History of Baseball Strength and Conditioning in Professional Baseball Part 2: The 1980s, the Nolan Ryan Influence and the Era of Acceptance and Innovation

By Gene Coleman, Ed. D., RSCC*E

Nolan Ryan joined the Houston Astros prior to the 1980 season as the highest-paid player in MLB, earning 1.1 million dollars a year. I received a phone call from the GM, Tal Smith, informing me that we had signed him and inviting me to a reception to introduce him as the Astros’ newest member. Prior to the reception, I had never met Nolan. I had watched him pitch in the 1979 MLB All-Star game on TV and I knew that he lived in Alvin, Texas about 20 minutes away from my home in Clear Lake.

Before we signed Nolan, our starting pitchers were doing one total body workout between each start. I had four of the five starters on board with the program, but the fifth, Ken Forsch, was not as committed as the other four. I was talking to Ken at the reception when Nolan walked up and introduced himself. He asked if I was the strength coach; I said yes. He said, “Well…I’m going to have a problem with your strength program.”

My first reaction was we have a million-dollar prima donna who will undo two years of the things we have worked for. Ken grinned ear-to-ear thinking he had somebody on his side. But then Nolan said, “I can only lift three times between starts.” That set the tone for the Astros for the next four decades and Nolan and I became instant friends.

THE EXISTING PROGRAM. In 1980, we had one exercise bicycle, no treadmill, some surgical tubing and a couple of leather medicine balls that would burst after 3-4 hard throws. Dr. Frank Jobe had just published his research on the importance of strengthening the rotator cuff, so we had a few 3-5 pound dumbbells for “Jobe exercises”, but nothing heavier. Lifting free weights was taboo in baseball at that time. GMs, managers and coaches equated free weights to body building and believed that body building would make you “muscle bound”. Nautilus machines were the hottest thing going in the early 80s and four teams bought them, the Dodgers, Phillies, Reds and Astros.

Starting pitchers completed one total body workout between each start and position players did three total body workouts a week. We did three sets of ten (3×10) of 7 to 8 different exercises each workout and it took forever. We divided the players into two lifting groups. Starters lifted on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Extra men lifted on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Sundays were off-days. Because very few National League teams had facilities for players in the early 80s, it was not always easy to get in a quality lifting workout on the road. We had access to a very old universal gym in Olympic Stadium when the Montreal Alouettes (CFL) were in season and could occasionally sneak in and use the Steelers’ and Chargers’ facilities. Many workouts on the road consisted of body weight exercises – push-ups, lunges, step-ups, etc.

Prior to the arrival of Nolan, starting pitchers lifted one time per week. They stretched, ran and did a core workout (we called core work sit-ups back then) four times between starts. Because we didn’t know any better, pitchers did a 20-30 minute flush run the day after a start. They threw a bullpen and ran ten, 30-35 second poles on day two, followed by slower poles and a total body workout on day three. Day four consisted of 10-12 short sprints and a few sit-ups. On day five, they stretched and ran 10 short sprints before they pitched. Relievers ran shorter distances (half-poles, quarter-poles and sprints) and lifted after games in which they pitched. Total body Nautilus workouts consisted of five leg exercises (leg press, calf raise, leg curl, leg extension and hip extension). Upper body lifts included chest presses, pullovers, biceps curls and triceps presses.

THE EMERGENCE OF FREE WEIGHTS. The transition from machines to free weights started in the mid-80s, in large part, because of the formation of the NSCA. There were not many strength coaches in professional sports that you could consult with in the early 80s. Bill Allerheiligen, strength and conditioning coach with the Houston Oilers and Bob Ward of the Dallas Cowboys really helped me, as did Bill Thornton, MD. Bill was an Astronaut, engineer and pilot with a medical degree and over 300 hours in space. He was responsible for designing most of the exercise equipment, exercise protocols and in-flight measurement procedures used by NASA astronauts during the Skylab and Shuttle Programs. Bill taught me to how to evaluate exercise equipment and the importance of personalized exercise prescriptions and accurate measurement and recording procedures.

The Oilers and Cowboys used Nautilus machines in the late 70s and early 80s, but as the NSCA became more established, things started to change. I was invited to speak at one of their meetings in Dallas in 1983. I talked about our Nautilus workouts and most of the football strength coaches looked at me like I was crazy because they were into free weights. Strength coaches in baseball started talking to those in other sports, saw the results that were being achieved with free weights and began to incorporate more free weight exercises into their programs.

THE PLAYER FACTOR AND MANAGEMENT BUY IN. The players also played a major role in the transition to free weights. By the mid-80s, several of the younger players had participated in college strength training programs that used free weights. Because strength training was still relatively new to the game of baseball, many of the college baseball strength training programs were football oriented. By the late 80s, the game went from most players having no lifting background to several players having 3 to 4 years of lifting experience.

The player who advocated strength training the most was Nolan Ryan. Nolan had started lifting on his own between starts during his time with the Angles. He found an old Universal Gym machine in the stadium that had belonged to a soccer team. The Angels, at the time, believed that weight training made you muscle bound, so Nolan had to sneak in his strength training workouts. Over time, he learned how to work different areas of his body for balance and flexibility and to take days off to recover. He also discovered that even if he was somewhat stiff from lifting, it had no effect on his ability to pitch and that his arm would bounce back more quickly from one start to the next. This was important because the Angles had a 4-man rotation and pitchers pitched every fourth day instead of every fifth day. In his 8 seasons with the Angels, Nolan made 291 starts, had 156 complete games, pitched 2,181.1 innings and recorded 2,416 Ks – most on three days rest. He made 39 starts in 1972 (20 complete games), 41 in 1973 (26 complete games) and 42 in 1974 (26 complete games). He pitched over 300 innings twice and 299 innings once.

Nolan said that a key to his success with the Angels was that his velocity increased in the later innings. While the pitching coach said this was probably attributed to his establishing a rhythm, finding a good groove and improving mechanics as the game progressed – all valid points; Nolan believed the conditioning program made this possible by increasing his stamina. He believed that once you fatigue, it affects your mechanics and you can’t pitch with the precise timing required for a smooth, compact motion. Nolan said that he was so pleased with his results that he bought a Universal Gym for his home, and it paid dividends. During his first 3 years in the AL, he pitched more than 900 innings – most with only three days of rest between starts. He said that there is no way he could have recovered as quickly, or been as durable, without a firm base of strength from lifting. He firmly believed that lifting helped him be more consistent. His conditioning and near perfect mechanics helped him pitch for 27 season, throw 5,386 innings, pitch 222 complete games, record 7 no-hitters, 12 one-hitters and pitch 36 complete games with 2 or fewer hits.

Nolan believed that no player, especially a starting pitcher, should ever lose because the opposition was better prepared. He shared this philosophy with his teammates and most of them bought in. He started the tradition where veteran players would lead by example and share with younger players the importance of working out.

Houston won the NL West in 1980 but lost in five to Philadelphia in the playoffs. With the loss, came a new GM, Al Rosen. Al was “old school”. He played third base for the Indians (1947-1956) back when you played yourself into shape and had been GM for the Yankees (1978-79) just before teams began to initiate strength and conditioning programs. While Al was skeptical of the lifting program, he respected Nolan. Initially when a player got hurt or went through a tough stretch, Al had a tendency complain about the program. Over time, he mellowed some and even asked me to accompany him to San Francisco when he became the Giants GM after the 1985 season.

We had a 90-100% percent participation rate in the 80s, due in large part to the work ethic of players like Nolan, Don Sutton, J. R. Richard, Joe Sambito, Terry Puhl, Craig Reynolds, Phil Garner, Jose Cruz, Cesar Cedeno, Art Howe and Denny Walling . Because of our success in 1980 and the friendship between the owners of the Astros and Rangers, I had the opportunity to work for both the Astros and Rangers during the 1981 season. The owner of the Rangers, Eddie Chiles, an oil man from Texas, was big into motivational speeches. He brought in a speaker during the off-season who said that a good leader (or coach) should strive to duplicate himself through others. This seemed like a great idea to me. I had been telling our players that my goal was to get them to be so self-sufficient in the weight room that they could do it without me.

Nolan was our first team leader in the weight room and he set the stage for what came afterward. In each decade after Nolan, there was always at least one Astros player who became a leader in the weight room and helped ensure that everyone participated and that every workout was safe and productive. What started with Nolan was passed on to guys like Ken Caminitti, Jeff Bagwell, Shane Reynolds, Craig Biggio, Billy Wagner, Brian Moehler and Hunter Pence. It also helped that we were able to add veterans with great work ethics like Don Sutton, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettite and Miguel Tejada to help keep the ball rolling.

My experience indicates that you can’t nag or force Major League players into the weight room. You also can’t take it personally if someone doesn’t want to work out. Your job is to design the best program that you can for each player, and be there to offer support, motivation and instruction on how to train in a safe and efficient manner. Someone once told me that being a strength coach is like being a missionary. You can’t save everyone in the World. You should be there for everyone, but focus most of you energy on those who want to be saved. You can’t tattle to the GM or manager if a player doesn’t work out and you can’t lie to protect him. If management asks if a player is not working out, you have to tell the truth and move on. The responsibility has to be on the player.

FACILITY ADAPTATION – RYAN;S HILLS AND THE POOL. We redesigned the clubhouse in the Astrodome in 1981 and built a hill in the weight room. The hill had a 25° incline, was 15 yards long and 5 yards wide and went over the top of my office. The idea for the hill came after the GM (Al Rosen) saw Earl Campbell of the Houston Oilers run the banks of Buffalo Bayou during the off season. Earl, like Nolan, was the hardest working player on his team and Al reasoned that if it was good for Earl, it should be good for the Astros. Nolan;s hill program has become popular again as the Reds built one in Arizona, Yankees built one in Tampa and the Houston Texans (NFL) put one in Reliant Stadium.

We used the hill for warm-up and conditioning during the off-season. During the season we used it before games as part of our warm-up and in the late innings when extra men had to get loose to pinch hit or run. Nolan loved the hill and used it as part of his daily conditioning program. He would run it 50 times a day going forwards and backwards, doing lunges, shuffles, cariocas, sprints, etc. He liked it so much that we had one built at our spring training facility in Coco, Florida. This concept was foreign to baseball because the only hill is the pitching mound and the sport is played on a perfectly flat surface. We used the hill as a method of overloading our players and told them that their hips are the “money makers” in hitting, running and pitching. Later, we created an off-season metabolic circuit where a player did an uphill sprint in the Astrodome, before and after each lifting exercise.

The swimming pool was another training innovation that we developed to help prolong Nolan’s career, provide a non-impact conditioning tool and rehab lower body injuries. Nolan pulled a hamstring while pitching against the Mets in 1983 and it was bad. A friend, James Blackwood, an assistant track coach at The University of Texas at Austin, was having his distance runners do two workouts per day. The first workout was performed outdoors and the second was performed in a swimming pool. The track athletes got in the deep end of the pool and ran for 50-60 minutes. Texas had started the program because there was research showing that several elite athletes who had trained in the pool following a leg or foot injury were able to set personal and sometimes World’s records within a short time of their return to the track.

Nolan and I met with the team physician and asked if there was any harm in doing the aquatics program. He saw no harm, but doubted that it would do any good. I went to a scuba shop and bought two masks and two snorkels. We both got in the pool and did a 5-minute warm-up jog. The masks kept the water out of our eyes and the snorkels allowed us to float vertically with only our hair sticking out of the water. After the warm-up, we did a 20-minute sprint program. I told Nolan that we could both run a 10 flat hundred so that he would have some idea of distance and time. A 10-second sprint would be 100 yards; a 5-second sprint would be 50 yards and so on.

We did sets of 10 all-out sprints of different durations (distances) with a slow jog between each rep. The rest to work interval between reps was 3 to 1. A 5-second sprint was followed by a 15 second slow jog; a 10-second sprint by a 30-second slow jog and so on. There was also a 60-second slow jog after each set. The program started with a set of ten 50s (ten 5-second sprints); followed by ten 100s; ten 150s; two 300s; ten 100s and ten 50s.

When you sprint all-out, most of your head comes out of the water and you suck air in and push it out through a 12-inch long hose that is 1-inch in diameter. Since the last air out is the first air in, you get a lot of CO2 coming back in on each breath. Also, because your chest is under water, there is an extra one-half PSI of force compressing your chest on each breath. The combination of extra pressure on your chest and reduced oxygen coming in on each breath makes breathing really hard and severely taxes the cardiorespiratory system.

We did this for 21 days, after which Nolan pitched a five-inning simulated game and averaged 95 mph. Three days after that, he started. He told me this program saved his career; he was on the last year of his contract. In normal rehab it would take 21 days to recover and 21 days to get back into shape, but by that time it would have been September.

Nolan saw a chiropractor after every start before the hamstring injury. We calculated that he had thrown over 100,000 pitches at 90+ mph before joining the Astros. That is a lot of wear and tear. He was also bowlegged and had a pronated ankle. After each start he cooled down by jogging 10-15 minutes in the pool. The first day after a start we got back into the pool by mid-morning and had a hard workout. The length and intensity of the pool workouts decreased each day after the first workout. In the late afternoon, Nolan sprinted ten 60s on dry land and rode an exercise bike for 20 minutes each day at the park. He was in the pool every day throughout the season. The relief from pounding provided by the pool enabled him to go from seeing a chiropractor 30 times a year to only three times — it was that big of a relief. We used this program with several players for decades and shared it with other teams.

Part 3 will continue to look at the 80s.

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Gene Coleman, Ed. D., RSCC-E, FACSM, was the Head S&C Coach for the Houston Astros from 1978-2012 and strength and conditioning consultant for the Texas Rangers from 2013-2020. He is Professor in the Exercise and Health Sciences Program at the University of Houston – Clear Lake and website education manager, baseballstrength.org