Steroids VS. The Perfect Swing (For You Baseball Players)

[RoNNy THe BuLL]

Enjoy - RTB

This is not to suggest that no ballplayers are taking advantage of modern pharmacology. Rick Collins says he knows some major league ballplayers are using steroids but can't hazard a guess as to how many. And Yesalis believes that at least 30 percent of major league ballplayers are on steroids.

But then there are skeptics like Tony Cooper of the San Francisco Chronicle, a longtime sportswriter and 20-year veteran of the weightlifting and bodybuilding culture. During the 2001 season, as Bonds was assailing McGwire's freshly minted home run record, Cooper responded to the groundswell of steroid speculation by writing that he saw no evidence of steroid use in baseball. Cooper had seen plenty of steroid users and plenty of "naked baseball players," and he couldn't name one obvious juicer in the entire sport. As for Bonds, Cooper called the accusations "ludicrous," writing that the Giants' slugger "merely looks like a man who keeps himself in condition."

Canseco, of course, claims 85 percent of players are on steroids. Caminiti initially said half, then backpedaled to 15 percent. Other players have dotted the points in between with guesses of their own. Whatever the actual figure, such widely divergent estimates suggest that not even the ballplayers themselves know the extent of the problem. And if they don't know, the pundits assuredly don't either.

A more reasonable (and answerable) question is: If players are on steroids, how much of a difference is it making?

Not much of one, according to Chris Yeager, a human performance specialist, private hitting instructor, and longtime weightLifter. Yeager's argument is not a replay of Bob Goldman's assertion that steroids function merely as placebos. Yeager posits that the engorged arms, chests, and shoulders of today's ballplayers could well be the result of steroid use--but that they aren't helping them hit home runs.

"Upper body strength doesn't increase bat speed," he explains, "and bat speed is vital to hitting home runs. The upper body is used in a ballistic manner. It contributes very little in terms of power generation." Yeager likens the arms, in the context of a hitter's swing, to the bat itself: simply a means to transfer energy. A batter's pectoral muscles, says Yeager, "are even less useful."

Yeager isn't saying steroid use couldn't increase a batter's power. He's saying most ballplayers don't train properly." There's a difference between training for strength and training for power," he says, "and most baseball players train for strength." If hitters carefully and specifically trained their legs and hips to deliver sudden blasts of power, then steroids could be useful to them, but by and large that's not what they do. "Mark McGwire hit 49 home runs as a 23-yearold rookie," Yeager says. "And, while I think he probably used steroids at some point in his career, he hit home runs primarily because of his excellent technique, his knowledge of the strike zone, and the length of his arms. Barry Bonds could be on steroids, but his power comes from the fact that he has the closest thing to a perfect swing that I've ever seen."

[snatchfactor5]

Babe Ruth was the picture perfect steroid user.

[big swoll]

as a college baseball player, i know many guys that i have played with who are now in the minor leagues.....they tell me that over half of the guys are juicing....and also as a college baseball player i can tell you out of experience, steroids do help you hit homeruns

[LightWeightBaby]

Steroids do help, If MLB has no more players using juice we will never see someone hit over 50 runs in a season imo.

[rawhide]

as a college baseball player, i know many guys that i have played with who are now in the minor leagues.....they tell me that over half of the guys are juicing....and also as a college baseball player i can tell you out of experience, steroids do help you hit homeruns

Right on bro...
As long as the athletes juice in the beginning of the season when they know they will not get tested...like in Junior Colleges...the fact that they are doing sport specific training like running sprints (which increases bat speed and arm strength) and swing the crapp out of a bat and throwing long toss...then the way you train is the way you gain. If you are trying to get swoll in the gym and that's it...and NOT swinging, throwing, running...then you will just get big...I've seen it and anyone who denies that AS don't work is full of baloney. I read an article about 5'10" Billy Wagner threw low 80's his Senior in High School...then his next semester at a JuCo he played football...put on 40 lbs! By spring time when he was ready to try out for the baseball team he was throwing low 90's!!! All the running and lifting and AS in the fall semester in football paid dividends for him in the Spring...cuz I seriously doubt that he gained that naturally in a matter of 3 months...the article came out of the Houston Chronicle...you can probably get it out of the archives...oh yeah...now he throw's 100 on a consistent basis...**** the phillies!

[BLACKZILLA]

They can absolutely help, by increasing overall strenth. But if you don't have the swing down in the first place, good overall technique, a good eye, and the ability to stay healthy then the juice is worthless as far a baseball goes.

[quez82]

make sure you stretch ...keep working out...and keep throwin a ball..i know as a pitcher winny was something that helped alot of us...