Three Baseball Offseason Strength and Conditioning Essentials

• By Grant Young

All baseball coaches recognize the undeniable importance of strength and conditioning during the offseason, as it’s a crucial opportunity for athletes to enhance their physical readiness, improve endurance, and minimize injury risks as they gear up for the demanding season ahead. 

However, many coaches lack a clear understanding of which techniques and exercises should be prioritized at this point in the season. While traditional strength training, like weightlifting, is commonly emphasized, it’s vital to go beyond these basics. 

Coaches should focus on sport-specific conditioning that targets the unique requirements of baseball. This involves integrating dynamic exercises such as medicine ball drills, plyometrics, and rotational movements to mirror the actual actions performed during games. 

Moreover, a comprehensive approach that includes recovery strategies and mobility work is essential for sustaining athletes’ capabilities and preventing injuries. Many coaches may underestimate the impact of incorporating yoga, dynamic stretching, and proper nutrition into their training programs. These elements not only enhance performance but also support players’ overall health throughout the season. 

While all baseball coaches recognize and appreciate the significance of strength and conditioning during the offseason, bridging the gap in understanding which techniques to prioritize is crucial. By embracing a tailored, well-rounded training program, coaches can equip their players with the tools they need to excel on the field and ensure a successful, injury-free season.

This is why we’ve selected three offseason strength and conditioning exercises and techniques that high-level coaches and trainers swear by to help your team get right before Opening Day.

DJ Edwards - Proper Baseball Conditioning

DJ Edwards is the Owner and Director of Push Performance. He played college baseball at Metro State University and has his Performance Enhancement Specialist and the United States Weight Lifting Certification. 

Coach Edwards has developed many programs for a wide range of elite athletes. He uses his knowledge in corrective exercise, flexibility limitations, and biomechanics to develop personalized programs for each client. He has worked with over 100 baseball players at all levels in this program. 

Coach Edwards’ ‘Strength and Conditioning for Baseball Players’ course details what he considers the perfect conditioning practices for baseball players at any age and skill level. 

Coach Edwards recommends two to three minutes of medicine ball work in any strength training program. These can be utilizing different planes of motion and arm angles that activate the many different arm muscles. Some examples of this can be medicine ball throws into a wall, overhead slams, or shotput tosses. The key with these is to prioritize both arms instead of just the throwing arm.

When it comes to conditioning, Coach Edwards explains that sprint intervals are a great way to simulate running the bases. More so, tempo runs (a jog into a sprint and back into a jog, or something similar) are another great way to mimic the cardiovascular demands that baseball requires. 

A sprint interval example will be placing cones 50 yards out and have players sprint 10 yards. They then walk back to the starting point, sprint 30 yards, walk back, then sprint through the full 50 yards before taking a brief rest. 

Nathan Hemphill - Velocity Gain in the Weight Room (Pitchers)

Nathan Hemphill began studying strength and conditioning during his undergraduate studies at Missouri State University in 2006. There, Coach Hemphill actively contributed to the strength and conditioning department, assisting in program implementation across all sports teams. 

Summers were spent overseeing the strength and conditioning program for the St. Louis Cardinals, working with their AA Springfield team in 2008 and the Rookie Johnson City team in 2009. Driven by a passion to impart high-level athletic knowledge to younger athletes, he founded PSP3 (Premier Sports Performance) in March 2014. 

In his ‘Strength & Conditioning for the High School Athlete’ course, Coach Hemphill details the precise steps he’d take to improve pitcher velocities. 

He says that the most obvious way to do this to get stronger is by being consistent in the weight room. But the key is to know that at a certain point of strength and flexibility, there is to way to keep increasing velocity. In other words, a pitcher’s velocity will eventually plateau, regardless of how flexible they are or how heavy they can squat. 

This is why Coach Hemphill emphasizes balancing out strength and flexibility to minimize injury risk. This will allow players to continue building and maintaining their strength and flexibility while remaining healthy enough to improve their mechanics on the mound, which is the next best way to improve velocity. 

Steve Zawrotny - Romanian Dead Lift

Steve Zawrotny is one of just a handful of individuals with experience as an NCAA Div 1 pitcher and coach with the CSCS credential. His training programs - designed specifically for baseball and softball players - combine solid clinical research and Steve's 30 years of playing, coaching, & training.

He's a certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) with the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) and has a B.S. in Physical Education from BYU.

Coach Zawrotny’s ‘Arm and Bat Speed Training’ course details the Romanian dead lift (RDL), which is inarguably one of the best exercises a baseball player can employ during the offseason.

The RDL is a strength exercise that focuses on the hamstrings, glutes, and lower back. Improving posterior chain strength and flexibility enhances power and stability during baseball movements like hitting and throwing is another benefit to RDLs. 

Coach Zawrotny explains that this exercise helps prevent injuries by promoting proper lifting mechanics and developing core strength, which is essential for all baseball players, regardless of position. Plus an RDL can be done with minimal added weight, which decreases the risk of injury.