By Eugene Coleman
Eugene Coleman, EdD, is the Director of the University of Houston-Clear Lake Human Performance Institute and Director of Conditioning for the Houston Astros, as well as a visiting scientist with the Johnson NASA Space Science Center.
Coaching Management, 9.6, September 2001, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/cm/cm0906/basepath.htm
With proper training, athletes can learn to run faster and reach their genetic potential for speed. Twenty-plus years of work with professional baseball players has shown me that players can cut up to 0.10 seconds off their time from home to first in six weeks.
Your athletes may not make the track team, but that shouldn't be their primary goal. Their objective should be to run faster in game situations, where most sprints last less than five seconds--making quickness and acceleration more important than pure running speed.
Baseball athletes can compensate for a lack of speed if they learn to react, start quickly, accelerate, stop under control, change direction, and avoid slowing down. These skills can be developed by addressing the five key components of speed: mechanics, quickness, acceleration, agility, and speed endurance.
Mechanics is what allows athletes to run efficiently and achieve their speed potential. Quickness and acceleration get them to the ball or base as fast as possible. Agility helps athletes combine speed and skill to make the play and avoid injury. Speed endurance keeps them from slowing down late in the game, at the end of a sprint, and after sprinting several times with little rest in between. By tackling each of these components, athletes can quickly improve their game speed.
Optimizing Mechanics
Regardless of how much athletes run, how strong they get, or how much they stretch, they'll run only as fast as their mechanics permit. The three basic components of good mechanics are posture, arm action, and leg action. Athletes need to develop each of these components and then spend three to five minutes perfecting them every day. (Note that this is the correct mechanics for running once the first few steps of acceleration occur.)
Posture. Posture describes the alignment of the body, especially the head and trunk. The head weighs about 10 pounds and controls body alignment--where the head goes, the rest of the body follows. Look down and you lean forward; look up and you lean backward. Excessive lean in either direction reduces speed. And, turning your head side to side or cocking it to one side keeps you from running in a straight line.
For these reasons, proper posture is critical to improving speed and efficiency. Body lean should come from the ankles, not the waist. To find an athlete's proper body lean, have him stand straight and shift his weight toward his toes until the heels just leave the ground. The point at which his heels leave the ground is his proper body lean. This positioning will enable him to run the same way he walks--tall and relaxed, not hunched over.
Arm Action. Arm action involves the position and rate of movement of the arms and hands. When running, the arm pivots about the shoulder with the elbow locked at about 90 degrees. Have athletes envision that they have a rod through their shoulders and that each elbow is in a right-angle cast. The only movements possible at the shoulder are flexion and extension. The elbows can't bend or open. If they open or close, most of the bodyıs force goes up and down, not forward.
The athlete should also keep his elbows close to his sides. If they move away from the body, the trunk rotates side to side and the athlete will lose speed. Have athletes run "cheek to cheek," bringing the hand forward to cheek level and then back past the hips with palms toward the body, thumbs on top of hands, and hands relaxed.
Leg Action. The arms and legs work together. The driving action of the hand past the buttocks coincides with the triple extension of the opposite leg to help propel the body forward. Instruct each athlete to lift his knee forward, not up, and to let the lower leg relax and hang down. He should keep his toes up and snap the foot down and back to drive the body forward. The foot should strike the ground directly under the athlete's center of gravity and push him forward.
Don't worry about stride length at this time. Reaching out will make the athlete overstride and slow him down. Also, forget high knee lifts. When the foot strikes the ground, the rebound will drive the body forward and push the knee up. Instruct athletes to punch the knee forward and let the rebound push it up.
Teach athletes one component at a time. They should work on the first component (posture) at halfspeed. Then, have them walk back and run again. They should do five reps over 30 yards at half-speed, rest one to two minutes and then do five more reps at three-quarters speed. Have them rest and repeat the component with five reps at full speed. Then, move on to the next component (arm action).
After learning each component in isolation, have athletes put the three components together in a single 30-yard run at halfspeed. As before with each individual component, have them walk back and run again. They should do five reps at half-speed, rest, do five reps at three-quarters speed, then rest, and repeat with five reps at full speed. Make them stop when they get tired and start to slow. It does no good to jog through these drills--you must run fast to be fast.
Getting Quicker
Speed is what you achieve after five or six steps. Quickness is what gets you through the first one to two steps. Just as with speed, athletes can learn to be quicker. They may never become "lightning quick," especially if theyıre weak and their speed is mediocre, but they can become quicker.
Small improvements can make a big difference. A fraction of a second can be the difference between a game-saving play and a game-losing inability to get to the ball in time. To improve quickness, athletes must learn proper starting mechanics, optimize their first step, improve reaction time, and develop quick feet.
Starting Mechanics. Athletes should start from a relatively low body position with the joints at a right angle and 75 percent of their body weight on the forefoot and 25 percent on the heel. All other postures waste time and effort. When they start too high, athletes have to lower their center of gravity before they can move. They must raise it when they start too low, and shift it forward when standing with most of their weight on their heels. In the time it takes just to get to the proper position from which to move, the ball will have passed by that athlete.
Also, athletes should move only in the direction they want to go. They must go directly to the ball or base, not up or down. Have athletes practice starting from a number of different positions.
First Step. The first step determines where an athlete is going and how fast he will get there. Regardless of which direction an athlete moves, the hips always move first. Athletes need to keep their center of gravity low for the first three steps to maximize leg drive. Then, they should gradually increase the length of each step that follows. They must also throw their hands in the direction that they want to go to help start the arms pumping.
Have athletes practice being quick in all directions. They should use a crossover step for their first step when moving a relatively long distance, like stealing a base or going into the hole to field a ball. An open step works best when moving a relatively short distance. They should use a drop step when going backward or diagonally backward to catch a fly ball. And, to get to a ball that's over his head, the player should turn and run.
Reaction Time. Reaction time is the interval between the stimulus and first movement. Reactions are much slower than reflexes. Reflexes, such as pulling your hand back after touching a hot stove, are involuntary actions that occur below the conscious level. Because you donıt think about them, you can't control or train them. Reactions, like getting a jump on the pitcher when stealing a base, are conscious, voluntary actions that you can think about, control, and train.
Reaction drills require an athlete to recognize a stimulus and quickly execute the right movement(s). Quick reactions start with being in the right place at the right time. Game-saving plays are the result of anticipation, concentration, position, and training. Athletes must be alert and focused. If a baseball player knows the situation, hitter, pitch type, and pitch location, he will be in position to make the play. But it is his reaction to the result of these factors coming together--the batted ball, player stealing a base, etc.--that allow him to actually make the play.
Reactions are explosive. Athletes should work on them early in the workout, after they have warmed up and stretched. They should do reaction drills when they're rested and alert because fatigue makes them slower.
One example of a reaction drill is the Ball Drop. A partner stands about six feet in front of the athlete and drops a tennis ball from head height. From a ready position, the athlete then explodes forward as the ball is dropped and catches it, without diving, before it bounces twice. Change the starting position to include lateral movements.
Quick Feet. Speed begins in the brain and ends in the muscles. For maximum quickness, athletes have to re-program the central nervous system (CNS) to transmit faster signals, generate rapid contractions, and produce coordinated movements.
When doing drills, instruct athletes to work on technique first and speed second. They should learn how to do each drill correctly before adding speed. Keep the drills short and quick. The CNS can fire at its maximum rate for only two to four seconds. Therefore, limit each drill to five seconds or less. Do three to five sets of each drill to permanently fix the patterns in the CNS. In time, your athletes won't have to think about whatıs happening. They'll react to the stimulus, the CNS will take over, and theyıll automatically take quicker, more powerful steps.
One example of a quick foot drill is an X-Jump. Have the athlete stand on one corner of an X. Have him or her jump from side-to-side on both feet. The athlete should keep his or her feet close to the ground and jump as fast as possible. Repeat the drill with the athlete jumping front-to-back and then jumping front-to-back and side-to-side. A variation on this is the X-Hop, in which the athlete hops on one foot instead of jumping on the X.
Athletes should practice the above four components as part of their daily training routine. Stress the importance of giving maximum effort on each rep. Limit initial drills to 10 to 30 seconds duration to build a quickness base. Shorten the time to 10 seconds or less as the season approaches. Allow the athletes to rest 60 to 90 seconds between reps. Have them train two to four times per week and do six to 10 reps of each drill per workout.
Intensifying Acceleration
Acceleration gets athletes out of the box quickly and lets them steal bases, break up double plays, and get to balls in the gap. It helps them reach maximum speed in the shortest possible time. While pure speed is good, acceleration is essential. Since most plays cover five to 10 feet, and athletes rarely have to run farther than 30 yards, success is related more to how much ground they can cover in the first five to 10 steps than how fast they can run 100 yards.
Acceleration starts with the first step. Athletes should focus on starting mechanics, stay low, and make their first five to six steps explosive.
One example of an acceleration drill is the 5 and 10 Yard Burst. The athlete starts in a ready position, with his right foot slightly forward, and sprints forward. He then walks back and repeats the drill with the left foot forward. Have him repeat the drill using a crossover step to the right and then to the left.
Improving Agility
Success in baseball is also related to how well an athlete can start, stop, and change direction--his lateral speed and agility--while keeping his body under control. On most plays, an athlete will take one or two steps sideways and then three to four steps straight ahead--movements that require precision and control. Errors and injuries are often associated with plays involving an all-out change of direction. Athletes should perform lateral speed and agility drills to learn to move quickly in all directions and control their bodies when moving at maximum speed.
One good agility drill is the Crossover Quickies. Place two cones five yards apart. Have the athlete stand behind the first cone and, with a crossover step, sprint to the second cone. Then, have him stop, use a crossover step, and sprint back.
Another agility drill is called Ball Pick-ups. Have the athlete assume a ready position three to four feet away from a partner. Instruct the athlete to shuffle five to six feet to the right as the partner rolls him a baseball. The athlete should squat down with good form and pick up the ball and toss it back to the partner. He should then immediately shuffle to the left and field another ball.
Increasing Speed Endurance
This is the final piece of the speed puzzle. Rarely will baseball athletes run more than 30 yards in a game, but when they do, they canıt slow down at any point within that distance. Speed endurance gives an athlete the stamina to play into the late innings, take an extra base, and score without slowing down.
Still, baseball is a game of speed, reaction, and power, not endurance. While it's important to have an aerobic base, endurance training should not be the major focus of a baseball athleteıs training program. If an athlete spends 80 percent of his time jogging, he will be spending 80 percent of his time practicing to be slow. Baseball athletes should develop an aerobic base early in the off-season and then switch to interval sprints to improve speed and speed endurance as the season approaches.
Here are a couple of good Speed-Endurance (Gasser) Drills: For 30:30s, have the athlete start at one foul line and stride around the warning track to the opposite foul line in 30 seconds or less. Have him rest 30 to 60 seconds and run again. For 15:15s, have the athlete start at one foul line and sprint 50 yards, stop, change directions, and sprint back in 15 seconds or less. He should rest 15 to 30 seconds and run again.
How much time each athlete spends at each step will be determined by his training background and rate of progression. Experienced runners may spend only a week at each step. Regardless of the athlete's background, he should not progress to the next step until he has mastered the previous one. Make sure that each athlete uses proper mechanics when performing each drill. Then, watch as your athletes develop explosive speed in a few short weeks.
For further information:
52-Week Baseball Conditioning, by Eugene Coleman, Human Kinetics: Champaign, Ill. 2000.
www.astros.com: The only web site by a professional team in any sport that provides conditioning information.
www.allprotraining.com: Web site developed for strength and conditioning coaches in MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL teams, featuring articles on conditioning. Visitors to the site can also obtain a comprehensive, personalized, day-by-day training program for any period in the training year (postseason, off-season, preseason, and in-season).
A version of this article previously ran in Coaching Managementıs sister magazine, Training & Conditioning.
Sidebar #1:
Drills for Running Mechanics
For the following drills, have the athlete run 20 to 30 yards at half-speed, walk back, and repeat at three-quarters and then full speed.
Eye Focus. The athlete should run keeping his head still. He should look straight ahead and focus on an object at eye level near the point he is running to.
Cheek-to-Cheek. Have the athlete jog slowly with elbows close to his sides and fixed at a right angle. He should accelerate to half speed, bringing the hand forward to cheek level and then back past the hips. The athlete should keep all upper-body movements limited to the shoulder (elbows locked at 90 degrees).
Punch and Extend. Have the athlete accelerate from a jog to half speed by punching his lead knee forward, pulling the toes up, and extending the back leg. He should snap the lead foot down and back at ground contact.
Sidebar #2:
Quickness Drills
FIRST-STEP DRILLS. Have the athlete run 20 to 30 yards using each of the following types of first steps:
Open Step. He should step out quickly with the lead foot and push off with the back foot. Instruct him to step with the right foot when going right and with the left foot when going left. The athlete should move his hips and drive off the lead foot. The first step should be short and powerful. He should gradually increase the length of each step that follows.
Crossover Power Step. Instruct the athlete to turn his hips, throw his arms, crossover with the back foot, and drive off the ball of the foot of the front leg. He should push off the right foot when going right and off the left foot when going left. Make sure the athlete rotates his trunk and shoulders as he crosses over, not before.
Drop-Step. The athlete should turn his hips and step out and back with the right foot when going right and with the left foot when going left. When going right, he should start by turning his hips, then move the right foot back about six to 12 inches, throw the arms, and drive off the right foot.
Turn and Run. The athlete should open his hips in the direction of the run, take a drop step, pivot on the back foot, and drive off the lead foot. When going to the right, he should turn his hips to the right, throw the arms, drop back a step with the right foot, pivot on the left foot, and drive off the right foot.
GET-UP DRILLS. Use these to train the athlete to get up off the ground quickly when running the bases.
Head First. The athlete should begin by lying down as if he just slid into second base head first. Have the athlete get up quickly and sprint to third.
Feet First. The athlete should begin by lying down as if he just slid into second base feet first. Have the athlete get up quickly and sprint to third.
Dive Back. With the athlete lying down as if he just dove back into first base, have him get up quickly, turn around, and sprint to second.