End of Season

[CoachPaul]

If you are not playing in a national tournament or part of a summer travel team, you are probably winding down or transitioning to a fall sport right now.
Think about adding exercises to your fall routines that work on one or more of the following:

Functional and Balanced Strength (including core)
Quickness and Agility
Scapular and Rotator Cuff Strength/Stabilization
Dynamic Balance

There are lots of exercises you can think of that qualify, and the results will benefit you next Spring. What are some of your favorites???

Also, give yourself some down time for your arm. Take the next 3 or 4 months off from serious throwing. A game of catch here or there to keep loose is not going to fatigue your arm--just don't uncork a game speed bullpen during this time.

[Baseball1771]

Can you give a link to some good scapular and rotator cuff routine?

[Coach_Baker]

At the top of the main page of this web site you'll see a topics bar, and on it is a topic called ARTICLES. "Click: onto that topic.

That will bring you to another page with all kinds of topics with many articles posted by some very impressive professionals in this sport. One of those topics is WORKOUTS. "Click" on WORKOUTS and you'll see the kind of workouts that are tailored to your specific needs. The great thing about this portion of "lets Talk Pitching," is that this is all FREE OF CHARGE.

[south_paw]

My son, 13 and now going into 8th grade, spent this past summer on a 14U "training team" run by a local high school coach and a former MLB pitcher (13 seasons in MLB including two World Series). From May 15 to July 31, they worked out 4 to 5 days a week: core strength conditioning; speed & agility training; tons of batting cage sessions; and, a bit of throwing and fielding on the high school 60/90 diamond. No games, though. These two guys are rare, of the view that after a regular spring season of baseball, 13 year olds should spend the summer focusing more on training and less on playing games. My son lost a few pounds and gained so much speed I can't believe it - he now runs the 90 feet from home to 1st in the exact same time he ran the 60 feet in Little League All Stars last summer! LOL. I must say, it was one of my son's best summers, better even he said than his LL All Stars, on which he played the previous 4 summers.

Now, it will be soccer at school August to October, and basketball October to January. It's been a great run of baseball from January through July ... now it's time to rest the arm and play other sports!

[fearsomefour]

That is very rare....as in almost unheard of.
Less games, more training....that should be the motto for all developing baseball players.

[south_paw]

Yes, it is rare. We had the choice of going with a local summer travel league that practiced little this summer (late weekday afternoons, usually rained out) and played a few weekend tournaments; or, go with this "training team" that focused on training and fundamentals but went 4 to 5 days a week (never a rain out, as they have an indoor facility). We went with the "training team", and it was great. My son developed some real speed, lost weight, got stronger (box jumps, pull ups, push ups, lunges, light squats, etc.), did some throwing on the big field (60/90), and best of all really improved his batting, which over the years perhaps took a back seat to his pitching.

[south_paw]

Less games, more training....that should be the motto for all developing baseball players.

Absolutely. Olympic athletes spend hundreds or even thousands of hours training for every one hour they spend competing. When did youth baseball decide that 2 hours of practice during the week and 10 hours of games on the weekend is a better model?

[fearsomefour]

Not to be cynical by I think a lot of that model has to do with $$. Most parents don't want to pay a monthly fee for a travel ball team that plays once a month. Pay us the monthly fee and we will play three weekends a month....maybe more!!
The comparison I use, because I am familiar with it, is music. Taking a physically immature kid who wants to learn a very skill specific sport like baseball and using the model of games to learn....that would be like taking a kid who wants to learn guitar, giving him a couple of basic lessons then putting him on stage in front of people performing as a way to learn....it wouldn't work very well for most.

[south_paw]

Taking a physically immature kid who wants to learn a very skill specific sport like baseball and using the model of games to learn....that would be like taking a kid who wants to learn guitar, giving him a couple of basic lessons then putting him on stage in front of people performing as a way to learn....it wouldn't work very well for most.

Exactly. Or golfers. Golfers spend hundreds of hours working on their swing, and working out in the gym, for every golf tournament they play. Or gymnasts. I recall reading about Olga Korbut and the intensity of her training and development. It was basically 98% training and 2% gymnastic meets. Or swimmers. Did Michael Phelps learn how to swim and then just started entering swim meets on the weekends? Or did he train hours and hours, day after day, week after week, entering an occasional swim meet?

You're right. This new travel model of youth baseball - an hour or two of practice if it doesn't rain and 4 games on the weekend - is driven by $. Travel baseball is big bucks. For the parents, who fork it over thinking it's a down payment on Johnny's D1 baseball scholarship; and for the coaches, who rake it in.

P.S. Don't miss the moms writing out checks, or the third baseman's cap!

[fearsomefour]

Haha, that cartoon is great.
The travel team my son player for, he was late to baseball starting to play at 12 or so, playing travel ball starting at 14....they enforce pitch counts and play one tournament per month. Buy the time they hit the 19U team they play a ton, 62 games or so over a two month season, but again, they carry a lot of players. We chose them based on the play schedule of once a month when we were starting. Part of that is where we live. Most tournaments are 4 + hour drives, so, they know most people are not going to do that every weekend.
Anyway, they charge $85/mnth. Two practices a week one tournament a month (which usually costs extra, but not a ton, cost includes hotel room). They do not have a gym or a workout area in their facility, but, players do have unlimited access to their facility to work. Here is the thing. Almost always it is virtually empty of guys doing extra work. Most kids just don't want to work that hard.
The option of having a full staff....trainer, PT, a full gym/training facilities and the ability to supervise or do programming for kids, well, the cost would skyrocket. So, I get why they don't do it. So, 9U--17U and two 18U teams with an average of 15 players at $85/mnth to provide access to a building with cages etc and lessons for those so inclined....pretty nice model.
I love the idea of a "team" that is for offseason training. I would love to do that, but, where I live at least I don't know if there would be enough interest to sustain it.