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How to Create the Best Prescription for Power

When I first started training, I like many others believed that if we just keep improving absolute strength our athletes would continue to get bigger, faster, and stronger. Fast forward to many years later, and I can tell you with a great degree of confidence (and experience) that most metrics crucial to sport such as speed, explosive ability, and change of direction can only be improved for about the first year simply by increasing absolute strength, as in getting stronger, by utilizing big compound lifts under high load.  However, Continue reading “How to Create the Best Prescription for Power”

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5 Lower Half Pitching Issues Preventing a Consistent Release Point

Lower Half Pitching

It’s no mystery that one of the keys to successful pitching is a consistent release point.  While I do believe that the term “repeatable delivery” is a bit of a stretch, and that many times inconsistency in your arm slot can be a major cause of difficulty in repeating your delivery, I believe we need to dig a little deeper and look closer down the kinetic chain to lower half pitching issues. Continue reading “5 Lower Half Pitching Issues Preventing a Consistent Release Point”

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Speed Training for Baseball Players… Part 2

Speed Training for Baseball Players

Speed training for baseball players covers a number of different speed disciplines.  Ball players sprint, decelerate, change direction, move laterally, all within short bursts of time.  In Part 2 of of this article (click here for Part 1) on speed training for baseball players, we’re going to review:

    • Linear Acceleration
    • Lateral Acceleration
    • Lateral Change-of-Direction

Continue reading “Speed Training for Baseball Players… Part 2”

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Speed Training for Baseball Players… Part 1

Speed Training for Baseball Players

Doesn’t matter the sport, everyone wants to be fast. Unfortunately, not everyone is, but everyone can surely get faster. This comes down to a few key principles, and it’s not just about running a faster baseball 60 yard dash. In this 2-part article, we’re going to review speed training for baseball players, position-specific speed and some of the techniques we use here at RPP to get our guys more explosive and faster on the field. But let me start by bringing up a few crucial points. Continue reading “Speed Training for Baseball Players… Part 1”

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3 Pillars for Enhancing First Step Quickness

As a driven high school baseball player with hopes and dreams of playing college baseball your attention is constantly being directed towards sculpting yourself into the quintessential 5-Tool player. The 5-tools below are skills of the game that scouts are looking for in potential prospect(s) to help give their teams the greatest opportunity to compete and ultimately win a national championship.

    1. Your running speed & overall athleticism
    2. Your throwing strength & accuracy
    3. Your defensive skills
    4. Your batting average
    5. Your ability to hit for power

The intention behind this article is to hone in on the first tool…. SPEED, and answer the question “WHY?”. Why is speed such a sought-after tool for scouts and offer you 3 things YOU can do to develop this skill. Continue reading “3 Pillars for Enhancing First Step Quickness”

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What are the Most Common Pitch Movement Issues… And the Fixes

pitch movement

Having observed hundreds of pitchers on our Rapsodo Pitching camera during the past several years, it’s fair to say that there are a few tendencies that most high school and collegiate pitchers exhibit. While every pitcher is different with their skillset, we generally tend to observe similar opportunities for improvement in pitch movement.

In this first of three articles… Continue reading “What are the Most Common Pitch Movement Issues… And the Fixes”