The Assessment
Training at the Lab starts with creating an individualized training program based on the athletes’ strengths and weaknesses. To understand the unique athlete needs, every athlete starts their training with an assessment. This assessment, done in small groups of two, is a 3-day process (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) taking place over the course of a week, concluding with an athlete meeting on day 3. Here’s what an athlete can expect during those three days.
Day 1
On the first day, the athlete starts with a quick introduction to the facility and is given their login credentials for TRAQ. Once they have been shown around and get logged into their TRAQ profile, a trainer will run the athletes through a quick mobility warmup. After that, pitchers will go over the arm care routine, which starts with a series of J-Band and Wrist Weight exercises before progressing to the throwing warmup with Plyocare balls. On the other hand, another trainer will take the hitters and go through the medicine ball drills along with getting introduced to a few hitting drills on the tee.
After the tee and Plyo drills, the pitchers will go into weighted baseball long toss while hitters work through a drill progression with front toss from a trainer. This is the last bit of warmup before getting into testing for both hitters and pitchers. For pitchers, day one testing is pretty simple. Once sufficiently warm, they will throw 3-5 fastballs from the mound for baseline velocity. During those throws, a trainer will take a slow-motion video for the PitchAI report. Afterward, pitchers will be introduced to the recovery protocol. Meanwhile, hitters will strap a Blast sensor on their bat and take hacks off the pitching machine with the Rapsodo tracking batted balls. They will continue to hit in rounds of 10 for the remainder of the training block.
Day 2
The second day will begin similar to day one. The athlete will log into TRAQ to access their mobility warmup and get started there. Pitchers will then proceed to the J-Band and wrist weight exercises while the hitters do their med-ball drills. After their warmups, pitchers and hitters will progress through a slightly different set of Plyo throws and tee drills from day one. This is done in order to familiarize every athlete with the core of the drills. Once again, long toss and front toss drills will follow the Plyos and tee work.
The rest of the day will look much of the same for hitters as they will hit off the pitching machine on the Rapsodo and with a Blast attached to the bat. With hitters, we want as many data points (swings) as possible because the larger the sample size, the more reliable the data will be. Pitchers will throw a bullpen with the pitching Rapsodo. This bullpen will consist of 3-5 pitches per pitch type. At the end of the bullpen, each pitch grip will be documented. This will allow us to dive in on their arsenal and ways to make it even more effective. Pitchers will then proceed to the recovery protocol after grip documentation.
Day 3
Hopefully, by this point, the athlete will catch on to the routine: log into TRAQ; mobility warmup; bands, wrist weights, plyos/med ball, tee work; long toss/front toss.
The difference on this day is the athlete meeting. Either during the first half or the second half of the training session, the athlete will meet with their respective trainer to go over the reports and data. This will be the athlete’s chance to understand the data, ask questions, and determine what the first set of objective goals are with the trainer. Also at that time, the trainer will build out the program for the athlete’s training term and go over the execution of that.
What’s Next?
Following the assessment is when the real work begins. The athlete can choose from the following training options:
3-Days a week
2-Days a week
Once a week
Two-Way Training (5 days a week)
Two-Way Training (2 days a week)
Fully Remote
Each option comes with 5-6 days a week of programming and workouts, it just comes down to how many days a week an athlete wants to get his work in at the facility with a trainer. Here is more information on those options