Good Exercises for Baseball

Exercises for baseball are different from exercises for other sports. While sports like football and basketball place a much larger emphasis on the physical abilities of the athletes, baseball players rely on hand-eye coordination and response times as much as their physical abilities. Hence, baseball players often specialize their exercises and conditioning based on their position.

  1. Pitching

    • Pitchers have a clear target for their exercises: their pitching arm, which requires a high amount of conditioning to remain in playing shape. Good exercises for pitchers include strengthening the rotator cuff (the group of muscles around the shoulder) by using a five-pound weight. Stand straight up, with the weight in your pitching hand to the side, then extend the weight horizontally and bring it down to its original position. Another good exercise for increasing a pitcher's shoulder strength is to hold a tubing cord under one foot and pull it up using your pitching hand in reps of 10.

    Hitting

    • Baseball players often go to the batting cage to improve their swing. They also can do some exercises in the weight room to increase their hitting potential. Hitting requires a high amount of upper-body strength; ideal workouts target the arms. The forearm is especially important for a hitter because it allows for a better grip, which increases bat speed. One good forearm exercise is to hold a gripper (a specialized piece of exercise equipment) and set a schedule for squeezing it, increasing the number of squeezes per rep each week.

    Catcher

    • Being a catcher takes a large toll on the body because catchers remain in a squatting position for a long periods. One good exercise to prepare catchers for squatting is to focus specifically on developing leg strength, possibly with squats. Squats are an exercise with free weights. The athlete moves up and down from a fully vertical position to a squatted position. Squats are good for a catcher because they build leg strength, and he exercises in a position similar to his repeated squatting behind home plate.