By Kolten Smith –
Working hard is a great attribute. It is the absolute foundational principle of the vast majority of elite athletes. Yes, a few select athletes are naturally great, but unfortunately, most are not. As such, working hard is a necessity for most people. However, this blog post is not about working hard but about working smart. Working smart seems obvious to many people, but in reality, it is not as easy as people think. Having a detailed, thought-out plan (that allows you to work smarter) can be hard to create. This blog post will outline why working smart and hard is crucial to your or your son’s development and how to accomplish it successfully.
First, to illustrate the importance of why working smart and not just hard is important, let me give you an example. Let’s say I tell you that you have an upper-half mechanical issue, and to fix this issue, I tell you to do 100 walking torques a day. Walking torque is a great drill, but doing 100 of them would do next to nothing. You would essentially just be throwing a ball against a wall. In this scenario, you are working hard (most people would agree that 100 throws a day is working hard) but not smart. Now, let me go over working smart and hard. It’s the same scenario of having an upper-half mechanical issue, but instead of 100 walking torques, I tell you to do 25 throws of four different drills. It’s the same amount of throws (thus, the same amount of total effort), but by doing multiple drills instead, you are blending several different stimuli together. This “blend,” as we call it, is crucial to fixing mechanical issues. Overall, by doing the second workout and working smart and hard, you improve more compared to that of the first workout.
Having a personalized plan is the key to working smart. At the Ranch, this is something that we do every single day. Creating a hyper-personalized plan for you or your athlete is our #1 priority. This plan includes throwing drills pertaining to your mechanical inefficiencies, corrective movements to fix mobility/stability issues, improving your pitch data, speed and agility work, and more. This plan that we create for you at our TBR events is the epitome of working smart. We take into account your strengths and weaknesses and build your plan forward based on those variables.
I cannot express to you enough the importance of working smart. It does not matter how hard someone works if they are not doing the right things to succeed. It would be like running east, chasing a sunset. You could run for miles and miles, but you’d never see one. With that in mind, increasing the quality of your workouts is critical. There is only so much time in a day; use it as efficiently as possible.
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Important TBR Updates
- Registration is open for our October training classes. If you’re a local athlete and looking to make an impact for your team this Spring, this is your edge. For more information, call (936) 588-6762 or email AnnaDugger@TexasBaseballRanch. Space is limited and 5 spots remain.
- Attention parents of pitchers ages 8-12. Our 2024 Youth Elite Pitchers Bootcamp is Oct. 5 & 6 and we’d love to have you join us!
- Join us for one of our Fall/Winter Elite Pitchers Bootcamps! Please CLICK HERE to learn more and secure your spot.
Dates include:
Oct. 12-14 (Columbus Day weekend – Space Limited)
Nov. 23-25 (2 Spots Available)
Dec. 28-30
Jan. 18-20 (MLK weekend)
Feb. 15-17 (President’s Day weekend)
- Calling all CATCHERS – Registration NOW OPEN for our 6th Annual Elite Catchers Bootcamp (ages 13 & up). For more information go to www.TexasBaseballRanch.com/
catcher or CLICK HERE to sign up.
- ATTENTION Ranch Alumni: Our Advanced/Alumni camp in January is over half full.To register CLICK HERE. For more information go to https://www.texasbaseballranch.com/events/alumni-pitchers-bootcamp/.
- NEW VIDEO on our YouTube Channel: “Post Pitching Recovery – Part 5”. Watch it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI_kwNKa058 and share your opinion in the comments.
