All baseball players can benefit from weight training, but the focus of different players should vary between positions. While you may think that players should first and foremost develop their arm muscles, the leg muscles generate much of the power for a pitcher and a batter, according to the Baseball Training Secrets website.
Benefits
Some of the obvious reasons that many athletes choose to begin a weight training regimen are to build muscle and get stronger. While this is true, baseball weight training has the added benefit of helping to protect your muscles while creating explosiveness at the same time. Weight training for a pitcher can help add speed to your fastball as well as raise your stamina; for a batter, weight training helps build your bat speed and power.
Arm
Even small injuries like bruises and strains can have a significant impact on baseball performance, so developing your arm muscles are important for any position. Building strong muscles in your wrist and shoulder are keys for pitching and swinging a bat. The bench press is met with mixed reviews, as some professionals believe that it adds unnecessary strain on the shoulder muscle. Dumbbell curls, push-ups, upright rows, as well as pull-ups are all keys for developing arm muscles. Doing three sets of 10 to 15 repetitions of each exercise will help you see results, according to Sport Fitness Advisor.
Legs
The barbell squat and the deadlift both help work your lower body without straining your arms and shoulders, which is key for a baseball workout. Leg presses are also key to building lower leg muscles, which help generate the power in a pitch and a swing when you push off the ground to rotate your body. Medicine ball squats, where you lower yourself to the ground while holding the ball out in front of you and then explode upwards, target the hamstring as well as calf muscles in your leg.
Core
A strong core not only helps enhance the strength of your other body parts but also helps to prevent injury to them as well. Sit-ups, oblique curls and weighted crunches all target your stomach and core, which helps to build your overall strength. Using medicine balls for exercises such as side throws help to strengthen your core as well. This exercise focuses on rotating your hips while holding the medicine ball out in front of you, and then releasing the ball towards a partner as you rotate back to the front. Focusing on your core only two days a week will give your body a chance to recover between sessions.
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