Training, Istructing, and Conditioning By: Adam Brandenburg

[Admin]

Training, Instructing, Conditioning
By: Adam Brandenburg

Training:


Pitching is one of the most important aspects of the game of baseball! It sets the tone of the game from the first pitch to the last out. The best way to train as a pitcher is to throw, throw, throw. Once you find your arm slot and your release point the rest comes easy. The only way to become a good pitcher, like anything in sports is to practice. Not once or twice a week but five to seven days a week. Although it is not necessary to throw off a mound everyday you must throw flat ground almost everyday to keep your arm slot consistent. Long toss is also a great tool for finding your arm slot and strengthing you arm. Long toss should be thrown atleast twice if not three times a week. Long toss is all based on the players level! Only go as far as the player can throw the ball under control and smoothly. No jerks of the head or shoulders, all that does is create bad muscle memory. I am a firm believer that baseball is 90% muscle memory. If you train your muscles to do the correct movements over and over again, after enough time you will not have to think about where your body is positioned.


Instructing:


I do all of my instructing with the same mind frame. I start all of my lessons off with rubber band exercises to strenghten the inner and outer shoulder muscles. The rubberbands strenghten the shoulder from the inside out allowing less injuries throughout the players career. I then proceed to do many different drills that will strenghten the specific muscles needed to be a successful pitcher, while helping to creating correct pitching mechanics. When I say successful I mean pitching well and staying healthy! No one has ever become a good pitcher by sitting on the bench! The drills I go over strenghten the big muscles needed in pitching: the legs, back, hips, and stomach. Once I feel that these drills have been preformed succesfullly we move to pitching off the mound. Once again at this point the correct muscle memory will help enable the player to throw strikes more effeciently. Doing these lessons atleast once a week will ensure that the player goes into the season confident that they are the best pitcher they can possibly be!


Conditioning:


I've gone over how I conduct pitching lessons and how important I think muscle memory is in baseball. This is the same for individual workouts as well. I am a firm believer that you train your body according to what you want to get out of it. If you want endurance then train for endurance, if you want strength train for strength, and if you want speed train for speed! As a pitcher you want a power and endurance workout. The same as in my lessons, I believe a pitcher should do rubberband shoulder exercises three times a week at minimum. Pitchers should also workout in the weight room three times a week, once again this is a minimum. A pitchers workout should be light to moderate weight doing reps of 15 to 30 with the upper body. For the legs pitchers can do moderate to heavy weight with less reps (10-12). Never heavy enough to get hurt, but heavy enough to gain strength and explosion off the mound. Pitchers must also do many stomach exercises. Cross-sectional medicine ball exercises are great for pitchers. Always, always, always stretch after your workouts to ensure your muscles stay long and lean. This helps the pitcher stay heatlhy and loose while gainning strength. Last but not least, a pitcher needs to run four to five times a week. Distance should be ran the day after a bull pen or a game. Distance is a 20-30 minute jog to get the lactic acid flushed out and the blood flowing. The other days the pitcher should run sprints, this helps with endurance and explosion. There are different types of sprints: pole sprints, interval sprints, and regular 90 ft. sprints. While I believe all of these things are imparative to becoming the best pitcher you possibly can, running is the most important!