Getting noticed

Given the information you presented, too early or he will in fact be "exposed."

Just work on getting better and let the maturity come when it will.

Welcome to HSBBWeb!

Lots of kids at your son's weight as freshman become solid and strong before the end of high school. It can be done, but it won't happen by accident.

Now is the time to get serious about nutrition and conditioning.

Just as many obese people UNDERestimate their caloric intake, many underweight teens OVERestimate their intake.

Seeing a kid eat a plate of pasta as large as his head may make you think he's getting plenty of food, but most active, skinny boys fail to eat a hearty breakfast right when they get up and fail to consume real nutrition every two or three hours the rest of the day.

During the school year, many schools serve lunch as early as 10:00 a.m., and athletes can go from then until the end of practice at 6:00 p.m. without additional food. For my son, the daily routine was a big breakfast, four hearty sandwiches in his backpack, a purchased school lunch, dinner on the table right when he got home from practice, and PBJ's or cottage cheese at bedtime. That was barely enough to maintain weight in season.

During the summer, many teens sleep in, take in little or no nutrition in the morning, run a deficit the rest of the day, and backload with junk food at night time.

Get up an hour before he does and start his day with a massive, hearty breakfast every day. Make him get out of bed at a proper hour. Make sure he has nutritious food available.

Once he's truly being properly and sufficiently fed, get him under the tutelage of a qualified strength and conditioning coach. There's no substitute for a pro who really knows how to train.

Best wishes.

dad2014 - I apologize if I was curt in my prior response. Welcome to the hasbaseballweb. Swampboy gave you good advice.

I've had two sons go on or about to go on to play college baseball. In both cases we weren't focused on the college thing at all coming out of their freshman year in HS. In fact, despite repeated invitations to a high level travel team, we put even that off for an extra year with the younger one. We just focused on skills, strength, improvement...academics...and making their varsity teams as a sophomore.

We felt (correctly in retrospect), that if we focused on those things at that time, we wouldn't get too far ahead of ourselves, we could keep it fun and we could achieve some successes in the next year instead of shooting for something 2-4 years away.

I hope that makes sense?

Good luck and stick around!

dad2014-We were there 3 years ago. My 2012 was frustrated with advancements in weight/mass gain. He attends a large public school with sports emphasized and some of his peers were hitting growth spurts etc. compounding his worries. He established a baseball appropriate workout routine and nutrition plan after his sophmore year and he has stuck to it to this point, the all important summer prior to the senior year. He has gone from 5'10 145 to 6'1 and a solid 180. The weight will come for your son as he matures but adding muscle through strength conditioning is important. Patience, you're in the foundation years for your son and it is early for exposure worries. Remember to have 2014 remain focused on the academic side if you are concerned about exposure to colleges. I have seen some great HS players have their options severely limited due to lackluster academic performance, SAT & ACT scores. If you get the exposure, you need the attractive grades to keep their attention!

Regarding weight gain and calories - keep at it. It is very true that active teenage boys often underestimate the number of calories they need. I went on line to use one of those calculators that are supposed to tell you how many calories to eat when my son was a freshman. All was going along fine as I entered height - weight - age. Then I was asked to enter the number of hours per week of physical activity. He was "off the charts" as are many of our sons. We found that 5 or 6 actual meals per day along with muscle milk were required (in conjunction with a weight lifting / training routine provided by a professional) to attain the type and amount of weight gain he was looking for.