The off-season can pass by in the blink of an eye. Even though the cold and dark months between November and March remind you nothing of the game of baseball they are the most crucial for ensuring you’ll be at your best come opening day. What you do with these months is what separates you from, and elevates you above, other players.
How Bad do you Want to Get Better?
I can vividly remember sitting in our small high school gym and being handed a blank piece of paper by our coach. We were instructed to fill the piece of paper with our goals.
TEAM
- Win Back-to-Back Conference Championships
- Win Sectional Title
- State Champs
PERSONAL
- Gain 10 lbs.
- Lead by example (Everyday!)
- Make all routine plays in the field
- .300 Batting Average
This list was from my junior year of high school. Each year I would strive for more in my goal list. This was only possible because within each goal was an action plan. Let’s take a deeper look at the first goal in my personal list.
GAIN 10 LBS.
It’s too easy and you’re cheating yourself by just writing down your goal and leaving it as that. You have to ask yourself, how will I gain 10 pounds this off-season? Answering these questions will help you expand your goal sheet and create a roadmap for how it’ll be accomplished.
Below is what a piece of a final goal sheet looked like.
GAIN 10 LBS.
- 4x/week of strength training Eat a lot!
- Weekly weigh-ins
With an action plan your chances of reaching your goal increases exponentially. As an athlete, many times a well designed strength and conditioning program needs to be part of your action plan. When training properly you’ll be able to work towards accomplishing many things at once. Other than the obvious of getting more jacked a training program will also have many other benefits as you head into your spring season.
As a baseball athlete your strength and conditioning program needs to be structured differently from other field sports like football, basketball, and soccer. This is because of the overhead and rotational demands baseball poses for your body. In our free ebook below we’ll go over the four key components you need to address in your baseball off-season strength and conditioning program to maximize your development during the fall and winter months, as well as assessments you can do to ensure your body is prepared to handle the demands of throwing throughout the season.
Enjoy!