About 15 to 20 years ago I wrote an article for a popular sports magazine on how to improve a baseball player’s performance. In the article I included specialized strength and explosive exercises that were specific to baseball skills.
I was overwhelmed with letters from the readers who criticized me strongly for such weight and speed training. These readers firmly believed that any “outside” training would destroy a baseball player’s career. For example, the weight training would make the player muscle-bound and not allow him to smoothly or quickly execute the skills. The speed training would destroy natural running and movement patterns.
The prevalent thought at that time was that to make a baseball player you had to live baseball. You had to eat it, sleep it and dream it. In addition, you had to work hard, eat dirt and experience the sweat, pain and agony of playing before you could become a great ballplayer. The prevalent thought was that you had to be born a natural baseball player. Through playing and hard work your abilities would come through. Since that time a fair number of players and coaches have found that there are other ways to become a great ballplayer. Because of this it is not uncommon to find individual players lifting weights and training in the offseason.
Because most of these players have very little, if any, guidance from coaches, they often end up with problems. A classic example is Boston’s Jose Canseco who injured his back through weight training. As a result, coaches told players not to weight train because it is dangerous. Brian Downing, who played with the California Angels, was one of the first to weight train. He was into very heavy weight training (powerlifting) when he came to see me for guidance in his program. After explaining how lifting only heavy weights can be a detriment in hitting, I changed his weight routine and added explosive training. He was then able to in-crease his bat speed and greatly improved his batting average.
There is still a very strong pocket of athletes, coaches and parents who firmly believe that a great player is born and cannot be made. That some players are genetically gifted and have the ability to become great ballplayers is a fact. For example, some genetically gifted athletes have a predominance of white explosive fibers, which is the key to speed and quickness. If an athlete has a predominance of red, slow twitch fibers, he is best suited for endurance–not speed. Thus some athletes are genetically gifted for speed of movement which gives them the potential to excel in baseball.
However, most athletes have fairly equal distribution of red and white muscle fibers. Thus, the genetically gifted athlete is a rare individual found in perhaps in one out of every 1,020,000 good athletes. Thus athletes who have lesser genetic predispositions for greatness must be trained to develop fully the genetic potential that they have. These athletes can be improved to such an extent that they will be able to compete with the genetically gifted athlete.
For example, local standout Ryan Jaroncyk, signed by the New York Mets organization this year, had a great pushoff in his running which contributed to most of his speed. However, when I modified his running technique and gave him specific strength exercises to improve speed, his times dropped even more. Even if the difference was only one or two-tenths of a second, this is appreciable speed, which is often the difference between winning or losing. Thus even though an athlete may have the genetics to become an outstanding baseball player, he can still improve with technique changes and maximizing his specific strength and speed-strength capabilities.