Take Your Game to The Next Level With These Rotational Power Exercises For Baseball

Whether you are throwing or swinging, baseball is all about rotational power. There is a direct correlation between velocity and how much rotational force an athlete can create. Traditional performance training in baseball has long focused on exercises like deadlifts and squats or exercises that move on the sagittal plane (front and back). While these exercises are essential, athletes must also perform exercises that move on the frontal (side to side) and transverse (rotational) planes of motion. Baseball athletes have unique demands and the movements in baseball training programs should reflect that. Having a massive upper body is great, but how well does it directly correlate to the strength and power required for baseball?

This list of exercises is a combination of How To Increase Your Rotational Power and How To Strengthen Your Hips and Core For Injury Prevention. You have probably heard a coach say “your best ability is your availability”. When done well, these exercises can assist in not just creating rotational power through strength training, but also in how to train your body to better handle the increased physical demands of greater rotational strength and increased forced production.

How To Increase Your Rotational Power

Rotational Medicine Ball Shot Put

How To: Holding the medicine ball at chest height, load your back hip by rotating your pelvis and trunk away from the wall. Setup 90º to the wall and hold the medicine ball at chest height. Keeping the medicine ball close to your chest, load into your back hip by rotating your pelvis and trunk away from the wall. Rotate out of your back hip quickly by pushing into the ground and into your front hip while transferring force into the medicine ball. Allow your front foot to rotate and finish over your front side.

The Pro’s Perspective: This rotational movement emphasizes hip loading, force transfer, and thoracic rotation while delivering the arm. The movement requires coordinated rotation of the trunk and pelvis into the back hip, a stable foot/ankle complex, and rotation through the whole body to produce force into the medicine ball.

–Nathan Kindstrand, PT, DPT, OCS, ATC, CSCS

Rotational Medicine Ball Stomp

How To: Hold the medicine ball at chest height and engage your core by pulling your belly button in towards your spine. Shift your weight towards your back foot and rotate your pelvis/trunk into your back hip. Extend your knees and hips to power your arm swing overhead. Use your hips, core, and arms to rotate over your lead leg and slam the medicine ball while finishing over your front side.

The Pro’s Perspective: The rotational medicine ball stomp emphasizes hip loading, force transfer, thoracic rotation, and trunk flexion to deliver the arms. The movement requires coordinated dynamic loading of the trunk and pelvis, with an increased demand on the trunk to produce trunk flexion. This flexion simulates finishing over the front side, an essential part of pitching. Maintaining a stable foot/ankle complex while producing rotational power from the lower body through the trunk simulates force production very similar to pitching.

–Nathan Kindstrand, PT, DPT, OCS, ATC, CSCS

Medicine Ball Stomp With Rotational Shot Put

How To: Setup 90º to the wall and hold the medicine ball at chest height. Rise to the balls of your feet and extend the medicine ball overhead. Violently accelerate the medicine ball down through the ground. Your feet may leave the ground as you slam the ball but make sure that you don’t descend into a squat. Brace your stance with slightly bent knees. Immediately receive the ball at your chest and go straight into a rotational shot put. Make sure you finish accelerating through both movement patterns.

The Pro’s Perspective: As a rotational athlete, thoracic flexion is a physical characteristic required to maximize your power output. This medicine ball complex conveniently maximizes your ability to generate power through thoracic flexion while the rotational shot-put allows you to train your ability to generate force in a manner that matches pitching and hitting mechanics. This also allows you to develop sound movement patterns and sequencing (legs, hips, core, upper extremities). This complex is great for advanced athletes to learn sequencing, rhythm, and timing. A good starting rep scheme is 3 sets of 4 reps with roughly 90 seconds of rest. Ultimately, you need enough time between sets to be able to put the same speed and force into each rep. Make sure you repeat on both sides.

-Ronnie Lopez, CSCS, USAW-L2, USATF

Receive and Release Rotational Scoop Toss

How To: This exercise is done with a coach. Setup 90º to the wall while the coach is set up in front and to the side of you, at about a 45º angle. The coach will toss the medicine ball towards your back hip. As you anticipate the ball, begin your stride towards the wall. Make sure your hips are traveling forward as your hands move back to receive the ball (THIS IS KEY!) Complete the scoop toss by firing the ball into the wall.

The Pro’s Perspective: The goal of this drill is to make use of the eccentric preloading to generate more force on the toss along with hip/shoulder disassociation training. This is key to generating rotational power. A MUST drill for ALL baseball players, hitters, and pitchers alike. A good prescription is 3 sets of 5, on each side, with a 4-6 pound medicine ball. Make sure you have enough rest in between sets to put some speed on the ball, and consequentially, force into the wall.

-Ronnie Lopez, CSCS, USAW-L2, USATF

Split Squat Cable Trunk Rotations

How To: Set up in a split stance with your lead leg closer to the cable machine (a resistance band also works). Holding that position, slowly control the rotation towards the anchor, then explode and rotate your trunk away from the anchor. Maintain a stable position with your lower body, trying not to create too much movement from your hips and legs.

The Pro’s Perspective: This rotational movement is essential in training disassociation between the upper body (trunk) and the lower body (legs) while improving rotational strength. Do 3 sets of 12 reps with each leg forwards.

-Ziad Dahdul, PT, DPT, OCS, SFMA

Reverse Wood Chop

How To: Setup facing a flywheel or cable pully. Accelerate in a reverse chop pattern to potentiate the eccentric action of the flywheel. Be sure to brace and decelerate through your hip and torso to maintain stiffness through your core.

The Pro’s Perspective: Flywheel eccentric rotary deceleration work can aid in the development of rotational power by training the athlete to better utilize hip and shoulder separation mechanics and hip internal and external rotation to draw power from the ground up. The goal is not torso rotation but rather a powerful hip rotation. By developing and tapping into a stiff and stable core we can better express power rotationally from improvements in hip and thoracic mobility, foundational strength, and sequencing task-specific mechanics to achieve a favorable training response.

-Isaac Salazar MS, CSCS*D, PICP, PN1

How To Strengthen Your Hips And Core For Injury Prevention

Strength training is an essential component to performance in your sport, but there must be a purpose. Building rotational strength is important but training systems that focus exclusively on movements that promote speed and power can leave you vulnerable to injury. A sports performance training session should also feature injury prevention work. As athletes get stronger and begin to move with greater speed, this phase of sports training becomes even more important.

Front Foot Elevated Dumbbell Split Squat

How To: Elevate your front foot 4-8″ high, depending on your mobility level. Keep your back foot and leg straight, in a rear hip flexor stretch. Brace your abdominal wall, maintain a vertical torso and a neutral head. Travel down and forward until your knee tracks over your toes. Allow the hamstring to rest on the calf at the bottom of the squat and then drive back up.

The Pro’s Perspective: The split squat is a great assistance exercise to improve range of motion demands in the lower body to create better opportunity perform big multi-joint compound lower body movements with greater technical proficiency, range of motion, and level of motor unit recruitment. Providing us greater force development into the ground for greater potential transfer to rotational power.

-Isaac Salazar MS, CSCS*D, PICP, PN1

90/90 Thread The Needle

How To: In a 90/90 hip/knee and torso position, extend your support arm to the side of your torso. Reach and extend your opposite arm through the space between your support arm and leg. Hold at a challenging range for 10-15 seconds.

The Pro’s Perspective: This mobilization creates more space for the mid and upper back to rotate and releases tension within the hips. This allows us the opportunity to create a greater hip and shoulder separation along with proper strength development and sequencing of eccentric/ concentric utilization to promote the greater potential for rotational power.

-Isaac Salazar MS, CSCS*D, PICP, PN1

Landmine Reverse Lunge Press

How To: Engage your core by drawing your belly button in towards your spine. Lunge backward while maintaining an upright trunk. Create tension in your midfoot while keeping your toe and heel on the ground. Keep your knee lined up with your second toe. Return to your starting position, keeping your weight evenly distributed between your heel and toes. Press the barbell overhead while rotating the shoulder blade upward and forward on your rib cage. Be sure to breathe in while you lower the barbell and breathe out while you press.

The Pro’s Perspective: The Landmine Reverse Lunge with Press challenges dynamic trunk stability and can be used with increased resistance to improve hip strength. Transitioning from a reverse lunge position to a single leg stance with a march and overhead press requires a stable foot/ankle complex, motor control of the lower extremity to avoid valgus/varus positioning of the knee, dynamic trunk stability incorporating breathing techniques and transverse abdominis engagement to improve trunk stability and efficient scapulohumeral kinematics to achieve the overhead press. 

–Nathan Kindstrand, PT, DPT, OCS, ATC, CSCS

Star Side Plank

How To: Set yourself up so that you form a straight line from your top shoulder to your top knee as you push up. Keeping the top knee away from the bottom knee and reaching the top arm towards the ceiling, move the hips up and down 20 times with control.

The Pro’s Perspective: This exercise strengthens the hips and core to improve stability in the frontal plane.

-Ziad Dahdul, PT, DPT, OCS, SFMA

Conclusion

All baseball strength and conditioning training programs require rotational strength exercises. If your current coaches have you on a training program that does not focus on rotational movements, they may be great at training other performance athletes, but baseball is not like all other sports. If you would like to get the most out of your training program, you need to surround yourself with coaches who know proper strength, conditioning, and movements for baseball. For athletes looking to get the most out of their sports performance, now is the time to use The Pro’s List. Find the best coaches that are sport-specific, know how to train your body, and will work to optimize your performance.

It takes a team. Find your team. Only at The Pro’s List.