Baseball weight training for an 8th grader

I'm no expert in this area but have you looked at his diet. If he's eating like a normal teenager that is probably leading to the extra weight. His diet should be focused on lean protein and minimal carbs. The carbs he eats should only come from whole grains and natural foods. I'm not a big no carbs person but believe that your carbs need to be natural (fruit and veggies) and not refined(candy and pizza).  My son was given a lot of grief through elem and jr high as being the fat kid. He in fact was just bigger then the rest of the kids. He himself decided to start eating properly which lead to his thinning out and gaining of muscle mass.  

I have the opposite problem, putting weight on skinny kid.

I would see if gym has a trainer and get a consultation If it's affordable. they will defiantly look at diet too. I always look at what kids r drinking first, many times it's sugary sodas w empty calories. That could add up.  My biggest suggestion would be not to make him feel like he's on a strict diet. Small changes at first. He s still young, time to make adjustments, work on skills and try again. Also get on a good fit Summer team and work hard. Good Luck.

Yes we are overhauling our entire family's diet...i was diagnosed with diabetes about 4 months ago and have been systematically eliminating all unnecessary carbs fom my diet. Like i said i trained with a competitive bodybuilder for about 10 years, so im familiar with what we need to do as far as diet goes.Its just a matter of breaking some old habits.  I was just looking for some advice for the strength training aspect with a slant towards baseball. If there isnt anything special we should be doing, i feel pretty confident i can design a beginners workout for him. Something along the lines of a simple upper body/lower body split focused on compound movements and lower weight/higher reps. But i just wanted to make sure i wasnt missing anything.

I would focus on a lot of core work and speed.  Lunges, ab work, footwork dills, etc.  There are a lot of resources out there.  Better yet, find out what the HS is doing and model that. 

As others have mentioned, you need to look at his current eating habits and adjust as needed. Since he is still young I would focus heavily on body weight stuff (push ups, pull ups etc...) and a lot of core stuff like planks. Along with these suggestions, baseball is all about explosive movements so box jumps, pulling weighted sled, sprints and plyometrics are all good for baseball. You didn't mention how his baseball skills are so I would either find a good hitting coach in your area or you can educate yourself on what to work with on your son or you can post a video of your son taking BP and post here. There are more than enough posters here that are willing to offer advice, you would just need to sort through it and determine for your self who makes the most sense. Good luck to you and your son.         

+1 here on the above

Push-ups and band work along with all the core work.  If you decide to incorporate weight training in the mix, I would stick to light weight/high reps stuff in a circuit style training....and again .....band work....and lots of sprints.   Depending on where you are and access permitting, throw in some swimming

At his age he needs to stay away from heavy weights, like others have mentioned I would focus on weight reduction and general body health and conditioning. I would get into a body weight oriented "crossfit" style of work out. He will get the explosive stuff he needs, it will tax his cardiovascular network for caloric burn and he will not have to do a ton of running, which in general, is a waste of time for baseball. I would add in some sprint training as he gets in shape. Get a good trainer to help him, believe it or not a lot of rowing machine work is probably the single best thing he can do. If he really takes this seriously along with diet changes he will look completely different in 6 months. 

We are currently overhauling his diet. Lean protein, low carbs. More frequent small meals. Found a running program online that seemed decent, and we live within walking distance of a big soccer field. As soon as it quits snowing we are going to start that. Seriously this is the south....lol.

We don't have access to a weighted sled, but I am looking for a cheap sturdy box. Box jumps are a part of the running program I found. 

As for his skills, they are fine. Certainly room for improvement, but he was apparently cut strictly because of his conditioning and speed. So our plan is lose weight, get faster, maintain skills, for now. I took him to hit yesterday at a local indoor facility. We let him pout all weekend, yesterday it was time to get back on the horse. Maybe someday I'll post a video, but really hitting is the least of his worries. 

Thanks to everyone who replied. 

Sounds like you have a good plan. Good luck to you guys.

Strength training for sports is something that can start much earlier than 8th grade.  We're not talking about Powerlifting, Body Building, or competative Weight Lifting but strength training.  As for one posters take on heavy weights, heavy weights shouldn't be attempted until you are strong enough to lift them with good form.  This comes from experience, not from age and applies if you're 10 years old or 80.

So, when can you start strength training?  I like the Mayo Clinic's take on it http://www.mayoclinic.org/stre...raining/ART-20047758  The main take away is you can start early, emphasize form over weight, lift lighter but more reps (i.e. 1-3 sets of 10-12 reps @ 65%-80% 1RM), vary the exercises, and make sure you warm up, and stretch on the cool down. For those of you familiar with periodization (i.e. a condition phase, strength phase, and power phase) younger kids should concentrate on being in the condition phase, save the power phase work for when the growth plates have closed up (i.e. 15-17 yr).

For many sports strength training is combine with agility, quickness, and speed training.  So we focus on movements that help build explosivness. This is true for baseball, football, basketball, volleyball, and holds for young men an women.  The differences between sports are typically in what proportion of each exercise you do.  So football linemen may do squats more often than a baseball center fielder and the center fielder may spend more time on doing falling starts (speed training routine) that the linemen, but both of them will do each exercise in their training program.  So, where to start?  First, you need to develop base strength and any good strength (or SAQ) program will get you there.  You need to learn the basic lifts and exercises, how to warm up (a good dynamic warmup routine), nutrition (you need carbs for this, just eat the right ones in the appropriate amounts), and be monitored so that you're doing them correctly and safely.  Start with weights (and reps) that you can do with good form.  Eventually, you will be strong enough to engage in more challanging workouts, some that are baseball specific.  A good rule of thumb strength measure is bench pressing your body weight (%85-%100) and squating twice your body weight (%150-%200).  At that point you're strong enough to safely engage in more explosive exercises (a bunch of cool plyometric routines).

As for diet, if you're starting a strength program you might want to concentrate on eating correctly from now on and not trying to loose weight (which tends to reduce muscle).  Concentrate more on inches of fat lost and a change in physique instead of weight reduction.

Important for any conidtioning program is warming up.  I really like the dyamic warm-up routines from Nike SPARQ.  They had training cards available for many sports and they were quite good (I have football, basketball, baseball, and general training).  Any good dynamic warm-up routine is good, prior to lifting or other training.  Windmills, high knees, but kicks, carioca, frankenstein walk, etc. are examples of dynamic warm-up exercises.

The following are a few resources you might find helpful

Books:

Weight Training For Dummies
Strength Training Anatomy
Training for Speed, Agility, and Quickness

Body Weight training:

http://www.trxtraining.com/

As for baseball the following clip is from a training program my son participates in.  It's the strength training portion of a weekly pitching workout put out by Next Level Baseball MN, a training group comprised of coaches from a local D3 school.  You'll get an idea of the use of free weights, body weight, and medicine balls in the context of developing pitchers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp6n35d9UMs 

Another resource I find interesting are the two workouts posted by Xan Barksdale on his Catching 101 site.  I find the Atlanta Braves workout to be very informative and worth studing.  I also like how it's for corner infielders, corner outfielders, and catchers.  Very good stuff.  It's not all appropriate for an 8th grader as it involves periodization but it is what you're trying to work up to.

Ole Miss http://www.catching-101.com/fr...ss-2003-workoutt.pdf

Atlanta Braves http://www.catching-101.com/fr...f-season-workout.pdf

In addition to the good stuff in sowilson's links, look at the yoga, band, and arm strength work from http://www.jaegersports.com/.  I got my 12 yo doing them over the off season, as well as their long toss two / three days a week.  On other days we would go to the gym, do "goblet" squats, push ups, planks, other core exercises.  Since he is 12, and I know my kid, the carrot was to play basketball after some working out.