Setting Your Offseason Timeline

November 2, 2015

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The most common questions I am asked regarding the offseason are:

What should my son do for conditioning this winter?
When should he start throwing again?
When should he starting pitching lessons again?

Here are some 'Offseason Rules' to help set your offseason timeline:

#3 - Designate 1 month for COMPLETE rest

The rate of burnout and over-training with some of my baseball students in staggering. Most parents are shocked when I tell them to designate a month COMPLETE rest/abstince from baseball. This means no 'optional' practices, no hitting/pitching lessons. Not even going to the cages.

Get away from baseball in every possible way. Give your sons/players a chance to miss the game so when you start up again the QUALITY of your practices and training is high.

#2 - Put the glove away and get into the weight room for 1 month

The high price of playing year-round is the lack of proper training to get stronger and recover from the previous year. This produces a "death by a thousand cuts" scenario, usually resulting in injuries. 9 in 10 kids I see in m y office with arm problems in January and February are kids who have played fall ball the previous year and have not allowed their arms to recover.

BUT there are very important Do's and Don'ts of the weight room for baseball players. Subscribe to my video library by clicking here and you can view my weight room presentation for baseball players.

#1 - Follow this "3-week rule" for starting to throw again

My 2 rules for returning to throw is

-Long toss 3 times per week for 3 weeks before getting back on the mound. My video library has a presentation on how to properly do long toss.

-Pitch once per week for at least 3 weeks before you start pitching during your team's practice or school's tryouts.

Using these 3 rules, a sample offseason timeline for someone who has school tryouts the first week of March would be:

-November: Complete rest from baseball

-December: Lift weights 3x/wk, 30-minute run 1x/wk, 10 Fartlek sprints 1x/wk

-January/February: Med ball program 3x/wk, 30-minute run 1x/wk, sprints 1x/wk

-January: Long toss 3 times per week for 3 weeks, med ball 2x/wk, run/sprints 1x/wk each

-February: Long toss 2x/wk, pitch 1x/week 30 pitches, med ball 2x/wk, run&sprint 1x/wk each

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Contact (631-352-7654 / PitchingDoc@msn.com)