Lifting For Baseball

I always hear pitchers wondering if traditional lifting is alright for them and if stuff like bench pressing will hurt their shoulders. With a pitcher he relies on the health of his arm and without it, he has nothing. So I’m going to shed some light on getting bigger and stronger as a pitcher, and keeping your body healthy while doing it. (Position players should also read, it will still help) Tim Collins, who made his big league debut at the beginning of the 2011 season at just 21 years of age with the Kansas City Royals as a pitcher is exactly the kind of guy you want to look up to while training. He went from 5’5” 131 pound high school senior to now 5’7” 171 pound major league pitcher. He went from a fastball in the low 80’s to one in the low 90’s currently. He worked hard with his strength coach Eric Cressey and it paid off. Now what he did was a lot of basic strength training at first consisting of deadlifts, lunges, pull-ups and chin-ups, rows, pushups, some squats, and dumbbell chest presses. Cressey doesn’t let him do any barbell presses, which I agree from experience put far more stress on your shoulders than dumbbell presses, and Cressey prefers unilateral (working one at a time) movements for the legs. So lunges are much more effective than squats, as they put less stress on your spine/lower back. From my personal knowledge of lifting, closed chain exercises (performed where the hand (for arm movement) or foot (for leg movement) is fixed and cannot move) are much better for your joints, and Open chain exercises (When your hands or feet are able to move) are much more strenuous on the joints. Not to mention the fact that closed chain movements work more muscles. So don’t worry about being the best bench press in the gym, worry about getting into the right shape and condition. Collins needed to add this 40 pounds to his frame to handle the rigors of a long baseball season, it keeps him healthy and his body from breaking down and becoming injured. However, this is muscle he gained, adding muscle even for pitchers can be a good thing, it is necessary to be strong enough and well-conditioned enough to stay healthy for a full season. As far as arm speed I also have learned that your arm will only travel as fast as it can safely slow it back down, so to increase velocity on your throws, strengthening the muscles that slow your arm down will help a lot. I personally like to use resistance bands and simulate throwing, but have it so the resistance band is trying to pull me through my motion, and I must resist, and only let it pull my arm forward very slowly. Great exercises for pitchers, and baseball players in general (Everyone can use to stay healthy) are lunges, sprints, one leg piston squats (with body weight or dumbbells) and hill runs, for the legs. For the upper body, I would do some dumbbell presses for the chest, especially incline presses along with pushups, I would definitely focus on pull-ups and chin-ups for the back along with rows. Also some curls of any kind (I’m a big fan of zottman curls) and some triceps work (I like dips) should be thrown in. Make sure you do some cardio with the lifting and plyometrics are always good to add explosiveness. Core work is always good (although your core works no matter what you do) but to do some leg lifts, which are most effective ab exercise, is ok. But to avoid back pain that often comes with it, decompress your spine with back bridges, this will undo the compressing that bending over while doing any ab exercise does. Also strengthen the rotator cuff with some resistance band movements; I posted a video the rotator cuff moves below. Train hard and train safe.

Win In The Gym

While baseball players may not have a sport as physically demanding as say football, hockey, or even basketball, while playing their respective games, they need to train just as hard if they want to be the best. While the others are more physical games, baseball is a 162 game grind that will eat you up and spit you out if you aren’t ready for it. It’s becoming more and more apparent who is working hard throughout the year, when people are watching, and when no one is. There are guys like Paul Konerko who train hard and it shows. The 35 year old has been playing as good as ever, even while aging past what most people would have called his prime. The 2010 and ’11 seasons have treated him well as he has hit 30+ homeruns each season, the first time since ’07, and his OBP is the highest it’s ever been. He’s really just hitting amazingly well for what logic would tell you he should be doing. Konerko gets it done in the gym, he was a guy who lived in the weight room and Hit The Cage, all offseason. It paid off. "Physically, you have to work more. That's the number one thing in my mind. The older you get, the harder you have to work off the field to make sure you can still get out there every day and play 150 games a season, plus to have a chance to go out and have a good season. You can't do the same things - at least I can't - as when I was 25," says Konerko. Since ’01 he has never played less than 122 games, the past two years he played 149, he’s working hard, clearly. Another workout buff, Brian Wilson of the San Francisco Giants puts it down in the gym. Trevor Hoffman, a guy who knows a thing or two about being a "good" closer said this about Wilson, "I've had a chance to see him from the other side of the field and his workout regimen and how hard he prepares to be as good as he can be when he hits the mound. He's taken his craft seriously. I truly appreciate that.” The whole San Francisco team really got into shape before their championship in 2010. Dave Groeschner pushed them hard; he took over right before their world series victory and should be recognized as a great head athletic trainer in the game of baseball. He helped Sandoval drop weight, which Sandoval was very excited about, and wanted to lose more. He also wanted to steal more bases. That may not have happened yet, but who knows. Hard work pays off, and the Giants know that. I don’t want to bring it up, but the Boston Red Sox have been accused of not being in top notch shape and look where their season ended up. It crumbled down the stretch. I say if you want to be a serious threat in baseball, hit the weights, hit the cage, really just work hard. Baseball is no longer a sport where out of shape players can expect to get away with not working hard anymore, plain and simple.