Movement Training for Baseball and Softball
When looking at movement training for any sport, we must first take into consideration how the sport is played. What are the different movement patterns the athlete will need to be proficient in? Which energy systems will they use and should one be given more priority than others? What are the common injuries associated with the sport, why do they occur, and how can we prevent or lessen them? The list could go on but these are some of the main things addressed at the very beginning of a program.
In baseball and softball, position players’ movements consist of a series of short, high intensity actions followed by extended periods of rest. Pitchers are a little different in that they must exert near maximal effort every pitch which, during a high school game, occurs roughly every 20-30 seconds.
So how do we use this information when designing a movement training plan for these athletes? What do we want to enhance, so that they are the best baseball or softball player they can be? As with any program we write, we start at the end and work backwards. By doing this, it allows us determine the best exercises for each movement pattern we want to enhance and to progress the athletes at the optimal speed.
When breaking down the movement patterns used in baseball and softball, certain movements show up over and over again. Those are: sprinting, crossover running, rotational movements, and shuffling. The main difference comes in how the athlete starts each of these movements. In the field, when reacting to a batted ball, the athlete will perform what we call a plyo-step. Simply put, this is a quick repositioning of the feet to create a favorable shin angle so that they can start moving in the right direction to make a play. No matter which direction they need to go; forward, backward, or sideways, the athlete almost undoubtedly and unconsciously performs a plyo-step. Here is an example of a what we are talking about.
The athletes will use this step consistently throughout a game or practice without thinking, so rather than fight it, we want to emphasize it. We set many of our drills up to put them in a position to use this step and be quick and explosive in doing so. Almost all of our main movements will start with this step whether straight ahead sprinting, crossover running or any other movement.
With baseball and softball being rotational sports, we want our athletes to be able to rotate quickly and efficiently. The first thought that comes to mind in training rotational athletes is typically core movements like Russian Twists or med ball throw variations, however, that’s not what we are referring to in this section. We will address that type of training in another post. What we are talking about is our hip dissociation or quick hips drill. This is a drill that teaches our athletes to separate their upper body from their lower body in order to move efficiently on the field. It is a staple at the beginning of any program and progressed to more advanced movements as quickly as the athletes can handle. Here is an example of our hip dissociation.
This is the most basic example, but is critical for our athletes on the field. Think of an infielder or outfielder who has to chase down a ball hit at an angle over their head. If they can’t properly turn their hips to run while keeping their eyes back on the ball, they are less likely to make the play.
Power — Jumps & throws
One of the most important components of our movement program is power. As stated above, baseball and softball players need to be able to display power at a moments notice between their extended periods of rest. Power is displayed in many different ways, whether that is quickly reacting to a ball off the bat in the field, adding velocity to their fastball or hitting a homerun. What research has shown, however, is that power is plane specific. Meaning the training used to increase the power to rotate while hitting and throwing will not have the same effect as the training used to increase acceleration power or jumping power. Granted, they all will help increase the other qualities to a degree, but we see a greater benefit training each quality specifically.
We focus heavily on linear/horizontal power, lateral power and rotational power for our baseball and softball players. Horizontal power is trained through forward jumps and throws such as broad jump variations, as well as through our speed and acceleration work. Lateral power will be trained mainly through lateral jump variations and we have included a few examples below. Rotational power can be developed in many different ways and will be given a more in depth look in a later post.
Speed and acceleration
Another huge component to our movement training is speed and acceleration: getting from point A to point B as fast as possible. Baseball and softball are games of inches. There are countless times throughout a game that a play is determined by the slimmest of margins: a runner being called out or safe on the base path or a fielder making an amazing diving catch. The ability to accelerate quickly could be the difference between the two and possibly even a win or loss. With that in mind, we make acceleration work a big priority in our training.
Every training session we run has an acceleration component to it, however, we break it down into a different emphasis so as not to train the exact same quality everyday. Some days the focus is starting power while others is more top end speed. We also vary the position in which they start and, as we progress, we shift from programmed to reactive starts. We also want to note that technique is a huge part of acceleration and sprint speed and is always a priority no matter what drill we are doing. Here are a few examples of our progressions
We also love to do variations of resisted marches and runs as well. These are great for the fact that you can apply as much or little resistance as needed to work different acceleration qualities. Also, resisted marches and runs teach the athlete to push the ground back and away from them while allowing them to maximize body lean and maintain proper technique. Newton’s third law of motion states that “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” By teaching our athletes to forcefully push the ground back and away from them, they will increase the rate in which they can accelerate forward.
Conditioning and competition
The last aspect of our movement training is work capacity training, or simply put, conditioning. Wait, did you say conditioning?! I thought you said baseball and softball players have long periods of rest. Surely they don’t need that much recovery time between plays. This is a common thought and not necessarily wrong if you only look at the fact that they are anaerobic sports (high intensity, short burst) and long distance for these athletes is considered hitting a triple.
But consider this; the higher your capacity to perform work, the more high quality work you can perform in a training session. And the more high quality work you perform, the stronger, faster and more powerful you will become. It’s cyclical. Each performance quality feeds off the others.
There are many ways to get athletes in shape but we don’t run just to run. We want our athletes to work with a purpose. We will mix in strength circuits, repeat sprint relays, and team competitions to keep it fun and still get quality work. We find that by doing this, the athletes are more engaged and often times get even more work done because they don’t view it as boring conditioning.
Lastly, as mentioned earlier in this post, pitchers work a little different than position players. They are exerting near max effort every 20–30 seconds on the mound. While this may not sound like much in the beginning, think about when their pitch count is in the 60–100 range late in the game. That amount of max effort pitches can wear you out and if you don’t have the conditioning to fall back on then your mechanics are likely to break down. This can result in the pitcher losing control, compensating in other areas and, eventually, an injury. With shoulder and elbow injuries on the rise in high school baseball and softball, we must do everything we can to keep our athletes healthy.
These are just a few drills we implement with our baseball and softball players. While there are countless ways to train these athletes, we feel these provide the best bang for our buck and we see great success when used properly.
Every drill we use always has a purpose. We never just fit a drill to the athlete/sport. If we can’t rationalize why we are using it or it doesn’t have a specific purpose, then why do it?
