Georgia Personal Training for Baseball

Speed and Agility Training

Speed is hands down the most coveted athletic tool in all of sports, and baseball is no exception.  The game of baseball has changed drastically over the past several decades.  The game has evolved to the point that speed is no longer viewed as an advantage but rather a requirement for players striving to play at the highest levels.  Just like in the NFL, a baseball player’s Major League potential is often predetermined by scouts based solely on their speed, agility, and size.  In today’s game, the only players that get a pass are pitchers, catchers, and corner infielders with big power.  Everybody else must have top level speed to even get looked at seriously by professional scouts.

Why has speed become so important in baseball? Well, it’s very simple. A player with speed can do things on the field that other players simply can’t do.

A guy with great speed can beat out week ground balls to the left side; turning routine ground outs into singles.  When a fast guy reaches base, he can drive the other team crazy to the point that they have to alter everything they’re doing on defense.  A guy with speed and base running prowess can turn any single into a double or triple.  A guy with speed can move up from first to third on a base hit, or score from first on a double.  A guy with speed can run down balls in the outfield that shouldn’t be caught, and cut off ground balls up the middle that should be base hits.  Speed completely changes the dynamics of the game on both offense and defense, and that is why every scout wants it.

“I can tell you first hand from my playing career how big of a factor speed is.  My baseball life took me all over and exposed me to the highest levels of competition in the nation.  My former teams include the East Cobb Astros, Roswell & Milton High School, Wofford College, the North Adams Steeplecats of the NECBL, The University Of South Carolina, and Kennesaw State University.  Throughout my career I was hampered by a lack of size and, more importantly, a lack of speed.  Though my offensive production kept me starting for every team I ever played for, I was never considered to be a top pro prospect, even after being named a Freshman All-American in 2002.  As a 19 year old kid, that just hit .397 for the season, and won every award a college freshman could possibly receive, the lack of attention from Baseball America, Perfect Game, and major league scouts was very frustrating.  As good as I may have been, I was an undersized third baseman with average power and little to no speed.  At second base my offensive skill sets and elite arm strength would have made me a top prospect. Unfortunately my below average speed limited the positions I could play, especially at the highest levels of college and professional baseball.” – Matt Lein

This is what young players today do not understand.  With the exception of pitchers, a baseball player’s 60 yard dash time will be the most important number of his career. You might have played SS since you were in diapers, but if you run a 7.5 at Perfect Game, there is not a scout or coach in America that will recruit you as a middle infielder. If you have a great glove and can hit they will find a spot for you at the corners or behind the plate. Throughout your career you will see players with elite speed but  lesser baseball skill continuously getting more attention from scouts and more opportunities from coaches. It may not seem fair, but it is an inconvenient truth that young players must accept and address accordingly.

So now that we understand how important speed is to our future in baseball, how do we go about making ourselves faster? At Georgia Personal Training our speed training consists of traditional sprint work, intense plyometrics, dynamic stretching, explosive strength training, single leg strength training, correcting muscle imbalances, resistance sprinting, over speed training, foot speed and agility drills, and a focus on proper sprinting mechanics. Our athletes undergo the same speed training programs that are utilized by today’s professional and olympic athletes. You will get faster, quicker, more agile, and more efficient in your movements training here. However, it is difficult to determine how much faster a player can become.

We openly acknowledge that we can’t take a slow guy and turn him into a world class sprinter, it doesn’t work that way with speed. But we can turn average speed into good speed, good speed into great speed, and great speed into world class speed. When we initially consult with our athletes and their parents we will establish lofty but attainable goals for what we can accomplish. We will log their official 40 and 60 yard dash times, and set specific goal times that we need to hit in the coming years. These goals will vary based on the player’s position, age, and overall skill set. With some players you are just trying to increase their speed to the point it won’t hold them back, with others you’re trying to get their times to world class level so a 10th round draft pick becomes a 1st or 2nd round pick.  Every athlete is different, and we target their training specifically to get them to the highest level of baseball possible.