Athletic Fuel

by Susan Kundrat, MS, RD, CSSD

Daily Training Recommendations:

· Eat a big breakfast, lean, high-carbohydrate lunch, and small snack after school to prepare for afternoon practices.

· Drink extra liquids during the day to “boost” fluid stores for workouts.

· Use salt and eat salty foods during the day to help prevent cramping and enhance hydration.

· Get in a high-carbohydrate snack with a little protein within 30 minutes of every workout to boost muscle recovery.

· Eat a high-carbohydrate dinner with at least 1 good serving of quality protein to refuel energy stores.

· Take in a good snack before bed to continue to boost recovery.

Baseball Off-Season Questions Part I

I want to gain size and strength this winter for the upcoming baseball season. What do you recommend?


There are two goals of an off-season weight training program:

1. Aid in the preventiopn of injury to the shoulder, elbow, hips, legs, and trunk.

2. Develop a stronger and more durable athlete by increasing overall strength.


Weight training is a small piece of the puzzle when talking about the development of an off-season program. Flexibility, speed, agility, power, conditioning, balance, stability, mobility and coordination are all important in the development of the total baseball player.


You should train the entire muscle structure of the body as safe as possible. Stronger muscles produce more force, which allows the player to play stronger. A comprehensive program concentrates on increasing overall strength with emphasis on the shoulder complex, torso, hips and legs. Do not concentrate on over developing the muscles of the chest with excessive pressing movements. The upper body lifts should concentrate on the muscles of the back and posterior areas of the shoulder. Remember that the majority of the injuries in baseball are shoulder (rotator cuff and labrum), elbow, core, and hip related. Concentrate on improving strength in these areas during your training.


Be consistent with your training, add weight progressively, and make sure that you incorporate post-workout stretching. Follow a good nutritional plan that will provide you the required number of calories to feed the muscles and help with recovery. Train hard, but smart.

Today's Quotes

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will"

"Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.;

"They call it coaching but it is teaching. You do not just tell them... you show them the reasons."

"The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commtment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor."

Vince Lombardi

Study Finds Ballet Dancers Fitter than International Swimmers

ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 2008) — As Mark Foster swaps his swimming trunks for his dancing shoes on the BBC television show Strictly Come Dancing, results of a study from the University of Hertfordshire have just revealed that the overall fitness of ballet dancers is greater than that of international swimmers.

The work, led by Professor Tim Watson and Dr Andrew Garrett, involved comparing members of the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet School with a squad of British National and International Swimmers, including members of the Olympic squad.

The investigation looked at a range of ‘fitness’ testing including strength, endurance, balance, flexibility and psychological state amongst others, enabling an individual ‘fitness profile’ to be constructed.

Of the ten most important measures of fitness employed, the ballet dancers had stronger scores in seven of them when taking into account body size. Ballet dancers were some 25% stronger when tested for grip strength for example.

"The results reveal the very different physical make-up of the two types of athletes" commented Professor Watson “and when it comes to training and recovery from injury, it is critical to know precisely the fitness profile needed by the participant in any physical activity.

“The individuals fitness training must cater for the varying demands of their ‘performance’ and should an injury occur, the treatment and rehabilitation that takes place must match the demands that they are going to put on their body when they return – or else further injury is highly likely.”

The full results were announced on October 23 during the University of Hertfordshire’s Health and Human Sciences Research Institute Showcase week which ran from 21-24 October at the University’s de Havilland campus.


University of Hertfordshire (2008, October 27). Ballet Dancers Are Fitter Than International Swimmers

Bob Alejo back as A's Strength Coach

OAKLAND -- Bob Alejo, best known for his ties to former A's slugger and current free-agent first baseman Jason Giambi, was hired Tuesday for a second tour of duty as Oakland's strength and conditioning coach.

The A's last month announced that they would not be renewing the contract of Clarence Cockrell, who had been the club's strength coach for seven seasons. Cockrell had replaced Alejo, who held the same post with Oakland from 1993-2001.

In a statement released by the team's public relations staff, the A's said Alejo will be responsible for all aspects of the organization's year-round conditioning program at both the Major and Minor League levels.

Alejo spent the past four years as the director of strength and conditioning at UC Santa Barbara, and he was a member of the United States Olympic Team in 2008 as the strength and conditioning coach for the men's beach volleyball team of Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser, which won gold in Beijing.

Before joining the A's in 1993, Alejo was strength and conditioning coach for Chico State's football team and later moved to UCLA as an assistant conditioning coach for all sports except football.

When Giambi signed with the Yankees after the '01 season, he hired Alejo away from Oakland to serve as his personal trainer. Giambi admitted to investigators in the Mitchell Report on performance-enhancing drugs that he used steroids, but Alejo was never implicated in the case, and he's never been mentioned in connection with steroids.

The addition of Alejo surely will lead to speculation that the A's are interested in bringing back Giambi. Oakland's brass has a policy against publicly discussing free-agent pursuits. The Yankees announced Tuesday that they will not pick up Giambi's option for 2009.

Mychael Urban is a national writer for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.