One of the absolute biggest mistakes high school ballplayers make is stopping their strength and power training in-season. Unfortunately in my ten years of coaching I still haven’t seen this trend begin to shift to the majority of HS ballplayers maximizing their in-season period from the developmental side. YES, of course I know with high school baseball that means increased demand on sporting practice and truthfully just LESS time to get training in throughout the week. However, the in-season training period can be one of the most important times to continue to train for a few reasons (those we’ll outline here in part one of this article) and those who maximize it, quite simply and bluntly will WIN, this season and seasons to come.
The first and most important reason to train in-season is to: Maintain movement quality
Maintaining movement quality doesn’t sound all that sexy, but in reality it’s the most important thing as ballplayers we can do throughout the course of a season, and as a performance coach it becomes my primary focus. The best “ability” is availability, and we KNOW the eccentric stressors of the repeated motion of the game of baseball wreak havoc on tissue length, extensibility, and movement quality.
Think about how your shoulder feels after a tough outing. Sore? Fatigued? Stiff?
How about your hips after a double header, tight? tired?
All of these feelings are relatively normal AND things we can in the gym work to normalize and counter act. Nobody wants to feel tight, stiff, or less than their best going into a big series: so don’t set yourself up for that, proper in-season training allows you to combat loss of movement, loss of rotational components, and sets you up to be healthier long term.
It’s important to point out as well we have a LOT of really good research that correlates a in-season training with injury prevention, even at just 2-3 one hour session per week. So it’s not a HUGE investment if you really think about it: 3 hours a week to improve your chances of performing YOUR BEST and HEALTHIEST all season? That’s a no brainer for me, but we’ve got more to talk about.
The second worthwhile reason to train in-season, especially if you’re a high school ballplayer or college ballplayer who intends to play at the NEXT LEVEL is to simply: Not get weaker!
Do you remember the FIRST time you did some actual strength training? Maybe it was just this off-season where you actually became consistent with your training in a system that ACTUALLY works and produces results but nonetheless you remember how weak you were, it would really suck to start RIGHT BACK THERE in June or WORSE: in September. By the way some quick math, if you plan on taking let’s say 12 weeks OFF from training, and a competitor (maybe someone also committed to your school at your position) DOESN’T take those weeks off from training, he’d literally be 36 training sessions ahead of you when high school ball is over. I don’t know about you but I’m certainly not leaving that much ROOM out on the table for my competition.
Training in-season allows you to hold on to the gains in strength, speed, and power you’ve made which sets up subsequent off-seasons for progress without a “restart” button. Now you might be thinking: “I won’t get slower or weaker.” Well the unfortunate truth is that, you in fact will if you do not train (appropriately of course which will talk about in part 3 of this series) to maintain those qualities.
You see, all physical qualities have what we call a retention period, or a residual, in which we can maintain those qualities without drop off, before revisiting them. Some of the MOST important qualities that you worked all off-season to improve (like your speed) only have residuals of 5-8 days. That means after you go eight days with proper speed training at a minimum effective volume (or retention volume) you actually start to become slower. Do NOT waste your hard work and DO NOT start at square 1 next off-season. THREE HOURS A WEEK thats all it take!
I want you to be aware of a few of these metrics: SPEED- that’s speed and one of the most important factors to the position players game, ATP/CR-P is the fuel used for all ballplayers (pitchers I’m looking at you) to complete tasks, and repeat-power which is essentially HOW baseball is played. These qualities diminish RELATIVELY FAST without proper training!
The third and final reason we’ll discuss on JUST why you should train in-season is the idea of PEAKING for performance late in the season.
Building off our topic of residual training effects, we know that everyone who doesn’t train in-season (our competition) will be actively getting slower, less powerful, and weaker throughout the course of the season. With proper in-season training not only can you AVOID that pitfall, but you can actually set yourself up to PEAK your physical qualities (meaning get your absolute HIGHEST possible outputs) late in the season, where the games count the most.
Round 2 of the playoffs a pretty important game? How about the state championship? Imagine you’re bringing the absolute JUICE to that game, the absolute best version of yourself, moving well, faster and more powerful than when the season began AND your competition has been getting weaker throughout. Sounds like a recipe for a good day.
PEAK late in the season, when everyone else is tired, beat up, stiff, and tight: it only takes THREE hours a week and it will be worth it. Remember SUCCESS if NEVER AN ACCIDENT.
It’s up to you, will you be on the slow slope downhill, or peaking when everyone else is “surviving.”