Engineering the Off-Season
A scientific approach to building brute strength, breakaway speed, and freakish power for baseball performance
How do some players make quantum leaps in hitting power, throwing velocity, and running speed every year while others get stuck?
As an athletic performance coach, I’m obviously biased.
But over the last two decades, I’ve seen hundreds of players transform their bodies over a single off-season, going from average to savage in less time than it takes to grow a mullet.
If you’re like most of the athletes I’ve trained, you probably have a vision of yourself this offseason.
Maybe it’s an inner Rocky training montage—that plays in your head.
You’re up at 5 am…
Cracking raw eggs for breakfast…
Random kids in the street join in to cheer you on your morning run.
If you’re reading this, I have no doubt you’re willing to bust your ass to become the player you want to be and know you can be.
Wouldn’t it be incredible to build a body that doesn’t just look jacked—although that, too—but is also capable of taking your performance to the next level?
Unfortunately, most athletes unknowingly approach off-season training all wrong, blasting their pecs like a 1980s bodybuilder or grinding through heavy deadlifts like a powerlifter.
Prioritizing muscle size and obsessing over weight on the bar at the expense of speed, movement quality, and multidirectional power does little to further your goals.
Even worse, these approaches can have the opposite effect, working against your natural strengths.
Problem #1: Rate of Force Development
Most programs focus on maximal strength. However, strength is only helpful to the extent that it can be applied in the context of your sport.
Here’s where it gets interesting: movements like sprinting, throwing, and swinging a bat occur faster than your muscle’s ability to develop maximum force.
This creates a gap between dynamic and maximal strength, explaining why sports performance isn’t just about who’s the strongest (although many coaches are willing to die on this hill).
Instead, the key is producing more force in less time.
Problem #2: Rotational Power
Nearly every critical movement in baseball relates to your ability to generate force through rotation. Yet, most weight-room exercises only occur in the sagittal plane.
Our bodies adapt—strengthening and upgrading for the future—based on the speed (see above), magnitude, and direction of stresses we encounter.
Developing strong rotational power allows athletes to transfer energy more efficiently from their lower body through their core to their arms.
Problem #3: Individualiztion
Body type, bone structure, and joint positioning affect how you move.
A tall, lanky player with a narrow rib cage and pelvis will not have the same movement strategies as a shorter, thicker player.
By nature of their anatomy, each athlete will excel at certain aspects and require different training approaches.
Customizing training to fit your unique structure allows us to fill the exact buckets that need filling rather than waste time accumulating unproductive training volume.
The Good News...
My team has spent decades testing, tweaking, and experimenting with various approaches to developing the versatility and athleticism coaches and scouts want to see.
The results speak for themselves with many of our athletes going on to top-tier programs, like:
Engineering the Off-Season
A scientific approach to building the foundations for baseball performance.
Our step-by-step system combines cutting-edge technology and the latest training techniques to empower you with everything you need to build fluid, dynamic movement and improve speed, arm strength, and explosiveness.
01
Comprehensive Evaluation
We believe a training program should be built around you, not the other way around. Your journey begins with our signature movement screen and athletic testing battery, designed to uncover restrictions or asymmetries and identify areas of strength and weakness.
02
Custom Programming
Stop wasting your time with random tactics. Most training programs fail because they don’t meet you where you are. Our programs take a holistic approach to athlete development based on your unique structure, movement strategies, and current abilities.
03
Expert Coaching
Rocky had Mickey. Luke had Obei-Wan. Daniel had Mr. Miyagi. There are few things in sports or life more powerful than having a coach in your corner—someone you can trust to answer questions, make tweaks and adjustments, and keep you motivated and accountable.
04
Performance Monitoring
Modern technologies like force plates, laser timers, and velocity-based training devices are like having a GPS for your body. Not only do they allow us to quantify improvements, but they also provide objective feedback every workout to ensure we never get off track.
What Our Athletes Say
“I started at PPT when I was 13 and trained there throughout college. They taught me key movement patterns that actually translated to on-field performance.
Mitch Schroder
Middlebury College
“Without the help of Pure Performance, I wouldn’t have been able to stay healthy while adding the power, mobility, and velocity numbers college coaches want to see.”
Teo Spadaccini
Yale University
“Pure Performance Training played a crucial role in my training and development as an athlete and helped me fulfill my dream to become a Division I baseball.”
Ryan Grundy
College of the Holy Cross
Choose Your Plan
AA Plan
Perfect for 1-2x/week- 10 Sessions ($60)
- Sports-Science Evaluation
- Custom Program
- Weekly Group Sessions
- Email/Text support
AAA Plan
Perfect for 2-3x/week- 20 Sessions ($55)
- Sports-Science Evaluation
- Custom Program
- Weekly Group Sessions
- Email/Text support
- First Session One-on-One
Major League Plan
Perfect for the Entire Off-Season- 30 Sessions ($50)
- Sports-Science Evaluation
- Custom Program
- Weekly Group Sessions
- Email/Text support
- First 3 Session One-on-One
- PPT Long Term Athletic Development E-Book
Meet the Team
Adam Vogel
I’m a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and the owner of Pure Performance Training in Needham and Sudbury.
My team and I have enjoyed a close relationship with the New England Ruffnecks baseball organization for over fifteen years.
We’ve helped thousands of athletes improve their performance, overcome injuries, and take their game to the next level.