Pages

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Staying Strong, All Season Long

Baseball season is almost here. Spring training, college baseball games and high school practice all have started up. This is the time where we completely focus on getting better on the field and neglect the weight room right? I mean we will be putting hours upon hours of work on the field, we don't need the weight room anymore; the workouts we did in the offseason were made to last us a full season so we don't need to lift.

These are all the thoughts I had in the past. I thought if I worked hard enough in the offseason then it would carry me throughout the season.  So once we hit early February in high school I would say goodbye to the weight room and hello the the baseball field. Then I would wonder why each and every summer I would come up with an injury. Something nagging me, a strain here and there. Not until I got into college did I finally realize what was causing these injuries.

The work you do in the offseason definitely gives you the strength you will use in-season. I believe we should use the offseason to get as strong as we can, experience the soreness and push yourself to that next level. But does that strength last if we don't maintain it? Certainly not! If we want to have that strength for more than just the first couple weeks of the season we need to maintain that strength throughout the season. So how do you do this?

My personal recommendation is to get two full body lifts each week. One of these lifts should be a heavier, strength based lift and the other a lighter, higher rep "feel good" type lift. If you are diligent with getting these two lifts in a week you will see that when others are dying off and wearing out you are still going strong and feeling good. When programming for a in-season lift it will be different than your offeason lift in that you will be doing bigger lifts (squats, deadlifts, bench press, pullups) more often and not worrying about your secondary lifts as much (curls, pressdowns, etc). You want this lift to be a get in, get your work done and get out. You aren't there to annihilate every muscle in your body till you cant move your body. Your goal should be when you leave the weight room that you still feel good, strong and fresh. You are trying to stay away from creating soreness, you must be smart when planning an in-season workout, otherwise it will hurt your performance on the field.

Here is an example in-season program I follow.
Day 1: Heavier Day
Squats 8, 8, 6 reps
(super set)
Lateral Lunge and Rotate 3 sets of 5

Hip Thrust 3 sets of 8
(super set)
Hip Flexor Stretch 3 sets 15 sec

Pullups 3 sets of 8
(super set)
DB Bench Press 3 sets of 8

Shoulder Maintenance

Day 2: Lighter Day
Reverse Lunge + RDL 3 sets of 6 each leg
(super set)
Glute Stretch 3 sets of 15 sec

DB Row 3 sets of 8
(super set)
Pushups 3 sets of 10-15

Shoulder Maintenance

As you can see, these lifts are not time consuming of very high intensity. Your goal is to maintain, not to gain. You should not be setting personal records in your lifts.

Get in, maintain, feel good and get out.

So right now, before your season even starts, sit down and plan out what two days you will lift and which one of those days will be your heavy day and which one will be your lighter day. If you take the time to plan this out you will be more likely to stick to it. Encourage your teammates to join you in this effort and you will see your team will be the team that is finishing strong when others are falling apart due to injuries.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

"What Supplements Do You Take?"

If you walk into any GNC and ask this question you will more than likely leave the store carrying all of this...

We all know you don't really need all these supplements (although at times it would probably be pretty fun to be able to say this is your "stash"). Unless you have an unlimited budget, this just isn't possible or even needed. Many supplements people take are worthless and give you no added benefits. We have all seen the claims supplement companies make. Increase your testosterone, burn fat, increase power, increase weight, increase strength, the list goes on. Most of the time there is no research or facts to back these claims up, they are all just simply selling points. 

First off, if you are depending on your supplements to do these things for you you already have the wrong mindset. Supplements are called supplements for that exact reason. They are used to supplement your exercise habits and your diet. They should not be used as the staple and foundation in your daily life. If you don't have good workout habits and healthy diet to go with it then no supplement will help you. So before take the advice in the rest of the article take a look at your daily life and evaluate if you are ready for supplements. 

Now on to the fun part. I'll give you a list of the supplements I would suggest, as well as tell you the research that shows the added benefits. Remember, these are not in any particular order. I think they are all important and would recommend you to try taking them all if you would like. Without going into too much depth (that will be for another post, individually). Here is the list of supplements I would recommend for you as well as a brief description of its function. 

  • Creatine- Creatine has been shown time and time again in hundreds of studies to increase power in individuals. I recommend taking 3-5 grams every day. As with any supplement, make sure you are drinking plenty of water daily. 
  • Fish Oil- Fish oil isn't a sexy or fun supplement but it is great for overall health. It has been shown to reduce inflammation, risk of cancer, diabetes and plaque build up. 
  • Pre-workout- This is probably the one most all of us take. It is the one we all enjoy because of the stimulation it brings. Some people will say you don't need a pre-workout but I beg to differ. I get my best lifts in on the days I take my pre-workout. If I don't take it, I struggle through my lift. 
  • Protein- If you can't eat a meal after you get done working out this is a great way to get your protein to help repair your muscles. Supplementing protein is also a great way to to help you gain weight if you are struggling to put on weight. I do not recommended taking protein in place of meals though. 
This is just a brief post to get to the basics. I will write a more detailed post on each individual supplement, its benefits (with studies to back them up), companies I suggest, usage and more! 


Friday, January 31, 2014

Beating Your Biggest Critic: Winning Yourself Over

Take a moment. Examine your career. Look back over the past couple of years and tell me: who has been the biggest critic? Who has been the toughest on you to become better? Who, when evaluating your skills, rates you the lowest? If you are like me, it's yourself. If you are playing at a high level, you have learned how to self-evaluate. If we want to be successful athletes, it is critical to use our self-evaluations to empower us, instead of break us down.

Let's take a look at some stats from my senior year in college at MTSU.


How many of you would say that this was a pretty successful start? I pitched into the 9th and only gave up 3 runs (2 earned). Looking back, it was a pretty solid start; I did my job by giving our team a chance to win. We ended up losing in extra innings and after the game I nitpicked my performance. I could have done this...I should have thrown this...If I would have made this pitch...I was picking apart every negative thing I did rather than focusing on the positives. I went to bed that night feeling like I had pitched 3 innings and given up 10 runs; I was completely down on myself. The next day I was walking around with my head down and feeling like I was the sole reason we lost. All week I was trying to become better than the start before, which was highly unlikely since it would have had to have been a CG with one run or less. I was striving to be perfect, and because of that, it only made me worse. The truth is, we are humans, and we aren't perfect. The key is to embrace our failures and turn them into positives or else we will continue to fail. I had to learn this the hard way.

Don't get me wrong. We need to be able to evaluate what we did both good and bad, BUT we must be able to put the game behind us, focus on the positives and work to fix the negatives. You can't get stuck only thinking about what you should have done better. 



This was my start the very next week. I think we can all agree that the negativity took over and that resulted in a terrible start. Some people may say that I got hit around because I was leaving the ball up in the zone, or not throwing quality strikes, or anything else they may have seen visually. But NONE of these things were the true cause of my bad performance. Yes, obviously I left the ball up in the zone and wasn't throwing quality strikes (I gave up 15 hits and 10 runs- it doesn't take a baseball genius to figure that out), but these weren't the reasons I got shelled. The reality of my bad performance was that I had criticized my start from the week before, and didn't take away any positives to build on.

When you continually tell yourself that you aren't good enough, that you need to pitch better, or that you just sucked it up last game, guess what you start believing? That you aren't good enough, you aren't a good pitcher, and you just plain suck. But it doesn't stop there. Once you believe you are those things, guess what you become? ...A really bad pitcher.

I bet you are wondering how my next start went, right? I mean after a good start I couldn't take anything positive out of it, there's no way I could find something good to take out this one right? Exactly right! I was back in my depressed, negative rut that I was in the week before. I was thinking the same things all over again like a broken record:  "I could have done this...I should have thrown this...If I would have made this pitch..." By now you can probably guess what the line looked like, but I'll give it to you anyway.


There it is. Less than 6 innings pitched, 8 runs, and another L for the team. I won't keep going through the rest of the season because I think you get the idea.

So, now you are asking: How can I fix this or avoid this from happening?

Well, here are some tips and advice:

1. Know the true power of your mind.
Your mind is a powerful tool. If you continuously tell yourself that you aren't good enough, you better believe, that's what you soon will become. Why don't you start using your mind to focus on positives? If you can trick your mind into believing you aren't any good, why not trick yourself into believing that you are GREAT.

2. Believe in yourself.
You know what I do when I have a few bad outings in a row? I go back and look at box scores and game recaps of outings where I was pitching well. I find my best games and go through them again, not just reading them but playing them out in my head mentally. I go through what I can remember of that game and recall the hitters I faced, and the results that I achieved. After about 10 minutes of going through old games I feel like I could face the top lineup in the world and get them out. What have I just obtained? CONFIDENCE. No one can play the game without confidence. You will get beat day in and day out until you can't handle it anymore and hit rock bottom. Your confidence needs to be produced mentally before it can be shown on the field. I'll be completely transparent in telling you that even after writing this blog, I feel down on myself because I was forced to re-live those terrible starts. Do not let this happen to you; believe in yourself.

3. Become a good self-evaluator. 
You have to learn how to evaluate yourself realistically. This means don't evaluate yourself as the best pitcher on the team after giving up 3 laser shots to the wall for a 1, 2, 3 inning. It also means don't beat yourself up because you gave up a wind-blown 295 ft. home run. After you are out of the game, take a look back at your outing. Give yourself a true evaluation and continue to work to get better in a positive manner.

4. Surround yourself with TRUE teammates.
You need to have teammates around you that will "give it to you straight". I have many teammates who I can go to after an outing and know that they wont feed me crap just because they think that's what I want to hear. If they saw something I was doing bad they will tell me, but right after that they will feed me a positive aspect of the outing too to keep me right. I don't want teammates who are always breaking me down or always building me up. I want ones that do both. I want to surround myself with people who truly want to help me become better. This is what a real teammate does. You should search for them and become one yourself.

5. A new day means a new opportunity. 
My final piece of advice is that regardless of whether you throw a complete game shutout or didn't get out of the first inning of your start, enjoy it (or hate it) for the rest of the day/night and then forget about it. Don't come to the field the next day depressed because of your outing the night before. If you dwell on it, you will continue to produce bad results because you can never let go (learn from my mistakes). When tomorrow comes, forget about yesterday. Embrace the new opportunity to get better and show how good you really are!






Wednesday, January 22, 2014

How to Increase Your Deadlift Over 100 lbs In 2 Weeks Or Less

I first want to say thanks to everyone who read the last blog post and have followed us on twitter (@athlterritory). We received a lot of great feedback and look forward to bringing you more content! I had hoped to write this post earlier this week, but I got caught up in writing programs for athletes who requested them. If you would like a free month personalized program shoot me a email at kenrobertstraining@gmail.com!

I know what you are thinking after reading that title: "No way", "That's not possible", "This guy is crazy", "This guy is selling some scam". What I am going to show you has really worked though. Will it work for everyone? Of course not. I will tell you however that with the right mindset, anyone can accomplish more than what they thought they could.

This post isn't about a magical formula, a secret tip on deadlift form, or some mind blowing trick that you have never heard of. It's simply learning how strong your mind is and how to correctly push yourself mentally.

I had a teammate that I have played with since 2010 in the Rockies organization text me last month. He asked me how much I deadlfited and as I proceeded to tell him, he was stunned. He then told me he deadlifted 275 lbs that day for 5 reps and "felt like he was going to explode". He thought he had pushed himself to the brink and that 275 was all he had. For some people, this may be the case, but with Bruce, I knew he had more in him and just needed to be pushed. Bruce either: 1. Didn't have people around him lifting much heavier weights than he did or 2. Didn't believe it was possible for him to lift anymore weight.

I knew he was capable of lifting more, so I urged him to up his weight. This encouragement showed him that other people were lifting far more, and that it was definitely achievable for him too.

The mind is such a powerful tool, but can mistakenly be used for a crutch as well. We all need to learn how to use it as a tool, not a crutch. When working out sometimes, we use our mind as a crutch and this holds us back from lifting heavier weights, doing one more set, or finishing out that last rep. The key is to breaking this barrier that continually keeps us from our full potential. When we use our mind as a tool, the results become greater and the amount of weight you can lift takes off! I wasn't correcting his form or his program; I was correcting his mental state when he deadlifted.

Bruce initially text me on December 19, then text me again on December 22 (3 days later), and said that he had deadlifted 315 lbs for 5 reps that morning. That is a 40 lb increase in 3 days! Any of us that have been lifting weights for any period of time know that he didn't gain that much strength in 3 days, it's just not possible. Bruce had learned to break the mental barrier, push outside his comfort zone, and be willing to fail. Sometimes we are so scared to miss a rep and fail that we never push ourselves to even see what we are capable of! I am excited for Bruce, but I knew he still had more in him so I continually encouraged him and challenged him to keep pressing in. On December 30th (11 days later) he broke through another mental barrier and deadlifted 385 lbs for 5 reps! In case you didn't calculate that, that is a 110 lb increase in less than two weeks!

[Bruce deadlifting 385 lbs for 5 reps.]

If there was simple physical trick or magical program to this I would be a millionaire instantly, imagine the craze this would create! There isn't anything physical that can produce these results that quick, it just isn't possible. The power to get results like Bruce did is what you already have inside of yourself-- your mental toughness.

When you step in the weight room you need to prepare yourself mentally. Before a lift you need to get in a mental state where nothing else can distract you. You need to challenge yourself, push yourself outside of your comfort zone, and see what your body truly can do. Your goal is to complete the lift for x amount of reps and you will be able to do it. I am tired of seeing guys being scared in the weight room and just hanging out in the comfort zone. If you decide to do this you will never get stronger and you will never be the best athlete you can truly be. I challenge you to push yourself mentally and see how strong you really are.





Ken Roberts
kenrobertstraining@gmail.com




Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Started From The Bottom

Sorry for the cheesy rap line, but let's be honest-- in my case, there have never been truer words.

I played just about every sport growing up (basketball, football, soccer, and of course baseball). While growing up I was usually the shortest and smallest guy on the team. I never let this get me down and just loved to play the game, so I would practice with my dad and friends any chance I could get. What I didn't have in size I made up for in work ethic. This carried me through youth sports and into middle school. Once I got to middle school I switched my attention 100% to baseball. While in middle school, I was usually the "dependable backup", but not the "game changer". My freshman year of high school I made the baseball team, played mainly outfield, but still wasn't anything special. My sophomore year of high school a hit a growth spurt (up to average height) and got a good opportunity at a new high school to earn a spot as a consistent starter. My work was finally starting to pay off, and I had good success as an outfielder and pitcher. 

While I was a starter as a sophomore at my high school it wasn't necessarily because I was good enough, it was because we were a new school and an extremely young team. I gained some great experience and thought I would just enjoy playing in high school and work my hardest because it would probably be the last 3 years I played ball. I never thought I would be good enough to play college baseball. Luckily, my hard work started paying off my junior year and a few schools started to notice. During my senior year I decided to sign with Middle Tennessee State University. 

My freshman year at MTSU was a roller coaster-- a few ups and many downs. I had no idea what to expect when playing D-1 baseball and was definitely not ready physically. I went into MTSU at 6'1, 165 pounds. I thought I knew what I was doing nutritionally and in the weight room, but quickly figured out I had it all wrong. I finished my first season at MTSU pitching 7.1 innings and had a 12+ ERA. I had to find out how to improve physically (and quick!) or I wouldn't be playing D-1 baseball for too much longer. My first summer I started talking to teammates and reading books on how to improve physically to compete at the D-1 level. That summer I gained 30 lbs. and 5 MPH on my fastball resulting in an extremely successful summer season. I finally had the physical part figured out, and it definitely showed on the field. 

My sophomore year was night and day compared to my freshman year. I opened up as the Friday night starter (number one pitcher). I had a decently successful year with around a 4.5 ERA and gained some attention from professional scouts. What I learned that year though was I had gotten control of the physical aspect but my mental game was lagging behind. So I bought some books on the mental game of baseball. I knew I would have to master the mental game because the physical could only take me so far. The next year I was shown what I could really do on the baseball field.

My junior year was easily the best year of baseball I have put together, both mentally and physically. I ended the year with an 11-1 record and right at a 3.00 ERA. I was named 2nd Team All-American along with many other awards. I had shown myself that the work on both my mental and physical game had paid off. It was then, for the first time that I knew I could play professionally. 

I ended up getting drafted after my senior year (a rough year, which will be detailed in a later blog post). I have had a pretty successful professional career so far, making it up to AA this past season. I have a long ways to go still and am consistently looking for ways to improve myself as a baseball player, athlete, and a follower of Christ. 

I hope through this website I can help athletes of all ages improve their athletic abilities and learn to improve themselves through my experiences. I started out as a small kid that was never going to make it to the next level, yet continued to defy all odds. Don't ever let someone tell you that you can't accomplish your dreams. I am living proof that with enough hard work and knowledge, you can!

So, what can you expect from Athletes Territory?

Athletes Territory will be a place where athletes of all ages and levels can come to get tips and advice from a professional athlete who has started, literally from the bottom, and has achieved more than expected through hard work and determination. 

1. First and foremost you will see blog posts and articles done in a professional manner. I expect to gain an audience that is serious about becoming the best athletes they can be, and in doing so I will give them professional advice and tips. Many of these tips will be ones that I have learned through experience and from others. 

2. You will see posts that range from workout advice, sports specific advice (drills, mental game, etc.), nutritional advice, to staying healthy throughout your season.

3. Not only will you get advice on how to be a better athlete but also how to be a better teammate. In order to be the best athlete we can be, we must realize the importance of being the best teammate and man/woman we can be too. 

4. I also plan on doing some giveaways. So if you like winning (which we all do) and you like free stuff then follow us on twitter @AthlTerritory and keep your eyes open for competitions and giveaways!