We have been strategically progressing our Mach 1 Baseball athletes since November. We are seeing athletes who have been training for years to being new lifters. Importantly, our first step was to build their foundations with proper form, core strength, stability and manageable weight loads that would promote baseline strength development. We progressed to a more strength-focused phase, while never losing sight of the all-important corrective exercises needed to keep our pitchers healthy. Building strength requires additional load and adequate repetition schemes to promote hypertrophy- basically, we needed our athletes to get bigger and stronger. On average, our athletes gained 6 lbs on muscle from our foundational strength period through hypertrophy as measured using an InBody 550 Body Composition Analyzer. One might wonder, “If this is working so well, why change the focus of the program?” This is a fair question. Could we continue working through strength phases and have our athletes continue to gain muscle? Yes, probably so, especially given the young training age of some of our athletes.
But with a power based goal of throwing a ball with greater velocity, we have to progress to a more power-centric training program through the months of January and February. While strength is the maximal force you can apply against a load, power is proportional to the speed at which you can apply this maximal force. You could apply this same definition to any dynamic movement in sport- jumping, kicking, running, and, yes, throwing. So, for the next two-three months we will be more power-centric and speed/strength-centric. There are no absolutes in our programming, therefore there will still be exercises geared toward promoting stability, mobility and balance which will not require maximal efforts. But, the core lifts will require great mechanics, aggressive weight loads and a desire to get more explosive.
During this phase of training it is really important to recover correctly through proper nutrition, 10-12 hours of sleep each night and days off between workouts. If you have any questions about your workouts, please email mattf@nutriformance.com. If you need help with your sports nutrition program, please email ericf@nutriformance.com.
