Overtraining

A common mistake of high school pitchers, is overtraining. Many kids I work with tend to believe that more is better, without any scientific back up, when it comes to training. Unfortunately, this is a huge misconception and you need take note if you are a high school pitcher looking to be healthy for the upcoming spring.

At Hatboro Horsham, we have a lot of guys that play other sports, as well as baseball. Generally, they are playing football or basketball, but the football coaches seem to want a year round commitment to the team. When we're getting ready for the season, as a pitching staff, we have a concrete plan that needs to be executed in order for our guys to be ready to go when March comes around. We specifically build up our arms with a combination of long toss, and stretching out pitch counts every week during our bullpens. What I'm seeing, is guys who are strength training for football, strength training for baseball, long tossing twice a week with us, throwing a bullpen once a week with us, training with a pitching coach on the weekend (generally throwing another bullpen), as well as attending summer league practices once a weekend.

Herein lies the problem. When you are constantly putting your body in a position of breaking down (football training, baseball training, bullpens, long toss, etc.), the body needs a period of time to recover. If you don't give your body the proper rest and nutrition, you will be on the DL before the season ever starts. I understand it's tough to go to your football coach and tell him that you need to be with baseball, but think about your future on the baseball field, if that's what you truly want. During football season, we don't expect our guys to be at baseball, because it's exactly that...Football season. The same goes for baseball. When it's baseball season, it's time to focus on the things that are going to make you a better baseball player and keep you healthy throughout the spring. Football workouts should resume in late summer when it's time for football season.

Some of the best advice I ever recieved was "Work smarter, not harder." Understand what time of year it is, from a sport specific stand point, and work your tail off in that ONE area. If you stick to this piece of advice, you will have a successful, healthy season.