AT HOME
At-Home Practice Plan
This at-home practice plan can be completed in roughly three hours, or the time it would take to both warm up for and play an actual game.
All stretches (lines, hips, and arms) should be performed every other day, and at least three times per week. These should take no longer than 10 minutes each to complete.
When throwing, be sure to stretch your arms out both before and after you throw. Stretching after any workout helps to avoid tired, stiff, and sore muscles by relaxing them before returning to a normal pace.
Why should I stretch my arms out on days I'm not throwing?
Our arm stretches mimic the rehabilitative strengthening exercises performed by athletes recovering from serious elbow and shoulder injuries. For athletes without these injuries, this allows their bodies to benefit by not having to repair an injured body, but rather build upon an already healthy one.
It is common knowledge that players who return from Tommy John surgery often do so throwing harder than they did before surgery. This is largely due to the fact that they have a singular focus on strengthening muscles in their arm that they have never singularly focused on strengthening before during their rehab process. When you consider that some pitchers don't return from Tommy John surgery for 12 to 24 months, it makes sense that they come back throwing harder than they ever had before - because they sometimes spend nearly 2 years deliberately strengthening the all-important throwing muscles in their arm through exercise.
We implement these same exercises to help athletes strengthen their arms before injuries occur.
Game Changer Strength & Agility: 30 minutes
10- and 30-yard sprints will help you stay in baseball shape, where running at maximum speed for a short period of time is crucial. We suggest that sprints be completed in sets of 5, but feel free to make modifications where you see fit.
For an additional challenge, try slingshot sprints, where you sprint from a start position to an end position, jog back to your start position, then sprint again.
Split Second Visual Training: 15 minutes
Attention to detail, reaction time, and depth perception are all core components of baseball. To make sure that you are staying sharp during your downtime, log in to your Senaptec account to perform visual training exercises from home.
Whether for hitting or for pitching, using a PVC pipe can improve your ability to separate, or disassociate, your hips and shoulders, leading to increased force production.
For the first part of the hitting series, use a PVC pipe-like object anchored in front of your back foot, with your hands on the PVC pipe-like object roughly where they'd be in your batting stance:
1 x 10 reps: load, stride
1 x 10 reps: load, stride, pause, turn hips
1 x 10 reps: load, stride, turn hips
Then, repeat these same three exercises with the PVC pipe-like object across the back of your shoulders, and focus on preventing your shoulders from opening up prematurely.
Hitting drills: 30 minutes (mirror/video work: 5 minutes)
Incorporating a mirror into your routine will provide you with feedback about how your body is moving in real-time. For better results, be sure to alternate between drills and time spent in front of a mirror.
Pitching/throwing drills: 30 minutes (mirror/video work: 5 minutes)
Incorporating a mirror into your routine will provide you with feedback about how your body is moving in real-time. For better results, be sure to alternate between drills and time spent in front of a mirror.
Watch a game: 1 hour (3 innings)
Use this time to challenge yourself to understand the game. Ask yourself questions about what you see. How did certain pitchers pitch to certain hitters? What was the score? Who was on deck? Which players succeeded and why?
Vanderbilt vs. Michigan: 2019 CWS finals Game 3 | FULL REPLAY
View classic MLB games by team
View 2018 & 2019 MLB games via MLB.TV
Other fun ideas
Vitilla: This Latin American game only requires a bottle and cap to play, and is a great way to simulate real baseball. Click here to see a demonstration from former pros on MLB Network!
Baseball video games, such as MLB The Show, are a great way to simulate the decision-making skills needed on the field (click here to view a study conducted by the University of Rochester on the topic). Utilizing Practice Mode in MLB The Show can help recreate specific in-game situations for players to challenge themselves to perform in, all while enjoying the fun of playing a video game.
Here, we are working on getting out of a jam on defense. With runners on 1st and 2nd, 1 out, and a 2-0 count on 2018 AL MVP Mookie Betts, we walk through how we might pitch in this situation to induce a groundball. In this case, we attack with a fastball away from the middle of the plate to make the count 2-1, and then attack with another fastball just off the inside edge of the plate to get a 5-4-3 double play.