During my adolescent years, I faced the typical barrage of pejoratives related to exercise training ranging from: “running long-distance is good for lactic acid removal after throwing,” to “squats are bad for your knees,” to “deadlifts will blow-out your back.” Unfortunately, I had not quite developed into the contrarian that I became in my late teens/early 20’s, and I took most of these remarks on bad faith. I did not regularly squat—if I did, it was on the Smith-Machine. I did not do my first deadlift until I was almost 19, and I even ran long-distance track thinking it would be good for my overall training development. Undoubtedly, I left some arm and bat speed in the tank by not training optimally.

The goal of this article is to dispel a few of these training mistakes, expose a few myths, and help you the reader make more informed decisions regarding your own baseball training.

Since a significant amount of old school coaches disparage weightlifting for baseball players, let us first address a training practice that they love to implement – long distance running.

Why did we run long distance in the first place and why do some coaches still use it?

Myth #1: Long Distance Running?

Or, A Quick Look at the History of Long Distance Running and Baseball

Claim #1: “It’s what we have always done”

This is important to consider as many of the coaches who rise/rose to their positions of authority did so by not rocking the boat with their own authorities. Baseball, to some extent, is a “good ole’ boy” sport, where it is considered subversive to do anything differently until the moment comes where everyone is doing something differently. Long distance running was the fitness fad of the 1970’s and bled into many American sports as a test of athleticism. As written in Edward Sears’s book, Running Through the Ages:

In the 1970’s the nation rapidly grew interested in participating in [running] as amateurs and athletes. This heath kick did not become a fad, but a movement. National athletic celebrities such as Steve Prefontaine and Joan Benoit stimulated interest in the sport. The union of Bill Bowerman and University of Oregon track and field with the creation of Nike marketed the activity. Publications taught and argued for the benefits of jogging. Historical and anatomical studies argued the natural skill of jogging that belonged to humans. Jogging was no longer done only for necessity but as a training suggestion (Sears, 2015).

Claim #2: “Running long distance removes lactic acid”

Unless the pitcher is throwing every 3 seconds, they are not operating within this window. Since a pitcher’s average rest interval is 15-30 seconds, we are not working in a frame where the accumulation of lactate is high. As David Szymanski points out in his journal article, Physiological of Baseball Pitching Dictates Specific Exercise Intensity for Conditioning:

High levels of lactic acid accumulation (>12 mmol/L) which do not occur while pitching, will return to baselines within 40-60 minutes after high-intensity exercise depending on whether one does active (35% VO₂max) or passive (no exercise) post-exercise recovery. Potteiger et al. indicated that there were no differences between pre-pitching and post pitching blood lactate levels of 6 baseball players after throwing a 7 inning game. Therefore, there is no lactic acid to “flush” out of the pitcher’s arm 24 hours or longer after pitching (Szymanski 2009).

Claim #3: “But a lot of Major Leaguers run/ran poles!”

• Remember, these athletes were probably great despite or before they did anything. Don’t get in trouble with your coach [Ben’s Video here suggest ways to approach your coach on training]and like Ben has mentioned before, the surest way to ensure that your pitcher will not grow into his velocity is to do nothing. Coaches often do not know what to do when position players are getting reps, so instead of idle time, they feel running long distance will get the pitchers “in-shape.”

Editor’s Note: Warren is not advocating to disrespect your coaches and we all have done silly things in training but removing competing stressors for progress is paramount to recovery. See further discussion as to what “in-shape” means for a baseball player as we take a closer look at the energy systems utilized in the sport below:

Energy Systems (Bioenergetics)

A quick note on the graph: During the first 10 seconds you start sprinting/putting a muscle under tension, all three energy systems begin to work, but the first to fire up is the ATP-PCr system. This is the stored ATP within the working muscle. Once the ATP-PCr has started to run out, the glycolytic system ramps up and takes over for the rest of the next minute-90 seconds or so before it begins to run out of fuel. Glycolytic relies on energy converted from stored carbs (glucose) into ATP. Lastly, after about 90 seconds, you primarily start to rely on fats as a fuel source as you move into aerobic metabolism.

Remember, as a baseball player, you are essentially training the short-burst energy system (adenosine triphosphate phosphocreatine system ATP-PCr), occasionally tapping into glycolysis. Unless you are consistently hitting inside the park homeruns you will live within this energy system and this is where most of your training bouts should reside. Slow long-distance running makes you efficient at aerobic metabolism, something you will seldom if ever use during the duration of a baseball game. If programmed improperly, it will impair the improvement of your anaerobic metabolic system. In other words, baseball utilizes the alactic/anaerobic system, exclusively. Improving the utilization and efficiency of the aerobic mechanisms through long distance will not help and can even come at the expense of the anaerobic system (Bellar, 2012). 

Myth #2: Squats are Bad for the Knee's

Or, why Squatting will Help You Develop the Capacity to Throw Gas

Claim #1 You shouldn’t squat with your hips below your knees, because that means your knees went over your toes.

It is important to remember that not all “squats” are created equally. Partial squats and something that looks like a squat might be bad for the knees. If the athlete consistently comes up on his or her toes while squatting, the athlete will have problems. If the athlete squats high and doesn’t appropriately load the hamstrings, the athlete will likely have knee problems. If the athlete squats in improper footwear, the athlete can develop problems. The idea that below-parallel squats are bad for the knees is not supported anecdotally or empirically. In fact, people without ACL’s can even perform full squats (McKean, 2010). Yes, full range of motion squats are more difficult because you are having to displace a load through a longer range of motion. You should squat unless you have some form of hip pathology limiting you from squatting, because a correctly performed squat is:

1. 1. A hip dependent movement, not a knee dependent movement.  

The hips absorb and transmit most of the stress. The hip muscles consist of all the glute muscles, all the internal hip muscles, the adductors and the hamstrings. This large muscle mass adapts to squatting just like all muscles adapt to exercise. They grow as they get stronger and handle more volume.

2. A correctly performed squat, hips below the level of the knees, is an anatomically normal position. Even infants display an ability to squat below parallel.

Sometimes the Socratic Method (a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions) is best for unearthing tenets:

(see dialogue below:)

 “A 500 lb. squat has nothing to do with a 5-ounce ball!”

Or, “I don’t know any 500 lbs. squatters who can throw 95!”

First, how many people do you know who can throw 95?

Second, how many natural 500 lbs. squatters do you know?

Third, how many people do you know who went from 85 mph to 95 mph after they were 18 years old?

We now know more thanks to Tread Athletics!

When one thinks of 500-pound squatters, the first image that comes to mind to many people is a juiced-out meathead who can’t scratch his own back because he is so musclebound. In part, this is because there are so few 500 lb. squatters. Before the advent of YouTube finding a 500 lbs. full squatter was about as a rare as finding a four-leaf clover. And when you saw one, they were either on TV once every four years or were heavily musclebound. But here are some videos of drug-free lifters squatting 500 lbs. who aren’t overly musclebound: