Its Time to Play Baseball!

Will you be a starter on your baseball team this season? More power, speed and strength would help you but you have to train right. Give yourself the best chance to succeed with hard, smart work.

If you need more power hitting the baseball, more speed running the bases or more quickness at your position, you need my power workout manual. The manual's drills, techniques and workouts are designed for advanced baseball players.

Baseball requires a series of rotational and lateral movements. Therefore, the baseball player needs a strong core to generate rotational and lateral speed and power.

The physical demands of baseball are: starting ability, acceleration, stopping, cutting, stride rate, stride length, sprinting form and speed endurance.

Most explosive movements occur after some other movement (swinging, sliding, etc.). Maximum velocity is rarely reached except in the case of hitting a triple, inside-the-park homerun or running down a long fly ball. Therefore, starting ability and acceleration should be emphasized during training.

Major League Baseball scouts use these drills/exercises/sprints (among others) to test a player's speed, agility, acceleration and power:

30 and 60 Yard Sprints - The bases are 90 feet apart (30 yards). Scouts routinely time a player's speed from home to first base during an at bat or from home to second base on a double.

Running from home to first base in under 4.0 seconds is exceptional (especially for a right-handed batter). Times of 4.1 - 4.4 are more common. A major league average time for the 60 yard dash is 7.0 seconds, 6.5 - 6.8 seconds is good and 6.2 - 6.4 are great times.

Vertical Jump - The height of your vertical jump shows the amount of power in your lower body. A high vertical jump is also an indicator of great speed. A vertical jump of 35 is good and any jump 40 or above is exceptional.

Medicine Ball Rotational Throw - This exercise is a good indicator of core strength---especially the critical rotational power needed for baseball (swinging, throwing, etc.).

20 Yard Shuttle - This drill tests agility, explosion, postural control and quickness at high speed. The best players cover the 20 yard shuttle in about 4 seconds or less.

Sports Fitness Hut's All-Star Baseball Power Workout Manual will show you how to improve your performance in these drills and exercises. If you do this, it will improve your power game on the field.

Other things being equal, a muscular, powerful athlete will outperform a fat, slower or skinny, weaker athlete. Sports Fitness Hut's Fat Blaster Athletic Power Training System will give you your "lean and mean" athletic machine!

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

Agility and Quickness Fundamentals for Athletes

Master the fundamentals of your agility and quickness to become a better athlete in your sport.

In many instances, agility and quickness are more important than straight ahead speed. In many sports, maximum speed is rarely reached or needed, but explosive reaction is often necessary. You can improve reaction times by training to make the right choices (choice reaction).

Reaction time is the ability to respond quickly with proper posture and control to a stimulus such as sound or sight.

How many times have you seen a player with "not great speed" repeatedly make plays to help the team win. This is not an accident. You can improve your change-of-direction speed with proper training. Read my post that discusses change-of-direction speed in detail.

Improve your agility and quickness fundamentals these 3 ways:

1. As with any athletic move, core strength is critical. Overall body strength is also important.

Before you begin to train for speed and power, the foundation should be laid with sufficient core and body strength. Failure to lay this strength foundation will lead to certain injuries for you.

2. Body positioning is critical if you want to improve your change-of-direction speed. You will need dynamic balance. In many sports, it is not that easy to change direction and accelerate because the athlete is often off balance.

Some sports, such as football and basketball require running with or bouncing a ball. And, other sports, such as soccer require moving a ball with the feet. The best running backs, tennis players, basketball players, shortstops, etc. all have great dynamic balance.

Having great dynamic balance means that you are able to maintain your center of gravity over a constantly changing base of support. Thus, quickness and agility drills help you to improve dynamic balance and change-of-direction acceleration while not wasting motion.

3. To improve change-of-direction acceleration, you should have a shin angle of approximately 45 degrees for the first few steps. Your shoulders should also be slightly leaned forward.

The body lean should be at the ankles and not the hips. Having the feet just wider than shoulder-width apart will give you the most stable base of support. This is not always possible during athletic competition.

Therefore, stability needs to be added by lowering the center of gravity. Change-of-direction acceleration could be laterally, at an angle or forward (when back pedaling) and will catapult you to near maximal speed quickly.

The first step in the change-of-direction is important. If this step is too long, you will over-stride and bring the shin to a vertical angle instead of 45 degrees. This will slow you down. So, the first step should be under your hips. Again, the body lean should be at ankles and not the hips.

Improving your coordination will help improve your multi-directional speed and linear speed (straight-ahead speed). A player rarely reaches maximum speed during game competition.

Having great change-of-direction speed (agility with quickness) allows you to beat your opponent "to the spot" or recover from mistakes in positioning.

Improve your quickness and agility with these drills and then apply them during your movements in a game:

--jump rope (one foot, two feet, slalom, Ali shuffle, backpedal)

--speed ladder drills

--cariocas, tapiocas, back pedals, shuffles, toe taps

--hip turn and hip flexibility drills (like leg swings)

Work hard and expect success!

Go here now and get your Free Sports Power Workout Book and Speed Training Tips!

"Other things being equal, a muscular, powerful athlete will outperform a fat, slower or skinny, weaker athlete. Sports Fitness Hut's Fat Blaster Athletic Power Training System will give you your "lean and mean" athletic machine!"

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!