Weight Training Program

Conditioning
#1

Which type of program is more superior for a college pitcher in the off season?

3 Full Body Lifts for strength/power
2 Speed/Agility days

Monday - Clean, Front Squat, Secondary/Auxiliary Lifts
Tuesday - Speed/Agility/Full Body Plyo
Wednesday - Snatch, Bench, Secondary/Auxiliary
Thursday - Speed/Agility/Full Body Plyo
Friday - Push Jerks, Back Squat, Secondary/Auxiliary

OR

4 Lifting Days
1-2 Speed/Agility Days

Monday - Cleans - Explosive Day
Tuesday - Bench - Chest/Shoulder Day
Wednesday - Squats - Legs/Back Day
Thursday - Speed/Agility/Full Body Plyo
Friday - Snatch - Explosive Day

Both workouts have the exact volume of sets/reps of all the same exercises.

#2

Thats not going to help you throw faster or pitch better becasue there is No stablity in the program.

For a pitcher all your workout should have is YOGA, Plyometircs and Functional multi planer movement exercises.

I do all of them. Yoga is the best thing for pitching.

#3

I’d go with the first option.

Yoga will help flexibility, nothing more.

#4

That its not true at all.

I have power yoga for baseball A DVD.

It helps with core strength, flexiblity, stabilzation of the whole body and is good for the mind and focus.

To say that it does nothing but flexiblity is way off mabey you have never done power yoga for baseball before. It is alot harder to do yoga then it is alot of weight room workouts becasue the core strength and flexiblity you need.

#5

[quote=“RIstar”]That its not true at all.

I have power yoga for baseball A DVD.

It helps with core strength, flexiblity, stabilzation of the whole body and is good for the mind and focus.

To say that it does nothing but flexiblity is way off mabey you have never done power yoga for baseball before. It is alot harder to do yoga then it is alot of weight room workouts becasue the core strength and flexiblity you need.[/quote]

RESPOND TO ME RISTAR when I call out your opinions. You never seem to, I guess your just admitting clueless defeat, yet you never seem to get a clue.

I’d really like to see that university degree. Exercise science and biomechnics emphasis I hope? Wait, your like 15, oh, yet your the core stability prodigy. (Maybe that’s because the rest of the world is realizing that most of the core stuff is useless nonsense)

WOW, you cease to amaze me with your pitiful and truly clueless and unexperienced statements. I have this actual hope that one day you may get a clue, but I guess it just may never happen.

The saddest part of this is all that you seem to honestly believe what your saying is fact.

If your core isn’t strong and you try and do ANY REAL LIFT, your spine would snap. Your core stabilized your spine in space and is active the ENTIRE TIME.

I WOULD LIKE TO HERE ANY possible explanation how your yoga positiions activate your core more than me have 300 pounds on my back. (that’s not even a high number)

This is really a rather simplistic principle. THe more weight and thus force you are creating forces your body to activate more motor units. More motor units= more muscle activation. More muscle activation means more effective than your BS.

You HAVE NEVER DONE ANYTHING to qualify you to make an opinion like that. I’m confident because if you had, you wouldn’t be so ignorant.

Flexibility is merely lengthening your muscles. There’s actually a point when you no longer want muscles more flexible. You can actually loose power as you can’t create energy from the stretch reflex where you muscles are much like a rubber band. Yoga positions can often be extreme.

Don’t even get me started on the lower back movements for yoga. Sure you can be flexible as heck if you had no spine left. There just asking for stress fractures.

OH AND WAIT, the lower back stretches cause INSTABILITY where STABILITY is needed. HOW IRONIC.

I bet you and all your flexibility have overactive and tight hip flexors along with inactive glutes, along with almost all of the population. Probably some pelvic tilt too.

You also need to get off marketed products and READ AND EDUCATE YOURSELF. Your just spewing out stuff from a product you bought, my god we could go by that product if we actually wanted.
BRING YOUR OWN OPINION TO THE TABLE FOR ONCE.

I eagerly await your response. Although something tells me it will never come like the other ignorant posts you make.

Oh and one more thing, there’s a reason MLB teams lift and use weights bud, get over it, MLB teams have Strength Coaches, and they are lifting,

#6

[quote=“MJHuskers9711”]Which type of program is more superior for a college pitcher in the off season?

3 Full Body Lifts for strength/power
2 Speed/Agility days

Monday - Clean, Front Squat, Secondary/Auxiliary Lifts
Tuesday - Speed/Agility/Full Body Plyo
Wednesday - Snatch, Bench, Secondary/Auxiliary
Thursday - Speed/Agility/Full Body Plyo
Friday - Push Jerks, Back Squat, Secondary/Auxiliary

OR

4 Lifting Days
1-2 Speed/Agility Days

Monday - Cleans - Explosive Day
Tuesday - Bench - Chest/Shoulder Day
Wednesday - Squats - Legs/Back Day
Thursday - Speed/Agility/Full Body Plyo
Friday - Snatch - Explosive Day

Both workouts have the exact volume of sets/reps of all the same exercises.[/quote]

Sorry for my rant in your thread, needless to say I’ve been annoyed with RIstar for quite some time.

To answer your question with my opinion;

I think it depends on your goals. If you are already big and strong, yet lack great coordination and agility use the 3 day lifting split.

However if you are tall and skinny I would recommend the 4 day split; yet when you get closer to your season (say around the last 6-8 weeks of offseason) shift to the 3 day split to pickup the conditioning for the season.

Other thoughts;
I’m not sure what you have been doing for training volume/frequency/intensity so far, but I see potential to get badly overtrained. Especially if you would like to work on your baseball skills while your lifting and such. It is possible you will find yourself to sore to really work on your baseball skills well.

Just for reference, Joe Defranco (a brilliant strength coach btw) Has designed a workout template (WS4SB) that uses one lower body day focuses on max effort and then then the other is a plyo, explosive, runing lower body day.

I honestly see you taxing your legs 5 days a week on your suggested program, in which case you could potentially slow your progress.

Also just things to note; you can make any lift explosive by using 50% of your 1RM. Make sure to include unilateral work, and also make sure you include horizontal pulling also.

#7

RIstar just has some pathological hatred for lifting. Maybe there’s some repressed childhood memory of a traumatic experience that happened in the weight room? look in any pitching book out there, RIstar, and you’ll see a chapter devoted to functional strength weightlifting. even your beloved dick mills believes in a certain degree of weight lifting.

as for the question, i think that 3 lifting days/2 speed days is best. if there is anything valid to RIstar’s constant pestering, it is true that you should remember to work those small fast-twitch muscles, which could be done with plyometrics or tubing exercises. it all complements each other- if prime movers are strong, the small accelerator/decelerator muscles should be strong too.

as for the question of weight lifting’s validity, i found this really interesting article about kris benson’s program that helped him become a #1 draft pick out of Clemson. it says his whole program at the end too, check it out http://www.setpro.com/NEWWEB/mmaxkb0.htm

#8

What can weight lifting do?

power that can’t be used for baseball because there isn’t any sports specific movement. Like a lunge with a twist or any multi planer movement or anything.

Lets look at Curt Shilling guess what he said helpped him get stronger this last off season it wasn’t lifting at all it was the yoga/pilates he was doing.

Look at pitching in general it’s not a power sport like football. it’s all about mechaincs and how you can use the mechanics to the best of your ability.
Adding more arm and leg muscle does CRAP and yes i said that now doing a Multi planer movement with sports specific stablization like a lunge with a twist up onto a box or down from a box because it’s using different planes liek baseball.

Also all the lifting is on two legs mostly that doesn’t help you need to be doing stabilzation. In the pitching delivery the power comes from bracing up the front leg by stabliztion not power in the leg and then the back hips rotate fast around because you can stabilize.

baseball neds to change there training. Baseball isn’t a strength sports it’s a skill and Multi planer movement sport where most of the time you are one leg and need to stablize.

Mike Clark the well known performance enhancer, for MLB players even has said that it’s all about balance with the body. Weight lifting tightens the muscles and lossen others. You want complete body that is flexible and stable.

Weight lifting is fine if you need gernal strength but after general strength you need stability in the body that can’t be found from 2 leged squats and other none multi planer movements that are sports specif to pitching.

Every one needs to notice baseball needs a diferent workout then football and power sports. baseball is a skill sport like golf where you need gerenal stable strength and good mechaincs.

#9

I love how when someone asks you to qualify an opinion, you just use words like “functional,” “sports specific,” and “multiplanar.”

The strength gained from lifting has been shown in myriad scientific tests to have a major impact on velocity.

Pitching is not a power sport? You have got to be kidding me. Pitching involves tons of power. You are taking the body from a dead stop and accelerating it to throw a baseball at 90 mph. That is the textbook definition of power and explosiveness. Yoga cannot emulate that.

Basically, you are a clueless quack. Now, it is fine with me if you want to train power yoga or whatever else. Be my guest. But when you bring a campaign of misinformation onto this forum, then I take issue with it. Your OPINION means absolutely nothing to me. It is worthless. Gaining strength is a matter of facts, what works and what does not. Fast twitch muscle fiber is fact. Training periodization is fact. Until you can learn to communicate in the realm of fact rather than opinion your arguments won’t hold weight.

#10

With my workout I can still create power. But strength is not important in baseball because Look at Tim lincecum, Roy Oswalt, Pdro Marteniz, Ian Snell all of theses pitchers are small and we know don’t have power compared to other MLB pitchers. In the earlly years of there carear they were throwing harder then most mlb pitchers because it has nothing to do with power. It’s about momentum you create towards home plate that creates velocity.

Thats why a kid at high school can throw 95 and have no training beside tubing and things like that. Because it’s not about power but momentum in the mechaincs.

I will list some of the exercises I do in my workout

Plank
Glute Bridge
Forward Lunge/Backwords lunge
Side Lunge
Skater Lunges
Lunges onto a dino disc
Plyometrics
HIP Ring
also Upper body would be things like

Push-ups:
On box
One hand on box other off box
Half Moon walking
Plyometric push-up
Leg Curl push-up

And there is things like
Med-ball rotuine
Power Yoga for baseball
Balance exercises:
One leg squat
one leg squat on DINO DISC

Things like this instead of weight training. You can get the better results because it’s Multi Planer movement that you need for baseball.

#11

[quote=“RIstar”]With my workout I can still create power. But strength is not important in baseball because Look at Tim lincecum, Roy Oswalt, Pdro Marteniz, Ian Snell all of theses pitchers are small and we know don’t have power compared to other MLB pitchers. In the earlly years of there carear they were throwing harder then most mlb pitchers because it has nothing to do with power. It’s about momentum you create towards home plate that creates velocity.

Thats why a kid at high school can throw 95 and have no training beside tubing and things like that. Because it’s not about power but momentum in the mechaincs.

I will list some of the exercises I do in my workout

Plank
Glute Bridge
Forward Lunge/Backwords lunge
Side Lunge
Skater Lunges
Lunges onto a dino disc
Plyometrics
HIP Ring
also Upper body would be things like

Push-ups:
On box
One hand on box other off box
Half Moon walking
Plyometric push-up
Leg Curl push-up

And there is things like
Med-ball rotuine
Power Yoga for baseball
Balance exercises:
One leg squat
one leg squat on DINO DISC

Things like this instead of weight training. You can get the better results because it’s Multi Planer movement that you need for baseball.[/quote]

LOL, WOW, my first two thoughts.
Kids throwing 95 mph in HS are the EXTREME MINORITY we’re talking

99th percentile here. Terrible example, most of them finished puberty when they were in Little League.
Your theory states that anyone can throw 95 if they create enough momentum.
Also momentum is affected by the mass, so the bigger you are the more resulting momentum, the harder you throw?

KC basically said all that needs to be said. Really that means your just one less person I will have to compete against along the road. Nonetheless, I find it hard to leave a person when they are so absolutely clueless.

For one, I think you would find it Ironic that my weightlifting offseason program includes most all of the movements you talked about, they’re nothing special bud.

However, I don’t know what your deal is but I could pump out lunges for hours, I need resistence TO PROGRESS. I’m rather weak my god, and I wouldn’t progress much just doing body weight lunges for my legs.

And I would much rather see someone actually do a legit single leg squat (pistol squat) rather than standing on a balance board with one leg. Although I’m sure that’s not what your doing as you would need to be able to squat in excess of 2x bodyweight.

All MULTIPLANER means is that your moving in a direction. Any single leg exercise is multiplaner practically, most people actually need some weight to progress and challenge themselves.

Your WHOLE MAGICAL offseason plan that is better than what everyone else is doing is only a fraction of what I’m accomplishing. So why is your stuff better alone than without other tools to improve? LOL
If I did just your offseason exercises it would basically me my most least challenging and exerting day of my entire offseason.
When you prepare you should be exerting yourself more than when you are in a game. Practice harder makes games easier, duh

If that truly truly challenges you, I would be careful, you may just pull a muscle picking up a pair of tennis shoes.

And I truly hate to burst your bubble but the two legged back squat is shown to have a higher correlation to sprinting ability than a single leg squat. I don’t think there is a person around that doesn’t think sprinting is one of the most athletic things around.

#12

Also momentum is affected by the mass, so the bigger you are the more resulting momentum, the harder you throw?

LOL LOL LOL

It has nothing to do with Mass. It has all to do with speed of getting off the rubber shows how much you know about mechaincs. If it had to do with how big you ae then tim lincecum and alot of short pitchers wouldn’t be able to throw hard.

Momentum- How fast in your delivery you can move off the rubber has nothing to do with size or muscle mass.

#13

American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition - Cite This Source
momentum

In physics, the property or tendency of a moving object to continue moving. For an object moving in a line, the momentum is the mass of the object multiplied by its velocity (linear momentum); thus, a slowly moving, very massive body and a rapidly moving, light body can have the same momentum. (See Newton's laws of motion.)

Im sorry i think a big pitcher can pitch just as hard as a small pitcher and size means nothing.

#14

First the whole size thing was merely a side point.
As usual you fail to address the critical point of the discussion. What actual offseason programs should include…

I eagerly await your rebuttle to my previous points.

Your examples aren’t solid because you must realize Linecum is an EXCEPTION. There’s a reason people are so impressed with him. It’s because he throws abnormally hard for his size.

MOST pitchers are big fellas. Scouts would take a guy 6’3" 200lbs. Over a guy 5’11" 150lbs almost any day.

Now here is where you missed my point and tried to do use a definition. Although I commend you for using a real source!

What if you are actually strong and powerful enough to get a big object (a large guy) moving powerfully and explosively, because you trainined for increased power.

If a small thing and large thing move at the same rate, the momentum of the large thing will be greater. That was my point.

Small guys throwing hard are the minority. It’s possible, but those guys are more genetically efficent then the general population of pitchers.

And WAIT, hold up, you mock me stating that MASS has NOTHING to do with momentum.

AND THEN.

YOUR DEFINITION STATES; “THe mometum is the mass of the object multiplied by it’s velocity”

MASS IS A DIRECT VARIABLE. IF VELOCITY IS THE SAME GREATER MASS = GREATER MOMENTUM

I would really like to see you explain yourself out of this one.
I actually applaud you getting a source cause it explained my point perfectly.

#15

Ok small pitchers use there body different then big pitchers.
The bigger the guy the slower he will move and the less momentum he will gain unless he uses his mass.

A small pitcher strides different then a large pitcher. But if you say pitching is about Power it’s not lets face it. Because that small pitcher doesn’t have power does he? So weights is not going to carry over to pitching.

The velocity you get has to do with your mechaincs not your body size or mass. A bigger guy is going to have a hard time getting the mass to move fast. While a smaller guy isn’t and is going to use velocity.

So weight lifting can’t help pitchers increase velocity it has to be mechaincs with good momentum and a long stride.

#16

I don’t know why the RIstar guy is soooo dead against weight training because I feel doing power and strength movements with some speed/agility conditioning gives you the edge over the competition, as long as your training like an athlete and not a body builder. I also think you can bridge all the work you gain in the weight room to the field through doing plyo’s and rotational med ball work. Although, the only real sport specific work you can do is practicing your sport.

Centerfield, so I am looking to go with the 4-day split which goes with this protocol:

http://whsfootball.wayzata.k12.mn.us/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=195

Is it possible to schedule the 4-day split with 2 days of speed/agility conditioning and what days would you recommend. I think I like your idea of changing to a 3-day workout at the end of the off season.

#17

If the only thing thats sports specific to pitching is plyometrics and medball then we should od that and have general strength and practice the sport alot.
You should train like you play in the sport. So that just made me think as soon as we are Fit to pitch with good general strength then we should focus on MED ball and plyometrics alot more am i right?

American Heritage Dictionary

POWER
Physics The rate at which work is done, expressed as the amount of work per unit time

The amount of work per unit time? Wow interesting then that means the quicker you get the body going then the more power you will have? So that means power and pitching means the speed you move the body and that gives you velocity.

#18

[quote=“MJHuskers9711”]I don’t know why the RIstar guy is soooo dead against weight training because I feel doing power and strength movements with some speed/agility conditioning gives you the edge over the competition, as long as your training like an athlete and not a body builder. I also think you can bridge all the work you gain in the weight room to the field through doing plyo’s and rotational med ball work. Although, the only real sport specific work you can do is practicing your sport.

Centerfield, so I am looking to go with the 4-day split which goes with this protocol:

http://whsfootball.wayzata.k12.mn.us/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=195

Is it possible to schedule the 4-day split with 2 days of speed/agility conditioning and what days would you recommend. I think I like your idea of changing to a 3-day workout at the end of the off season.[/quote]

Sorry for jacking your thread man, RIstar does a good job of setting me off.

Well the idea of adding more running towards the season was essentially taken from Joe Defranco (defrancostraining.com)

I was just reading one of his answers recently when he was talking about adding more running depending on what stage in the offseason a player was currently in. He believes it’s 6-8 weeks to get fully conditioned from running.

I personally love the method of the protocol you linked. The key is to manage volume so as not to get to sore, so that you can still be productive. There’s many different ways to play around with things.

The concept of cycling maximum effort exercises as well as cycling the explosive exercises allows for progress in both maximal and speed strength simultaneously.

That would be the barebones of the russian conjugate method of periodization.

To be honest I do lots and lots of reading on these topics but have no formal education in them, thus I do not want to recommend specifics of a program, just guidelines that I have come to believe are important

I think you may find some interest in this:
Possibly one of the most popular sports training templates,
by one of the most respected coaches;

It’s based off of the same protocol you linked to, just applied somewhat different.

http://www.defrancostraining.com/articles/articles.htm

The beauty of it is that you can in fact tweak it to your needs, it’s a great starting point to get your mind going as to what you would like to accomplish.

For instance you can remove the strongman day and add an extra lower body day. Just one of the many tweaks he has mentioned over time.

#19

[quote=“RIstar”]If the only thing thats sports specific to pitching is plyometrics and medball then we should od that and have general strength and practice the sport alot.
You should train like you play in the sport. So that just made me think as soon as we are Fit to pitch with good general strength then we should focus on MED ball and plyometrics alot more am i right?

American Heritage Dictionary

POWER
Physics The rate at which work is done, expressed as the amount of work per unit time

The amount of work per unit time? Wow interesting then that means the quicker you get the body going then the more power you will have? So that means power and pitching means the speed you move the body and that gives you velocity.[/quote]

Yes exactly the quicker you get your body moving the more power you have.

Weight training develops the following;

Increased motor control
Increased number of total motor units capable of activating
Increase in Type IIB Fast Twitch Muscles Fibers.

ALL OF THOSE increase the rate at which you can develop power.

The more muscles you can fire at once the quicker you can reach maximum force. Being able to control and sycronize motor units is better for all aspects of life.
Type IIB Muscle fiber is stronger, capable of being activated faster, and creates more force than other muscle fiber.

Speed you are capable of moving the body at is commonly measured via verticle jump and sprinting.

Ben Johnson could squat 600lbs for 3 reps back in the day.
Olympic lifters jump well over 35 inches.

That’s as explosive as it gets.

You still haven’t given a rebuttle to any of my other points.
To prove a point you must provide a superior point that is more logical or proven true. You have yet to offer that to any of my statements.

THE GOAL OF WEIGHT TRAINING IS NOT TO BE MORE SPORT SPECIFIC.

It is to make you a better athlete.

By being a better athlete you are able to complete tasks better.

If you Practice your sport as a better athlete you will do better.

#20

being a better athlete can be acomplished by planing the sport more not in the weight room.

Im going to be makeing my own thread so we can talk and it’s going to have a reaserch report.

it will be posted in the general sec