Explosive Training Workouts for Pitchers and Hitters

with Kris Massaro,
Founder/Owner of Softball Strong Training Program

Kris Massaro has trained hundreds of softball players throughout her career with great success in making them faster, stronger, and more flexible. She has worked with players from 8 years old to college and professional players. Her specialty is creating workouts developed upon the needs of position specific, speed skills and the mental side of player development.

Softball has become an increasingly specialized sport, with the skills required on defense differing greatly from those necessary to be successful on offense. Training for these positions, therefore, needs to be specialized to get the most out of your athletes.

Kris Massaro shares her philosophy on how to take specialized knowledge and training methods used in the weight room and turf and translate them to improved performance at the plate and on the mound. Her principles develop high levels of rotational power/force ability at the hips and through the core. She focuses on building single leg strength, balance and forward movement potential for greater acceleration and deceleration ability.

The program is highlighted by non-traditional, but sound drills that are scalable to the athlete's size and strength. Massaro covers the specifics of sets, reps, time, volume, variety, progressions and regressions so you will know how to adapt her methods to every level of athlete you train in either small groups, big groups or team settings.

Pitchers Workout

The pitcher is the most important player on the field, and keeping them healthy and strong is a must. Through 10 exercises, Massaro shows you how to get your pitchers performing explosive moves while taking pressure off their shoulder to help prevent injury. Use the single leg squat and single leg ball slam to work on the motion of driving off of one leg, because pitchers do so much driving off one leg in the actual pitching motion. These exercises will help build your pitchers' core strength and increase functional muscle strength and balance.

Hitters Workout

Hitting for power doesn't always just come naturally. Batters need to use their legs and core efficiently, while also working on balance during a workout to prepare for the task of hitting. Massaro demonstrates seven hitting-specific exercises to increase the power in all of your hitters. These exercises focus on the rotational portion of the swing. Help prevent injury with your players by having right-handed batters strengthen not just their right side, but their left side (or vice versa) which often gets neglected, causing muscle imbalances.

Explosiveness Training

No matter what position they play, all softball players require explosiveness to be great at the sport. Both hitters and pitchers must move from a relatively still position and rapidly explode in a linear to rotational movement to either throw or hit the ball. Massaro provides nine exercises to increase explosiveness, which is important in a sport like softball that requires ballistic movement.

Massaro provides 26 total exercises to improve overall explosiveness and specialize your work with your pitchers and hitters. The more explosive your players are, the harder they can throw and the further they can hit the ball.

48 minutes. 2017.