5 Tips to start high school baseball off right

Hey, how you doing? Alex here. Thanks for joining me. And today we are talking about my top tips to help you jumpstart your high school baseball season and put you in the best possible position to help your team to impress the coaches, but also to help you through this recruiting process because this stuff translates over to this. So if you're new to my channel or my podcast, my name is Alex. I'm a former Division 1 college baseball coach, scout in, recruiter, and now what I do is help high school baseball athletes go through this college recruiting process and put them in the best possible position to play at the next level as well. So if you are listening on my podcast, also have a YouTube channel if you're watching this right now. I also have a podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify called Premier Athletes. You can look it up there. My big noggin will show up. You'll see me there. So make sure that you subscribe and like this video. I'd appreciate that lot. With that said, let's get into my top tips to jumpstart your high school baseball season. Number one, and these are in no particular order, but I wanted to start off with this one because it's very important for your development and your performance and was crucial for me because I'm an undersized guy that I really had to stand out physically, meaning in the weight room and get strong because I wasn't 6 foot 6 one or anything like that. I had to really get strong in the weight room. That helped my performance because I wasn't a big guy. Right. I'm undersized guys. And that is continuing your lifting during season. OK? On average, guys can lose up to like 10 to 15 pounds in a season because you're playing a lot, you're losing a lot of water, you're not lifting as much. And that's a big mistake. In college, I see, I saw this all the time. The guys that did not keep up with their lifting, they would lose weight. You have to keep up with your lifting because in the off season, which we're kind of in now, we're kind of turning up, we're in January as of this recording, and we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for season practices about to start up, tryouts are about to start up and we need to. We're lifting heavy right now. We should be lifting especially in the off season. That's when we really kind of get to that bulk phase and get stronger. And in season, we're not doing in that much of that bulk Phase I'm going to explain a little bit about this right now, but we want to continue to lift three to four times a week. Now, you're not going as heavy, okay? With your sets, you're going to cut down anywhere from like 15 to 20% of your weight. So if you're lifting a weight of 100 pounds, you're going to go down to 80 pounds, just to kind of give you an example. And if you're doing four sets in the off season, you're going to go to two sets, okay? And maintain that. And you can go on and up a little bit of your rep scheme. So if you're doing six to eight reps in the off season, going heavy, okay, you can go, hey, anywhere from 10 to 12 plus, depending on the weight. But we want to continue to work those muscles so our muscles and our muscle mass doesn't decrease during the season because that's going to hurt your performance. And also it's not good for injuries. It's not good for injury prevention. In that sense, us working out in the season is great for injury prevention, okay? Because we have to continue to stay strong in this. So continue lifting during in season. It doesn't take a lot, but I know the mindset of a lot of guys. I actually had this in high school until I had somebody help me turn it around. It's like, I don't want to lift. I don't want to be sore. Well, well, you can still lift and not be sore, but continue to maintain your. Your mass that you built up in the off season. So that is crucial for you as you go through this high school season. As we go, number two, play aggressive, especially as we're going into practice, especially as we're going into tryouts. Coaches love seeing aggressive players. And what does that exactly mean? Go in there, not afraid to make mistakes, not afraid to make errors. And this helps you play loose. If you go in and play aggressive like, you'll never see a stiff player play aggressively. They're stiff, right? It's like slow, right? You want to play aggressively, you want to play loose, and don't be afraid to make mistakes. Again, high school coaches love this and college coaches love this. So play aggressively. Number three, bring that energy to tryouts and to practice. Coaches love this. Your players, your teammates are going to love this. I remember being with guys, especially when I was younger, and the older guys had brought some energy to practice, brought some energy to tryouts, and this is crucial for the older guys. So if you're a junior or You're a senior. Do not go into tryouts or practice. Like, hey, I've been here before. I've done that. I already have a spot. No, no, no, no. That's like the worst thing that you could do but bring energy and go into practice, go into tryouts. Like, you have to earn your spot because you do have to earn your spot in college. You 100% have to earn your spot. You don't just. They don't just give it to you on a silver platter. Okay? Go in there with energy. This is going to help your team. This is going to help your team environment. This is going to make everybody better. And the coaches are going to love you for, for that of bringing energy to practice, bringing energy to the game. That is huge. Number four, bring focus. So we have the energy, we're playing aggressive, but when we're in practice and we're doing skill work, whether that's doing IO infield, outfield, or we're taking BP or we're in the bullpen or we're doing certain drills, you need to have laser focus on what you're doing, okay? This is very, very important. This will also rub off on. On other players, which, again, will, hey, help the team overall to get better. Especially a leader, right? A leader on the team has a major focus. They're not playing around all that stuff. Energy and playing around is two different things. Energy, being upbeat, moving your feet, hustling everywhere, hey, talking, positivity, talking, asking players and coaches, you need anything. Having just that good energy is different from just playing around and goofball. Like, we don't want to be a goofball. We want to make sure when we are practicing, we have that good energy, but we have a focus. We have an intent of what we are doing that day, and we're getting better. Whether it's in that drill, whether it's in that BP session, whether it's in that bullpen. We have a focus and we're going to get better during that time. Because if you're just going through the motions, you're not going to get better, and that's going to rub off on other guys. You don't want to be that guy that rubs off on a negative way, right? You want to be a guy that rubs off on a positive way. And that's focus. That's energy and playing aggressive and last one, guys. Hey, when practice is done or before practice and coaches talking, hey, have a focus on that coach. When that coach is talking, you're looking him in the eye and you're not goofing around, you're not talking while the coach is talking. That's like the worst thing that you could do. Coaches do not like that at all. Who would like that? Like, you're trying to deliver a message, which is the coach is what he's trying to do, and somebody's talking. Because if you're talking, you're not listening to that person. So have a focus on the. On the coach. But also, hey, especially as a leader and a young guy, before practice, there's certain jobs that we need to do. Whether it's getting the bases out, whether it's dragging the field, raking the certain area, getting balls out, whatever it may be. Be proactive in that process. Don't be the cool guy, or really, frankly, it should be known as the lazy guy that doesn't do anything. Hey, go out there, be proactive, help set up the field, and heck, take down the field, meaning put things away. Look at the dugout, guys. You're setting a culture, too. If you start doing that, especially as a leader and even a young guy that's going to develop into a leader, because a young guy doing this will be a leader eventually, you're setting that precedent on the team, and that is huge. That is how you build a culture of a team that's going to succeed as you go through this process. So, again, making sure you're doing the little things of looking the coach in the eye, setting up the field, taking down the field, this is going to help you in your season more than these little things. Little things turn into big things, whether it's game performance, whether it's leadership, whether it's helping the overall team win. Do these things, do these five things, and you're going to be in a good spot. I look forward to it. Let me know how your season goes. Comment down below anything that you want to hear from me and make sure you like and subscribe, whether you're on YouTube or the podcast. I'll see you in the next video.