By Brooks Braga
Director of Training - BRX Performance

Imagine this scenario: you’re the overall strongest person on the field, but weak and inflexible at the position below:

Does it matter that you’re the strongest person overall?  Probably not!

Baseball is a unique sport that places your body in unusual positions.  Training on a “football strength program” just won’t cut it and can often place your most important joints (i.e. shoulder) at risk if significant adjustments aren’t made accordingly.

Baseball players have unique needs in the weight room.  At BRX Performance, we understand these unique needs and train baseball players like baseball players, not football players.  Some of the results we’ve seen in our facility in year one have us thinking we’re on the right track (all unverified by PBR):

Ben Heller (Cleveland Indians organization RHP): Improved average fastball from 92-94mph to 95-97mph and touching 100mph in one offseason

Joe Acker (Marquette University HS OF): After six months of training, improved his 60yd dash from 6.96 to 6.57 seconds and top OF velocity from 90mph to 97mph

Alex Tricoli-Walkanoff (Kenosha Indian Trail 3B): Increased infield throwing velocity from 80mph to 89mph in four months

Logan Wonn (Jacksonville University RHP): 4 ER in 97 IP (0.28 ERA), 2015 WIAA Spring Baseball State Player of the Year for Oconomowoc HS

Jim Jarecki (Marquette University HS RHP): 82mph to 89mph in two months, went from unrecruited to committing to D1 Bradley University

Connor Neeck (Grafton HS RHP): 83mph to 88mph in two months, ranked PBR’s “Top Ranked Newcomer” in most recent player rankings (#42)

Connor Kimple (Marquette University HS OF): Increased top OF velocity from 91mph to 94mph after our first session (utilized new mobility drills before his next time throwing)

This will be the inaugural post of a regular series on baseball strength training.  To set the foundation, we’re going to talk about some of the more important concepts regarding baseball strength training and why it needs to be different than traditional, football-based strength training.