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Open Thread: Week 37

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Welcome back to our open thread, our forum to throw ideas around. Ask questions, leave comments, let’s discuss whatever and learn something.

Steve writes:

What was your favorite workout or exercise that you thought helped increase bat speed the most? A certain forearm circuit? Hip explosiveness?

Steve,

Perfect timing. As you know, a not insignificant portion of our readers are athletes. In particular, they’re baseball players looking to optimize for power and explosiveness. Around this time of year, the bat seems to start getting heavy for many. Let’s drop some (nothing earthshaking here) knowledge.

Bat speed is not the result of powerful forearms alone. They don’t hurt, clearly, but they don’t produce power in a vacuum. A lever is anything that gives a human being a mechanical advantage. The bat whistles through the zone when force from the lower half travels up through the kinetic chain and out through the lever, in this case, the bat. In order to make that tool fly quickly, we want to recruit our largest muscles. Those muscles include (but are not limited to) the ass and the muscles of the core. Developing these muscles is far more prudent than isolating the forearms. If you want to develop those power drivers, squat, dead lift and jump explosively.

Now, just for fun, I’ll tell you how to build the complex machine which I used to isolate my forearms when I was coming up through the minor leagues.

Step #1: Saw off the handle of a baseball bat. Give yourself about 12 inches of room to work with.

Step #2: Drill a hole directly in the center of the handle. Give yourself enough room on each side of the hole to place each fist.

Step #3: Thread a rope, roughly 5 feet in length (you want the rope to hang from the bat long enough to touch the earth) through the hole and tie a knot.

Step #4: Tie a 5 pound weight to the long end of the rope.

Or, for a much less cool version of the machine, buy this.

Seriously, you want massive forearms? Lift massive weight. Carry it, hold it, move it. The more you can hold, the more muscle you’ll build. Having a powerful grip will certainly help you at the point of contact.

Strong mind,

Kap

  • Msquared

    Kap,
    I don’t think this has been covered yet… Does it matter if my calorie intake is balanced throughout the day? While I don’t count calories, I knw that some days I eat very little of a u lunch, but hammer a large breakfast and dinner.

    I have read several different opinions on this, most contradicting one another.
    Thoughts?

    • Paul

      I’ve seen this as well. Some argue that total calories are what count,not when you
      eat them (if you’re looking to lose weight,stay healthier, etc.)

      Then others say you shouldn’t drink alcohol or eat less than 3 hours before going
      to bed to get the best night of sleep.

      Another is the theory of 5 small meals rather than 3 large meals all day.

  • Justin

    Hey Kap,

    First, I’d like to say that I highly admire your work as both a professional baseball player and now a writer/analyst. I grew up a Red Sox fan, so a member of the 2004 team is automatically held in the highest regard.

    Secondly, this doesn’t have anything to do with exercise or nutrition but I wanted to get your thoughts on an article I wrote. As an up-and-coming sports journalist whose favorite sport is baseball, the sport’s future concerns me. I wrote more in-depth about this on my blog, which can be found at http://theledgesports.com/2015/05/21/baseball-is-dying-but-it-can-still-be-saved/

    It would mean a lot to me to have someone like you, with so much experience in the game of baseball, to read it and discuss it. If you do happen to read it, please let me know your thoughts. Thanks!

  • John Lofflin

    Excellent advice here. Working on that core this morning. Here’s a question generated by the terribly incident yesterday at Fenway. Now seems to me to be the time to put netting along the barrier walls down each of the foul lines. I can’t figure why this hasn’t been done before, except perhaps owners don’t want to cheapen the value of the very best box seats. But, I wonder if — from a ballplayer’s perspective — this wouldn’t be a wonderful change. I can only imagine how a ballplayer feels when his bat goes end-over-end into the stands. You can see it in their body language. Maybe now is the time for the players to put pressure on owners to get this done. What’s your take, from field level, Kap?