Off-Season Conditioning

[buckeyejb]

I am looking into revamping my teams off season conditioning. I found a good website that is ranking the best baseball exercises www.hardballcoach.com. There seems to be some nontraditional exercises that make a lot of sense. There are a few good tips and seems like a good resource. I like the medicine ball throw! Do you have any nontraditional exercises that you incorporate into your team workouts. Post them here!

[buckeyejb]

From hardballcoach.com:

Top 10 Baseball Exercises - #8 Medicine Ball Throw

The Medicine Ball Throw: The medicine ball throw puts all of the qualities of a strong swing into one exercise working to strengthen the power swing muscles. In this exercise, the motion mimics the body’s movement of a swing (sans the bat) strengthening those muscle that you use in the swing. This exercise greatly enhances the bodies abilty to store and release the power that is present in the swing and helps the hitter stregthen those powerhitting muscles.

Do this against a concrete wall. It may be a good idea to do this with a partner that can gather the ball after the throw and hand it to the thrower and help him stay in a groove.

Procedue

1. Feet shoulder width apart

2. Medicine ball is held waist high perpendicular to the wall you are using

3. Rotate your shoulders and arms as you would on the recoil of you swing - make sure your weight is shifting on to the proper foot and leg

4. Explode threw on the throw shifting your weight in the direction you are throwing- lead with your hips and allow your torso to follow *make sure your arms and the ball are following your torso just like in a swing.

Do reps of 6 on each side and remember that only training the sides of your body that you use in baseball exposes your non-dominant side to injury.