Justin Verlander Gives His Squat Tips

Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Justin Verlander performs the Squat with coaching by Tigers strength coach Javair Gillett

Strength and conditioning coach for the Detroit Tigers, Javair Gillett, describes the proper technique to squats on a two by four board while the Detroit Tigers starting pitcher, Justin Verlander, successfully performs the exercise.

TRANSCRIPT

Javair Gillett (Strength and Conditioning Coach): On the board your feet are in a straight line, rather than staggered. When a lot of people lunge they stagger it out but if you can get into that straight line when you're coming into a backhand or you have to do a forehand and you have to come get a ball typically get into a straight line and you can even cross over your body. We're just lining it up and he's making sure his hips are straight, straight up straight down, he's not leaning this way or that way and it's a range of motion thing. A lot of things we do we are trying to strengthen the body to help decelerate the body through movement. He's coming down and reaching across to work the oblique's to reach out and stretch as a dynamic flexibility and strengthening; where he is getting himself in a more baseball specific position. A lot of things you are seeing right now we are trying to get a little more specific to the game of baseball. That's typically a warm-up into squats; getting everything to go and so we won't do too much. We'll do two sets usually, six to ten reps before without the weight. We were doing ten reps and we're down to six now and we're adding some weight.