So far these past 2 weeks for Trinity Baseball the workouts have been getting tougher and more intense as we near the start of fall ball. Fall ball consists of 4 weeks of practicing Thursday, Friday, Sunday and Monday, with Saturday as an off day. We practice from 2-7 p.m. However, even though we are starting to practice the workouts don't stop or get easier.
When playing baseball what parts of your body are the most important and should be in great shape? Your legs and core. Hitting a ball farther, getting to a ground ball deep in the hole, or throwing 95 miles per hour off the mound all comes from your legs and core muscles. It's the torque, or exploding of the hips/obliques/abdominals that produces the power. With this in mind, our team workouts consist of starting with a warmup, then a heavy leg lift. These are most commonly back squat, deadlift, and hang clean. (Sometimes we incorporate more complex lifts but those aren't important now). We then go into what we call a W.O.D. or a "workout of the day". The W.O.D. includes a combination of back, legs, chest, and abdominal exercises. The point of these workouts is to build muscle strength along with muscle endurance to get you through a game or season, so the workout is done as quickly as possible and is timed. An example workout we would have on a given day would look like this:
Core Lift:
Back Squat: 3x5
WOD:
3 rounds of:
20 Box Jumps (24 in. box)
20 Push-Ups
20 Air Squats
**No rest in between rounds**
This would be our workout for the day, with some days having running afterwards. It may look like nothing, but try it and don't cheat yourself. It helped our team win a conference championship last year. I linked a few videos onto this post to sample a few other leg and core workouts we do. The guy in the video is our strength and conditioning/hitting coach Nick Vera.
"Landmines"
"Kettle Bell/Dumb Bell Complex"
"You gotta be a man to play baseball for a living, but you gotta have a lot of little boy in you, too." - Roy Campanella
Hey everyone my name is Jonathan Hall and I'm a sophomore at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. I am from Kenilworth, Illinois a small suburb on the north side of Chicago. I am involved in many sports at Trinity, but play baseball competitively. It is often said that baseball does not take much strength, conditioning, or focus to be successful, thus making it sound like a "lazy" sport. However with the long season and grueling games, baseball takes a lot of muscle strength and conditioning along with a strong mind.
Coming into a tough, competitive Division III baseball program as a freshman, I thought I knew how to train and push myself to my full potential. But when lifting, running, or training alone you can make yourself believe you got everything out of the workout. This is my first lesson/tip to get into great shape. Training with a friend on the team, or a partner pushes both of you to beat the other, thus reaching your full potential in the workout. Our strength and conditioning coach, Nick Vera, writes up workouts every day that strengthen our muscles, condition us, and focus on mental strength as well. So whether you have a strength coach or not, grab a friend or teammate with the same dedication level as you so they can push you as hard as you push them. (**Make sure one of the people in the group knows proper form for all workouts. Form is more important than how much weight you can lift**).
For details on lifts/workouts from our offseason training, follow the TU Baseball Strength and Conditioning link at the top of the page.
"Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical." - Yogi Berra
