Neural Charge Training for Baseball

I first learned about neural charge training a few months ago when I read, Neural Charge Training by Christian Thibaudeau. This article changed my perspective on training frequency and since then I have experimented with neural charge workouts in my own training and the training of my athletes.

Here are the major points I took away form Thibs article and my experimentation.

All exercises need to be explosive in nature (jumps, plyo push-ups, throws)
Alternate between lower body exercises with upper body exercises
Keep the workouts under 20 minutes
Every set you should feel more explosive then the last
Stop the workout before fatigue sits in

I’ve found that neural charge workouts are a great way to train other plains of motions beyond the sagittal plane. While compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, presses, lunges, pull-ups etc are all great, they all occur on the sagittal plane. Sports involve rotating (transverse plane) and lateral movements (frontal plane). Neutral charge workouts are an excellent way to incorporate exercises on all 3 planes of motion.

Here are 3 sample neural charge workouts I’ve used with my athletes:

Neural Charge Baseball Workout
1A) Rotational Med Ball Throw
1B) Lateral Bench Jump
1C) Plyo push-up
1D) Broad Jumps

Neural Charge Baseball Workout
1A) Rotational Med Ball Throw
1B) Lateral Broad Jump
1C) Rotational Med Ball Throw
1D) Box Jumps

Neural Charge Baseball Workout
1A) Rotational Med Ball Throw
1B) Kneeling Jump
1C) Depth drop push-up
1D) Heidens

As you can see with these workouts we are training all 3 planes of motion. None of these workouts last more than 20 minutes (as recommended by Thibs). You can use these on off days or prior to the strength training portion of their workout. I’ve had success with box methods. This has been extremely effective with my college athletes who are only home for 4 weeks during winter break. After talking with them, they said this is the most explosive and powerful they have ever felt! Before you start incorporating these workouts into your routine, make sure you have a solid work capacity. If your work capacity is low, these workouts will be too strenuous to recover from and will limit your results.