We’re excited to welcome speed training expert Lee Taft to this week’s podcast for an awesome discussion of baseball movement competencies and how to coach them. Lee is highly qualified to work across all sports, but I’ve found his work to be particularly impactful in the baseball world. CSP-MA Director of Performance John O’Neil takes the lead as a guest host as well.

This is a timely podcast, as Lee’s popular Certified Speed and Agility Specialist course is on sale for $200 off this week. I’m a huge fan of Lee and this resource – so much, in fact, that it was filmed at Cressey Sports Performance – Massachusetts. It’s now required viewing for all our staff members. You can check it out and take advantage of the great discount HERE.

Show Outline

• How Lee developed into the coach he is today
• How Lee approaches youth athletic development
• What the 7 movement patterns of speed are and how these principles translate into sport specific results
• What is a lateral run step is, how Lee teaches it, and how it’s different from a traditional crossover step
• How can base stealers optimize their setup to maximize acceleration
• Why an initial step back with the lead leg is not a bad move first move for a base runner and why observing an athlete’s center of mass is more meaningful when addressing acceleration
• What the upper body’s role is in creating efficient running patterns and how the arms specifically work for baserunners when stealing
• How can infielders can improve their setup and defensive start position
• Why the traditional defensive mindset of get your glove on the ground and be as low as you can is the wrong strategy for optimizing a player’s athleticism
• How initial hand position and the movement of the arms work to propel the body out of the start position to fielding the ball
• How outfielders can refine their defensive setup
• How the incorporation of a split step into a defensive player’s approach can create a quicker initial move to the ball and help to expand a fielder’s range
• What minute but key movement competencies Lee incorporates into athletes’ training, including the dissociation of their upper and lower half and learning to run an opposite direction your eyes are looking
• How Lee incorporates curvilinear speed work into his athletes’ training
• How deceleration isn’t emphasized enough when discussing qualities of position players
• What the common compensations Lee sees in baseball players’ running mechanics are
• What mistakes coaches are commonly making when teaching and training speed in the game of baseball
• What principles Lee prioritizes when incorporating conditioning into athletes’ training
• How Lee would implement conditioning into a baseball program’s training calendar and how he would apply his conditioning principles to specific scenarios like managing a pitchers’ workload between starts
• What the priority training qualities are when working to train power in hitters
• What med ball fake throws are and why are these specifically useful when training hitters

You can follow Lee on Twitter at @LeeTaft and Instagram at @LeeTaft.

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