Thread: New to Fast Twitch muscle training, help?

I don't know what "fast-twitch muscle training" is, but I have a guess. Based on my guess, you'd be better off reading the stickies and getting your info there.

I am training as an athlete and so are others on this board. You can check my log out as I think my program is really helping me and carries over to athletic performance fairly well.

What specifically about your athletic performance do you want to improve? You say that you are mainly a baseball player. What position do you play?

I play outfield which requires getting a good jump on the ball in order to cover alot of feild. In that way explosive acceleration is important as well as agile direction changes. Also I bat cleanup so swinging for power requires alot of explosive movement as well. I will definitely have a look at the stickies and see if I can find anything in there. I searched for fast twitch before I posted and didnt come up with much so maybe this is fairly new or just not common practice.

thanks

Originally Posted by Juice24

I play outfield which requires getting a good jump on the ball in order to cover alot of feild. In that way explosive acceleration is important as well as agile direction changes. Also I bat cleanup so swinging for power requires alot of explosive movement as well. I will definitely have a look at the stickies and see if I can find anything in there. I searched for fast twitch before I posted and didnt come up with much so maybe this is fairly new or just not common practice.

thanks

The gym is for general conditioning. You go there to make yourself strong and flexible. You want to give yourself a base to allow for explosive movement on the field. You also want to do things that will prevent injuries like stretching and light-weight prehab exercises.

As your strength progresses you add in things that will help you on the field and are specific to your sport. For example, baseball players have to be very good at explosively opening up their hips to change directions, throw the ball, or hit the ball with power. Try to recreate the movements you do in a game situation.

The way to get explosive is not through doing tons of plyometrics or box jumping or anything like that. You get a base of strength first, then you worry about using that strength in a way that is beneficial to your sport. So get in the gym and lift to get strong, then get on the field and do drills to become "explosive" within the context of your sport.

If you want more specifics, I can help you to try to put something together. You may want to ask your coaches about specific drills you could do on the field to help improve your performance. I'd imagine it would include a lot of fielding drills, batting practice, and baserunning.

I highly, highly recommend you google Eric Cressey. You'd be best served to hire him but at least go through the available resources.

Your goal is to be a better baseball player. Yes? There's a bunch of "assess and correct" stuff that needs to be done on your body structure and generally your training should be directed towards making you a better ball player, not just the guy with the biggest squat on your team. Of course, improving your strength is important but it would probably be best served within the realm of decreasing overall injury risk by removing instability and imbalance in your body.

Although, our stickies are invaluable and you very well may end up using a lot of information carries within them, they aren't specialized for your situation. I recommend you contact Eric and figure out a solution that fits your budget --- maybe you'll stick around with the forum and let us poke at you or you'll ultimately get coached by Cressey himself. Both are decent plans that are on opposite sides of the budget spectrum -- that call is up to you.