The Biggest Problem with Baseball Strength and Conditioning w/ MLB Strength Coach Thomas Summers

Coach Summers, if I'm a strength coach, one of the things that I bring up all the time is like I'll have baseball players come in and they want to increase their exit velocity.

If if I'm a normal strength coach just getting into training baseball, because I think baseball players in general are just now like really recognizing.

And you stated this off camera that we don't need to be treating them like glass anymore.

Yeah.

Walk me through what exit velocity means to a normal strength coach who might be unaware.

And then walk me through how you're looking at improving that for any baseball player.

Yeah, I mean, so that's the beauty in it is that strength coaches that only know how to periodize strength and how to get guys bigger, stronger, faster, that's a good thing.

So that's a very good way to enter this realm because where people get into trouble with trying to create throwing velocity, exit velo, is they train them too sports-specific.

you know, sports specific is a term that's been watered down, right? Like crazy.

Like you say that, you know, to a professional in this industry, they want to the cringe, right? But it is watered down.

Like you do, there are components that you do want to train sports specific, but there's prerequisites to everything that you do.

And the number one main thing is getting a good strength coach and building relative strength first, right? Right.

You have to have proficient relative strength to build power on that.

So a lot of these kids will come in.

And with that, I want to increase my exit velocity, but they can't even squat their body weight.

You know, they can't even, you know, reverse lunge like half their body weight.

Right.

So now it's a matter of, hey, you got to build the ceiling first.

You need to build a prerequisite of relative strength to even begin thinking about doing all the rotational cool stuff.

Right.

All the difference, you know, plyometrics, all the different, you know, sickling jumps together, stuff like that.

So that's the beauty in it is you can go really far in the baseball industry being just a regular old-fashioned CSCS, just hanging and banging, progressively overloading.

You're going to have extremely good results with guys honestly better results, you know, than guys trying to reinvent the wheel and to try to, you know, come up with the best method and tactic, right? My entire career, everything we've built has been built on simplicity, right? Right.

Get the guy strong in the weight room.

OK, then they'll go next door, do their skill stuff.

Coach Summers, if I'm a strength coach, one of the things that I bring up all the time is like I'll have baseball players come in and they want to increase their exit velocity.

If if I'm a normal strength coach just getting into training baseball, because I think baseball players in general are just now like really recognizing.

And you stated this off camera that we don't need to be treating them like glass anymore.

Yeah.

Walk me through what exit velocity means to a normal strength coach who might be unaware.

And then walk me through how you're looking at improving that for any baseball player.

Yeah, I mean, so that's the beauty in it is that strength coaches that only know how to periodize strength and how to get guys bigger, stronger, faster, that's a good thing.

So that's a very good way to enter this realm because where people get into trouble with trying to create throwing velocity, exit velo, is they train them too sports-specific.

you know, sports specific is a term that's been watered down, right? Like crazy.

Like you say that, you know, to a professional in this industry, they want to the cringe, right? But it is watered down.

Like you do, there are components that you do want to train sports specific, but there's prerequisites to everything that you do.

And the number one main thing is getting a good strength coach and building relative strength first, right? Right.

You have to have proficient relative strength to build power on that.

So a lot of these kids will come in.

And with that, I want to increase my exit velocity, but they can't even squat their body weight.

You know, they can't even, you know, reverse lunge like half their body weight.

Right.

So now it's a matter of, hey, you got to build the ceiling first.

You need to build a prerequisite of relative strength to even begin thinking about doing all the rotational cool stuff.

Right.

All the difference, you know, plyometrics, all the different, you know, sickling jumps together, stuff like that.

So that's the beauty in it is you can go really far in the baseball industry being just a regular old-fashioned CSCS, just hanging and banging, progressively overloading.

You're going to have extremely good results with guys honestly better results, you know, than guys trying to reinvent the wheel and to try to, you know, come up with the best method and tactic, right? My entire career, everything we've built has been built on simplicity, right? Right.

Get the guy strong in the weight room.

OK, then they'll go next door, do their skill stuff.