The Mental and Physical Off Season for Pro Ball Players

In early to late September, in towns and cities all over North America, about 6,000 minor league and big league baseball players are paying their last month of rent, shipping extra gear home, packing cars full of belongings, and foremost, wrapping up another long season and thinking about recovery.  From extended spring training to the the "bigs", baseball is becoming more of a year long undertaking than a seasonal sport.  Because of these "marathon" seasons, recovery is not only for comfort but must occur for maximal production. 

          By the time August hits, players are feeling joints that ache, stretching that hurts, workouts that are a grind, and nutrition that is lacking.  Most players finish their day about 11 pm or later, eat a very late dinner, get to bed, hopefully, by 1 or 2 am, and wake up by mid to late morning in time for lunch.  Then the day starts with arrival to the ballpark between 2-3pm.  Of course there's always positional "early outs" or early hitting so maybe we should say arrival is about 2 pm more often than not.  Two out of every four weeks is spent on the road, so needless to say, there is dire need for nutritional fuel come later in the season.  This repetitive cycle leads to a chronic state of physiological, mental, and psychological taxation.  In the eloquently stated words of Yogi Berra, 

"Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical." 

Well, we know what he was trying to say.  Baseball, like many sports, is mostly a game of mental preparation in order that the physical side of the things becomes an "Unconscious Consciousness."  Simply put, most players are not gifted like A-rod, Cliff Lee, Albert Pujols, or Josh Hamilton, but most big leaguers and those trying to move up the ladder are striving for mental perfection, or "approach", that makes the physical action perform almost instinctively. 

"If you think, you die." 

Those were the words of my rookie ball hitting coach, Johnny Narron.  What did it mean?  At the point you put your batting gloves on and before you walk to the on-deck circle, your approach and mental game has to be established.  If it's not as routine as putting on a sock, then good luck at the dish hitting a ball that by all laws of physics should be impossible.  Imagine over a six month period doing something almost 600 times and failing at it 70% of the time.  This intense need for a solid mental and physical framework takes years to hone all the while accepting the inevitibility of repeated failure. 

         
 Off season physical recovery starts by actively doing nothing.  Actively?  If you don't get a good one to two months of mental and physical recuperation your joints and muscles won't heal and your next season fuel tank will run dry.  Getting back on normal eating and sleeping routine is a must.  Come November to December the more focused mental side of the game begins.  Watching tape, studying your hitting charts or pitching trends, weaknesses and strengths from the previous season will show areas in need of improvement. 

Also, the workout book begins, a well established practice for all 30 MLB teams.  Starting out, workouts are higher repetition and lower weight and over the next 2-3 months moves toward more baseball specific strengthening exercises.  Position players target core stabilization, upper and lower body strengthening,  and fast twitch exercises (Type IIA and IIB).  Pitchers incorporate more Type I slow twitch muscles for fatigue resistant/stamina building exercises.  Tdrills, soft toss, dry pins (pitcher bullpen without a ball or with a hand towel), and PFP's (pitcher fielding practice), referred to as "Small Ball", are among some of the early off season activities.  Nearing early February, minor league spring training is about a month away and big league spring training is right around the corner.  For the last month, long toss, regular dynamic/plyometric exercising, live pitching, drilling, ground balls, full bullpens, and running get underway.  Whether or not a player has properly prepared will be exposed in spring training through timed shuttle or distance runs, weight room performance testing, body fat composition, and 60 yard dash times. 

         

Ask any player that has played for a handful of seasons and they will inevitably tell you that, at this point in their career, they know they have to prepare physically to get ready, but have to spend more time beating themselves and accepting the mental trials of baseball.  Ask a marathoner and he'll always tell you, the physical pain of the last couple of miles can always be overridden or circumvented by the mental.  As stated by Micky Mantle, upon finishing his career, 

"During my 18 years I came to bat almost 10,000 times.  I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times.  You figure a ballplayer will average about 500 at bats a season.  That means I played seven years without ever hitting the ball." 

The facts are true for a professional baseball player, they will hurt and they will fail.  The good one's are always improving on the mental and physical pieces of the game.