Strength in Numbers #210
When it comes to preparing baseball athletes for high-speed movements—be it pitching, hitting, or defensive reactions—sometimes the most effective tools are the simplest.
Rhythmic skipping may appear elementary, but this classic track and field staple delivers serious athletic benefits: boosting coordination, enhancing elasticity, and priming stretch-shortening cycle efficiency. For throwing and swinging athletes, skips offer an accessible, low-load, high-benefit way to improve movement timing and muscular responsiveness.
Additionally, providing more opportunities for athletes to work on their start technique and low-velocity acceleration transfers to making plays in the field, stealing bases, and exploding out of the batter’s box.
For years, I have worked with some incredible people in high-performance settings, including the Angels, and spent time thinking about how to improve the dynamic warm-up process to maximize contraction, reactive power, direction of force, and elasticity.
One of the breakthrough moments of my career was watching track athletes prepare with their coaches for explosive sprint reps, and seeing the avenue to blend with baseball. This sport requires high rates of force and torque development, producing huge power under time pressure.
Whether you are a hitter or a pitcher, you need to prepare your body well on the field, as it is the last thing you do before you compete.
Elite Preparation Equals Elite Performance, and I am truly grateful for the opportunity to teach on this subject this weekend at our Return Beyond Performance Course.
“Start” reading this article and don’t “skip” this edition of Strength in Numbers, or you will miss out on some seriously important information.
The Anatomy of a Skip: A-Skip & B-Skip Defined
Track and field coaches have used skips since the 1940s to improve sprint mechanics, force application, and limb coordination. Two foundational variations include:
- A-Skip
- Emphasizes hip flexion, vertical force application, and timing of opposite arm/leg drive.
- Focus: Quick ground contact, high knee lift, and dorsiflexed foot.
- Targets: Glutes, hip flexors, quads, tibialis anterior.
- B-Skip
- Builds on the A-Skip with an added knee extension and pawing motion at the front of the stride.
- Purpose: Increases hamstring activation and reinforces ground force redirection.
- Targets: Glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves.
Both patterns are ballistic, requiring precise joint stiffness at foot strike and demanding rapid muscle-tendon loading and unloading—a hallmark of the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC).
In this video, a Level 1 A-Skip pattern is shown. Baseball players should perform activation and speed work at various times with their glove on. If you are a pitcher, you only run with a glove on when competing and need to learn how to coordinate explosive movement and arm path synchronization with a glove on, so you might as well practice athletic movement with it on.
Why Skipping Works: Neuromuscular and Elastic Gains
Skips activate the SSC, which allows muscles and tendons to store and release energy like springs. This enhances:
- Explosiveness: Rapid concentric muscle action following a stretch (think of a pitcher exploding off the mound or a hitter generating bat speed).
- Joint stiffness: Crucial for maintaining structure during rapid limb reversals, helping absorb and redirect force effectively.
- Coordination: Alternating limb patterns require bilateral timing, enhancing motor control and neuromuscular rhythm.
Skipping also develops proprioception, improving how athletes sense and control movement—a key factor in adjusting to rapidly changing game environments. This is the perfect preparatory action before short-burst acceleration training, which can be embedded into the dynamic warm-up to provide daily conditioning for the athlete.
Integrating start drills wearing a baseball glove improves the coordination of the throwing arm and glove arm in propelling the body forward, optimizing the direction of force for the lower body, and maximizing transfer training effects on the field. You can also integrate throwing arm conditioning while performing start drills as well.
Directional Variability: Muscle Activation in All Planes
Skipping isn’t just a forward-moving drill. Here’s how directional variations challenge the body, and when combined with multidirectional sprint work, you are stressing the kinetic chain, creating a more resilient, adaptive, and athletically intelligent mover.
Skipping Planes of Movement and Functional Application
- Forward Skipping:
- High focus on the anterior chain, including hip flexors, quads, and dorsiflexors.
- Trains sagittal plane explosiveness (e.g., pitching mechanics, baserunning strides).
- Backward Skipping:
- Increases activation of the posterior chain—glutes, hamstrings, calves.
- Sharpens deceleration control, often neglected but vital for safe landings and change of direction.
- Lateral Skipping:
- Engages adductors, glute medius, and hip rotators.
- Builds rotational stability and lateral power—essential for fielders and hitters transferring weight side to side.
Half-kneeling sprint starts integrated into the dynamic warm-up prepare the athlete for lateral force applications and coordinating rotational sprint acceleration, which is important for all players on the field.
Stretch-Shortening & Redirection in Action
Skipping patterns teach athletes to load and unload muscle groups in microseconds. This makes them powerful tools to:
- Improve ground force redirection (change of direction, cutting)
- Increase reactivity and elasticity for sprinting and throwing
- Reinforce proper joint alignment under force to prevent energy leaks
The timing of limb strikes, foot stiffness at contact, and core control throughout skips all reinforce qualities needed to perform under the fast-paced stress of game situations, and can reduce the muscular work required of the arm to throw the ball very quickly.
This slide is from a unique course on Return Beyond Performance concepts. Injury protection and prevention for the throwing arm primarily depend on enhanced ability in sprinting, jumping, and training the throwing arm. If the direction of force is altered by the lower body, a loss of lower body power, and an imbalanced and weak arm, a player will head into trouble.
Key Takeaway: Don’t Skip the Skips and Make a Start on Starts
In the race to become more explosive, more coordinated, and more resilient, integrating skipping and start drills in the warm-up process is often overlooked. In reality, their impact on timing, limb control, and ground reaction efficiency is massive.
Whether you’re training a pitcher to improve their mound explosiveness, a hitter to synchronize their body segments, or a fielder to sharpen their lateral movement, skipping and consistent start work builds better athletes.
We are committed to providing you with the best educational experience, whether it’s online or in person. Check out our course page to see how our Return Beyond Performance Course and our Players and Coaches event integrate both.
Strength Matters Most, and if you run well, jump well, and train your arm effectively, your performance will be better than ever.
Ryan
Ryan@armcare.com
