@ReluctantO'sFan posted:Does your state/school allow off-season training? My kids HS team lifts through-out the winter. The have an established program that is followed year to year to year. Almost every HS kid needs nutrition and the weight room almost as much as they need the field. When kids start to getting bigger/stronger/faster the game really starts to slow down for them.
And for god sake offer the kid with a 28mph FB the team manager position. However, if he could figure out how to land a 28mph strike that would be one heck of an eephus.... jm2c....
Our state allows us to lift weights after school OR do baseball for 90 minutes at most. We are not allowed to do both in the same day. We do offer weight lifting classes and another class that works on developing the overall athlete through weights, agilities and other things. So I try to steer them into those classes so we can spend after school working on baseball. Several guys are taking those classes and they are the better ones but not enough are in there. Right now I'm the only baseball coach because I lost two coaches - one is a staff member who has a son who is a senior and he wanted to enjoy just watching his son (totally understand and support that - but he also coaches football so he wouldn't be available anyway). The other coach who stepped down replaced me as Athletic Director so his hands are full as he learns the position. My other two coaches are coaching other sports currently so it leaves me. If I had someone else I would split them up and send a group to weight room and another group to the field but obviously cannot do that. Also, I only want to do this 3 days a week and I know that's a failing on my part but I spent the last 10 years staying to 9 or 10 at night 3 to 5 days a week when I was AD. I'll be honest with you - I want to go home after school some days.
A buddy of mine who is a fitness / weight lifting instructor gave me the book Movement over Maxes by Zach Dechant and it's amazing. He coaches football right now so when that's over we are going to sit down and start creating a plan on how to get stronger, faster and flexible. I'm studying up on Driveline and Jaeger information. So I don't have a definitive plan in place I'm starting to narrow down to something we can use. I think we will be better than we were last year but still have a lot of growth.
As for my 28 MPH stud we have been working on his pitching but the problem is we need someone about halfway to finish getting the ball to the plate LOL. He's a great kid who tries really hard. I know the conversation about him not being on the team and maybe be a manager is coming but right now he is "playing" baseball and he's happy. The rest of the guys are great with him and they try to help him best they can. They look out for him so he's not in jeopardy of getting hurt. At some point I'm going to tell him he's not good enough to be on the team and honestly that will be it for him so if he can enjoy playing now until we make cuts in Feb I don't want to take that away from him