Coaches for [tag]little league baseball teams[/tag] need to work on strength and conditioning in addition to coaching the skills for playing baseball. Helping your [tag]baseball[/tag] players develop strong quadriceps is essential. Add the following exercise to your [tag]conditioning[/tag] routine.
A variation on the Leaping Lunges is when the athletes bring their legs together in the air. During the jump up, athletes can touch their legs together for an added little work-out, before opening them back up for the landing. If this is not enough of an exercise, athletes can bring the legs together, cross them, and open them back up. All of these moves add extra elements that push the legs to work harder. When athletes bring their legs together, it uses the muscles in the inner thighs, helping stabilize the athlete in other aspects of the sport, especially running.
As a [tag]coach[/tag], you need to remind your players to always keep their backs straight and upright. They are two different things, both of which negate the benefits of the exercise. Athletes must not collapse when they land, because much of the benefit of the exercise comes in stabilizing the body during the landing. As for repetitions, athletes can be expected to do 3 sets of 10 [tag]lunges[/tag]. To increase the resistance of the Leaping Lunges, athletes can hold aluminum cans of food in their hands or dumbbells. They can also put on ankle weights if they have them instead of putting weights on the hands.
To stretch the muscles used in Leaping Lunges, athletes should do the same stretches as they do for running drills, including the hanging stretch and the quadriceps stretch.