Baseball Training From Offseason to In-Season: What to Build, Maintain, and Prioritize
The offseason is the part of the year when a baseball player has the most freedom to aggressively address what needs to improve. During the season, nearly every training decision is constrained by competition. We have to consider what the last 72 hours looked like, what the next 72 hours require, and how he feels that day. Those questions shape how much training stress we can reasonably create without interfering with performance. In the offseason, there is more room to create fatigue, recover from it, and give the athlete enough time to actually adapt. That does not mean every player should follow the same offseason structure or that the calendar should automatically dictate what happens next. The starting point should be much simpler: what is keeping this athlete from being better at baseball right now?
Finding the Right Offseason Priority
A baseball offseason should not automatically become a sequence of training emphases such as hypertrophy, strength, power, and speed simply because the calendar moves from October to November to December. The calendar still matters, but it should not be what drives the program. The first step is figuring out what the athlete actually needs to improve. From there, we can determine which qualities need the most time to adapt, what throwing or hitting exposure needs to stay in place, and when the demands of skill work will start to limit how aggressively we can push physical development. As competition gets closer, the goal is to make sure the qualities we have developed can be expressed on the field.
At Newman HP, we start by building a broad picture of the athlete with our Super Athlete Composite Profiler. It looks across qualities such as relative back squat and power clean strength, CMJ height, 30-meter sprint performance, pro agility, VO2 max, body composition, Y-Balance, psychomotor vigilance, and Stroop performance. From there, we can take a deeper look where it matters. Our CMJ Calculator, for example, goes beyond jump height and includes jump momentum, time to takeoff, braking and propulsive net impulse, peak relative propulsive power, modified RSI, and other force-time characteristics. That gives us more context on how the athlete is producing the outcome, not just the outcome itself.
The Composite Profiler can then generate a hierarchy that shows where the athlete is furthest from an appropriate floor or game-ready performance standard. That gives us an objective starting point, but it still requires interpretation. A lower score may point toward an opportunity, but we also have to consider the athlete’s level of development, the demands of baseball, whether the quality is below an important physical floor, and whether continuing to develop it is likely to produce a meaningful return.
The Hierarchy Is Only the Starting Point
The hierarchy is most useful when it is treated as a way to organize opportunities rather than as a prescription. Younger athletes are often more likely to have obvious low-hanging fruit because they have had less time to develop general physical qualities, but higher-level athletes can still have meaningful gaps in strength, power, speed, body composition, or other areas. Adequate lower-body strength, for example, can be an important target for any athlete who has not reached that floor, regardless of level. Schaefer’s Law helps provide context once those standards are reached. As a general quality becomes more developed, the return from continuing to push it may begin to diminish, which can make another area a better use of training resources.
The standards themselves also have to reflect the athlete’s stage of development. Power output is a good example. Within our performance model, a major league pitcher may need to be capable of producing around 6,000 watts, while applying that same standard to a high school athlete would make little sense. The framework stays consistent, but the expectations change as the athlete develops. The hierarchy helps us see where the athlete has room to improve, and coaching judgment determines which of those opportunities deserves the greatest emphasis and which qualities need less attention at that point in the program.
The Offseason Gives You Room to Pay the Cost of Adaptation
One of the clearest differences between offseason and in-season programming is how much recovery demand we are willing to create. A maintenance dose and a developmental dose are not the same thing. If the goal is simply to retain a quality, we may be able to do that with relatively little work. If the goal is to create a meaningful adaptation, the athlete usually needs a larger stimulus and enough time to recover from it.
One way we quantify that resistance-training stress is INOL, or Intensity + Number of Lifts. Hristo Hristov developed the calculation as an extension of Prilepin’s strength-training guidelines. INOL is calculated by dividing the total number of repetitions by 100 minus the percentage of one-repetition maximum being used. For example, five sets of three at 85 percent is 15 total repetitions. Fifteen divided by 15 gives an INOL of 1.0.
For strength and power work, Newman HP uses INOL as a practical way to think about how much stress we are creating and how much recovery that stress may require. Our working guidelines are:
| Training dose | INOL | Practical recovery window |
|---|---|---|
| Maintenance volume | 0.30–0.40 | 0–1 day |
| Minimum effective volume | 0.40–0.90 | 1–4 days |
| Maximal adaptive volume | 0.90–1.20 | 2–5 days |
| Maximal recoverable volume | 1.20–1.50 | 3–6 days |
Those recovery windows are coaching guidelines, not published INOL cutoffs. Recovery is influenced by exercise selection, total volume, proximity to failure, training history, throwing workload, sleep, travel, and the individual athlete. Research supports the broader idea that more demanding resistance-training exposures can affect performance for multiple days, which is what makes the offseason so valuable. During the season, a training dose may be appropriate from an adaptation standpoint but still be the wrong choice if the athlete has to pitch or perform within that recovery window.
The offseason gives us more opportunities to use a dose that is large enough to create a real change and then give the athlete time to absorb it. At the same time, not every quality needs the same amount of attention. Once a quality has been developed, it often takes less work to retain than it took to build in the first place. That allows us to direct more training stress toward the areas with the greatest opportunity for improvement without neglecting the rest of the athlete’s profile.
Skill Becomes More Important as Competition Gets Closer
Pitchers and position players are more similar in this process than they are different. Throwing and hitting are different skills, but both rely on the expression of physical qualities through high-speed rotational movement. As the season approaches, more of the athlete’s time and energy needs to be devoted to throwing, hitting, field work, and preparing to actually play baseball.
That shift does not mean physical development stops. The amount of stress we can create in the weight room becomes more constrained, but improvement can continue. At Newman HP, we have seen athletes increase power outputs and improve DEXA measures during the competitive season. In-season training does not have to mean maintaining everything and improving nothing. Training simply has to be prioritized more carefully because baseball performance comes first. It means the training has to be prioritized more carefully because baseball performance has to come first.
This is why we do not view the offseason as development and the season as maintenance. The offseason simply provides the greatest freedom to push adaptation. During the season, development continues inside a much tighter performance window. As skill work increases, we still want athletes regularly expressing force quickly. Jumps, sprints, medicine-ball throws, Olympic lift variations, and other explosive work can remain in the program, but the amount of training stress devoted to them changes as baseball takes a larger share of the athlete’s workload.
The Offseason Should Start With a Problem to Solve
A baseball offseason should not begin with a generic calendar. It should begin with an assessment of the athlete and a clear understanding of what is most likely to improve performance. Testing helps identify the gaps, the profiler helps organize them, and coaching judgment determines which of those gaps actually matter.
Once the priority has been established, the offseason gives us something that is difficult to find during the competitive season: enough time to apply a meaningful training dose, recover from it, and allow the adaptation to occur. The other qualities do not have to disappear, and skill development does not have to wait until the end. The goal is simply to allocate training resources according to what the athlete needs most at that point in the year. The question is not what every baseball player should be doing in November. The better question is what this athlete has enough time to change before performance becomes the primary constraint again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ben Kaiserman is a senior partner at Newman HP, where he works with professional and collegiate athletes across the MLB, NFL, PLL, NCAA, and professional lacrosse. Prior to joining Newman HP, he served as an H2F Strength and Conditioning Coach with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, working with tactical athletes in a high-performance military setting. He holds a Master’s in Sports Administration from Tusculum University and is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) through the NSCA. He previously served as Director of Sports Performance at Tusculum University and has also worked with athletes at UCLA, Yale, the University of Tennessee, and Sacramento State.
FAQ
What should a baseball player focus on during the offseason?
The primary focus should be the physical qualities most likely to improve that individual athlete’s baseball performance. Testing and profiling can help identify potential opportunities, but those results still have to be interpreted through the demands of baseball, the athlete’s level of development, and coaching judgment.
Should pitchers completely stop throwing after the season?
There is no universal answer. A period away from throwing may be appropriate for one athlete and unnecessary for another. Workload, injury history, current tolerance, skill needs, and the goals of the offseason all have to be considered before deciding whether a shutdown period makes sense.
How much should baseball players lift during the offseason?
The appropriate amount depends on what the athlete is trying to change. A maintenance dose and a developmental dose are not the same. If a quality is a major offseason priority, the athlete may need enough volume and intensity to create meaningful fatigue and adaptation, along with enough time to recover from that training.
Should baseball players only maintain strength and power during the season?
No. Maintenance may be appropriate for certain qualities at certain times, but athletes can continue improving during the competitive season. The difference is that training has to be organized around the demands of practices, throwing, games, travel, and readiness to perform.
Do baseball players need to keep lifting heavy during the season?
Yes, although the dose does not need to look like offseason strength training. Periodic high-force exposure can help retain strength qualities, and research also supports the value of high mechanical loading for tendon stiffness and other tendon adaptations. How often and how much heavy work is used should depend on the athlete’s schedule, training history, and current priorities.
Are pitchers and position players’ offseasons completely different?
No. Their skill demands are different, but much of the physical preparation process is similar. Both need adequate strength, power, speed, movement capacity, and the ability to express those qualities through baseball-specific skills. As competition gets closer, the specific skill demands naturally take a larger share of the athlete’s training resources.
CONTACT US
To talk to us about training around competition, contact Newman HP
References
Hristov, H. (2005). “How to Design Strength Training Programs Using Prilepin’s Table.” Powerlifting Watch.
Pareja-Blanco, F., Rodríguez-Rosell, D., Aagaard, P., Sánchez-Medina, L., Ribas-Serna, J., Mora-Custodio, R., Otero-Esquina, C., Yáñez-García, J. M., & González-Badillo, J. J. (2020). “Time Course of Recovery From Resistance Exercise With Different Set Configurations.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 34(10), 2867–2876.
Bartolomei, S., Sadres, E., Church, D. D., Arroyo, E., Gordon, J. A., Varanoske, A. N., Wang, R., Beyer, K. S., Oliveira, L. P., Stout, J. R., & Hoffman, J. R. (2017). “Comparison of the Recovery Response From High-Intensity and High-Volume Resistance Exercise in Trained Men.” European Journal of Applied Physiology, 117(7), 1287–1298.
Bishop, C., et al. (2024). “The Importance of Recovery in Resistance Training Microcycle Construction.” Journal of Human Kinetics.
McMaster, D. T., Gill, N., Cronin, J., & McGuigan, M. (2013). “The Development, Retention and Decay Rates of Strength and Power in Elite Rugby Union, Rugby League and American Football: A Systematic Review.” Sports Medicine, 43(5), 367–384.
Lazarczuk, S. L., Maniar, N., Opar, D. A., Duhig, S. J., Shield, A., Barrett, R. S., & Bourne, M. N. (2022). “Mechanical, Material and Morphological Adaptations of Healthy Lower Limb Tendons to Mechanical Loading: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Sports Medicine, 52(10), 2405–2429.
