Most fitness and training facilities now have stability balls, foam rolls, balance boards and other “fun” toys as part of their conditioning equipment. These are part of a new trend in the strength and conditioning field called “functional training”. Definition Functional training is the action of training “function”, a general term that means “role or … Read more
It’s officially confirmed – proper softball conditioning using the right exercises – functional exercises (aka ”sports-specific” exercises) – increases arm strength and throwing velocity. I’ve known a long time that strength training helped to increase arm strength and throwing velocity. However, I decided that it would be nice to gather some scientific evidence to substantiate this claim. After doing … Read more
I was at the gym today doing interval training on the treadmill (very effective method) and I saw two guys doing the famous “Bench Press”. The bench press is considered by many as one of the two king exercises in weight training with the squat. While the bench press is an excellent upper body strength … Read more
I’ve been designing softball conditioning programs for over 10 years. Let me tell you that softball conditioning can really help improve a player’s game. Yet, a lot of softball players don’t take it seriously know. They know that getting in good shape by doing softball conditioning would help their game but somehow they don’t give it enough importance or focus. My … Read more
I just got my hands on a very interesting article that deals with overuse injures of softball pitchers. It was published in Training and Conditioning Magazine a few weeks ago. This is the official professional magazines of athletic trainers. These are the people that works with sports teams and take care of injured athletes. Colleagues … Read more
You know warm-ups are important. I see two major mistakes being done all the time in softball regarding warm-ups. MISTAKE #1 – Using An Old School, Traditional Warm-Up You see, traditional (or “old school”) warm-ups, you know the warm-ups where you run a lap or two around the field and then you sit down in … Read more
If you are serious about building yourself up for next season, your off-season training involve doing skills training (hitting, pitching, fielding, etc.), sports conditioning and maybe some form of mental/vision training. At times, life gets in the way (vacations, exams or homework, bad weather, general fatigue, sickness, family function, etc.) and we may have weeks … Read more
As I told you 2 days ago, I spent the weekend doing professional development in Portland, Oregon. I took the NFCA Coaches College 402 course on advanced analysis of hitting and pitching with Kirk Walker, Margie Wright and Don Slaught. While I had previously been exposed to a lot of the course material, you still … Read more
They say that… ..the day you stop learning you die. ..coaches who stop going to clinics and courses and always seeking better ways of doing things should retire. …all the most successful people in society are lifelong learners and never stop learning. Well, since I am not anywhere close to dying or retiring and that … Read more
It’s the Thanksgiving break in the US. Notice the word “break”. At some point, the body always need a break to “recover and regenerate”. It could also be said that you need to “relax and re-energize”. No matter how you say it – it’s the fact that you do it that counts. You see, the … Read more