During my playing career, I tested many different training methods, some were good and effective - while others were to put it delicately - a waste of time.
This post will be about the training methods I found that worked the best.
These are the methods I used in my own training towards the end of my career and still use today as a coach.
1): External cues.
External cues are different than what most athletes are used to in their training. Most athletes can recall times when their coaches or instructors talk to them about their mechanics and how they should move - it is rarer for an athlete to be able to recall times where their coaches only talked about the goal (of the drill, the lesson, etc.)
By having the athlete focus on the outcome they want to achieve they are more likely to self-organize their body to perform the task (swinging, throwing, etc.) in a more efficient manner. In most cases, we should be cueing in this manner. Picking out a goal for them to achieve: a number on the radar gun, hitting a ball over the L-Screen, etc.
This is not to say that internal cues are not useful - but they are more complicated, and it has been proven that they are only truly effective when the athlete understands the cue. Barking terms at an athlete who has no idea what they mean then is a complete waste of both the coach and the athletes time.
I will go over external cues in more depth in another post, for now, check out this article by Kyle Norman from the Denver Fitness Journal entitled Coaching Movement: Internal vs. External Cues to learn more.
2): Constraint Training.
Constraint-based training is an advanced way we can utilize external cues to develop the types of movements we want in our athletes. A constraint is utilized to force an adaptation in the athlete's movement and thought process. By taking a hands-off approach and creating a challenge constraint driven environment in a drill and practice we allow the athlete to find their own solutions to the constraint which promotes better long-term learning.
The most popular constraints in baseball training are weighted balls and weighted bats. The differently weighted implement is itself a constraint to the athlete. It changes their "feel" and the increased weight forces them to find the solution (ie. swinger faster, throwing harder) which overtime has proven to develop better movements.
For a simple progression of what and why constraint training is important this slideshow from Connected Coaches sums it up nicely - Constraints Led Coaching Approach.
3): Overload/Underload
Building on what we now know about external cues and constraints we can see how effective overload and underload implements can help athletes achieve better movements.
Overload and underload bats and balls should be a staple in any good long-term development plan for a baseball player. They are an exceptionally easy constraint to implement in practice and drills. And the results from training with them speak for themselves.
4): Creative Solutions
The great thing about using the 3 prior training methods into your program is it allows you to try more individualized and targeted constraints for your athletes.
Examples of this are things like PVC pipe swing drills, training gloves of varying size, medicine ball drills, throwing uphill, and many more.
5): Track Your Progress!
Most importantly, I believe that when following any program you need to be tracking your progress regularly. Be as honest as possible and if needed blunt enough to ask yourself "What the fuck am I doing". In most cases, athletes finally get out of a shitty program way too late and are forced to play catchup in their offseason or even in their overall career.
Closing Thoughts:
To genuinely improve an athletes skill these are the types of methods that need to become staples in a development program. Over time the needs of the athlete may change and the program will have to be redesigned but the research has shown that these are the most effective ways at improving motor learning.
This is why I am a big believer in Driveline Baseball's Hacking the Kinetic Chain throwing programs - they encompass all these methods into a throwing program for the athlete.
If you are interested in learning more about how these kinds of methods, checkout this blog post on the benefits of plyocare balls for pitchers.