Cornerstone Coaching Academy Podcast

In this episode you will find the 5 reasons baseball drills fail

The towel drill is a controversial drill that doesn't very well simulate what happens in the game.

If you search for "Baseball Drills" on the YouTube, you will find 242,000 drills, some of them involve movements that closely simulate what happens on the baseball field and you will find some that involve chairs, coffee can lids, towels, broom sticks, bands, and many more implements that will not be with you on the baseball field.

 

It is my opinion that baseball drills should look a lot like what happens on the field, and should not have a lot of implements that guide your movements.  Be sure to check out the resources below to be sure your drills translate from practice to the games:

 

Resources of the show

Cornerstone Elite Membership - Contains over 60 tactical games to help your players learn to play the game and to compete, not just how to hit, field, and throw.

Tactical Games Examples - Includes Tactical Games for Infields, Outfields, Hitting, Pitching, and Catching + 2 BONUS Tactical Games

5 Hitting Drills - These five drills are great examples of useful drills that will translate your player's work in the cage and in BP to in-game performance.

Blocked vs. Random Practice - To me, this is the frontier in baseball coaching. So much of what we do in baseball looks nothing like the game itself.  Determining when to use blocked practice and when to use random practice is HUGE in player development. 

 

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In this episode you will find the 5 reasons baseball drills fail If you search for "Baseball Drills" on the YouTube, you will find 242,000 drills, some of them involve movements that closely simulate what happens on the baseball field and you will find some that involve chairs, coffee can lids, towels, broom sticks, bands, […]

It's that time of year again! Fall ball is done and players are getting ready for a little rest before either hitting the hardwood, or the weight room.

 

As a travel or high school coach, you are starting to get ready for your offseason conditioning program to get your athletes bigger, stronger, and faster.  But you also have to be sure that what they're doing will maximize their time in the weight room and give them the greatest benefit on the playing field.

 

 

 

Check out the Complete Offseason Conditioning Program

 

5 components that MUST be in your offseason conditioning program

1.) Periodization - Changing sets, reps, intensity, and exercises to maximize gains and convert strength into power as the season approaches

http://www.acefitness.org/acefit/fitness-fact-article/2624/periodized-training-and-why-it-is/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.) Core - We aren't talking about the kind of core where you lay on your back and do 300 crunches.  We are talking about generating as much power from the ground as possible... just like they'll do on the baseball field.

 

Check out the Complete Offseason Conditioning Program

 

3.) Explosive lower body movements - Again, baseball (and most sports for that matter) is all about generating as much power as possible from the ground.  Explosive lower body plyometric exercises such as box jumps, lateral bounds, lateral hurdle jumps, and depth jumps will help teach your athletes to be explosive.

 

4.) Variety - Many of the initial changes and improvements untrained athletes see in the weight room are simply them learning the movements.  Changing up workouts, exercises and movements over the course of a training cycle will help avoid this familiarity and will increase your results.

 

5.) Rotator cuff and shoulder decelerators - We use the Crossover Symmetry system to train our throwing decelerator muscles, but there are several other great products out there that can train these muscles, including using basic surgical tubing and bands (very, very inexpensive).

 

6.) Inseason conditioning program - Maintaining strength and explosiveness though a long grinding schedule is a must since the most important part of your season often comes up to 3 months after athletes leave the weight room.

 

Check out the Complete Offseason Conditioning Program

It's that time of year again! Fall ball is done and players are getting ready for a little rest before either hitting the hardwood, or the weight room.   As a travel or high school coach, you are starting to get ready for your offseason conditioning program to get your athletes bigger, stronger, and faster. […]

We've all been there...

You're trying to get your offseason training program going, and your numbers aren't very good, the kids don't seem that into it, and you just don't see the results you think you should.

This podcast will give you 7 practical tips for getting buy in to your 2015-2016 offseason conditioning program.

 

 

Resources for the show

Complete Offseason Conditioning Program for 2015-2016 - Baseball specific offseason program for high school teams or individual high school players.

 

Pre and Post Testing for Offseason Conditioning - Use this to show your players their improvement from the beginning to the end of your offseason program.  It also works as evidence for future years to get buy ins to your offseason program.

 

If you have question you'd like to submit to the Cornerstone Podcast to be featured on one of our shows, you can submit it to www.cornerstonecoachingacademy.com/qa.

 

We've all been there... You're trying to get your offseason training program going, and your numbers aren't very good, the kids don't seem that into it, and you just don't see the results you think you should. This podcast will give you 7 practical tips for getting buy in to your 2015-2016 offseason conditioning program. […]

I will begin this post by acknowledging that ANY physical activity that isn’t physically harmful is good and will likely increase an athlete’s performance, and will benefit one’s overall health.  

Many weight rooms contain tons of machines. This might be great for the "weeknight warrior," but is it what your baseball players should be doing?

There are a lot of traditional training methods that can in fact increase performance simply by increasing overall strength, and by the athlete being in better overall shape, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that those methods are the best training methods for baseball players. Players aren’t necessarily getting the best bang for their training buck (time and effort).

 

Let's go through the "traditional" method of working out that you see at a lot of local gyms and workout facilities:

 

Attend our FREE Web Clinic on creating strong, explosive, powerful, dynamic baseball players

The Warm-Up (Movement prep)

Weeknight and Saturday morning warriors at the gym show up and do a few static stretches, usually starting with hamstrings, then some quads, then some shoulder and arm stretches before they hit the weights. 

The reality is, static stretching, although it may feel good, and feel right, isn’t the best thing an athlete can do to warm up for maximum performance.  Check out the chart below summarizing a number of studies on static stretching’s effect on athletic and explosive (which is HUGE in baseball performance) training.

Table courtesy of http://www.brianmac.co.uk/articles/article027.htm

 

Instead, try a combination of dynamic movements, agility drills, core movements, and semi-explosive movements.  Even better, try drills that improve skill but can be done at less than 100% as a warm-up.

 

 

TRAIN HOW YOU WILL COMPETE.

 

Split routines

A large percentage of the local gym-goers will be doing "split routines."  Basically, this means that the individual will do only upper body exercises on one day, then only lower body exercises on another day, or they will only do pushing exercises one day, then pulling exercises the next, then lower body the next day.

Again, generally any type of conditioning will benefit the athlete, so a split routine is better than nothing.  But, when you compete in baseball (or any sport for that matter), you don't just use your upper body one day, then lower body the next day.

Baseball players utilize their entire body every single day.  For that reason, training should be done the same way with full body routines.  The more multi-joint movements that can be included in a routine, the more closely it will mimic what they will be required to do on the field.

 

Get more information about Cornerstone's full body workouts by checking out our 2015-2016 offseason conditioning programs here:

 

Attend our FREE Web Clinic on creating strong, explosive, powerful, dynamic baseball players

 

Sets and reps

The standard workout for weekend warrior is 3 sets of 10 reps, and very rarely does that change.  Additionally, they keep the same velocity and pace for many of their reps and very rarely switch the exercises for each muscle group.

 

This type of training leads to plateaus in training, boredom, and sub-maximal results.

 

In fact, baseball players ultimate goal in the weight room should be to increase their ability to generate a large amount of force in a short amount of time (power).  Three sets of ten reps on the same exercises isn't likely to improve power greatly.

 

Instead, players need to be on a periodized workout plan with different phases that...

I will begin this post by acknowledging that ANY physical activity that isn’t physically harmful is good and will likely increase an athlete’s performance, and will benefit one’s overall health.   There are a lot of traditional training methods that can in fact increase performance simply by increasing overall strength, and by the athlete being […]

Check out our 2nd Q & A podcast!!!

In this episode, we answer two questions by loyal Cornerstone Podcast listeners.

 

Question #1 - Jonathan from Tulsa asks "What does an outline of your typical BP/hitting practices look like and consist of? How much time do you devote to hitting daily?"

 

Question #2 - After watching the Little League World Series, Chuck from Elgin, IL asks "What are your thoughts on pitchers throwing curveballs at a young age, and what age do you think a pitcher should learn to throw a curve ball?"

 

Resources for the show

Check out our podcast on maximizing your batting practice session.

Check out our tutorial on throwing a devastating change up.

Here's the NY Times article on curve balls and arm injuries (the link to the Journal of American Sports Medicine can be found in there)

Check out our 2nd Q & A podcast!!! In this episode, we answer two questions by loyal Cornerstone Podcast listeners.   Question #1 - Jonathan from Tulsa asks "What does an outline of your typical BP/hitting practices look like and consist of? How much time do you devote to hitting daily?"   Question #2 - After […]