Today, we are going to talk about my favorite topic. That is baseball off season training. This is the time of year when the season is done where we can make great improvements in our strength, power, speed, and work on improving our swing when hitting. Some athletes will not start their off season program at the same time. If your team has been fortunate enough to make the playoffs then your off season training will begin after those who did not make the playoffs. There will be phases to the off season program that I will put here. First, you need to take an active rest period to rejuvenate after a long hard season. Second, we will work on a circuit training type of workout schedule where we will get our bodies in shape for the work ahead. Third, we will transition to a strength/hypertrophy phase to build muscle size and strength in the major muscles and smaller muscle groups. Fourth, we will then got to a power/plyometric based workout phase to improve our explosiveness and quickness. Finally, we will transition to a baseball readiness program to prepare us for spring training and the upcoming in season training we will talk about in a future article.
1. Active Rest and Recovery
After a long hard season you will need to take a period of a few weeks to rest your body. This period will depend on your age and how long your season was. If you are younger you still need this time period to recover but, you may not need as long as on older player or someone with a longer season. But, I will say on average probably 2-3 weeks of active rest and recovery will be needed. This does not mean sit on the couch and watch TV and eat potato chips. It means to do activities that will still keep you active but not put so much stress on your body. This could be playing golf, swimming, shooting hoops, snow skiing, or things of this nature. Just stay active and do things that you enjoy. The most important thing is to unwind and not put any unneeded stress on your body.
2. Circuit Training
Some people will look at this and say why do we need circuit training in our off season training? Well, circuit training is a great way to get the body back in shape in a quick and efficient manner. It is also a good starting point to lay a foundation for the work that is to come. Circuit training means that we are going to do a number of exercises for the whole body consecutively without rest. For example, we will do push ups, pull-ups, squats, calf raises, crunches and jump rope consecutively for 20 reps of each and 30 seconds on the jump rope before we take a break. Then we will rest for one minute before we do the circuit again. We will do this 5 times in this manner, only resting one minute between circuits. This is an example as you can put in any exercise that you like, just work your whole body. Do this kind of training for about 1 month.
3. Strength/Hypertrophy
During this phase, we will be working on increasing our strength and size. This phase will be harder than the previous 2. This phase will be a 2 on one off 2 on 2 off split. You can choose what you want to do first like lower body or upper body. Just follow the splits and work your lower body and upper body twice per week non consecutively. We will be doing medium high reps in the 8-12 range and for 3-4 sets. This phase will set us up for further improvement in the next phase. Run during this phase 2-3 times per week as well on off days. This phase will last 1 month.
4. Power/Plyometrics
OK, This phase will be the phase where we increase our power, quickness, and explosiveness. This an important aspect of our off season training as it will help us to hit the ball harder, run faster, and jump higher. We will be doing low reps but the same split as the previous phase. The only difference will be one day will be plyometrics for lower body and upper body instead of weights all 4 days. It will be 2 days weights and 2 days plyometrics. The reps will go down on the weight days to between 4-6 and sets to 3. The plyometric exercises will be done for 4 sets of 5 reps. I will be doing an article on plyometrics and their importance in baseball in the future. In this phase run 3 to 4 times per week now on days off. This phase you should also be increasing your baseball related activities as well, but slowly and not every day. This phase will last 6-8 weeks.
5. Preparing for the Season
During this phase we will be preparing our bodies for spring training and the season ahead. We will be lifting and running during this phase with a focus on getting in shape. We will be doing a medium range for sets and reps of 3 sets of 6-8 now using the same splits as the previous phases. Running will be increased to an exact amount of 4 times per week. You will probably be back to some kind of team practices during this time as well, as some players will report early to spring training. This phase you will be increasing your baseball activities as well as batting practice and fielding practice and things of that nature. This phase will begin after the previous phase and last until spring training begins when we will start the in season phase that we will talk about in an upcoming article.
Conclusion
This is a brief overview of how a baseball off season training program would be structured. The off season is the time to get stronger and bigger to prepare for the next season and to make major improvements. We want to continue getting better and this is an integral part of doing so. If you have any specific questions please feel free to leave them in the comments below.
I have a sports blog allsportsaccessories.com and would like permission to add links to your site on some of my baseball blogs.