It's time, man, you know?

♪♪

Gonna get the whole world hot, man.

Let them feel these side effects.

Damn, son, where'd you find this?

-♪♪

All right, this whole water bag thing's getting out of hand.

All jokes aside, let's dive into water bags.

Why are they gaining so much popularity?

You may be asking yourself, hey, Summers, I noticed you guys have water bags there at your facility.

What do they actually do?

When we're looking in terms of what we call hypertrophy, which is size getting bigger, it's a big red X.

Why? Because there is basically four key principles to building hypertrophy or gaining size.

The first key principle is what we call progressive overload.

That is increasing the weight on the bar or the reps that you're doing on the bar or any particular exercise throughout a program.

A lot of these water bags stay the same weight, so they're very hard to progressively overload, you know, over the course of a program.

Number two would be volume.

So you want to stick to the eight to 12 rep ranges when you're looking to build hypertrophy.

If you were to do that with one of these light water bags, you're not nearly gonna get enough of the third key principle, which is intensity, because we want to be at eight to 12 reps on volume to build size, but this intensity has to be from 60 to 75% of your one rep max.

Again, it all depends on what exercise that you're doing, but for instance, if you're doing a squat with a 20-pound water bag, odds are you can lift a whole lot more than 20 pounds, so that 20 pounds on the intensity is gonna be nowhere near your 60 to 75% of your one rep max, so you're hitting it for eight to 12 reps, being completely under-stimulated, so you're not gonna be able to gain any hypertrophy there.

Then number four, the four key principle, you're gonna be able to get away with this during water bag training, but like I said, you're not gonna get the intent or the volume that you need to build hypertrophy, and that's just range of motion.

So full range of motion, stretching that muscle, contracting it, that's how you build that hypertrophy.

The intent at 60 to 75% of your one rep max for eight to 12 reps at deep ranges of motion, that's how you build hypertrophy.

Water bags aren't gonna get it done for you.

Next is strength.

There's another red X here because water bags are not gonna help you build strength adaptation.

Why?

Because the key principles of strength are almost like hypertrophy, right?

The progressive overload, the intensity volume.

However, with strength, the volume decreases while the intensity goes up.

So you are very less likely to build strength even in hypertrophy because these water bags are massively underloaded.

So then number four is going to be your periodization.

That's another big problem with these water bags.

They're very hard to periodize and progressively overload throughout an off season or throughout an entire year just because they are so light and the heaviest ones only get 40 or so pounds.

So if you're trying to back squat, build a strength adaptation in a back squat, you're not gonna get much out of it if the water bag's only 40 pounds.

Now what about force or force output?

Are water bags gonna get it done?

No, they are not.

Why?

Because water bags are unstable.

They create an unstable atmosphere as you're moving them around.

That is the entire goal of the water bag is to create instability and your body has to try to stabilize it.

So why this does not build force is because there's something called the force stability paradox.

So that means you cannot create max force while being unstable.

So the water bags create an unstable atmosphere.

There's no way you could possibly create max force.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna put it to the test right now with our guide juice.

So the way we're gonna put this to the test is we're gonna do a hop test on our force plate.

So this is gonna tell us everything.

Amount of force output juice is gonna put into it.

So we have a water bag that is 10 pounds and we have a regular 10 pound med ball that is dense all the way through.

So we're gonna have him do the hop test with the water ball to see his force output and his reactive strength index.

Then we're gonna go ahead, do the regular ball to see.

So first one, we're gonna go ahead, hit six jumps with the water ball.

Get it.

Good?

Got it.

That was six.

Alrighty, so mean RSI is .83 meters per second.

Okay, so his peak, mean peak force on bilateral both legs was 3,541 newtons.

So obviously we wanna see those newtons go up and we wanna see that reactive strength index get better.

So now we're gonna use the regular med ball here.

Six jumps, pop quick.

Yep.

All right, so if you take a look, his mean peak force bilaterally went to 4,680 newtons, which is a 32% increase in peak force comparatively to the balls.

And his RSI went to 1.05 meters per second.

That went up 26.5%.

So those are some pretty crazy increases in overall reactive strength index and force output, simply training with a regular med ball compared to a water ball.

So as you can see here, if you're looking for force, max force output, water bags simply aren't gonna get it done.

So you may be thinking, they gotta be good for power, right?

Guess what?

They are not.

Why?

Because power equals force times velocity.

And if there's no force, if force is zero times velocity, anything times zero equals zero power.

So water bags are very poorly efficient for building power as well.

So what is water bag training good for?

Well, I could tell you the two main reasons that we use them for in our facility.

And number one is what we call proprioception.

That is the body's ability to sense its position, movement, and actions in space.

So from a searly skills training component, mechanically while you're throwing, our pitchers love them, okay?

That's because they can feel out certain positions or grooving patterns that they will down the mound.

If you can have these water bags put you in those positions in a controlled environment, your brain is going to remember that position.

It's gonna remember that proprioception.

So the idea is to have them do that with the water bags in a controlled environment if it's putting them into a proper hinge to where they subconsciously can transfer that over to the mound.

But the massive problem that happens is a lot of guys will go into facilities and all of their training is gonna be done on those water bags.

A lot of places don't even pick up a ball.

Some days they just go in, hit their water bag field work.

Here, we like to hit the water bag field work and then immediately transition onto the mound or onto throwing so they can feel those same positions.

But there is no physiology adaptations that we're looking for in strength, speed, power, hypertrophy.

It's all from a neuromuscular skill standpoint.

But it's also pretty decent as a central nervous system primer because it acts as co-contraction.

So if you've been following me for a while now, you know our workouts in here.

After the movement prep, we go into a central nervous system primer.

So that's something that's really quick, causing co-contraction.

So it's gonna help the brain's electromechanical delay throughout that specific workout.

So what that means is if you hit a primer right after your movement prep before your workout, your brain's gonna work a lot better and you're gonna be more responsive.

Almost like a lawnmower before you mow the grass.

How you hit the primer button to help the fuel get into the engine, that's the same thing that works with our body.

Our brain is gonna pick up that signal because of those rapid fire co-contractions and it's gonna allow for a more efficient workout.

So co-contraction is the simultaneous contraction of muscles across the joint.

So what co-contraction is also good for is building joint stability.

So after a lot of our pitchers throw, they'll come in, hit some co-contraction with the water bags to help ensure that joint stability.

But I'm gonna be honest with you, the big problem is that, is that these water bags are massively under loaded.

So when we're doing straight co-contraction, we like to add a band with it as well just to get more of a heavier stimulus.

Just cause the water bags, like I said, are very light, don't get a whole lot out of them.

So throughout all of this, everything training, you know,

I know it's hot to add new water bags into the mix, everybody's doing it.

But you have to understand that we do have very certain principles in building physiology in the exercise science community or in the exercise science world that we know is true.

And one of those is called the SED principle.

So the SED principle is specific adaptations to impose specific demands.

So what that means is one is specificity.

The body adapts to the specific demands placed on it during training.

If you want to improve a specific aspect, the training needs to be specific to that goal.

So here's a scenario, right?

If one of my pitchers is not strong enough for his land break leg to be as efficient as it needs to be, doing water bag training is not gonna give him that specific adaptation he's looking for.

He has to build strength in that single leg.

So what's gonna do a better job rather than doing water bag fuel work would be getting under a bar, progressively overloading that strength on a single leg or unilateral exercise like a Bulgarian split squat, reverse lunge split squat.

So for that specific athlete, if they're weak, that's what we would go with.

But if that athlete is plenty strong enough in the weight room on that exercise, his issue, his limiting factor is a skill.

He can't efficiently time it up.

Maybe water bags would be something that you could feel in that to make sure he's getting the right sequencing, the right timing from a skills component.

So is it a strength issue or is it a skill side issue that can be cleaned up with the water bags?

And that's gonna be individualized towards the athlete.

So two, adaptation.

The body adapts to specific demands placed on its training like I just went over.

And then number three, imposed demands.

Adaptations are a response to the specific demands of the exercise.

So what that means is that specific adaptations aren't always a good thing.

So for instance, a lot of pitchers go out and they train long distance at their universities.

They'll do pool running, mile running.

This is like the age-old conflict in baseball performance training.

So what that is doing is building up your aerobic energy system.

That's the adaptation you're looking for.

So what happens then is when you build up your aerobic system, in that case, it is pulling away from your anaerobic system, which we need for speed, strength, and power training in baseball.

So that long distance running, we know to be counterproductive and pulling away from our baseball-specific performance.

And that happens in this case.

You know, a lot of facilities out there just doing straight water bag training for everything that they do.

A lot of them don't even touch the weight room, right?

What is happening is they're not getting better at baseball.

They're not getting better at pitching, at hitting.

They're simply just getting better at the imposed demands of doing that water bag drill.

That is the only thing they're getting better at.

It's not crossing over to the field because of imposed demands.

So adaptations don't always have to be good.

That's why it's important to be specific with your training, right?

A mile cross-country runner is not going to train the same as a baseball player and vice versa because different exercises elicit different adaptations.

So in summary, you're safe bet when talking water bags.

From a physiology standpoint, building physiological adaptations in muscle hypertrophy, muscle strength, speed, power, et cetera.

Water bags will not get you there.

I promise you that.

But as far as a skill point, they are okay to add in for your field drills.

In my opinion, you don't need to be, you know, hammering down crazy on the water bag field drills.

But what you can do is hit them and then immediately go into, you know, if it's catch play, if it's throwing a bullpen, if it's hitting.

The majority of your time spent during the skill needs to go back to those demands.

It needs to be the skill itself.

The best way to be a good hitter is to hit.

The best way to be a good pitcher is to pitch.

Not necessarily doing all these water bags.

So in my personal opinion,

I think that water bags are overrated right now during this time period.

However, like I did say, we do have them in our facility and our guys are using them the right way.

And I can see some pretty serious results that are transferring over right to the mound.

So it's a tool.

It's all how you use it.

Game rewards a grind.

It knows how much you invested.