Maximize Your Off-Season: Using the P.R.E.P. Method for Baseball Recovery and Preparation

By Kathy Ryan-Ceisel, PT MHS

Overhead Throwing Specialist

Athletic Edge and Wellness

Summer ball is done—but your baseball journey isn’t. The off-season is a powerful time to recharge, assess, and come back stronger. Use our P.R.E.P. method to help guide your athlete through recovery, evaluation, and preparation for next season.

 P – Preview the Next Season

R – Recover From the Grind

E – Evaluate Your Performance

P – Prepare for What’s Next

👀PREVIEW

⚾🥎Are you preparing to try out for another organization or stay with the same organization or team.  Is the organization/team’s vision in alignment with your current goals? How will next year’s team dynamics impact your play? Will you be competing with another player for a position? Will you have a different catcher if you are a pitcher? Is that team overall strong on arms? Are you switching to a different role within the team?  What role will you have with pitching and is that different than now? What does your offseason look like? Will you be playing fall ball? Will you be playing another sport? What will your off-season training look like? Will you be looking for a different pitching or hitting coach? 

The 1st month off season is the decision maker!

👉RECOVER

▶August is a month for rest recovery. Between high school and travel season, the body needs time to rest and recover.  Now is the time to take care of those in season niggles (aches and pains).  Did you play through with an injury this season that still needs attention? Do you have an overuse injury that really needs some off time and medical attention during the off season? Taking care of those niggles now can have a significant impact on your off-season training and overall performance moving in the next season.  Often after July 4^th, overuse can ramp up due to the cumulative effects of long weekend tournaments. Travel teams carry less players than high school and players are just throwing more frequently and maybe from different positions than their high school positions. Other players may not have seen as much action in high school and then have a steep ramp up in travel ball.

▶It’s important for young athletes to take time away from baseball as most of them have been going at it since November. Studies support taking 3 months off from throwing; this allows the UCL to recover from accumulated stress. Structured offseason breaks and reduced throwing volume can promote ligament remodeling and resilience.

▶Prioritize mental health for your athlete; family time, vacation, and just doing summertime activities. Burnout is real and up to 50% of athletes quit sports by the time they’re 13 due to pressure from athletics.  Get to the pool, take a bike ride, do something other than throw a ball!

▶Refocus on healthy eating habits; too many hot dogs, chips, and eating on the road during the summer can wreak havoc on athlete’s diets. Look at your protein intake and make sure you are fueling your body enough. Most high school athletes are not taking in enough protein. 

▶Prioritize your sleeping schedule; in between early and late games, sleeping in late, and staying up late can severely impact your sleep schedule

🛌Sleep and Adolescents & under‑18 across sports:

·       Sleeping <7 hours per night was associated with a 1.7× higher risk of musculoskeletal injuries compared to those sleeping more.

·  Athletes letting nights of ≤6 hours slip by were nearly twice as likely to suffer fatigue-related injuries 

·  For ≤5.8 hours, the concussion risk nearly doubles: 15.7% vs 8.8% for athletes sleeping >7h

Now is the time to get back on schedule with school starting for many in the upcoming weeks.

❓EVALUATE YOUR SEASON

• What were your metrics? You need to dive deeper than just batting average and ERA. Everyone likes to look at batting average, as slugging percentage is also important. What was your walk to strikeout rate? 

• Pitchers: What was your strike percentage? What pitches did you have effective command over or didn’t?  What was your 1st pitch strike rate? What was your WHIP?

• How are you effective on the base pads? 

• Were there other circumstances that affected your play? (sickness, injury, coaching decisions) 

• What did your travel season look like vs your high school season?

• How was your workload management during the season? This is most often a concern in the high school athlete.

⚒ Get a Movement Screen!  

A movement assessment looks at key indicators that are specifically centered on the health and well-being of the athlete and their sport. This whole body assessment uses a series of tests to identify and pinpoint areas of limited flexibility, weakness, muscular imbalance, and inefficient movement patterns/mechanics that can impair an athletes' performance and contribute to injury. Even small changes in the body can have profound effect on how you move and ultimately how you perform. As little as 1" of vertical growth or a change of 5# of lean muscle mass can change how an athlete moves. While a physical clears an athlete to play, a movement screen helps to understand how an athlete moves.

By identifying and addressing flaws and weak links, we can help our athletes gain the competitive edge. Specific recommendations can be made for an exercise/conditioning program. A movement screen provides athletes an ongoing tool to adjust their training.  This assessment help to connect the athlete’s capabilities to skill and peak performance.

Evaluating physical constraints at the beginning of the off season is the optimal time to do it! By assessing physical constraints before the next season starts is leads to greater success going into next year. Identifying those issues not only allows you to perform better but protects you against future injury. When off-season muscle and balances are not addressed, this can lead to a carry over to the next season. Prioritizing physical impairments early on in the season opens the window for greater gains. By understanding those deficits in September, your window of opportunity is much greater than trying to take care of it after the holidays.  There are roughly 20 weeks of the offseason; understand measurable gains in mobility and strength take 12+ weeks to see progress with consistent training input.

 ✔ Key Factors That Affect How Fast You Improve:

1. Consistency – 4–6x per week gets results faster than 1–2x.

2. Intensity – Holding deep end-range positions or using resistance (like in loaded mobility or PNF stretching) leads to faster progress.

3. Area of the body – Ankles and shoulders may respond faster than hips or thoracic spine.

4. Training age and stiffness level – Beginners or very stiff athletes often see quicker early progress.

🎯PREPARE

·       What are your goals for next season?

·       Are you a travel player who’s looking to join a specific team?

·       Are you transitioning into the high school environment where competition is highly competitive?

·       Are you a junior and looking to have film for potential college exposure or participating in college camps?

·       Are you a senior who is looking for a home when it comes to college?

·       What resources do you have? (gym membership, team training, private training)

·       What is your commitment level to achieving these goals? 

·       What fielding, hitting, and pitching skills do you need to work on? 

·       Are your priorities different in high school than travel? 

·       What are your coaches going to work on with you during the off-season? 

·       What does your training schedule look like? Are you weight lifting? if you’re doing the same exercises, you were doing two years ago, the likelihood of that having an impact in your season is negligible Creating a personalized plan to your training allows you to stay on track while making measurable gains.

·       How is participation in other sports going impact your training schedule and goals? It becomes very difficult in high school with multiple coaches from different sports all tugging at an athlete’s time and training. It’s important to communicate with your coaches to prevent overtraining.

 Off-season isn't time off—it's time on purpose. Preview where you're headed. Recover fully. Evaluate your game with honesty and prepare like a pro. What you do from August to January determines what happens next spring!

💪 Call to Action

Don’t wait until the first bullpen to start preparing your arm.👉 Schedule your off-season Arm Care Assessment today to build a customized plan for your position, goals, and throwing workload — and enter next season stronger, healthier, and ready to perform.