Baseball Players Need To Learn How To Work Out.

 Let me share a few scenarios that I encounter regularly as a baseball coach.

Scenario 1: A player enters the dugout after hitting a fly ball 50 feet shy of the warning track and says, "I thought I got all of that one." I'll look at his 135-pound frame and think, "You did get all of that one."

Scenario 2: A player finishes an outing on the mound and says, "I was only throwing 81 mph? It feels like I'm throwing harder than that." I'll look at his 140-pound lanky frame and think, "81 mph makes sense to me."

Scenario 3: "Hey coach, what do you think I need to do to help colleges notice me?" I'll look at his 145-pound body and say, "Get stronger and gain weight." Every interaction I've had, but one, is a form of this response. "I try to gain weight, but I can't. Can you send me a workout plan?"

Can you guess the big mistake I'm going to talk about? There's one major thing every single high school baseball player can and needs to do, and that is to learn how to work out. As a secondary focus, I'm going to include gaining an understanding of nutrition, at a bare minimum, how to gain weight.

To be clear, I was no different as a high schooler. I was weak in areas that I needed to be strong, and it ultimately cost me my baseball career. Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that if you don't learn to work out, you'll have a career-ending injury. But what I am saying is that there are thousands of ball players that put in a ridiculous amount of time and effort into the game of baseball only to end up being overlooked or not even looked at due to being written off because of their size or strength.

If there were ever a place that I would recommend putting money towards, it would be 1) a gym membership and 2) a trainer to at least teach you how to perform exercises correctly. As a baseball player, you must be physically strong to advance in levels. If you're not, you are looking at a nearly impossible mountain to climb.

The gym has a funny way of weeding out the weak. It's easy to say you want to go; it's even easy to buy a membership. Where it starts to get hard is in the discipline. Baseball is a disciplined sport, only played by disciplined athletes. If you don't believe me, take a look at the best player on your team and the worst player on your team.

I'll close on this to keep it short. In 2011, I was a freshman in college and learned how to lift weights. At that point, it was too late. I had to play so much catch up that it cost me. I'll tell you what's not fun—going to college and being redshirted because you need to get stronger for an entire year. I never hear anyone talk about that, yet it happens all the time. You can take care of it as a high schooler; it's just going to take a little bit of discipline. I’m convinced, the easiest way to separate yourself in a positive way from the rest of your teammates is to learn how, and start lifting weights like your hair's on fire, and never stop.