In-Season Training for Hitters: Keeping Your Strength and Bat Speed

Position players play nearly every game. Between school, practice, games and travel, the gym is usually the first thing dropped. By the last month of the season, the strength and bat speed built over the winter have faded.

In season, the aim changes from building to keeping.

What changes

• Volume drops. Two short full-body sessions a week is enough.
• Intensity stays. A few heavy sets hold strength. Light circuits do not.
• No new soreness. Save unfamiliar exercises and high-rep work for the off-season.
• Schedule around games. Heavier work goes after games or on days furthest from the next one.

A simple week

• Day after a game or a light day: lower-body strength, trunk work
• Midweek: upper-body pulling and pressing, a few medicine ball throws
• Day before a game: mobility and activation only
• Every day: hip and upper-back mobility, a short warm-up before swinging

Adjust for your schedule. A week with four games needs less than a week with two.

Keep bat speed

• A handful of full-intent swings with feedback once or twice a week
• Small doses of overload and underload work if you used it in the off-season
• Test bat speed every few weeks

A steady decline means you are tired or losing strength, and the plan needs to change.

Manage swing volume

Hitters often swing more in season than they realize: cage work, batting practice, games, lessons. Hundreds of full-effort swings a day is a common route to oblique and back trouble.

• Count your swings for a week.
• Keep quality rounds short.
• Skip extra cage work on heavy game days.

Recovery

• Sleep. Late games and early school make it hard, and it is where recovery happens.
• Food and fluids, especially on doubleheader and tournament days.
• Legs. Catchers and middle infielders carry more load and may need lighter lower-body days.

Slumps

In a slump the instinct is to swing more. Often the better move is fewer, better swings, a look at video and a check on whether fatigue is the cause.

Work with your team

Your coach sets practice and games. Tell your performance coach your schedule, and tell your team coach what you are doing outside practice.

A hitter who keeps training finishes the season close to where he started, which is when playoff games and summer events arrive.