Challenger Strength Workouts: 

The Oratory Prep Baseball Team has been training hard this offseason. First, we started with Challenger Strength Workouts throughout the fall and winter. The Workouts started on September 15 and they will run through the spring. They are led by Oratory Prep alumnus and President of Challenger Strength, Gerry DeFilippo. In these workouts, we don’t only focus on weightlifting we also speedwork and plyometrics. We start with a dynamic warm-up to get our bodies moving, and then we go into our sprints and jumps. We do normal sprints and sprints starting on one knee. For jumps we do pogo jumps on two legs and one leg, we also go max vertical jumps on two legs and one leg. These are full-body workouts that exercise some of the main muscle groups in the body, like the chest, back, legs core, and shoulders. For the chest, we do bench presses with either a barbell or dumbbells. For back we do different variations of dumbbell rows and Romanian deadlifts. For legs, we do Romanian deadlifts and split squats. For our core, we either do pallof presses or suitcase holds. For shoulders we either do prone external rotations or prone Y holds. For these workouts, we don’t do high reps but we focus on eccentric movement and high intensity. Gerry and his staff are doing a great job getting us ready for the upcoming season.

Zoned Winter Training: 

As we transition closer and closer to the start of the season on April 1st, the Oratory Prep Baseball Team has been participating in Zoned Baseball Winter Training. We have training every week on Sundays. First, we go into the batting cage portion of the facility and warm up with some tee-work and specific drills like top hand and bottom hand. Next, we can go to various stations like soft toss, overhand throws, and eventually we hit off the machine. All of the drills eventually lead to hitting off the machine with increased velocity. In one cage, a HitTrax machine tracks the pitch velocity, launch angle, and exit velocity. The hitting portion lasts about 45 minutes. Eventually, in early February, we will hit live against our own pitchers. 

After the 45 minutes, we transition to the fielding part of the program. The pitchers will warm up with bands and plyometrics, and will eventually throw a bullpen and track their pitching velocity. In the fielding aspect, we warm up with different stretches and a dynamic warm-up. After, we tag up with a partner, and warm up with throwing to each other. After, we do specific glove work and focus on technique and form. The outfielders do different drills like tracking the ball, and making accurate crow-hop throws into a net. In the infield, we go to our positions and field ground balls of a machine. We then go for the double play and eventually field short-hop grounders. At the end, we do a competition between either the infield or the outfield. It is a single-elimination game where if you make an error, you are out. Once only three people are remaining, we bet on the player that we think will win. If you choose the right person, then you don’t have to do conditioning at the end. Overall, Zoned Baseball is a very useful, and fun way to prepare for the tough season up ahead.