to gain weight, then he must consume more energy than he burns. This is the most important issue in weight management – even before I begin discussing protein, carbohydrates, supplements, etc. Gater et al. (1992) demonstrated that athletes who participate in a strength training program and consume more calories than they expend show higher muscle mass gains than athletes with a neutral calorie balance.

(+) Energy Balance = Weight Gain
(-) Energy Balance = Weight Loss
(0) Energy Balance = Weight Maintenance

Even though this is not a difficult concept to convey, it definitely is not as easy to put into practice. For me, the first thing that I ask the player to do when dealing with weight management goals is to keep a weekly diary of what he is eating and drinking, so that I have an idea of how many calories that he is consuming. From there, we discuss the player’s daily calorie expense based on his daily practice, training, and performance activities. The biggest thing that I’ve found over the years is that most players do not have a good grasp on how many calories they need during the day or how many calories they actually take in.

23yo Male / 6ft Tall / 200lbs  3,114 Calories

The average professional baseball player requires 3,114 calories just to fuel his normal bodily functions at rest and maintain his current body weight. The need increases to between 3,600 and 4,100 calories per day to fuel the body for the addition of daily baseball activities. It is important to also understand that a player’s calorie needs will change based on the time of year (off-season, pre-season, or in-season), within a given week (5-day Starting Pitcher Rotation), or according to his role on the team (Starter vs. Reliever, or Everyday Player vs. Bench Player). Consuming up to 100-500 more calories per day than you are expending will provide you with the energy needed to gain strength and increase your lean muscle mass.

How do you gain weight? Above all else, make sure that you have a positive calorie balance.


David Yeager, ATC, 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

Pre-Season Preparation

Happy New Year!

Welcome back to Baseball Strength Coaching.com’s blog. We hope the New Year will bring new opportunities and new success to everyone. As the New Year starts it is very important that you as a player or a coach puts down what you want to accomplish for the year. A little goal setting never hurt anyone. It allows you to refocus and make sure you start the year out right. What’s nice about Baseball is that the season is about ready to begin so many of the goals will be seen fairly early, and so is very rewarding. I don’t want to get too caught up in the goals and vision of the year; I just want to make a quick reminder to do it.

What I want to get into is getting the body prepared for the up coming season. Every coach and player starts to think about conditioning before the season, and many times they try to get prepared to late in our minds. During tryouts and early pre season is not the time to have your most intense conditioning. Your main goal should be looking at talent or displaying your talent the best way possible. As a coach I know that many of you have workouts before the official season starts and this should be the time to prepare the players with heavy conditioning. They should be prepared to play (or conditioned) before the tryouts start. You will continue to condition through out the season but the main foundation should be laid before the tryouts start. I will give examples later in the blog. As for players if your coach is not getting you a great foundation it is your responsibility to be prepared. You want to step on the field ready to go and if heavy conditioning is part of tryouts then you are one step ahead. What this means is that you are not as sore and fatigued meaning you can put your best foot forward during the tryouts. You will have more fun and perform at your best.

Let me give you some examples of things you need to be doing before tryouts start.

You must lay the foundation:

In conditioning that usually means some long distance type running, but we are going to be really specific for baseball. We believe at this time there is no need to go over 3 miles in a workout. Baseball is a game of short bursts no matter what position you look at. Intensity is king. If you are out jogging you need to push the pace and that is why there is no need to go over 3 miles. Try to keep your miles around 7 minutes or less. That should be your goal. So if you go out for the 3 miles try to keep it around 21-25 minutes. This is also the time to include you longer sprint type workouts, 800’s, 400’s, 200’s. Remember intensity is king; you must push yourself at all times. I have included a basic week of workouts.

Week 1:
-Monday: 1.5 mile jog (shoot for 7 min mile)

-Tuesday: 2x 800’s
2x 400’s
2x 200’s

-Weds: 1.5 mile jog

-Thursday: 2x 800’s
2x 400’s
2x 200’s

-Friday: 1.5 mile jog

Week 2:
-Monday: 2 mile jog (shoot for 7 min mile)

-Tuesday: 3x 800’s
3x 400’s
3x 200’s

-Weds: 2 mile jog

-Thursday: 3x 800’s
3x 400’s
3x 200’s

-Friday: 2 mile jog

Hopefully you can see how the progression goes, this will continue for 4 weeks. After the 4th week the program changes to increase the sprinting, to include shorter and faster sprints. I hope this helps get everyone off on the right foot. Remember to set those goals and go get them this year

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