Don't drop the O word in your baseball locker room because you could be banished from existence. This is the effects of conventional wisdom on this late evolving game of baseball. Yes, football had to overcome this hurdle back in the 30's and baseball is still pushing through it today. I know it is hard to understand but football once believed weight training would injure and reduce performance for its athletes. Wow, were they wrong! Could you imagine football today without strength training?
Olympic Lifting will break your back, tear your rotator cuff and destroy your elbow. This is the elephant in the room when you are talking weight training with Mr. Conventional Wisdom. I never allowed myself to touch the barbell in high school because I truly believed conventional wisdom was correct; I tore my rotator cuff at 18. I then started Olympic Lifting because I wasn't worried about hurting myself anymore because I already did. Three years later I am doing what doctors said I would never do which was throwing a baseball at the same speed I was at before the surgery. It is impossible to convince me that Olympic Lifting causes injury for the pitcher because it had the opposite affect in my career. Now I have the science and I know better than the conventional wisdom that set me up for a rotator cuff tear!
In this article, I will once again show you the science proving baseball is actually more dangerous than Olympic Lifting. I will also go over MLB organizations that support this method of training the baseball player along with individual players who us this style of training. I hope this article will help you make a better decision in your career when it comes to keeping yourself healthy and at the top of your game.
The Dangers of Baseball Over Olympic Lifting
This video will show you the exact science and how it compares the injury rate of baseball to olympic lifting. You will be blown away to learn how much more dangerous baseball is over olympic lifting. If you are looking for information to prove how dangerous Olympic Lifting is for the baseball player then I would highly advise you NOT to watch this video because it will cause you to loss control of your emotions. You are welcome to post your comments below but please take a few breaths and think before you post.
Baseball Organizations/Players Benefiting from Olympic Lifting
It isn't easy to find baseball organizations or players talking about their Olympic Lifting practice. Just like it isn't easy finding baseball organizations or players talking about their performance data like vertical jump or 60 yard sprint speed. It obviously isn't apart of the culture yet but the references below show this culture is changing.
Every single professional and top level college baseball player I have trained with the Olympic Lifts requests that I keep their performance data and any video content private. This is to prevent any controversy in their organization over their training methods. To have someone like Bryce Harper below putting his unconventional training methods in the public eye shows you what kind of personality he is in this game.
- MLB Orioles Olympic Lifting
- Bryce Harper Olympic Lifting
- Chris Davis Olympic Lifting
- Texas Ranger Olympic Lifting
- Cal State Fullerton Baseball Olympic Lifting
- LSU 1995-1998 with Kurt Hester as the Strength Coach winning 2 National Championships (Currently Head Strength Coach at LA Tech)
Olympic Lifting Baseball Article
Here is a list of more articles on the benefits of Olympic Lifting for the baseball player and more specifically the pitcher.
- MLB Promotes Olympic Lifting for All Baseball Players
- Studies Prove Olympic Lifting Has Less Injuries Than Major League Baseball
- Pitchers Don’t Believe the Lies Olympic Lifting is Safe
- Olympic Lifting Increases Pitching Velocity
- Pitchers Remodel More Fast-Twitch Muscle with Olympic Lifting
- Study Proves Olympic Lifting Critical for Training 3X Power
3X 2X Baseball Training Programs Olympic Lifting
In the 3X Pitching Velocity Program and the 2X Velocity Program we use this Olympic Style approach to enhance performance which studies prove it is the most effective way. It is important to understand that we do not spend the amount of hours in Olympic Training like elite Olympic Lifters. The most time spent in the level 1 of both the 3X and 2X programs Olympic Lifting is around 32 total hours. We also incorporate many other types of lifts and exercises to train different angles of strength and speed to help convert this increase in power to the field.
Brent, I am training right now to get back into baseball. As I begin to structure my next 4 months of training I am at a cross roads. I have no doubt that olympic lifts are beneficial for velocity and power. Although, I am not sure if they are optimal. I have seen a few studies comparing ballistic weight jumps with a trap bar and high clean pulls, with the weighted jumps beating out oly derivatives by a small to moderate margin in peak power and peak rfd. I have also seen comparative studies on power cleans and light weighted box jumps and plyometrics with both methods increasing vertical jumps equally and the power cleans have a NON significant edge in peak power. Am I missing some benefit that the olympic lift would have over a ballistic trap bar jump that optimized peak power and RFD? I guess I’m wondering if the juice is worth the squeeze.