Conditioning

This weekend, I spent part of it at the ballpark watching  games since it was the playoffs of the local elite girls fastpitch league.

There's a coach that I've known quite a few years who reads my emails that came up to me to tell me that all the hype around all that "dynamic stuff" is just B.S. and he doesn't believe in that $&*@.

Now, I know this coach, it's not surprising coming from him. He's very opinionated, close-minded, believes he's always right and when he's not happy with how things are going, he yells and gets mad.

Just as a curiosity, I asked him: "Why do you believe that dynamic warm-ups is just a bunch of B.S.?"

He answered that he's been using static stretching for  25 years for himself and with all the teams he's coached  and he never had any problems.

I replied: "So, if my 83-year old grandma has been a smoker all her life and is still healthy today, I must assume that smoking is good for me right?"

You should have seen the look on his face. I think he got my point and didn't really know what to reply to  this twisted logic. He mumbled something and left.

Last year, I went to see the Phillys play in Philadelphia.

Since the Expos left Montreal for Washington, I haven't had the chance to watch a lot of  pro baseball games live.

I got there early. I wanted to obverse.

Have you ever watched major league players prepare for a game?

It's a beauty to watch the best players in the world prepare for battle.

They are focus. They are relax. Each individual athlete do various things to get themselves ready for the game.

They are pros. They act like it.

I could certainly discuss the choice of a few  exercises in their preparation like the excessive use of static stretching and use more dynamic stretching like the rest of the athletic planet like I'm showing in my upcoming Dynamic Warm-Up for Softball System.

You know, MLB is very conservative and takes a long time to change. But it's slowly getting there with the influx of younger, better trained strength coaches.

But the lesson here is how much time to put into their preparation before a game. And how they do it.

This morning, I was giving a lecture to a group of young college students on how to work out.

I started by talking about warm-ups. I asked them:

"Why do you need to warm-up?"

I got answers like…

"Not to get injured"

"To make your body warm"

and many of the variations of both answers above.

These are the obvious.

Basically, there are 2 reasons why you want to warm-up:

1) Prevent injuries (which everybody knows)

2) Improve performance (which is common sense but nobody thinks of
when asked).

Get your body warm isn't why you want to warm-up but it's one of three things you want to accomplish in a warm-up to prevent  injuries and improve perfomrance.

These three things are:

1) Get your body warm
2) Increase range of motion of muscles around the joints

These two are usually well-known…

3) Turn on the nervous system.

Which is the one that we tend not to be aware. You see, to  generate strength, speed, and power, you need your nervous system to be sharp, alert and ready to react quickly.

You see it everywhere.

It's been done for years thinking it was good for them.

It's still being thought by many to be what the thing to do despite all of evidence pointing to the contrary.

Softball is an "old-school" sport. It's a very conservative sport.

Things change slowwwwwwwwwwwly unlike other sports like track and field.

There are "old belief" that holds no matter what.

What am I talking about?

STRETCHING!!! Yes, stretching.

Using Static Stretching to Warm-Up!

There is a belief that by that doing static stretching  exercises (a stretch where you hold a position without  moving for a given amount of time) prior to doing sport  or exercise helps prevent injuries.

The rationale is that by increasing the range of motion  around a joint, there is less chance of injuries.

NOT TRUE!

We now know that it is not the case. Serious studies  have clearly shown that performing static stretching  doesn't prevent injuries.

Did you read that? Static stretching performed prior to  physical activities DOESN'T prevent injuries.

Even worse, some studies have also shown that it could  be detrimental to the performance of speed-power athletes.

This post is brought to you by:

Ultimate 52-Week High-Performance Softball Training System

Do you "still" run around forever or do hours and hours of "slow-go" cardio on treadmills or stationary bikes?

May I tell you something… we are in the 21st century! These practices are out of date for softball.

They are what we call "old school" stuff that has since been replaced by much better practices.

For a very long time, an old classic in baseball and softball training has been to do a lot of aerobic conditioning, mostly in the form of distance running.

Aerobic conditioning is defined as any form of activity that is sustained for a certain amount of time with the intention of increasing endurance and the capacity of our cardiovascular system.

Too much aerobic conditioning is a deadly softball mistake!

Let me explain.

Our body consists of three main energy systems:

System #1 - the speed system (a.k.a. anaerobic alatic system or ATP-PC system): this system provides us with energy for any effort lasting less than 10 seconds. It is a very powerful system but it gets completely empty after 10-12 seconds. This is the first energy system to kick-in when we start moving.

ABDOMINAL TRAINING (aka core training)!

We know that the trunk plays an important role in softball.

More specifically, the trunk and the muscles of the abdominal region are responsible for (1) generating rotational power and (2) stabilizing the trunk which necessary to transfer  a maximum amount of power from the lower body muscles to  the upper body (the trunk links the two).

The power generated by the trunk and the lower body muscles  (transmitted to the upper body through a stable trunk) are  vital for actions such hitting, pitching, and throwing.

As you can see, it's very important for a softball player to  have a stable, strong, and powerful abdominal region not only  to be successful on the field but also to prevent injuries.

This is why proper abdominal training is so important.

However, too many softball players don't train their abdominal  region properly. Too often, most of their abdominal training  consists of leg raises and floor-based crunches and sit-ups.

While these exercises help develop a "six-pack" and good-looking abs, they do very little to increase performance and prevent injuries.

The abdominal region is often referred to as the "core".

I have worked with and observed a lot of softball players over the years.

I have come two main conclusions about most players:

1) They love the game and want to get better

2) They have serious deficiencies in their conditioning which hurts their game big time.

A lot players will try to workout and coaches will try to implement some form of conditioning in their practices.

However, to be honest, most of what's done is useless or ineffective.

Why?

It's random. A couple of speed drills here. A couple of power exercises there. Add to this a set or two of push-ups and  sit-ups and you might have one of these "ramdom" workouts.

Don't get me wrong. Doing something is better than doing nothing.

But..if your workouts are random, your results will be random  and that's if you get any results at all.

You see, there HAS to be a progression in what you do.

First - you gotta build a foundation of muscular endurance, learn the basic mechanics of speed and agility and develop a base of aerobic fitness.

Looking to get fitter and improve your softball game?

One word of advice to start with: picking a random  training program off any fitness magazine or website is a  big mistake because most of these programs are as far as you  can be from being softball-specific.

Most of these programs are either geared at bodybuilders  who wants to get bigger or at the general population who wants  to lose fat and tone up.

They are not designed to increase performance. Most likely,  any generic exercise program will be filled with  isolation exercises and non sport-specific exercises.

The same holds true for programs borrowed from other s ports. While a well-designed program for volleyball is  more likely to benefit to a softball player than a generic fitness program for the general population, it will not exactly match the specific needs of a softball player because  the demands of the game of softball are somewhat different from volleyball.

Even more important, stay away from football-specific training programs; they have very little in common with the needs of softball players. Most of the time, they are designed to make their athletes bigger! I have seen very few football-specific programs that would fit your needs as a softball player.

The olympics are going on. The summer season over.  The off-season has arrived. It's time to get back  to work to increase your strength, power, and  speed for next season.

To give you an incentive to get started NOW and to get  you started with your own customized, softball-specific  workout program - I am running a HUGE OLYMPIC special  on my personalized program design service.

The price is down by almost 50%! The special runs until  sunday midnight but the price will increase every day  at midnight!

This is to make sure YOU take action NOW! Too many people procrastinate way too long to get started with their off-season conditioning!

No more excuses!

Go to…

I want my own, softball-specific workout program!

Train hard. Play hard.

Who loves you?

Marc
"Your Softball Peak Performance Coach"

When you are interested in a topic, you buy just about everything you can find on the topic. Since I am quite interested in softball conditioning, I have bought just about every book, manuals, DVD, and resources I could on strength and conditioning for softball and baseball.

Since softball conditioning is one of my areas of expertise, I often get asked my opinion on various resources on the topic.

As a result, I have decided to do a review of one of the most popular books on the market  for softball training - The Ultimate Guide to Weight Training for Softball.

Are you going to be trying out for a team in the new few weeks?

If so, make sure you read this.

I just recently conducted several interviews with top travel ball coaches about tryouts and selection camps.

One of things that they all mentioned is that they look for players that are "athletic".

Why?

Athletic softball players…

• usually improves quickly and can learn new skills  faster.
• tend to generally perform better on the softball  field.
• are usually good all around players. They can hit well and play solid defense.
• are usually more disciplined. They spend time working out and watching what they eat to increase their athleticism.

You have a tryout in a few weeks and you want to do all you can to impress the coaches?

Make sure you workout to increase your speed,  strength, power, and overall athleticism.

Even if you workout only for 2-3 weeks seriously, that will show. You'll a tiny bit faster, stronger, and more powerful.

So don't procrastinate and make sure you start lifting weights, doing power exercises, running sprints and doing agility drills.

In this podcast, Marc Dagenais, softball peak performance coach from www.softballperformance.com,  discusses why softball conditioning is important, the huge performance enhancement and injury prevention benefits that comes from doing softball conditioning while emphasizing that you workout program should be as softball-specific as possible.

 

 The Importance of Softball Conditioning [14:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (90)

Note: This article is a follow-up to my previous post on Who Should Be Calling Pitches was published in the NFCA Fastpitch Delivery a few years ago by By Rod Runyan - Former  Assistant Coach - University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

There is also another interesting about article on the same topic on my site - Calling the Game: Whose Responsability?  Click on the link to read it.

Perhaps one of the most interesting, and hotly debated topics of the recent past has been that of catchers calling pitches in games. It is a topic that pops up in internet chat rooms often, is discussed at summer tournaments, and is written about in softball newspapers. In Fastpitch Delivery, we have heard from many knowledgeable coaches regarding this subject. My recollection is of recent articles in Fastpitch Delivery arguing for the catcher to call the game (cf, McNutt, Phalen). In her May article, Coach Phalen said, “….I also see a lot of coaches calling the game and doing the catching from the bench. I believe that coaches take the game out of the players hands when they do that.” This seems to be the consensus of those against coaches calling pitches.

Don't do that! It's too wrong…

Check this video about swing training…

What's wrong with this exact training technique?

1) Impact on the small joints - the wrists and elbows are at a great risk of getting injured. The reason is there is no real absorption and the joints absorbs most of the impact. The impact is too great. It's like you are throwing your body into a wall without a protective mat. The type of injuries you get by doing this repetitively are tendonitis and bursitis - two overuse injuries that don't go away easily.

2) Way too much resistance to overcome - it defeats the purpose of training for strength and power. It's counter-productive.

3) Teaches bad mechanics - Whether fastpitch or slowpitch (slowpitch example in this case), because there is no room to go forward or through the tire,  you can see that the guy is forced to open up to get the bat through. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! It's reinforcing bad mechanics…

Let`s summarize… you`re likely to get injured, you develop poorer mechanics, and you don`t even get more power out of it!

So, is this a bad drill?  Perform this way, definitely.

This morning I received this great list from Cindy Bristow of Softball Excellence through her great newsletter Softball Excellence Insiders. I thought I would share it with you.  Cindy is an internationally recognized softball clinician.  You should definitely check her great resources.

Here's Cindy's top 10 things she learned watching the Women's College World Series:

1.     Outfielders Matter - There were quite a lot of key plays in the outfield that weren't necessarily hard, but that were vital to the outcome of many of the games.

2.     When Your Turn Comes, Be Ready - Megan Gibson, the pitcher from Texas A & M was living proof that when your turn comes you better be ready as she went from sharing pitching duties early in the year to pitching with a record of 41-4, and getting her team all the way to the National Championship game.

3.     Find Your Role and Fill It - Amanda Scarborough from Texas A & M went from being their marquee pitcher in January to being injured and out for the year. And instead of pouting about being injured and isolating herself from the team Amanda found a new role and a new way to help her team win by doing everything possible to help the remaining pitcher, Megan Gibson, be as successful as possible! That takes a very team-oriented and unselfish player!

This weekend, I was sitting in the bleachers watching a softball game during a tournament and a man came over and introduced himself.

He recognized the logo of my website on my jacket because he`s an avid reader of this newsletter.

He told me all about his daughter - 5'6, 15 years old, lefty,  throws 54-56 mph, has a decent change, trying to master the  drop and the rise, practices 3 times per week for about an  hour - and he said that he didn't think she had progressed over  the last couple months.

I suggested to him that they should go to a pitching coach.  He said that they can`t really afford it since the season cost  so much so he is sorta becoming a pitching instructor for his daughter reading books and watching tapes on pitching.

After talking to him for a while and questioning him on what he was doing with his daughter, it became clear that he wasn't  doing enough spin work.

I told him that I was pretty sure that's the reason he wasn't seeing much progresses lately.

You MUST practice spinning the ball.

Everybody wants to run faster. It's been said: "speed kills".

Speed doesn't know slumps. Speed intimidates. Speed scares others. Speed gives you confidence. Speed makes you more dominant.

How do you get faster?

1. Improve running mechanics (sprinting technique)
2. Improve your acceleration
3. Improve your linear speed
4. Improve your multi-directional quickness
5. Get stronger and more explosive

That's how. Number 2,4 and 5 are the most important in softball.

We run on very short distances and we need to change directions all the time very quickly.

Here's two mistakes that many softball coaches and strength and conditioning coaches (those who don't know the game of softball and come from track and field usually) make when trying to improve speed:

1) They focus too much on the sprinting technique and not enough on the "acceleration"

2) They run too many "linear" sprints instead of multi-directional speed and agility drills.

Softball is explosive, on short distances and multi-directional.

Old fashion, track-style speed training is not too relevant. Yes, it might help a bit, but if you want to get RESULTS, you must train softball-specific.

In my podcast #2 about 10 days ago, I explained why it's important NOT to static stretch in warm-ups and why you should do dynamic stretches instead.

In case you missed it, visit this link:

Podcast #2 - Softball Training Tips - Dynamic Warm-Ups for Softball

However, I never said static stretching is bad. What I said is that you should not do it before exercising but after.

Static stretching is NOT a good warm-up method but it's a great flexibility training method.

Do you actually stretch after games, workouts or practices?

Let me guess… not as often as you should!

Everybody knows they should stretch. But we are often in a rush to head back home at the end of our practices, workouts or games.

However, taking only 2-3 minutes to stretch can be really beneficial.

Much more than you think.

What exactly do you get out of stretching?
 

- Increased flexibility and better range of motion of your  joints. Flexible muscles can improve your performance. More specifically, you will run faster, hit further, etc.

Everybody wants to hit the ball further. However, in trying to do so, one common mistake many ball players and even golfers do is “trying” to hit too hard. Most of the time, they end up struggling and even losing power.

Why? Wanting to hit the ball too hard creates muscle tension prior to the swing and it is a well-known physiological principle that muscle tension slows the muscle down.

In order to generate explosiveness, bat speed, and power, you need to have your mind and nervous system alert but your muscles relaxed, ready to fire.

You want proof of that? Take a look at sprinters prior to a race or professional tennis players before receiving a serve, they do all they can to stay relaxed so that can react quickly and explosively. They know that muscle tension will kill their reaction time and their power.

The key is not to try to put the ball out of the park every single time but just look for a solid hard contact using sound fundamentals.

You want to be relaxed, tension-free prior to the swing and explode into the ball as it arrives.

Just like in golf, the softball swing requires a tremendous amount of flexibility, especially in the trunk.

Unfortunately, too many players have poor trunk flexibility and that prevents them of hitting with all the power that they could have.

You see, when your trunk muscles are too tight and that you don't have enough spinal mobility, you ability to follow-through and extend through the ball is dramatically reduced. As a result, you hitting power are greatly reduced.

Moreover, you have a much greater chance of suffering from back pain or injuries. Improving your trunk flexibility is one of the most important things you can do to improve your power and significantly reduce your risk of injuries.

I'm shocked because even despite its crucial importance, even the top strength and conditioning coaches in the world fail to train that key physical quality when working with softball players.

So, take a few minutes every day to stretch your torso and increase your dynamic trunk flexibility and that will help you hit the ball further!

If you want to increase your bat speed and hitting power, I invite you to check my new "28-Day Express Bat And Hitting Power Enhancement Program".