University of Georgia Baseball Off-Season Training

Jeremy Heffner, UGA strength and conditioning coach, discusses his goals and philosophy when training the Bulldogs during the summer

Jeremy Hefferner describes the benefits to training during the Baseball off-season. The players that are trained during the off-season are able to help Jeremy support and instruct the new players in the fall.

TRANSCRIPT

Jeremy Hefferner (Strength and Conditioning Coach): From baseball off-season training the typical goals we're looking at are maximal strength. That's what we want and I want to get these guys as strong as I can. I have a little bit of liberty with the guys during the summer time that stay here because they're not playing baseball; which is about 12 weeks out of the entire year that I can actually train them when they're not playing baseball. Most of our guys go to the Cape Cod leagues in Wisconsin, Florida but the ones that stay we look to increase strength but also build a tremendous amount of work capacity. It's not as scientific in the summer as it is in the rest of the year but what I look to do is get the most out of the guys. The guys that stay here in the summer are my leaders in the fall because I'll push them as hard as they can possibly push themselves and because of that when come in the weight room I use them to teach not only that but I use them to motivate the other guys. Because they have such an increased fitness level they can really push the other guys, they can stand there after they finished the set and say, hey I need you to do this or I need you to go here. I use it for me so that I can build a base with these guys. They're my go to guys in the weight room for the rest of the year but again we're working on maximal strength. I do a little bit more conditioning, I don't mean running or stairs or anything like that, there's just a work capacity emphasis within the workout.