Your Off-Season Workout

by Keith Anderson

In professional baseball, when the season ends, the player begins to get ready for the new season. The off-season gives the player the opportunity to prepare himself to compete at his best when the new season arrives. As a minor league player, I know that I have to go to spring training in great shape, injury free, and will my throwing, fielding, and hitting skills already in full gear. Anything less, and it could cost me my career.

In amateur baseball, you are not fighting for a job, but you still have a lot on the line. When I played in the MABL, I wanted to perform my best every game. I was lucky that my participation in college baseball gave me a well structured off season program. I learned a great deal about conditioning myself for baseball during for years of college, and I have learned even more during three years of the professional game. Below, I provide my suggestions for an off-season workout plan for active MABL and MSBL players.

Once the baseball season ends, you need to give your body time to recover. This is especially important if you finish your season by competing in an MSBL/MABL national tournament such as the World Series or Fall Classic. During that final week of your season, you will be competing in more games than a professional does in an ordinary week.

Once you are confident your body has recovered, make running a big part of your off season program. You will not be able to pitch, catch, play the infield or play the outfield unless you are in reasonably good shape.

Running

At a minimum, I suggest serious running for at least fifteen minutes twice per week. Run sprints at 40 yard intervals. That means run 40 yards, then walk 40 yards to catch your breath. Then run again for 40 yards. Do this for 10 to 12 sets. Run at around 80% of your maximum speed. A good guideline is that you should still be able to hold a conversation while running.

This approach will allow you to build your aerobic capacity for your upcoming baseball season. After four weeks, test yourself by running the bases at a baseball field. (Alternatively, you can run along the outer edges of a softball infield to accomplish the same test.)

Weight Training

Weight training is also essential. When training for baseball, you want to maintain your quickness and build strength. It is essential to stretch before and after your weight training workouts.

If you are new to weight training, you will need to take special care to avoid injury. Start with five to eight minutes on a bike to warm up. Next, make sure to do a full range of stretching. Next, do 150 sit ups. You can vary the type of sit up, but do sets of 30 to 50 sit ups, until you have completed 150. Next, do three sets of back extensions, ten to a set. The short hand expression for this is 3 x 10 back extensions. Next, do 3 x 10 Jobe stretches. At this point, you entire body should be loose and warm and ready to begin weight training.

You will have to go to a local fitness center so that you will have the equipment you need. These are the weight lifting routines you should employ:

Chest: 4x8 bench and 4x8 incline

Biceps: 3x10 curls

Triceps: 3x10 triceps extensions

Legs: 3x10 leg press machine and 3x20 lunges

Back: 3x10 lat pull down machine

Back: 310 bent over row machine.

Take care to start with light weight, and then add weigh gradually. It is ideal to do these routines handing weight that is 80% of your maximum capacity.

At the end of your work out, do 12 to 20 minutes of "cardio" on a bike or stair stepper or tread mill. While you are doing your cardio, you should select a pace that allows you to have a conversation at the same time.

Throwing

It is vital to prepare your arm for the season. Tom House, the former major league pitcher who is now a national expert on pitching and pitching fitness, has written that during the course of a season, a pitcher's arm fatigues. This is as true for an amateur as it is for a professional. Also, it is fair to say that even if you are not a pitcher, you will still face arm fatigue over the course of a season. Bottom line: get your arm in great shape for the start of the season, so that even after the fatigue factor takes its toll, you will still be able to throw well.

I suggest that you begin your throwing routine six weeks prior to the start of the season. For the first two weeks, I recommend doing 15 minutes of long toss twice a week. The technique for long toss is to throw the ball on a line.

You should also work with a friend so that you can get some position specific repetitions on ground balls and (in the case of an outfielder) fly balls.

For weeks three through six, do long toss once a week, and play light catch on the other day you are on the field. If you are an infielder, take ground balls at your normal position so you can get into to routine of throwing the way you would during a game. If you are an outfielder, take so fly balls and some simulated ground ball base hits, and execute controlled throws. If you are a catcher, you should work on throwing to bases.

Hitting

You should also start to work on your hitting six weeks prior to the start of the season. The first goal you should have in mind is to lock yourself into a good set of repeatable hitting mechanics. For the best guide to hitting mechanics, please refer to Mike Esptein's articles on rotational hitting in the 2001 Summer and Fall Issues of HardBall. You want to train yourself to have a short stride (or no stride) and to keep your hands inside the ball. As Epstein notes, you need to be able to tilt backwards (by bending the back knee) as an essential requirement for good rotational mechanics.

In order to work your mechanics, you should hit off a tee and also do soft toss with a friend. Restrict yourself to the tee and soft toss for the first two weeks. If you can, have someone film you with a video camera so that you can study your own mechanics and decide on any adjustments you may need to make.

For weeks three through six, you should be swinging with good authority off the tee and at the soft tossed balls, you will be ready to visit the batting cages. Even better, find a few friends and organize live batting practice. If you can, it is best to hit on the field so you can observe the flight of the ball and see how well you are driving it.

At the end of each throwing and hitting session, run a sprint of 40 yards, then walk back to the starting point to catch your breath. Repeat this ten times.

If you make this investment in yourself, you should have a terrific season. If your find your teammates asking you what you are doing differently, tell them you did a better job of preparing for the season, and send them to hardball.net to read this article.