Starting this month, Rogue Baseball is introducing Advanced Group Hitting, a month to month training program concentrated on individualizing our athlete’s needs as hitters while creating an autonomous and competitive training environment. Players will often be hitting in groups, allowing them to learn and conceptualize with their fellow trainees as much as they do with us as coaches. Hitters will also be scheduling their own training times using Google Drive and be in charge of their daily routines through our programming software, TRAQ.
Throughout the time the athlete is training with us, they will be initially assessed and routinely measured for certain performance markers using Rapsodo and Blast Motion. While the primary focus will always be the athlete and their movements, these measurements are important for us to understand what the athletes need beyond the scope of our own visual and philosophical biases as coaches. It is important for us to provide concrete examples and actionable plans to affect positive change in an athlete’s abilities. We train towards goals that correlate to success on the field, and to be consistent in these areas. Tracking these areas also allows us to introduce competition between all athletes as they will be made aware of who is seeing success through leaderboards and individual competitions at training sessions.
With the combination of autonomous training through TRAQ and a group setting, players will be forced to re-train inefficient movements and learn new ones through a system called constraints-led approach. As opposed to an internally focused, verbally dominated coaching style, players will be asked to put their bodies in new positions, often uncomfortable ones, to target their motor cortex to change a movement rather than their attentional focus. Forcing the players body to accomplish movement challenges within a set of rules creates a more lasting and shorter learning curve on complex movements, allowing the athlete to train in game-like settings at the same time as re-training their body.
The implementation of year-round group training options for hitters is exciting because it exemplifies our main goals as a program. Preparing players for college and pro baseball, using objective means of evaluation, and empowering players to take control of their own careers has always been of the highest priority to our coaching staff. In addition, this training approach allows our players to continue deliberately training throughout their high school and club seasons, so that they continue to progress in an individualized way. We look forward to seeing what the athletes who are involved in the program will be able to accomplish!
Hitting Coordinator