Staying in baseball shape while playing football

adbono posted:

PitchingFan posted:

I am the baseball coach but all of our coaches know where my son falls in his future, that being baseball.  The football coaches and basketball coach, who is the weight lifting guy, know he is not to max out on anything.  They are just glad to have him continue to be a part of their programs since he has started on both since Freshman year.  I let him have that talk with them about weightlifting and they were completely fine with it, maybe more because he was man enough to talk with them.  He does some of the weightlifting they do but he actually is in a group with the freshmen so he gets to spend time with them and mentor them plus they cannot get near his maxes so he is doing almost everything everyone else does just not with the heavy weights.  He has caught a little flack from some of his buddies but he just jokingly reminds them he has a future on the mound and they are okay with it.  No fallout that I know of.  But it is a conversation someone has to have with whoever is over weightlifting program.

As baseball coach, I did have to have a conversation with our weightlifting guy last year because he was maxing out on game days with our baseball players and they could hardly move when they got to the field.  I just nicely asked if he did the same thing during basketball season and he understood.  All was good and he changed the plan for baseball players, especially pitchers during baseball season.

What you described is all very sound.  It is a sensible, practical and cooperative effort with the athlete's best interests being foremost in everyone's mind. I'm guessing you don't live in Texas. In Texas what you described would be called a fairy tale.

I will 2nd that!  At my son's HS there's FOOTBALL and then all the secondary sports. Even during baseball season, all FB players have to stay in the FB class and lift weights and do drills. Heck we even have spring FB for 3 weeks in May. The thing I don't get is that our head FB coach pitched in the MLB for 10 years and yet if you're on varsity you can't do anything baseball related during FB season (get you benched or dropped down to JV). My 2019 decided not to play FB this year because of all this, plus he wants to focus on baseball and changing a few things in his hitting and pitching (things you can't do while playing). The coaches got mad because he's the starting slot wr and backup qb, but baseball is his ticket to the next level-not football. This was a decision he made on his own when he started getting interest a month ago from 2 of his top schools. I'm proud of him for doing what he thinks is right, he faced a lot of pressure from his coaches (which irks me). 

I've just told my youngest (8th grader in 2nd and last season of football) to lift lighter weights and not max out on anything.  No squats, deadlifts or lifting any weights above shoulders.  All the body lifting / pushing / pulling / tubes / running / core work that he could do.

New middle school AD/FB coach came in last year and found this out and went straight to V baseball coach (who we are close w/ due to older son), who confirmed this.  AD/FB was not to happy.   

russinfortworth posted:

I've just told my youngest (8th grader in 2nd and last season of football) to lift lighter weights and not max out on anything.  No squats, deadlifts or lifting any weights above shoulders.  All the body lifting / pushing / pulling / tubes / running / core work that he could do.

New middle school AD/FB coach came in last year and found this out and went straight to V baseball coach (who we are close w/ due to older son), who confirmed this.  AD/FB was not to happy.   

My youngest son is a 2018 and was a promising prospect at this time last year. Last fall he hurt his back doing squats in his HS weight room (during 7th period off season baseball) with no coaching supervision.  He played in the Texas Futures Game with what we later learned were 2 bulging discs.  Did rehab and fought thru last spring at 70% and played pretty well considering his condition - but needed surgery when season was over.  Missed all summer and will likely miss all of this fall too - depending on how rehab goes.  Needless to say he has missed playing during the most critical time to be recruited (not sure how much of recruiting is really fun - for most it is stressful).  He will get a chance to play somewhere (assuming he fully recovers) but most likely not at the places he had his sights set on.  This is why I chime in pretty heavy handed on this topic. This could have been avoided so easily.

adbono posted:

PitchingFan posted:

I am the baseball coach but all of our coaches know where my son falls in his future, that being baseball.  The football coaches and basketball coach, who is the weight lifting guy, know he is not to max out on anything.  They are just glad to have him continue to be a part of their programs since he has started on both since Freshman year.  I let him have that talk with them about weightlifting and they were completely fine with it, maybe more because he was man enough to talk with them.  He does some of the weightlifting they do but he actually is in a group with the freshmen so he gets to spend time with them and mentor them plus they cannot get near his maxes so he is doing almost everything everyone else does just not with the heavy weights.  He has caught a little flack from some of his buddies but he just jokingly reminds them he has a future on the mound and they are okay with it.  No fallout that I know of.  But it is a conversation someone has to have with whoever is over weightlifting program.

As baseball coach, I did have to have a conversation with our weightlifting guy last year because he was maxing out on game days with our baseball players and they could hardly move when they got to the field.  I just nicely asked if he did the same thing during basketball season and he understood.  All was good and he changed the plan for baseball players, especially pitchers during baseball season.

What you described is all very sound.  It is a sensible, practical and cooperative effort with the athlete's best interests being foremost in everyone's mind. I'm guessing you don't live in Texas. In Texas what you described would be called a fairy tale.

Yeah, and this is definitely not just a Texas thing.  (BTW, just read a piece that lists the top ten towns that produce NFL players per capita and, surprisingly, none were in Texas )  Sorry, back to the post.  It is definitely the norm in most states that football rules and any adjustments come with much resistance.  

PitchingFan, you are fortunate.  As the baseball coach at a school with many multi-sport athletes, I have had similar conversations with our rotating AD's and FB coaches over the years.  Once in a while, adjustments will be made (or lip service given).  It will last a few weeks.  Then, FB focus resumes.  Push, push.  Bench, bench.  Max, max.   If demands don't come from the parents, actions are short-lived.   And that can be a tough spot to put the parents in.

At least, PitchingFan is a coach at the school with a talented son who is wanted enough by the other sports and they have managed a solution...  lots of points of leverage others don't have.

At least, for MomLW, they have the baseball coach on the FB staff, so hopefully that can be the point of leverage.

I will agree that I/my son have leverage.  But that is a plus in smaller schools.  I used to coach in GA and many of the larger schools there will not even let a player play multiple sports much less three sports.  So there are good things and bad things or larger and smaller schools.  I just know that if baseball is your thing then why would you let another sport take it away.  The major problem here is we only have three baseball players.  The rest are just athletes who play whatever sport is in season.  You have to work/coach real hard to win with decent athletes rather than baseball players.  I only have two players who play baseball at all in the summer or fall. 

MOMLW - After playing baseball full-time all summer and football part-time, I give my son about a month off before we do anything baseball related. He basically transitions from baseball to school and football without a break. Every day when I ask him how was his day at school and how was football practice his answer is always "long and tired." It doesn't help that classes start at 7:10am in our county. 

If he is going to participate in a fall tournament, he'll try to hit everyday leading up to it. His former travel team would work out on Sundays in the fall and he would also participate in those practices.  

We typically have a light fall schedule but I'll let him choose what he wants to attend.

Regarding lifting, I guess one good thing is that our football team doesn't max out during the season. They transition to maintenance with an emphasis on flexibility.