In-Season Training Metrics

The high school season is closing in! This was truly a remarkable off-season for ISP. We've had multiple athletes put on 15-20 pounds while simultaneously moving better and getting a lot stronger, and we've had athletes lose a few pounds while accomplishing the same things.

We said "see ya later" to our professional pitchers Joe Palumbo (Texas Rangers), Anthony Kay (New York Mets), Ben Brown (Philadelphia Phillies), Mike O'Reilly (St. Louis Cardinals), Kyle McGowin (Washington Nationals), and Bruce Kern (Lamingo Monkeys, Taiwan) and we are super excited to see the stellar season they are all going to have!

We also said "hello" to multiple high school athletes who are getting their names on the radar, and have some young men who might hear their name called in June for the 2019 MLB Amateur Draft.

With that being said, none of this will matter if training is put to a halt once March hits.

Fortunately, the official high school season start date was pushed back 2 weeks to accommodate for the brutal northeast weather. This means 2 more weeks of pre-season development!

The entire focus of in-season training is completely different from off-season and pre-season training, and I would like to highlight those differences in this post.

Injury Prevention

The baseball player's workload volume increases a TON once practice starts. Throwing and swinging 5/6 times a week coupled with cold weather really do not mix well from an injury prevention standpoint.

Overuse injuries are real, and they could be hiding beneath the surface. One aspect of in-season training is maintenance of joint health. Here's what gets abused over and over again in the game of baseball:

- The left ankle gets over worked when performing multiple base running drills, leaving the other muscles on the same side to become overworked, leaving the other side of the body exposed

- The pelvis tends to get dumped into an anterior tilt during the swing as well as an overactive quadratus lumbordum from lateral tilt, which can lead to low back pain and stiffness during rotation

- Hamstrings get tired and over worked from changing surfaces of sprinting (turf in the off-season to hard dirt with cleats during practice)

- The posterior shoulder takes a beating from both throwing and swinging a bat

- The medial elbow also takes a beating from both throwing and swinging a bat

- The thoracic spine (the mid back) gets out of whack and shows muscle imbalances from swinging, which can also lead to altered muscle firing patterns

- The cervical spine (the neck) gets over worked from looking over one shoulder for multiple at bats

To prevent any injury from occurring, we must do 4 things religiously well:

- mobilize/desensitize the overactive joints, which will be very common among most of the population

- activate the problem areas associated with baseball

- learn how to reset the body and find peace of mind with relaxation techniques/breathing drills

- continue to get stronger and preserve your power stores

There is some great research from Mike Reinold and Lenny Macrina talking about movement of the shoulder and it's relation to injury:

- the baseball player should have within 5 degrees of total motion of both shoulders. If your throwing shoulder is significantly less than your other shoulder, you could increase your injury risk by 2.6

- the desired amount of external shoulder rotation lies between 170-185 degrees of motion. Anything significantly above, or significantly below, should be addressed during an in-season program as this injury risk increases by 2.2

- pitchers with a deficit of 5* in shoulder flexion increase their injury risk by 2.8 for elbow troubles

Performance Enhancement

"If you don't use it, you lose it".

This is the biggest concept to understand when training in-season. You spent all winter developing your strength and power to get ready for the long season.

For every week taken off from training, usually 3-5% of your strength gains will be lost, dependent on training age. For the entire high school season being at least 12 weeks, that is at least 36% of your strength gains out the window. You could train ONCE a week during the season and further maintain and improve your strength numbers to keep your strength around. Easy fix.

However, speed on the other hand tends to be lost a lot quicker. You will be displaying your speed multiple times throughout the week from base running and getting to balls over your head, but if you're not training your speed at some point then you are limiting yourself as a baseball player.

On the other hand, let's just think about the aggressive action of the upper body during the throwing motion. Repeated eccentric stress will result in a loss of strength and mobility in some joints. To prevent this loss from being chronic, you need to strengthen these areas and try to get as close to your "baseline" as possible.

Recovery Management

We like to use restorative techniques and modalities in our popular recovery room during the season, taking "arm care" to a whole other level. These techniques include, but are not limited to:

- myofascial massaging

- foam rolling and lacrosse ball trigger point release

- cupping

- voodoo wrapping

- vibration massage

- Marc Pro systems

- mobility training

- vision training

There are a ton of modalities that we can use to promote recovery for the baseball player, and we usually voice our opinion to get your visit in within 48 hours of your last pitch. While the body should be doing most of the work itself when it comes to recovery, we assist in the process with the techniques and tools listed above.

However, since there are many ways to instill "recovery" work with the baseball player, we do not want them to get married to these concepts. Here is why.

Our body craves adaptation, and it also can get habituated to the same stimulus. Just like how we periodize and vary our strength programs, the same concept goes for recovery work.