“” Off-Season Speed Training for Position Players - Part 2: Acceleration - Driveline Baseball

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Off-Season Speed Training for Position Players – Part 2: Acceleration

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Part 2 – Off-Season Speed Training for Position Players: Day 1 – Acceleration

Welcome to the second installment of our four-part series on off-season speed training for Minor League Baseball (MiLB) position players. In Part 1 we covered the overview of an offseason speed training system we implemented this winter, and now we will get into more detail on the specifics of the acceleration component of the plan.

Why Train Acceleration?

An easy way to think about acceleration is as the time it takes to get to top speed from the starting position, like the 0-60 time for a car. Even the fastest athletes on the planet typically take well over 20 yards to reach top speed, so this ability is especially crucial on a baseball field since most in-game efforts will be 30 yards or less in a straight line. This means training speed without acceleration is optimizing for a small portion of what will actually show up on field.

Acceleration Mondays

For this program we started our weeks with our acceleration focused day. The high intensity nature of acceleration work helps to stimulate the central nervous system after having one or two days off over the weekend but doesn’t require high volumes that will leave the athletes’ legs feeling trashed when there is still a full week of hitting, throwing, lifting, and running ahead of them.

Before getting to the actual sprinting, we perform one to two sets of select drills to help reinforce the postures, joint positions, and explosiveness we want to see when accelerating. These drills primarily included variations of broad jumps and resisted sprints.

Getting Started

Broad Jumps

We incorporated broad jumps on acceleration days because both activities require aggressive, explosive hip extension. Within a session, we start with a band-resisted version of the jump and then progressing to bodyweight reps. Starting with the banded jumps can help potentiate the unloaded jumping and sprinting movements that will follow.

Here are some examples of the broad jump variations we used this off-season:

Band-resisted broad jump

Broad jump

Band-resisted double broad jump

Double broad jump

Band-resisted triple broad jump

Triple broad jump

Band-resisted lateral broad jump

Lateral broad jump

Band-resisted double lateral  broad jump

Double lateral broad jump

Single-leg broad jump to double-leg landing

Resisted Sprints

Phase 1: Bands

We started the off-season using band-resisted sprints to provide an external load to accelerate against, promoting self-organization in acceleration technique by lengthening ground contacts and increasing the positive shin and torso angles that are essential to acceleration. The external feedback from the band minimizes the cueing needed, so much so that the only verbal cues we used were simple phrases like “Push the ground away with each step” and “Be aggressive with your arm action.”

Following the banded work, we look to see—and feel—those positions carry over into the un-resisted sprints.

Phase 2: Sled Push

For our second phase of resisted sprints, we switched to sled push sprints. This helps isolate the lower body and increases the focus on explosively interacting with the ground through aggressive extension.

Phase 3: Sled Drag

For phase three, we progressed from sled push sprints to sled-resisted sprints, having athletes wear a belt attached to a small drag sled pulling a 45-lb plate. This reintegrates the upper body into the sprint, allowing the athlete to put everything back together.

Finding the Right Dose

Our resisted sprints were typically dosed at two to four reps of about 10 yards each, providing enough volume and distance to achieve a stimulus without acquiring too much fatigue or seeing intensity drop. Additionally, these shorter distances make sure we’re isolating the acceleration phase and saving top speed or transition work for other exercises.

The Next Step

Acceleration with Varied Starts:

After the resisted work, our sprints on acceleration days always incorporated varied starting positions, with the intention of increasing movement efficiency by requiring the body to quickly acquire the positions that are required for effective acceleration. Challenging athletes to accelerate from varied positions helps improve the transfer of our training to the field by ensuring we are improving the general ability to accelerate, not just the ability to execute specific drills.

We started the off-season with positions like a half-kneeling forward-facing start that encourage a positive shin angle and 45-degree torso lean. From there, we layered in more complex starting positions where the body is further away from those ideal positions and is challenged to find them autonomously.

Here are some examples of the start positions we used:

Athletic stance start

Half-kneeling forward start

Half-kneeling lateral start

Half-kneeling backward start

High push up start

Low push up start

Rollover start

Turn start

Steal start

Split stance start

The Details:

  • All of our acceleration sprints were 15 yards in length or less.
  • Athletes had plenty of room to safely and gradually decelerate after hitting the finish line.
  • We took full recovery after each rep to ensure the athletes were able to put forth max effort, as practicing acceleration when the athlete is unable to give 100% leads to reinforcing training at sub-max effort—which is the opposite of what we want.
    • After walking back to the start line, the athletes would get roughly another minute before beginning the next rep.
    • We also divided them into groups—instead of everyone running at the same time—so that it naturally took more time between reps and the athletes were less inclined to rush into their next rep as they watched the other group.
  • Early in the off-season we would only do about six total sprinting reps on top of the jumping and resisted sprints, but we worked up to around 16 total reps by the end of the off-season.

Integrating the Starts

The first few sessions focused on perfecting one or two of the starting positions, and as the athletes became more proficient we would perform reps using up to four different positions. The build-up sprints during the warm up were also used to practice these positions. For example, after the more basic positions (like forward-facing half-kneeling starts) became routine, they would then just be used during the sprints within the warm up. This way, we could start with something more complex during the 100% intensity sprints.

Keeping Intensity High

One of the most important elements of this day was keeping effort as high as possible, as trying to train high-end physical properties at slow speeds isn’t optimal for physical adaptation OR improving full-speed technique. Racing was always encouraged to help ensure we would get full effort from the athletes. They enjoy competing, and it’s good for many athletes to not get hyper-focused on what they are trying to execute—the distraction of competing can often free them up to just be athletic.

Sprinkled throughout our acceleration days was having some fun by adding football receiver routes at the end of the session. Besides the entertainment factor, running routes also provided an opportunity for acceleration accompanied by coordination and athleticism.

Looking Ahead

Part Three of this series will go in depth on the portion of our speed training that focused on non-linear running.

By Jen Taft
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