Baseball Offseason Field Work

Bridging the gap between the weight room and the field/court used to stress me out to no end. Since that time I have found a way that allows us to train hard and with intent lifting and sprinting. Just like everything else in this field there are a million ways that you can approach this, but I just wanted to show how I structure our training and how you can use it as a guide. Everything we will be talking about below is what I have done in the past, every year I make changes and alterations based on this specific year's needs. Do not just copy and paste what you see, use it as a guideline at most. What works for my athletes, may not work for yours.

When structuring our training sessions I match up our stimuli. Keep your high days high and your low days low. That reigns true on the field and in the weight room. You can use this structure with any team, however it would be wise to tweak it based on the team you are working with, training age, time of year etc. For the sake of this article I will be discussing this based on a 4 day/week model since this is our offseason training model we used baseball this offseason. In another article I will discuss how I attack our football offseason field work.

Offseason Field Prep

Everything we do in our warmup and prep work is based off of 20 yards. It is set up this way so the volume of work is easier to track for our guys. We do an in place warmup followed by a moving warm up. These are just general full body movements, after that we shift more into our field work prep.

We work from less specific to more specific. After the warm up here is how the session goes:

• 4 way pogos: 10 yds each (Fwd, Bkwd, Rt, Lt)

• Reset Broad Jump: 10 yds + Repeat Broad Jump: 10 yds

• Repeat Broad Jump: 20 yds

• SL Repeat Broad Jump 20 yds each (R+L)

• A Skip March: 10 yds + A Skip 10 yds

• A Skip: 10 yds + 3 Step Burst 10 yds

• Big Primetime: 20 yds + Mini Primetime 20 yds

• Multi Start Sprint Races: 20 yds (Pushup, SL Kneeling FWD, SL Kneeling Lateral)

Monday: ME Lower + Accel Focus

The first day of the week on a 4 day model is always structured as a high CNS day. Acceleration and max effort lower body lifting fit hand in hand in my mind. On the field we are focusing on putting as much force into the ground as possible over a short distance, just like we are putting max force into the ground during our lifting.

On these days our team will complete their warm up then it will start to mesh into more of that sprint prep. Even after our warmup and prep our acceleration days rarely if ever exceed 20 yards, which is what I and many others consider about the distance for acceleration. That can be argued, but for this sake I am saying 20-30 yds is what I consider acceleration. When we are training for “real life” I try to stay within the range of 10-20 yds considering that is the dominant distance that a lot of sprint bouts take place during play. Even though the distance is short, the volume and rest times are incredibly important to make sure this doesn’t turn into conditioning. When it comes to our timed sprints the number of athletes we have in a group takes care of our rest time, which on average ends up being anywhere from 2:30-3:30 minutes. 

After we do our warmup and sprint prep, we move into our timed sprints or sled pushes. When working with our offensive and defensive line I find it much more beneficial for them to do loaded sled pushes and 5 + 10. My thought process behind this is that the nature of their sport is to move an outside force in a short amount of time. For that reason they train that same way. Our skill positions will do weighted sprints and/or timed sprints.Our baseball athletes have had great success simply just getting multiple reps during their sprints. We have had great success without adding resistance with this group (multiple 20, 21, and a 22 mph sprinter). After the fieldwork we then transition into the weight room for the lift.

Some people may say this is too much and some may say this is not enough or that I am wrong in my approach. My answer to all of those people is we have decreased soft tissue injuries and our results have skyrocketed. So whether I am right or wrong for doing it this way it works, so I’m going to keep doing it. 

Tuesday: ME Upper + Change of Direction/Curved Running

Our second day of the training schedule is a low CNS day. On the field it is approached differently based on our sport. With baseball the focus is much more on curved running than change of direction. Within baseball, curved running at high speeds occurs much more commonly than high speed cuts do. As the offseason goes on this serves as a work capacity day as well. Our rest continues to decrease with these reps to force adaptation within the athletes. 

Looking at it through a field sport lens we utilize COD and agility drills within training. What’s the difference? COD is a change of direction or velocity due to a closed chain stimulus like a cone or line. Agility is changing direction or velocity due to an outside stimulus such as chasing another player, a whistle or a verbal call out. These are considered a low CNS stimulus due to the low speed they are typically being completed at.

On these days the team will complete the same warm up as they do everyday followed by mostly the same prep work with a few alterations. Just as yesterday the warm up and prep work is based on a 20 yard model. After the warm up the session looks like this:

• 4 way pogos: 10 yds each (Fwd, Bkwd, Rt, Lt)

• Lateral Broad Jump: 10 yds each (Rt + Lt)

• SL Lateral Broad Jump: 10 yds each (Rt + Lt)

• Multi Start Sprint Races: 20 yds (SL Kneeling Lateral Rt + Lt, 3 whistle shuffle-sprint, random direction start)

After the prep we will transition into our curved sprint or change of direction drill for the day. Below I will list a few of the COD drills and curved running drills we use. 

COD

• 5-10-5

• 5 Cone Box Drill

• Crates and Cones

• Paperclip Races

• Predator and Prey

Curved Running

• Snake sprints 

• Mid Field 20 Yd Curve

• 18 Yd Box Curve

I am unable to attach links to these drills, with that being the case if anyone reading this has questions about them please reach out to ask them. After these drills are completed the team will transition into the weight room for our max effort upper body training session.

Wednesday: Dynamic Effort Lower + Max Velocity Focus

Fast is fast whether it is on the field or in the weight room, which is why we pair them on these days. Early offseason versus late offseason dynamic effort (DE) is approached differently in the weight room, but that is a topic for later. On the field it is honestly not all that different from our acceleration focus day in the early stages. The biggest difference is the distance sprinted per rep and the rest. In the first phase of the offseason (2 weeks) this day looks like another acceleration focus. We will utilize timed 5 + 10 again, but the volume is much higher than on Monday in an attempt to increase that work capacity. After the first phase it will then be progressed to 10 + 10 then 15 +10 and finally 20 + 10. Typically, I will keep each fly for 2-3 weeks depending on how they look, then progress the fly distance. I have gone back and forth about going beyond a 20 yard fly, but I haven’t implemented that yet. After we reach a 20 yard fly the number of reps increases to continually provide stimulus. The rule of thumb I’ve taken from other great coaches is one minute of rest for every 10 yards sprinted. I time our rest, but I am also lucky enough that the number of athletes we have per session allows for full rest between reps.

I know there will be an argument about why or why we shouldn’t use wickets with max velocity. I have used them in the past with some success, but a lot of athletes I see alter running form just to get over the wickets rather than running properly. This year I did not use them with baseball and had great success, but I will be giving them one more try with football this Summer.

Thursday: Dynamic Effort Upper + Aerobic Conditioning/Medball

Our last day of the training week is a dynamic effort upper body lift in the weight room paired with med ball work on the field. We will cycle through which med ball throws we use, the standard outline is 3 different throws and 10 throws with each variation. Listed below are some of the variations we utilize:

Intensive Med ball Throws:

• Broad Jump + Chest Pass

• Kneeling Chest Pass

• ½ Kneeling MB Projection

• Rotational Throw

• 2 Step Rotational Throw

• Backward Overhead Throw (Distance or Height)

• MB Granny Throw (Distance or Height)

There are a million more variations you can plug in here. 

I will be the first to tell you that the way I structure training is very fluid. One year it may look like this, the next year I may disagree with everything I just told you. But what I just talked about has produced great results for us. It has helped produce multiple 40” verticals, multiple 20 and 21 MPH sprinters and a 22 MPH sprinter. If anyone reading this has questions or wants to talk about the training, reach out to me through social media and I would love to talk.