The Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) announced on Monday that the 2023 “KBO Youth Tour Injury Prevention Education,” sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, concluded with a successful visit to Cheonan North Middle School in Cheonan, Chungcheongnam-do.
The “KBO Youth Tour Injury Prevention Education” is a project in which trainers and sports specialists from professional teams visit middle and high school baseball teams to provide injury prevention education, rotational movement education for baseball, and training equipment for the healthy growth of youth players, the future of Korean baseball.
The training began on July 10 at Dongshin Middle School in Gangdong-gu, Seoul, and was attended by 50 schools, including 30 middle schools and 20 high schools from across the country. The KBO provided training equipment worth 1 million won to the participating schools.
“When I was a professional coach, I only focused on technical training because the club trainers were in charge of weight and training, but when I became a school baseball coach, I had a hard time giving the kids professional guidance on weight and training,” said Jang Kwang-ho, head coach of Deokjeong High School, who participated in the KBO Youth Tour Injury Prevention Training. “Through this training, the direction of the players’ weight training was established, and I was surprised to see how much better the quality of their batting was during batting practice. I hope there will be more opportunities for the players to develop in a good direction in the future.”
“It was very meaningful to learn a lot of training methods that I didn’t know,” said Kim Seo-joon, a sophomore at Deokjeol High School, “and when I practiced batting while doing rotational strength exercises, I felt that my distance increased and my force transmission was better, so I will try to keep this in mind in my future training.
Seven trainers from professional teams, including Kim Yong-il (LG Twins) and Lee Ji-pung (Hanwha Eagles), and 10 sports specialists, including Oh Ju-han (KBO Commissioner) and Geum Jung-seop (Sejong Sports Orthopedic Surgery Center), participated in the KBO Youth Tour Injury Prevention Education.
LG Twins trainer Kim Yong-il said, “There are many unfortunate cases where many players enter the professional baseball league because they are good at baseball, but quit their careers due to injuries, and we emphasized that preventing injuries is the key to playing baseball for a long time. Training drills that do not match growth can lead to injuries and decreased baseball performance, so we aimed to deliver the basics of training that can help players excel in baseball through customized training.”
Meanwhile, the KBO announced that it will continue to hold the ‘Youth Tour Injury Prevention Education’ program, which was held for the first time this year, next year to promote the healthy growth of youth baseball players.