Baseball Conditioning - 365 Days to Better Baseball

Friday Conditioning

Tips for Hiding Baseball Conditioning in Practice

Good conditioning is necessary for baseball, even though some people may beg to differ. Unfortunately, many kids look at conditioning as if it is a dirty word. The good news is that baseball coaches can build conditioning into their practice routine, without players even noticing what is going on.

Of course, a good coaching rule for baseball teams of all levels is that players must run on and off the field between innings. To enforce this hustle on and off the field rule, players, who walk to their positions, get penalized by losing an inning of play at some point, or running a lap after the game.

As mentioned, it is easy to build conditioning into practice without players realizing that is the intention.

Baseball Conditioning Practice Rules

1. When players practice pitching and throw a wild pitch, the pitcher runs and retrieves the ball before continuing their bullpen session.
2. The same can be done for warm up catch time the player, who makes the bad throw is responsible for running to retrieve the over throw, as players flip ends.
3. On the last swing each round of batting practice, player runs the bases as if in a game to first, or beyond, based on the hit.
4. Fielding conditioning drill coaches get a bucket of balls and set and empty bucket behind them coaches roll ground balls to players, who are lined up in single file. After catching the ball, players run and set the ball into the empty bucket until all balls are in the new bucket.

Above are just some of the many possibilities of how coaches can hide conditioning into normal practices. Of course, a great way to condition the team is with base running practice. The more extensive coaches work on base running, the greater the conditioning for players. Coaches should be careful not to turn running and conditioning into penalties for poor play, but usingpush upsand laps for losing players during competitive drills is OK.