With most of the pro leagues and fall ball seasons almost over for every player at this time of year, it’s time to start making a plan of attack for the off-season in the next couple of months, before spring training comes around in late February-early March.  There are obviously many options that present for baseball players of all ages for the off-season.

Unfortunately, season is over for most.

For the younger crowd (12 and under) it should simply be playing a different sport and changing the stimuli from baseball.  That will allow the kids to develop a variety of skills other than just throwing a baseball a swinging a bat.  This will also give a rest to the throwing shoulder, especially pitchers.

For players a little older, strength training should be a priority to maximize strength, power and decrease the risk of shoulder injuries.  Unfortunately, too many baseball players (in part because of the culture of the sport) are not going to be part taking in any strength and conditioning program.  The option of not training at all seems to be more appealing to many players, apparently.  I’m even talking about professional players.  Whether they don’t recognize the huge benefits from it or they’re just being too lazy is a totally different discussion.

Some players who actually do something and engage into a baseball strength and conditioning off season program, don’t always take the best route.  Running distances and doing some band exercises for the shoulder might sound a good program to engage in for baseball pitchers to spare their shoulder.  But what those players fail to realize is that there is a lot of factors that you need to address in the off-season, and you probably shouldn’t waste your time doing distance running.  Mobility and range of motion deficits, dysfunctional movement patterns, muscle weaknesses and joint instabilities are just a couple of examples of problems baseball players present with that need to be addressed in the off-season.

A decent strength and conditioning program in the off-season should cover the following;

- strength and power development

- mobility work

- shoulder injury prevention strategies (t-spine mobility, scapular stability, rotator cuff strength, etc)

- med ball throws

- a ton of upper back work

These are just a couple of examples that should be included in your baseball off-season training.  If your program doesn’t include at least all of the above, you should start looking for a different strength coach or trainer (or get one if you’re trying to train on your own!).

My colleague Eric Cressey put a more exhaustive list together a couple of weeks ago of what a baseball off-season training should comprise of.  If you haven’t read it, I strongly suggest you do so.

Baseball Strength and Conditioning: Early Off-Season Priorities 1-5

Baseball Strength and Conditioning: Early Off-Season Priorities 6-10

Also, by entering your information below you’ll get access to my FREE report on shoulder injury prevention strategies.  That will definitely help you build you baseball off-season training program!

Stability is often perceived as a good thing; single-leg stability, core stability and scapular stability are all terms that are commonly referred to when we’re talking about functional training and we see those things as being positive outcomes we want to get out of our training program.  Referring back to the joint-by-joint approach popularized by Mike Boyle and Gray Cook, some joints in the body should be geared more towards stability and some others should be geared more towards mobility.

The Joint-by-Joint Approach

But this doesn’t mean that those joints should have only one of the two (mobility OR stability).  Every joint in your body needs a healthy balance of both; some just need more of one than the other.  It’s also important to acknowledge that every joint in your body needs some sort of stability.  As physical therapist Charlie Weingroff puts it: “you need stability before mobility”.  In other words, if you can’t stabilize your joint, taking it into a full range of motion might not be a good idea.

When this guy talks, I listen

Stability is very important per se.  But stability is not always good.  Confused?  Perfect!  Let me explain: as I just mentioned, you NEED stability in every joint in your body, but if you can’t get stability with proper muscle activation and balance around a joint, most of the time your body will find a way to get that stability.  This is when compensation patterns occur; you have the wrong muscles trying to stabilize your joints because the right muscles that should stabilize aren’t doing their job.  Some other times, when the muscles’ contribution isn’t enough your body will look somewhere else to find stability.  This is when passive structures like ligaments and bones are being used for stability purposes, and that’s when things start to get pretty ugly.

When a baseball pitcher throws a baseball at 90mph and his arm rotates at 7,000°/second at the shoulder, if the the rotator cuff and scapular stabilizer muscles can’t control the deceleration, something else in your body will, because I can guarantee you that his arm is not just going to rip off his body and go flying in the air!

That means that something somewhere is stabilizing the arm at the shoulder in the deceleration phase.  And again if it’s not the right muscles doing it, it might mean some added stress on the ligaments of the shoulder, some irritation to the labrum, compensation patterns taking place by stabilization from the wrong muscles, etc.  There are plenty of examples like this one in athletic performance.

Always keep in mind that stability will happen one way or another.  We just need to make sure it’s happening at the right places with the right structures.  Otherwise we’re setting ourselves up for injuries.

Want to know how to get that stability at right places for optimal shoulder performance?  Enter your information below to get my ‘Shoulder Injury Prevention Strategies’ report for FREE!!!

I don’t know if you’re as excited as I am about the new baseball season, but I can’t wait for it to kick off officially!  I have many reasons to be excited;

- As a HUGE Red Sox fan, the acquisition of Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez this off-season were great moves by the organization, and the season looks nothing but extremely promising for the Sox.  And knowing that Kevin Youkilis busted his ass and did quality training at Cressey Performance during the off-season just adds to the excitement!

- All our high school pitchers are going to start their season in the next couple of weeks, and I’m really excited to get out there and watch them play.  They all worked really hard during the off-season and got a lot stronger, more explosive, and pretty much all got their fastball up big time, so it’ll be interesting to see how they look on the mound once the season kicks off.

- Since moving to the Philadelphia, I’ve learned to like the Phillies (as my second favorite team I’d say), since it’s pretty accessible for me to go watch live games, which I enjoy more than anything.  Being from Montreal, enjoying live MLB games is something I haven’t had a chance to do much in the last couple of years.  That being said, with a pitcher rotation that includes arguably the 4 best pitchers in the league right now in Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, Roy Oswalt and now Cliff Lee, how can I not be excited to go watch the Phillies?

Welcome back to Philly, Cliff!

That being said, the next few months of baseball are going to be pretty exciting!

On a different note, things are pretty quiet at Endeavor for now; our baseball and lacrosse players pretty much all left last week as tryouts are kicking off for all of them.  And we’re still a couple weeks away from hockey seasons progressively ending from the end of March for youth hockey organization ’til the end of May for some pro guys.  That means we’re going to start getting really busy, really soon.  This upcoming hockey off-season at Endeavor looks more promising than ever with a bunch of new players that are going to join the already amazing group of players we had last year.

Busier also means more work for the coaching staff.  That also means we’re going to need help to bridge the gap; we’re actually looking for interns (probably 3-4) for the summer period (May through August).  An internship opportunity at Endeavor means learning and sharing with passionate coaches who thrive to get better every day, learning how to perfect your coaching abilities, gaining experience with a wide range of hockey players from Tier II pee-wees to professional players trying to secure a job in the NHL, and much more.  Interning says a lot about the dedication you have at getting better and making it in the strength and conditioning business.  It will definitely build up your network and might even lead to a job offer.  If you’re interested in interning at Endeavor click on the link below for more details and to download the application form:

Endeavor Sports Performance Internship

You can send me the application via e-mail or by fax to Endeavor at (856)269-4153.  If you have any further question regarding the internship opportunity, don’t hesitate to contact me via e-mail.

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