Category: Baseball (Page 6 of 16)

Pitchers Are Made in the Off-Season

December 8, 2019 / Tom Bonetto

When planning an off-season baseball conditioning workout for pitchers, think about the nature of the work.

A pitcher completes a very explosive movement that lasts about 3 seconds and then rests for 20 seconds. The goals for pitcher conditioning should be to mimic the physical stresses of competition and train the same energy system.

Interestingly, the right kind of physical conditioning during the off-season can be as vital to a baseball pitcher as working on throwing mechanics.

I’m linking to two interesting articles regarding the best plans for pitchers in the off-season. One by Steven Ellis at BaseballPitchingTips.com, the other by Phil Wallin at Stack.com. You will notice that both are similar in scope.

Some of the similarities:

The Design of the Program

Overall, a baseball pitcher’s workouts are designed to produce desired training effects that include:

increasing pitching velocity
improving velocity endurance or “late-inning stamina”
reducing the risk of injury

Do sprint work, not distance work

As Phil Wallin says, “pitching a baseball places an explosive, intense demand on your central nervous system. Thus, you need to train in a similar manner. The perfect type of training stimulus for this is sprints—not long distance endurance running, which over time teaches your body to become slow”

Focus on the Core

Per Steven Ellis, “rather, engaging the core for pitching training involves doing anti-rotation exercises in order to strengthen the midsection. Cable anti-rotation presses, medicine ball throws and planks should be used for a pitcher’s core work.”

Do Push-Ups, not Bench Press Work

According to Wallin, “push-Ups are a great closed-chain exercise. To complete the entire movement, your entire body must remain stable. Barbell Bench Presses lock the shoulders in a susceptible position. This is a good enough reason to leave them out of your training program. Push-Ups are a much safer option for working these joints and muscles.”

Other Programs – ZB Velcoity by Jordan Zimmerman

Similarly, one of the best programs available in the greater Phoenix area is Jordan Zimmerman’s ZB Velocity Training – I’ve written extensively on Jordan’s “Velo” program and its benefits…you can find out more about that here.

I’d invite you to dig into the articles and links posted above…as I’m sure it will help you gain strength, stamina, and prevent some injuries!

Baseball Coaching Drills for Youth Teams

November 9, 2019 / Tom Bonetto

I’ve been coaching youth/club baseball with my friends Matt Palmer, Kevin Bacchus, Brian Beltramo, and Bret Prinz for many, many years. We’ve had a blast together…and we have been given the opportunity to coach some fine players.

Matt and I were talking the other day, looking back at some of the great times and great teams we’ve been fortunate enough to coach. We reminisced about how our practice plans were extremely simple – and that the skills we were instilling helped our players win more than a few ballgames.

Not to say that the practices were unscripted or easy (they were neither) – but we relied on a handful of drills to help develop proper fundamentals and simulate game situations.

Interestingly enough, in a little under 2 hours a few times a week, we essentially did the same, relatively simple team drills with all of our players.

We would take the last 45 minutes or so for batting practice and bullpens…so that left us 75 minutes for all of our defensive related drills.

We did these drills EVERY practice. Here are our 4 favorites:

Bare Handed Ground Balls

We would line the players up in either one or two lines and roll them ground ball after ground ball. Our focus was to have the players not rely on their gloves, but have soft hands, and field the ball out in front of them in a proper fielding position.

Then they would consciously watch the ball all the way into their hands, then gather the ball with their eyes still on it, and step-and-throw.

Triangle Drill

We would put one third of the kids at shortstop, a third at first, and a third behind the plate. The coach hits a ground ball to the shortstop, who fields and throws to first, and the first basemen throws to the catcher.

Each player then follows his throw to the next position (short to first, first to catcher, catcher to short).

Not only are we working on fielding, throwing, and catching – we are working on team play and endurance. Don’t underestimate the cardiovascular workout with this one!

4-Corners Drill

We would place players at all 4 bases and throw the ball around the horn – home to first, then to second, next to third, and finally to home for starters.

We would then switch directions…and the players would switch positions on the field so everyone would have a chance to play all positions.

Sometimes they would be force plays, other times, we would have them catch-and-tag.

Relay Drill

We put the players in 2 or 3 groups (depending on the number of players) – and space them out about 60 feet apart in groups, essentially two or three long lines of players from foul-pole to foul-pole. The ball would start at one end and be thrown from player to player until it reached the other end.

We worked on game simulated relays in this fashion, focusing on body positioning and feet movement.

At the end, we would hold a competition or “race” to see which team could perform the task the quickest and most effectively. If a team drops the ball, they pick it up and keep going.

As you can imagine, the most proficient team with the fewest or no drops would always win, regardless of the speed of the transition from one player to the next.

I can’t stress more strongly the need for these types of drills, especially with younger players. Our teams were fundamentally strong, for the most part, and they were able to execute team plays quite effectively…even at age 10.

If you’d like to find out more about practice planning for young players, do feel free to reach out, as I’d be happy to share more.

Visualization – A Great Baseball Mental Exercise

October 5, 2019 / Tom Bonetto

I’m linking to a fantastic article from Geoff Miller at The Winning Mind regarding visualization and it’s fantastic capabilities to help baseball athletes prepare.

What is Visualization?

Visualization is the widely used mental technique of “seeing” your performance in your mind.

The technique is generally done by closing your eyes and imagining a play or action. It can also be used as a primary training device to take the place of actual physical activity when a player is unable to practice.

You can read the entire piece here…and here’s a little bit about Geoff Miller and The Winning Mind:

Geoff is an expert in baseball psychology and manages sport programs at Winning Mind. Since 2005, Geoff has provided mental skills coaching services to the Pittsburgh Pirates (2005-2009), Washington Nationals (2010), and Atlanta Braves (2010-2014.)

Why Does Visualization Work?

Per Miller’s article, visualization is effective for two primary reasons:

1. “It strengthens neural pathways, the roads that our brain uses to send out messages to our bodies. A strong neural pathway is like an exact route you know to get from your house to the airport, the mall, etc. The more you picture yourself executing your skills, the stronger your neural pathways become until eventually you feel so comfortable playing your game that the movements feel automatic.”

2. “Our brains see real performance and imagined performance the same. We experience this phenomenon often in our dreams. For example, you might dream that you are falling and wake up bracing yourself or dream that you are in a panic and wake up sweating. When you’re awake you might experience a real feeling if someone describes that light, tingling you get that resonates from the bat all the way down your arms when you connect with the ball on the barrel or the stinging in your hands when you get jammed on a ball.”

How Do You Do It?

Miller continues: “When practicing visualization, you should describe the sounds and feelings that go along with swinging the bat, fielding the ball, and throwing pitches. In comic books, Batman and Superman would beat up the villains by punching them, but to get added effect, the artist would draw in a big POW and BAM. When a bomb went off, you’d read KABOOM! These words strengthen our pictures and make our visualization exercises more effective.

Pitching words: fastball ZIP, curveball DIP, slider WHOOSH, POP into the glove

Hitting words: CRACK, SLAM, WHAM, CONNECT, LIGHTNING, POW

Fielding words: GLIDE, REACH, STRETCH, SCURRY, LEAP”

In Conclusion

The biggest issue that many players have with using visualization is not that they can’t imagine the details of their performance, but that they can’t see themselves succeeding.

If this is the case, I’d highly recommend that you read the complete piece here.

The goal we are trying to reach in using the mental game is to know what to do without thinking about it. As Miller says, “using visualization helps us practice our skills so we are more familiar with them and we feel like we’ve already “seen” our performance happen when it does.”

Off-Season Baseball Strengthening and Flexibility

September 9, 2019 / Tom Bonetto

I’m linking to a great article from COR (a California based physical therapy firm) that outlines specific, baseball related strengthening and flexibility exercises.

Baseball is unique in that many typical weight training exercises can be counterproductive, as players really need to stay flexible, but strong at the same time.

Doing bodybuilding type work can actually be detrimental, as you can’t play baseball effectively if you are muscle bound!

Many of these exercises shown in the COR sequence are similar to what Jordan Zimmerman uses with his ZB Velocity and Strengthening program – and you can find our more on that here…

Here’s their concept:

Let’s explore what makes great exercises for baseball players. You need to know which exercises are blunders so you can pick the best for your performance and your body. Great exercises for baseball players do the following:

Train the entire body
Improve explosive power
Strengthen and protect the shoulder
Improve mobility of the thoracic spine
Improve ankle, trunk, and shoulder mobility

What exercises should not be are painful. Don’t shy away from soreness, but don’t fall victim to the ridiculous myth – “no pain, no gain.”

Baseball players need to focus on balance, explosive power, agility, and rotational power. Strength-training helps baseball players achieve these results, but only if the exercises are done properly and with the mechanics of the game in mind.

What baseball players need to avoid are exercises that exhaust only certain muscles, such as muscles in the shoulder. Doing so causes significant imbalances and leads to injury instead of success on the field. Baseball is a full-body sport, so the greatest exercises for baseball players must address all the muscles, not just a select few.

I highly recommend that you go through this link and take a look at the exercises and make them part of your routine.

A Must for Pitchers – The ZB Velocity Program

July 6, 2019 / Tom Bonetto

I’ve got a really good friend that does some excellent work with pitchers – his name is Jordan Zimmerman – and he runs a program called ZB Velocity that is helping players get stronger, throw harder, and stay healthier!

This program isn’t about using weighted balls and focusing solely on arm strength. Instead, its a holistic approach to strengthening the core along with proper mechanics that brings about a noticeable change in velocity.

Why ZB Velocity?

Many of his players see an increase in 3 to 5 miles-per-hour after an 8 week session with ZB Velo – and more importantly, these pitchers are staying healthy because of it!

I’d invite you to click on the video below to take a look at what Jordan and his group are doing….

I highly recommend reaching out to Jordan to find out more – his contact information is here.

From ZB’s Facebook site:

April 2016 was the launch date of their DVD set and online video series of pitching instruction, velocity training and other baseball related product. ZB Velocity is now offering individual and group pitching instruction to youth, high school and collegiate players.

Below is a list of what is currently offered:

One on one instruction
Group instruction
Video analysis
Speed and conditioning training
Strength training
Arm health
Velocity training
Pitch grips
Mental side of the game
College recruitment

Jordan is a retired MLB pitcher and played 11 years of professional baseball before his official retirement in 2005. Prior to his arrival in professional baseball, Jordan played for the Canadian National Team multiple times.

He was drafted out of high school by the Los Angeles Dodgers but decided that going to college was the smarter choice at that time. While attending Blinn College, Jordan received All State and National awards as a pitcher. In 1995 he was drafted and signed by the Seattle Mariners. In 1999, Jordan got the official phone call and was called up to the Major Leagues with the Mariners.

Today Jordan resides in Surprise, AZ with his wife Jennifer and 4 children. He is the owner of ZB Velocity strength training and the pitching coach for Shadow Ridge High School.

Contact ZB Velocity

You can find out more on Jordan and ZB Velocity here, here and here – and I highly recommend reaching out to him if you, or anyone you know, is a pitcher and is looking for proper mechanics and strengthening!