Improving Speed for Baseball Athletes

Speed plays a significant role in baseball. Whether you are a pitcher, fielder, or hitter, speed is a crucial element in each of these positions. It’s no wonder, the MLB combine included the 30 yard dash and usually the athletes with blazing times, get selected first. At this year’s MLB combine, the fastest 30 yard dash time was from Homer Bush Jr, who ran 3.52 secs and Jonny Farmelo, who ran 3.53 secs. Some fast times!

Given the need for speed, we often get asked - how do you improve speed?

Speed is a coordinated effort between the upper body and lower body to create fast, rhythmic movements as the athlete travels the distance required, fast. While this sounds simple, it takes time to get it just right. There isn’t one thing that will create speed. It’s a combination of many things working together to improve strength, power, coordination, balance, and mindset.

Strength, sprint and plyometric training have all been shown to improve speed capabilities. Equally as important is their role in helping an athlete minimize injuries and/or come back from injuries expeditiously.

For young, developing athletes, this can mean just letting them run and jump and climb and tumble so they are unknowingly working on their strength, coordination, and speed. In a more professionally guided environment, a coach implements age-appropriate movements that model and reinforce those coordinated movements that create efficient sprinting. This can include short sprints, resisted sprints, resistance exercises, medicine ball work, and agility drills, just to name a few.

A sample general strength, power, & coordination workout can include:

For a youth athlete: *After a good warm up 10 reps ea. - Body weight walking lunges 5 reps ea.- Power Skips for Height 4-8 reps - Push ups 10 reps each – Seated Weighted Core Rotations Repeat 3-4 times

For a youth athlete may be: *After a good warm Up 10 reps ea. – Dumbbell Fwd Walking Lunge 5 reps ea. – Power Skips for Height 8-12 reps – Push-ups 10 reps ea. – Seated Weighted Core Rotations Repeat 3-4 times

As the athlete progresses in developmental and training age, high level strength and power movements are incorporated.

An athlete can produce forces 4-5 times their body weight when sprinting!

The body needs to be durable enough to withstand that type of force repeatedly. Appropriate strength training and plyometrics - to strengthen the muscles, tendons, ligaments that are involved in creating, directing, and protecting the musculature which supports and generates speed - becomes more important. The arms, core, hamstrings, quadriceps, hip flexors, and calf muscles are all involved in creating speed, so exercises that strengthen those areas are important. Exercises such as, squats, deadlifts, and power cleans are incorporated for building explosive strength and power development. Shoulder and back strength movements are important to strengthen the musculature involved in throwing. But there is balance between increasing explosive strength versus increasing muscle size and mass. You want to build strength to improve power output – not to increase muscle size. The goal is to move weight fast.

A Sample Speed Workout:

For a youth athlete: *After a general & specific warm Up 4 sets of (2 x 15 yd sprints) 30-60 secs rest between reps 2-3mins rest between sets.

For an older athlete: *After a general & specific warm Up 4 sets of (3 x 20 yd sprints) *30-60 secs rest between reps 2-3mins rest between sets.

Developing and improving speed is a combination of the right training at the right time, talent, and mindset. It won’t be just one drill, but a consistent training plan.

We can help provide full strength and speed programs via in-person and remote training options. For more information about our in-person training, click here. To access our remote training options, click here.