Like I said, its a slippery slope because contracts & unions make requiring any kind of training during the offseason a costly or fight provoking thing. It is certainly better than NFL where every July you’ll see a story about some player having a surgery he knew he needed as far back as December but chose to postpone it until his offseason was over, usually under the excuse of “I tried to see if I could treat it on my own with rest & therapy”.

I practice Ashtanga and think ballplayers would benefit from finding the type of stretching that suits them best. Ashtanga yoga is such a fast-paced, strong practice, it actually can replace cardio and weightlifting altogether. The guys that practice locally are totally jacked.

I’m not saying Ashtanga is the way to go, it just seems like a practice that would challenge a competitive athlete.

I do think some guys are open to the ideas of new ways (to them) of stretching, getting into better shape, and being stronger in areas that will help them prepare the best.

I cringe as I write this, but Beckett actually spoke last Spring Training about Pilates and developing his core muscles. He came to Spring Training in great shape and minus the sprained ankle (won’t comment) he wasn’t on the DL. I won’t get into the rest of his story, but, just trying to say that some guys are open to different ways of stretching.

Probably should have stopped there. Because after saying “You are probably right” you went on to ignore the argument that “dailyrev” made and instead repeated your point from before. I would just once like to hear you say (or see you write, i guess) “thats a great a point, maybe I should rethink my position.”

I’m with dailyrev on this one. I don’t think players need to work out less, I think they need to work out better. I don’t know anything about Yoga, so I won’t pretend to, but stretching before/during/after workouts and throughout the day is very important to physical fitness.

The biggest current example is the oblique injury, which I believe has had an impact on both LCS’s already and has reached a sort of endemic proportion throughout the game. Preparing such a muscle for action involves a kind of prep that most ballplayers would consider New Age touchy-feely girly hoohah. It is called yoga. specifically, hathayoga. I am fairly certain, though that if MLB trainers made it law that players do several asanas such as cobra, bow, and sun salute before every workout and every game, you’d see the problem of the oblique injury virtually disappear.

Working and building muscles is as good for baseball players as it is for anyone else, but you have to know how to treat them, how to stretch them, how to prepare them for action. Muscles, especially developed ones, that are prepared will break down under stress. The ancients understood that.