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Reply to "Travel Ball - not seeing the value for us"

A lot of this could be easily fixed.

For starters I think the baseball specific weight training is wild. Lifting heavy weight at that age is only going to stunt his growth. 5'3 110. Let him hit puberty and then start developing some muscles. For now it should all be body weight stuff, pushups, situps, squats. Getting him on a bench press at 14 is not going to make him a better baseball player. I'd be looking into nutrition and getting him on a caloric surplus before I did anything. Any "trainer" willing to do baseball specific weight training with a middle schooler is a crook and a goon.

From 6th-8th we played only played in tournaments within a 3 hour drive. Some were around the corner, some were a hotel stays a few states away and they were always fun. Competition was good, was not overly expensive. I understand you're in an area which makes this tougher but I would really look for programs where they aren't going crazy with the travel and the fees. Once he gets to HS you can reassess.

HS is where things changed. For the more advanced and developed (college prospects), they went to GA, Ft. Myers, etc. The others did the 3 hour drive thing for another year.

You're going to be hard pressed to find something that won't run you a few thousand each year. Summer should be about $1k-1500 for local tournaments and practices. If he's playing fall another $800-1200.

It's all the extras that are killing you. Axe the private lessons or cut back. None of mine did private lessons until HS and when they did it was only in the offseason once/twice a week ramping up for the HS season with some lessons mixed in during the season to fine tune some things. It was also only because they refused to listen to me after a certain age.

Middle School is really the development stage. He should probably be getting his best coaching now. In HS it's pretty much up to his school to build him up because once travel ball comes around it's about recruiting and reps, not practices and drills.

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