Offseason Conditioning That Produces Champions
Brad Warnimont
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The game of baseball is played in a series of short quick bursts, so as coaches, why not condition athletes in the offseason to enhance those attributes in players. The goal is to turn average players into contributors and good players into great players.
Utilize the lifting program three days a week--Tuesday, Thursday and Sundays
Like many other programs with time and facility limitations, the entire body is worked in those three days. On alternate days, Monday and Wednesday, the agility program is used. Split the entire squad into two groups and work for one-half hour.
In agility workouts, use many exercises that improve players' reaction time, power and explosion.
Two workouts are recommended
The first workout is a station workout, and the second workout is a stairwell workout accompanied with plyometrics.
In the station workout, the players exercise at each station for one minute (2 to 30 second sets). In between each station, the players run a backward lap on the track. The stations are as follows:
- Two laps in 25 seconds each (track 1/11 of a mile)
- Medicine ball abdominal work - 10 pounds. Two players back-to-back passing the ball over head (one set) and waist high (one set)
- One legged dot-to-dot (both legs)
- Jump rope
- Reverse curls - wrist rolls with straight bar
- Mountain climbers
- Plyometrics - 12 inches, 24 inches, 36 inches only (one set on top, one set up and over)
- Two-legged dot-to-dot (both feet each spot)
- Throw-downs (abdominals)
- One-legged half squats
- Lateral hops over a 12-inch cone
- Step ups - 24 inches
- Side crunches with 10-pound medicine ball
NOTE: In the complete workout, run over a mile backwards.
The Stairwell Workout is as follows:
- Two-feet bunny hop - every step, two times.
- Two-feet bunny hop - two steps, two times.
- Two-feet bunny hop - three steps, two times.
- Two-feet bunny hop - four steps, two times.
- Two-feet bunny hop - as many as possible, two times.
- One-legged hop - alternate legs, two times.
- One-legged hop - two steps alternate legs, two times.
- One-legged hop - three steps alternate legs, two times.
- HOP up three steps, down two steps.
- HOP up two steps, down one step.
- Sit ups - 15 second sets for three minutes.
Plyometrics (using boxes):
Box Height - 12 inches, 24 inches, 36 inches, 48 inches, 54 inches.
Workout - six times through, jumping on top of boxes and six times jumping up and over the boxes. The boxes are placed three feet apart.
Brad Warnimont has been the head coach at the University of Rio Grande (Ohio) since 2002. In his first year guiding the Redmen he led them to a 28-24 record. The year prior to his arrival Rio Grande finished 7-47. Warnimont's style of play is to put pressure on the defense, a task he accomplishes by having his teams run aggressively on the base paths.
Before turning around Rio Grande, Warnimont was head coach at Salem International University in West Virginia, where his 1999 team led all college divisions in stolen bases with an average of 3.92 per game. Warnimont has also been the head coach at Ashland University, where his 1995 team played in the Division II College World Series.
Warnimont was on the coaching staff of the 1996 Austrian National Team. He began his coaching career at Ohio State with a stint as a graduate assistant.
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