Pitching Training: What To Focus On This Off-Season?

During your pitching training this off-season, it's important to remember that your legs are your best assets to a long, healthy and successful career. I strongly encourage you to focus some considerable attention on building strength, power and endurance in your lower body.

I'm talking about conditioning your lower body by doing ground-based lower body exercises, adding olympic lifts, stretching, etc. The ground-based part is important. We pitch on our feet, so you should train on your feet. Squats are better than seated leg presses. Lunges are better than seated leg extensions. You get the point.

Of course, all this is laid out for you in my baseball pitching workout program.

Pitching Training: 3 Reasons Why You Need A Baseball Training Partner

Almost every successful baseball pitcher has or had a training partner early on in their development to throw with, to work out with, to train with. For many pitchers, it's a dad. But it can also be a friend, a brother, or a teammate. Why are training partners so important?

1. Pitching training partners provide a team mentality. You may not want to get up and do conditioning on a Saturday morning but if you know your partner is counting on you, you will do it.

2. Pitching training partners provide technical advice. You may want to believe you got low enough on your squat, but only a good training partner can validate that.

3. Pitching training partners provide competition. Nothing pushes you to new heights like competing with a worthy training partner. Devise new and innovative training plans by sharing ideas and utilizing each other's training concepts. Experiment and learn together.

What qualities should you look for in a training partner? Read more here.

Pitching Bullpens: Why Throwing In 'Sets' Is Better Than All In A Row

If you've been following this blog, then you know I'm a big proponent of practicing how you play in games. That means ALWAYS throwing with a purpose. Always trying to hit your throwing partner in the chest or some other target, even when just having a light catch. It means always throwing with the right grip, getting your hips involved, stepping correctly, and getting a good follow through. You get the point.

But what about bullpens? How can we throw bullpens more effectively so that the work we do in practice will translate to games?

Try this: Instead of throwing 50 to 80 bullpen pitches in a row (you don't ever throw that many pitches in a row in games!), do it in "sets" of 12 to 15 pitches with a 3 to 5 minute break in between each set.

Those 12 to 15 pitches represent an efficient inning, which is something you should be striving for in games, and that rest period in between each set of 15 pitches more closely resembles how you actually pitch in a game. You can think of these sets as innings.

What types of things do you do to make practice make you better for games?

Read This Before Throwing Your Next Bullpen

Here's something you can try the next time you throw a bullpen in practice. Instead of throwing all 50 or 80 or 100 pitches straight, throw them in sets of 12 to 15 pitches with a 3 to 5 minute break in between each set. Throwing bullpens like this takes longer, but it more closely mimics real game situations. Those 12 to 15 pitches represent "efficient innings," which is what you should be striving for every time you pitch. The bottom line is you never throw 50 or more pitches in a row in a game without a break ... so why practice that way? Practice how you play.

Pitching Exercises: A Comparison Between Front Squats And Back Squats

The squat, as you may know, is arguably one of the best lower-body exercises for baseball pitchers -- it's ground-based, functional and utilizes just about every muscle from the waist down.  That last part is key.

But while many baseball pitchers focus solely on more traditional back squats (I know I did), this article talks about the benefits of doing front squats, too, as well as some important tips on being smart and using correct form.

No matter how you look at it, squats are my all-time favorite. And at the height of my career in college and pro ball, I could do 2 sets of 455 pounds at 10-12 reps each set (I wanted endurance, not max). Do you squat? How much? How many times?

Guest Post: How To Have A Productive Indoor Practice

Ray Adams, a youth travel team coach, submitted this article on running an effective team practice. I particularly like how these tips keep all players (pitchers and position players) active throughout the entire practice session. As always, I encourage you to submit your articles, details here.

With cold weather upon us and the excitement of the upcoming season just around the corner, one of the greatest challenges of a youth baseball coach is not only finding an indoor practice facility for off season workouts, but also trying to cover as many aspects of the game as possible if and when you do find such a place.

As a coach for a youth travel team, I spend a great deal of my free time planning our indoor practices. Our setting is an old office building that has been setup with a single full size batting cage, and a space that's around 60 sq. feet behind the cage. The limited space creates the biggest challenge in planning practices, but here are some tips that may help  those of you who are in similar situations.

1.   Divide the team into halves and have two separate - one hour practices. When we first began practicing in December, we had the entire team show up for the first two practices of the month. This was only to let the new guys get to know each other and gel a bit. Afterward, we split the team up to arrive at separate times which cuts down on "idle" time.

2.   Set up stations. Have assistant coaches or parent volunteers to assist. Every week, two of our three stations are the same. At station 1 we have a guy hitting off the tee, with a coach feeding the tee and covering fundamentals. At station 2 another coach pitches live. Finally, station 3 is where I am. I call it the classroom part of practice because each week we cover a different topic and always review our discussions from the weeks before. In our six practices thus far, I have covered pitching mechanics, pickoffs, rundowns, 1st and 3rd situations, batting and pitching signs, and how to take primary and secondary leads.  You can't actually perform some of these things at the cage but a dry erase board works great for covering topics like run downs and relays.

Remember, the purpose of covering these topics indoors in the offseason is to save time on the field when you practice outdoors.

3.   Give them homework.  For example, some of our guys have never pitched before, so going over pitching mechanics for one hour a week at practice just isn't enough.  Have your pitchers work at home 10 minutes a day, 3 days a week simulating the pitching motions they learn at practice. You'll be able to tell the ones who actually work at it.

4.   Also, you can utilize the cage for working with catcher's on mechanics, throwing ground balls and short hops to infielders, ground balls and do or die situations to outfielders, and pitchers can actually throw a bull pen in the cage.

Covering as many aspects of the game as possible at your indoor off season practices will not only save you time later on , but it will also allow you to have more productive workouts. Good luck to you and your team in 2009!

How Much Sleep Does A Baseball Pitcher Need?

I believe one of the more overlooked problems with young baseball pitchers is failing to prepare by getting an adequate amount of sleep. Many experts are now saying young people under 12 should be getting 9 to 11 hours of sleep each night to fully meet their needs, while adolescents should be getting 8.5 to 9.5 hours each night. And, contrary to popular belief, they can't make up for this in one or two 12-hour "crash sessions" on weekends.

Failing to get enough rest can cause some pretty significant challenges for the mind and body, and asking a young baseball pitcher to compete at his best while deprived of sleep might be more than what is realistic. Compound the problem with high pitch count totals and a poor diet, the baseball pitcher realistically competes more with his physiological challenges than the opposing team.

Consider the following:

* From 10 PM to 12 AM the body goes through physical repair (obviously important for purposes of recovery).

* From 2 AM to 6 AM the body goes through mental and emotional repair (explaining why the late-night Guitar Hero sleep-over might not help a pitcher remember to back up 1st base on a right-side ground ball).

* Insulin levels can rise with less sleep.

* Muscles are more likely to ache.

* Decreased concentration and mental awareness can settle in.

* The immune system can be adversely affected.

* Reaction time can be considerably slower.

It is also interesting to know that REM cycles occur in 90 minute intervals. Waking up in the middle of these cycles causes a person to wake up tired, so planning a full night's sleep around 90 minute segments is smart. Studies also show that any sort of stimulus in the room while sleeping, i.e. a light, a radio or TV, can prevent one from sleeping soundly. A dark and quiet cave seems to be best.

Becoming a complete pitcher requires more preparation than just working on skill. It requires careful planning and the right amount of sleep.

What To Focus On When Trying To Improve Pitching Mechanics

One of the most important methods I have learned in training pitchers is to keep things simple and focused.

Researchers in the department of neuroscience UCLA have shown that athletes can literally only think about one thing at a time, and anytime we give them more than one instructional cue, their focus is lost.

I have no idea how many hours of my life I have spent in a bullpen, but if anything seems to be true it is this. Pitchers can't focus on more than one mechanical thing at a time. I have learned it and the medical community teaches it.

When training pitchers, it seems the best technique is to explain why a mechanical change is necessary, work on that change, share some drills to reinforce that change, then get his focus back on the target. The sooner he can get away from thinking mechanically, the better.

Sample 7 Day Throwing / Conditioning Program For Starting Pitchers

Every college baseball program has a different training routines for their pitchers. Here's a sample 7-day throwing/conditioning program that starting pitchers follow at Div. 1 Indiana State University.

Sunday - Game Day Start (80-110 pitches)

Monday - Rest/30-40min run/med-ball abs/rotator-cuff strengthening

Tuesday - Long toss/long sprints

Wednesday - Light throwing/weights/mild flat-ground bullpen to get the touch and feel of pitches/medium sprint work

Thursday - Really light throwing/short sprint work/abs

Friday - 15-25 pitch bullpen (to get touch and feel) at 75-85%

Saturday - Throw to get the arm loose/pregame running (30yd sprints)

Sunday - Game Day Start (80-110 pitches)

My Thoughts On Flat-Ground Pitching

For younger pitchers, flat ground work is becoming more and more popular. Flat-ground training offers the opportunity for higher numbers of repetitions at relatively greater safety. Research shows that pitching off a mound can put up to 5 times the body's weight of pressure on the pitcher's joints. Working on spotting the baseball from flat ground is smart and can particularly save some added stress on a youth pitcher with an inefficient delivery.

"Dialing down" the fastball is also important when working on locating the fastball in skill work sessions. I have made many mound visits where I will simply ask a pitcher to start throwing his fastball at 85-90%.

Having said this, though, a balanced amount of mound training is important for youth pitchers. Remember, we all pitch from mounds in games. Pitching from mounds in practice teaches pitchers how to handle the slope and develop a comfort zone for it. Mound work also encourages a more natural stride (because you have gravity working for you), a more natural release point and better overall timing.

The older and more advanced a pitcher is, the less flat-ground work is helpful or recommended.