Revolution Baseball… Foundations of Strength Training and Building Elite Ball Players

Strength is the foundation of most athletic movements, and at Revolution Baseball, strength training is at the core of our travel program. Our general thinking is that you need to be strong in order to become a high-performance or even elite ball player. Whether it’s throwing a baseball, hitting one over the fence or running to field a ball, everything begins with a foundation of strength.

• • You can’t throw hard (at least not for very long) if you’re NOT strong
  • You can’t hit the ball hard if you’re NOT strong
  • You can’t run fast or change direction quickly if you’re NOT strong

The players on our Revolution Baseball travel team have been participating in RPP strength training programs (2x / week) for nearly 8 months. It goes without saying that they’ve all become much stronger and more physical during this time.  The difference is quite noticeable as they are building an excellent foundation of strength from a young age.

Before we begin, I would like to review a few topics when it comes to strength training for youth and then we can review the general parameters of the programming we incorporate into our strength sessions.

Safety – First, let’s first address the issue of safety. We’ve seen a lot of kids come through our doors over the years with arm pain due to throwing a baseball. I can honestly say that I’ve NEVER seen one complaining about arm pain from strength training. In reality, the benefits from getting stronger due to increased muscle size and strength, actually protect them from injury on the field. If interested in reading more about youth training and the related myths click here.

Structured Training Environment – We strive to provide an environment that is controlled, highly structured and monitored with experienced strength coaches, where lifting weights are gradually and systematically increased over time. This allows the athlete to become more comfortable as well as efficient when training.

Basic Movements – Every young athlete should be able to hip hinge, squat, push, pull, carry, and perform single-leg movements in order to move on to more “advanced” movements and speed work. These basic movements are the foundations of strength training and the sooner they learn them the better off they will be in the long run.

Not Much Weight Needed – The plus side is that not much actual weight is needed for young athletes to get stronger. Novice trainees can get stronger with as little as 50-60% of their 1-rep max. For a younger athlete, this might be exactly what you need before you can effectively utilize more advanced training methods.

Increased Confidence and Taking Ownership – I can’t tell you how often we observe changes in a young man’s overall behavior as he gets stronger and more confident. The overall benefits of this one go well beyond the playing field.

In addition, the sooner we can give an athlete confidence in their ability to execute the necessary motor skills in the gym in order to safely build strength, move more efficiently, and perform on the field, the sooner they will take ownership of their own training and be able carry this ownership through their high school years and later.

Programming

For our younger athletes, it’s our job to develop and train a multitude of qualities, so we have to fit a lot of information such as strength, speed, and movement into a small period of time. At this age, spoon-feeding these youngsters in order to prevent “mental overload” is an art, so this is where great programming and a facility with experience training a multitude of different level athletes really comes into play.

The following movements are non-negotiables when training ball players:

• • Hip / knee dominant
  • Upper body push
  • Upper body pull
  • Hopping or jumping
  • Core
  • Arm care

Let’s take a closer look…

Hip / Knee Dominant

A little bit of lower body strength goes a long way when it comes to young athletes creating successful positions within their base of support. As young athletes grow, their center of mass (COM) continues to get further and further away from the ground. So, strengthening the glutes and quads with exercises such as body weight squats helps build the necessary strength and stability when trying to make plays in low positions (such as fielding ground balls, stealing, catching, and loading the back leg in pitching). Starting young helps the athlete feel what a proper squat or “hinge” looks and feels like proprioceptively.

Athletes can begin, if necessary, with body weight squats to help learn the hinge pattern. As movement becomes more efficient, only then can we load them to an exercise such as a goblet squat and eventually single-leg exercises more specific to the sport.

Goblet Squat

Upper Body Push

Working the front of the body particularly the pec major, pec minor and triceps is crucial in order to create powerful internal rotation, as well as efficient elbow extension when throwing a ball or swinging a bat.

Exercises such as light dumbbells floor presses can and SHOULD be used instead of push-ups. Many people think push-ups are the better/safer route but anyone with time in the trenches will tell you that a push-up is one of the most difficult exercises to safely complete for a young athlete.

They simply do not possess the adequate core strength or shoulder stability to make it work and more harm is usually done than good, especially to the anterior shoulder. For this reason, we opt for dumbbell floor presses. Doing them on the floor reduces the risk of anterior glide of the humerus when dipping below 90 degrees on a traditional bench press.

Dumbbell Floor Press

Upper Body Pull

Strengthening the posterior (back) side of the upper body targets the powerful lats as well as the mid and lower trapezius (traps). These muscles help control efficient lay back for a pitcher and help scap load in order to help create space with the hands for a hitter.

Pull-ups or TRX Rows – Upper body pulling is a tough one at this age so for this reason we have coaches that will “spot” the athlete and use bands when necessary to help a novice athlete when performing pull ups or chin ups.

Band Chin-up

Hopping or Jumping

When it comes to creating force production and force acceptance, nothing gets it done like hopping and jumping.

Jump, hop, and bound progressions are so valuable to us, for not only teaching our young athletes to produce force, but because it teaches our athletes to accept force as well. Force production is at the TOP of successful ball players list and young ball players are no different. They also go a long way in helping to strengthen ligaments and tendons to help reduce the risk of injury.

Heiden and Stick

Core

The 3 major aspects of core training that we address in our programming focus on the anterior core, lateral core, and rotary core. We can begin with more low-level core exercises like dead bugs and side bridges with our younger guys to establish motor control and progress to more challenging exercises such as rollouts and carries as that motor control improves.

Stability Ball Rollouts

Arm Care

While throwing a baseball builds resilience / durability in the soft tissue, it does make the arm tight and tired… Getting into a great YEAR-ROUND arm care program as part of an athlete’s LTAD is essential in maintaining good arm health.

For this reason, year-round arm care is incorporated into our strength programs. This includes getting back internal / external rotation and scapular control / stability.

Wall Dribbles

Summary

When programmed correctly and made fun, strength training is not only safe but provides tremendous benefits to young athletes in both the pre-adolescent and adolescent stages while enhancing performance and reducing the risk of injury.

See ya’ in the gym…

By Nunzio Signore

 

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