Core Training for Softball Pitchers
The core plays a key role in the softball pitching motion. In addition to preventing injuries, it also helps increase speed and accuracy by (a) transferring the forces produced by the lower body to the upper body, (b) creating rotational power, and (c) stabilizing the body during the pitching motion.
Most softball pitchers have a deficient core meaning that their core is not strong or stable enough to maximize performance. This reports provides additional information on the importance of the core for pitchers and will show you several excellent exercises to train it.
Injury Prevention and Recovery Programs
This report provides two different programs: (1) A thrower’s program which is designed to help softball players strengthen all the arm and shoulder muscles involved in the throwing motion and (2) a recovery program using a foam roll designed to help recover faster after a workout, a practice, or a game. Foam rolls are used a lot by elite athlete. The best part, this can foam roll program only takes a few minutes and can be done almost everywhere as it only requires a small foam roll.
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Performance System – Static Stretching for Softball
Just like strength, speed, or power, flexibility is a physical quality important to all softball players. It helps improve all aspects of the game (hitting, throwing, fielding, running speed, etc.) and prevent injuries.
Unfortunately, most softball players don’t spend enough time doing flexibility training. Static stretching is the easiest and one of the most effective flexibility training method.
Softball Workout – Stability Ball Core Conditioning Workout
We all know how important the trunk is in softball. It is responsible for transferring the forces from the lower to the upper body and producing rotation power. It’s our power center. Old fashion floor-based crunches, sit-ups, and leg raises just won’t cut it. They are good to get a six-pack but they have little incidence on the performance of a softball player.
This is a stability ball core training circuit that will give you an amazing athletic core and boost your performance on the field.
Softball Workout – Shoulder of Steels
Throwing and pitching puts a lot of stress on the shoulder. The shoulder is an unstable, fragile, and complex joint. It is the comprised of many small muscles, tendons, and ligaments that try to keep it strong and stable. However, excessive use, improper warm-up or faulty mechanics can easily lead to overuse injuries.
This workout gives a shoulder stability routines that’s going to help you train these key stabilizing muscles to keep your shoulders strong, stable, and healthy.
Softball Workout – Back to the Basics
Once the season is over, it’s time to get back to strength training. The first thing you want to do is to solidify the foundation. Every athlete, no matter the sport or their fitness level, must always do a couple of weeks of ”foundation training”.
This type of training helps establish a solid foundation, strengthen the tendons, stabilize the joints, develop muscular endurance and prepare the body for more intense and demanding work in the weeks to come. Going back to the basics early in the off-season will allow you to build a solid foundation and stay injury-free.
Recovery Modalities – How to Recover Faster
The body usually recovers from peripheral neuromuscular fatigue with rest. There could also be other potential fatigue factors in training since the intensity can be such that there is an accumulation of lactic acid. Fatigue could also be related to external factors such as the sources of stress an athlete faces. Recovery techniques should address both physiological and psychological recovery and serve also as an injury prevention strategy. Therefore, since both major potential fatigue factors can be dealt with just with rest, I will address the recovery process at a larger scale and use strategies that will promote injury prevention, physiological and physical recovery.
Essential Recovery Means
Cold Therapy
How to Deal with Potential Stress Factors
Previously, I’ve explained the concept of recovery and regeneration and how important it is. In this article, I want to talk about stress and how it limits recovery and regeneration. I identified many potential stress factors for softball players and listed a few strategies for each that could help limit the negative effect of these sources of stress. Too much stress will result in decreased performance, decreased rate of improvement, increased fatigue and potentially overtraining. Controlling stress is very important.
Training Camps
Introduction to Recovery and Regeneration
A major issue in high performance sport is being able to train very hard, which elicits a deficit in performance capacity, and to recover from training which elicits an increase in performance capacity. Eventually through many cycles of training, recovery, and adaptation, high performance in competition is possible. Major issues with training very hard include management of the recovery from training so that the athlete can train very hard again soon enough to have a positive influence on the physical state.
In softball, we train frequently to increase power and strength. However, the process of increasing efficiency depends to a large extent on our ability to overcome fatigue and recover and regenerate after each training session. Therefore, just as one plans and follows a training regimen – one must prepare and follow a plan of recovery and regeneration as well.
To be sure, there are many factors, which affect recovery, but when all is said and done, it’s either one or the other. An athlete’s capacity for improvement is dependent upon how recovery is managed from daily training and competitions.
