Don’t Leave It Up To Chance.
Daily Newsletter 29/100
Don’t Leave It Up To Chance.
When it comes to your playing career, you shouldn't just let the odds play out. You need to make decisions based on what you need and what gives you a better chance of accomplishing their goals.
A lot of players simply go through their organized practices, and then assume they are going to get better. Unfortunately, the game of baseball as a whole is always improving. Simply doing the same as everyone else won't get you where you want to go, because when a group of players are thrown into a generalized practice plan, the results come out as a standard distribution bell curve the majority of the time.
This is **Not** what you want.
This means, you and everyone around you doing the same thing is simply hoping they come out on the good side of the draw. You are all simply rolling the dice hoping that it works out for you.
When you go to practice and only you do the things your coach tells you to do, you are banking on a lot of different factors:
You are baking on your coach is competent, and crafted a good practice plan
You are banking on your coach took time to make sure the practice plan improved you as an individual, and not just improved the team
You are banking on the thought that you are more talented and genetically gifted than everyone else doing the same exact plan.
You are banking on your teammates not doing any work outside of practice.
You are banking all your competition in the game of baseball having worse coaches who made worse practice plans
You are banking on everyone else having worse genetics
You are banking on no one else doing any extra work outside of their practice.
Those are some of the things that have to be true in order for you to have a chance to get better in relation to everyone else. Yes, showing up to High school practice every day on top of a full school load is a lot of work, however it is not more work than anyone else is doing. Every other player on your team (And likely around the entire world) is literally doing the exact same thing.
So what can you really do?
You **can** do a lot of things.
But, what *should* you do?
You *should* build a plan/system that guarantees you are able to get more out of your talents than the average person. You cannot count on being more talented than everyone, but the basis of creating a daily plan that makes you do a little bit more than everyone else will give you a way better chance.
If you find a way to make your practice 1% better than everyone else, you will be leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else at the end of the year.
If you pair this with taking the time before and after practice to strength train, build the proper capacity and mobility in order to better compete during the games you will be so far ahead of everyone else by the end of it.
You should reach out to me and have me build something specifically designed for you and your needs RIGHT HERE.
Or,
You should hop on a call with me, where we talk about anything related to you/your players development needs. Complementary to all paid subscribers, of course.
But, if I were to design something for everyone, it would look like this.
Generic Plan:
FULL THROWING DAY (High Output)
Pre-Throw:
Foam roll and Lacrosse ball soft tissue treatments, focus on the pec/shoulder and places you get sore.
Dynamic Warm-up: Take 5-10 minutes, move the body around and get blood flow.
Plyo Throws:
2 Knee Kneeling Throw: Pick 2 plyos or weighted balls, both being heavier than a baseball. Perform 2 sets of 5 reps with both.
Split Stance throw: Take 2 plyos or weighted baseballs, both being heavier than a baseball but ideally lighter than the ones used in the kneeling throws. Do 2 Sets of 5 reps with each
Roll In: Take 2 Plyos or weighted baseballs, one can be the same weight of a baseball. Do 1 Set of 5 with each.
Drop Step: Take 2 Plyos or weighted baseballs, one can be the same weight of a baseball. Do 1 Set of 5 with each.
Catch Play
Ten Toes Long Toss: Play catch with stagnant feet until you cannot go any further, ideally at least 120 feet. During my professional training I could get this to 300 feet. Learn how to create leverage and efficiency while constrained.
Roll In: Once you cannot reach your partner with ten toes, switch to the roll in. DO this for 8-10 throws or until you reach maximum distance.
Drop Step: Do this until maximum distance long toss, or do them for all of the throws at max distance. You can also do this the entire way in. This is a variation of compression throw that focuses more on rotation, and allows you to feel the rotation that was missing in the split stance and roll in throws.
LIGHT DAY THROWING PROGRAM:
Pre Throw:
Foam roll and Lacrosse ball soft tissue treatments, focus on the pec/shoulder and places you get sore.
Dynamic Warm-up: Take 5-10 minutes, move the body around and get blood flow.
Plyo Throws:
2 Knee Kneeling Throw: Pick 2 plyos or weighted balls, both being heavier than a baseball. Perform 2 sets of 5 reps with both.
Split Stance throw: Take 2 plyos or weighted baseballs, both being heavier than a baseball but ideally lighter than the ones used in the kneeling throws. Do 2 Sets of 5 reps with each
Catch
Ten Toes Catch: Ten toes drill out to about 75-90 feet, keep it nice and fluid.
Roll in: Do 3-5 at 75-90 feet, feel the constraint and be athletic within it.
Drop Step: 3-5 at 75-90 feet, feeling rotation and athleticism.
Keep all throws to a super light effort.
If you are cooked, feel free to take it easier.
However, rarely do I recommend going extra hard on a not high intent day. You do not get better by doing more on your light days.
As always, the secret is not in the program. It is in the sauce of knowing what you do well/poorly and tailoring something specifically to you.
You should however, sign up for a video call with me, where we can talk about you or your athletes path to improvement, or anything baseball related. The Link to my call schedule was sent in an email to all of our paid subscribers yesterday.
John