52-Week Baseball Training - A. Eugene Coleman

52-Week Baseball Training

by A. Eugene Coleman

NEW, 272 pages

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About 52-Week Baseball Training

Get in better condition for baseball—and watch your game improve! Players are getting bigger, stronger, and faster every season. Their conditioning level is at an all-time high, resulting in more towering home runs and blazing fastballs than ever before. With 52-Week Baseball Training, you can use the same baseball-specific training regimen as the major leaguers to prepare for the demands of today’s game.

As the strength and conditioning coach for the Houston Astros, Gene Coleman helped to extend Nolan Ryan’s career into his mid-40s, develop Jeff Bagwell into a power-hitting, perennial MVP candidate, and shape Craig Biggio into a warrior-like iron man at the plate and in the field. In 52-Week Baseball Training, Coleman provides a complete year-round conditioning plan to keep in shape in the off-season and for peak performance during the season and playoffs. These day-by-day, week-by-week, season-by-season workouts include resistance training, total conditioning exercises, and position-specific activities. And not only does this baseball-specific conditioning improve performance, it helps you avoid injuries, too.

The training plan conforms well to high school, college, and summer-league calendars and organizes workouts into sequential phases:

• Postseason—Active Rest and Recovery
• Off-Season—Fitness Training
• Preseason—Training to Play
• In-Season—Training to Win

In addition to these detailed weekly fitness programs, the book describes how to perform each drill and exercise and includes more than 150 photos showing proper technique. Use 52-Week Baseball Training to perform better at the plate, in the field, and on the mound—every game, every season.

About Gene Coleman

Gene Coleman has been a Major League Baseball (MLB) strength and conditioning coach for 22 years, working with the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers. One of the first strength and conditioning specialists hired in MLB, Coleman has worked with many of the game's stars, including Nolan Ryan, Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Ken Caminiti, Joe Morgan, Randy Johnson, and Moises Alou. He was the first to research the physical, physiological, and performance profiles of MLB players.

In addition to 52-Week Baseball Training, Coleman has published 24 conditioning manuals for baseball teams, eight research articles on MLB players, and 50 other articles related to health and fitness. Coleman has worked as a strength and conditioning coach for the men's basketball team at the University of Texas at Austin, where he also worked on the football strength and conditioning staff. He has served as a consultant for several college athletic programs, as well as teams in the NFL, NHL, and NBA.

A college professor and strength and conditioning coach for 33 years at the University of Texas, Texas Tech, University of Houston, and Eastern Kentucky, Coleman received his EdD from the University of Texas at Austin, his MEd From Oklahoma University, and his bachelor's degree in physical education from Lamar University. Coleman has experience outside the sports arena as well, serving for six years as a member of the research team involved in astronaut selection for NASA. He received a Certificate of Recognition from NASA for writing the Astronaut Training Manual and helped design exercise protocols and evaluate exercise devices for space flight. Coleman is currently a full professor and chair of the program in fitness and human performance at the University of Houston at Clear Lake.

Coleman lives in League City, Texas with his wife, Barbara. They have two children, Jarrett and Ashlyn. In his spare time, he enjoys working out and watching baseball and college football.

Reviews of this Book

“Gene Coleman has written a great book with a fantastic year-round plan for becoming a more successful baseball player. Incorporating his training techniques and concepts into my workouts has helped me attain a higher level of conditioning for better play.”

Jeff Bagwell
Houston Astros first baseman
Four-time National League All-Star
1994 National League MVP

“As a manager, I recommend careful reading of this book for anyone really interested in learning how to succeed in baseball. It offers a revealing look at the mechanics of maximizing conditioning and describes proper form for the drills and exercises shown in the book. This book teaches young players how to reach their baseball objectives.”

Larry Dierker
Houston Astros manager

“The year-round conditioning plan Gene Coleman presents between these covers will help athletes improve their game because it works!”

Ken Caminiti
Houston Astros third baseman
1996 National League MVP

“Week by week, in-season and off, 52-Week Baseball Training will show you how to make the most of your natural talent and abilities. Players following this program will be able to compete at a higher level because the book teaches the essential components of fitness and relates everything back to the game.”

Craig Biggio
Houston Astros second baseman

About Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The goal is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team (the batting team) take turns hitting against the pitcher of the other team (the fielding team), which tries to stop them from scoring runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the batting team can stop at any of the bases and later advance via a teammate's hit or other means. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the fielding team records three outs. One turn at bat for each team constitutes an inning and nine innings make up a professional game. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins.

Evolving from older bat-and-ball games, an early form of baseball was being played in England by the mid-eighteenth century. This game and the related rounders were brought by British and Irish immigrants to North America, where the modern version of baseball developed. By the late nineteenth century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United States. Baseball on the professional, amateur, and youth levels is now popular in North America, parts of Central and South America and the Caribbean, and parts of East Asia. The game is sometimes referred to as hardball, in contrast to the derivative game of softball.

In North America, professional Major League Baseball (MLB) teams are divided into the National League (NL) and American League (AL). Each league has three divisions: East, West, and Central. Every year, the major league champion is determined by playoffs that culminate in the World Series. Four teams make the playoffs from each league: the three regular season division winners, plus one wild card team. Baseball is the leading team sport in both Japan and Cuba, and the top level of play is similarly split between two leagues: Japan's Central League and Pacific League; Cuba's West League and East League. In the National and Central leagues, the pitcher is required to bat, per the traditional rules. In the American, Pacific, and both Cuban leagues, there is a tenth player, a designated hitter, who bats for the pitcher. Each top-level team has a farm system of one or more minor league teams. These teams allow younger players to develop as they gain on-field experience against opponents with similar levels of skill.

52-Week Baseball Training