Does anyone have experience and an opinion on sparq training for baseball?
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The agility stuff is good. Its all around decent. But im not going to lie, its the same old plyometric and active stretch movements that most college and MLB teams do. The in-season agility program, i just got done with the six week program, it works big time. Just in the last couple weeks ive have a few triples, which until this year ive never had due to speed. Ive had 3 in the last 2 weeks! I give the agility program the thumbs up!
The SPARQ measurements themselves have been discussed a lot here - do a search.
I find it kind of amusing: my son has been through several showcases where SPARQ measures were taken, and he's never once had any coach ask about his rating. Granted, he is a catcher, so it is not as relevant as perhaps for a CF or SS.
But I continue to think that at best, the SPARQ rating system has limited applicability to baseball, and sheds very little light on who can play the game.
As an auxillary item of information, perhaps, it is worthwhile. It does measure certain aspects of athleticism.
But my view is that if you took 100 kids and simply watched them run them the length of a football field, afterwards you could probably line them up 1-100 and come pretty close to estimating how their relative SPARQ ratings would line up.
So spending a half day of every showcase getting a SPARQ measure seems like a waste of time. Especially since every kid has already done it several times at other showcases, and the scores probably vary very little from one day to the other.
I find it kind of amusing: my son has been through several showcases where SPARQ measures were taken, and he's never once had any coach ask about his rating. Granted, he is a catcher, so it is not as relevant as perhaps for a CF or SS.
But I continue to think that at best, the SPARQ rating system has limited applicability to baseball, and sheds very little light on who can play the game.
As an auxillary item of information, perhaps, it is worthwhile. It does measure certain aspects of athleticism.
But my view is that if you took 100 kids and simply watched them run them the length of a football field, afterwards you could probably line them up 1-100 and come pretty close to estimating how their relative SPARQ ratings would line up.
So spending a half day of every showcase getting a SPARQ measure seems like a waste of time. Especially since every kid has already done it several times at other showcases, and the scores probably vary very little from one day to the other.
Rob hit this one right on.
While some of the stuff is ok, it's very basic with a few exercises dressed up for the sake of dressing them up. You won't get strong on it at all.
But any type of training program with that reach cannt be too in-depth for a variety of reasons.
While some of the stuff is ok, it's very basic with a few exercises dressed up for the sake of dressing them up. You won't get strong on it at all.
But any type of training program with that reach cannt be too in-depth for a variety of reasons.