Daily KPB| Staying on Track and Productive While Injured - a podcast by Keep Playing Baseball

 This Daily KPB episode is the podcast version of our Staying on Track on the DL blog article. In this episode, we discuss how to take ownership over your recovery. We lay out 10 things you can do to ensure you keep improving and help your team get better, even if you can't play. We list the 10 suggestions below but listen in for more detail!

1. Talk to your doctor and meet with the athletic trainer to get a clear sense of what you can and cannot do. Ask about baseball activities and workout/fitness activities.


2. Stay in shape in any way you can. Ask your doctor and/or trainer about alternative activities. Just because you have bicep tendinitis, it doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t run or lift legs. If you have a strained hamstring, it doesn’t mean you can’t do shoulder strengthening exercises. Be sure to get the okay from your doctor first.


3. Develop a new routine. Using the tendinitis as an example again, instead of stretch, throw, defensive work, hit during practice, your new routine might be, stretch, run sprints, defensive glove work, one armed tee work. Your trainer can help you figure out what is best for your situation.


4. Commit to your rehab! Listen carefully to your doctor and trainer. Review their plan. Schedule it out, write it down; make sure you stay on top of it. The trainer may be juggling many different players, so you need to be proactive and take ownership over your own recovery! Ask the trainer how to use time in the training room to “prehab” (do preventative care) in other areas.


5. Do as much baseball activity as you are allowed by your doctor and trainer.


6. Make sure your coaches know what you can and cannot do. Meet with them and ask about different ways you can be involved in the practice plan. They may be delighted to learn that they’ll have another person who can help run practice. Other players will also appreciate you staying on board and helping the team, even if it’s not on the field.


7. Watch, watch, watch! There is so much value in purposeful observation and learning things from others can make things "click" for you when you get back in action. What are the best players doing to make themselves better? What are the less productive players doing? By paying attention to others, you can learn a lot and get better without picking up a ball, bat or glove.


8. Stay on top of your school work! Bad grades = less opportunities to play college baseball. Use any extra time you may have to get ahead.


9.  Work on being a great teammate. Being a good teammate is rule number one in baseball. Injuries provide you with an opportunity to help your teammates in times when you normally wouldn’t have opportunity to do so. Take advantage of it.


10. Help the team be better in any way possible. Do a chart during a game, work on picking the opposing team’s signs, help out with fieldwork, be a positive voice, etc. There are tons of ways to help the team, if you don’t know how, just ask your coach what you can do to help.

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