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Baseball Off Season

Off-Season Baseball Training Info You Need to Read

It’s now the baseball off-season for most levels of baseball – youth, high school, college, and minor league ball.  If you are like most ballplayers, you are already thinking about next season and what you need to do over the course of the next 5-6 months to make it the best season of your career.  At Baseball Training Methods, we seek out the best information possible in regards to baseball strength and conditioning so that you don’t have to.  Below are three articles you should read as you begin your off-season baseball training.

Baseball Weight Training

How to Get the Most Out of Your Baseball Offseason Training –  There are a few things you need to do in order to set a great foundation for the start of your off-season baseball training program.  In this article, Mike Reinold will break down issues you should address prior to starting your off-season strength and conditioning including why you should take time off from throwing, why regeneration is important, and a better approach to rehabilitating lingering injuries.

To Play or Not to Play Multiple Sports? – Should young ballplayers play multiple sports or just baseball? Can playing multiple sports help your development as a baseball player and athlete?  In this article over on the Full Windup website, Phil Tognetti looks at the benefits of playing multiple sports throughout the year, and if you only play baseball, what you need to be doing in the off-season to maximize your athleticism and lower the risk of injury.

The Biggest Mistake Pro Baseball Players Make? – While some ballplayers are eager to get right back into the gym when the season ends, in reality, many high school, college, and pro guys look to the fall season as a time to take off for an extended period.  In this article, Eric Cressey makes the case for getting back in the gym as soon as possible.  It doesn’t necessarily mean you need to lift super heavy and condition until you puke, but at least start the ball rolling on your strength training and your recovery process from the previous season.

The Best Online Baseball Training Program

There are a lot of resources online that discuss baseball training programs.  Some websites are good, but most are poorly laid out, lack direction for athletes seeking help, and not very user-friendly.  Sometimes, there is so much information, you just do not know where to begin and those sites can leave you more confused than when you first began reading.

So, to save you time, effort, and money, we are just going to tell you what the best baseball training program available is.  And the answer is:  there isn’t one.  Somehow, you saw this coming.

There is no one-size-fits-all training program for every ballplayer.  Compared to other sports, baseball players have unique demands and needs that some regular ol’ training program just cannot address.  So, you first need to find a baseball-specific program that addresses the unilateral nature of the sport, overhead demands, rotational demands, baseball-specific conditioning, and proper rest and recovery protocols.  Secondly, every athlete has individual differences.  Obviously, positional demands need to be considered.  Should pitchers be trained like outfielders?  We also need to consider an individual’s unique training history, his experience with structured strength programs, injuries he has suffered, and any joint/muscle/movement issues he may be having at the present moment.

An online training program can be baseball-specific, but it will have a tough time addressing your individual needs as it is built for the baseball masses.  This is where you need to do your own research and find what works best for you.

If the idea of more searching and reading has you feeling overwhelmed and you want all the guesswork taken out, then we’ll point you toward four of the better programs currently out there.  If you want a more comprehensive list of baseball training programs, then check out the Resource Page.

Real Deal Baseball TrainingReal Deal Baseball Training

Real Deal Baseball Training is a 4-month baseball training program from Dan Huff and Joe Meglio.  It is designed with the baseball player in mind and is an off-season program.  The program is set up so that the athlete trains 4 days per week and uses a system of progressive loading followed by a one week deload.  Each of the four months in the program follows this cycle.  The program itself is laid out in an easy to follow manner and it has an extensive video library of each exercise or movement.

3X Pitching3X Pitching

3X Pitching is a pitcher specific program and is a very extensive velocity program from Brent Pourciau.  There’s quite a bit of value to it – a 16 week program that includes medicine ball work, Olympic lifts, and other velocity drills. You also get direct access to Brent himself with one-on-one email coaching, monthly phone calls, and a pitching mechanics video analysis. If you are a pitcher struggling to add velocity to your fastball, then this program is definitely worth looking in to.

Show and Go TrainingShow and Go Training

Show and Go is not a baseball specific program. However, the creator of Show and Go is Eric Cressey, who consistently works with high school, college, and professional baseball players. Show and Go is a 4 phase, 16-week program designed to increase your strength while keeping and increasing your mobility – exactly what every ballplayer needs. The program is flexible in that you pick how often you want to train with options for a 2, 3, or 4-day per week program. Show and Go also has an extensive video library of every exercise and movement.  This program would be great for the older high school ballplayer or older.  Plan on performing the 3 or 4-day program during your off-season and omit or substitute other exercises for any overhead lifts.

Starting StrengthStarting Strength

If you are an absolute novice, then Starting Strength is where you may want to begin.  However, it is not an online program.  It is a book.  Written by strength and Olympic weight lifting coach Mark Rippetoe, this program is great for novice lifters looking to learn the basic barbell lifts.  It can help you build a foundation of strength before trying any of the programs listed above.  Actually, even if you don’t want to follow this program, you should still buy the book and have it as a reference for your entire career.  It’s that good!

Each of the programs described above will definitely get you stronger and help you develop more power for the baseball field.  Remember, no program is perfect.  But some programs are better than others.  And, you still have to put in the hard work and effort to see results.  If you don’t have access to a good strength and conditioning coach, then you may want to consider one of the programs listed above.

Use the comments below and let us know if you have tried any of these programs.  Or, is there another option we’ve missed?

Good luck in your training!