Planning for the Off-Season

There are numerous factors I believe need to be prioritized and executed upon prior to taking part in an off-season strength and conditioning program. Today I will touch on a few things that need to be prioritized to maximize off-season training and performance enhancement. 

 

1) Get an Assessment/ Performance Testing

Each player is 100% unique in their own way. Every player has similar goals- get bigger, stronger, and faster. They want to improve in the gold standard metrics as a baseball player- exit velocity, throwing velocity, bat speed, running speed. What differentiates them from their own needs is based on their training experience, injury history, joint range of motion, movement competency, nutrition, recovery, daily readiness, and where they are in their current physical development based on a number of different key performance indicators. Bottom line, get a thorough evaluation to determine the most efficient and effective route to improve on key performance indicators and move closer toward your goals prior to the next season.

 

2) Prioritize the Fundamentals of Athleticism

This is especially true for a beginner level athlete with no strength and conditioning training experience under their belt. The main goals we prioritize comes down to putting in a lot of time, attention, and effort in acquiring the basic skills of athletic development. The main athletic qualities we focus our time and attention on is movement quality, mobility, speed, agility, power, strength, conditioning/ work capacity, and recovery to ensure we’re bouncing back stronger day-to-day. 

 

3) Follow the Principles of Adherence, Consistency, and Effort

The approach differs from athlete to athlete based on where they are in their current physical development. The approach is drastically different for a college baseball player who weighs 240 pounds with 7 years of training experience under his belt, compared to a beginner level high school athlete who weighs 110 with no training experience to show for. Both athletes will perform the fundamentals in a training environment, the key factors that differ from the advanced athlete compared to the novice athlete comes down to the emphasis we place on their training programs. Everything we do in a strength and conditioning setting is a skill set that needs to be acquired. The amount of time it takes to develop the beginner athlete to develop these skills will come down to adherence, consistency, and the amount of effort they put into their development. 

 

In the following weeks I will continue to outline other factors that need to be prioritized and executed upon to maximize off-season performance enhancement.