*This content was translated by AI.
"I hope we can find a new original style unique to Korea."
A pitcher who throws a 160 km/h fastball cannot be created simply by adopting one good training method. Takahashi Junichi (50), an S&C coach who has experienced both Japanese and American professional baseball scenes, posed his final question for Korean baseball: "a development approach unique to Korea."
Speaking to StarNews at the Korea Baseball Softball Association's (KBSA) recent seminar on advanced S&C theory and practical training held at Dong-eui University in Busan, Coach Takahashi said, "I believe Korean baseball has treated American baseball as a textbook for about 15 years," but added, "However, I do not think that approach was suitable for all Korean players."
He emphasized that for Korean athletes to fully utilize their physical advantages, they need greater attention to flexibility, movement, and coordination. Of course, it is difficult to draw a simple conclusion such as "Korea focuses on weight training while Japan emphasizes flexibility." Yoon Hyung-jun (39), a trainer who has coached players domestically, offered a slightly different perspective: "In Korea, warm-ups and movement training are not absent. While some teams may lack sufficient resources, similar training with comparable objectives is conducted."
What he focused on more was the environment of Korean amateur baseball. Student-athletes in Korea can only begin serious training around 3 p.m., after finishing classes. Even schools equipped with night lighting can typically use their fields only until around 10 p.m. due to neighborhood concerns. Excluding dinner time and preparation before and after training, the actual available training time on weekdays is roughly five hours at most.
The problem lies in the fact that dozens of athletes must complete batting, fielding, pitching, and weight training within this limited timeframe. Five national tournaments and practice games are scheduled on weekdays, while weekend leagues are held on Saturdays and Sundays. From the perspective of players and coaches, there is no choice but to prioritize technical training immediately needed for games, causing foundational training such as flexibility and movement — which do not yield immediate results in scores — to naturally be pushed aside.
Even teams that can fully utilize five hours a day are not common. Many schools lack an official baseball field within their premises, forcing them to seek external facilities. Even when a school has its own field, the number of batting cages and training spaces is often limited. Moreover, building such infrastructure falls entirely on students and parents.
Assuming a high school baseball team has 40–50 members with approximately 25 position players, rotating once through three batting cages where each player trains for three minutes would take about 30 minutes. Completing four rounds of batting practice alone would consume roughly two hours. Adding catch-and-throw drills, fielding, pitching, weight training, and warm-ups leaves little room in the daily schedule. This explains why many amateur baseball coaches complain, "There is no time to train."
Trainer Yoon stated, "In Korean amateur baseball, after excluding warm-up, cool-down, and meal times, there is very little time left for batting and fielding training. In this situation, we cannot attribute the lack of allocated time for stretching and movement training solely to coaches' awareness; it is also a systemic issue."
More fundamentally, the question itself — "stretching or weight training?" — may be flawed. Trainer Yoon acknowledged, "Stretching does help athletes feel the natural 'flow' of their bodies," but added, "Weight training can also develop the same sensation." He maintained his stance that both approaches have merit.
Ultimately, the goal is the same: to create "good movement" by properly controlling one's body and efficiently transferring force when needed. Some may use stretching, while others may rely on weight training or drills. The priority is first to determine what each athlete needs, then select the appropriate method accordingly.
Korean baseball has already experienced similar trial and error. Following Yoshinobu Yamamoto's (28, Los Angeles Dodgers) success, his throwing drill attracted attention in Korea, but it failed to gain widespread adoption because players differed in physique, mobility, and pitching mechanics. Similarly, promising domestic players who trained at the IMG Academy in the United States focused not on specific drills themselves, but on the process of identifying training tailored to their own bodies. The same applies to Japanese-style S&C. If simply copying Coach Takahashi's flexibility and movement training were the answer, there would be no reason for him to urge finding "Korea's own original style."
Looking more broadly, the very process through which athletes begin and grow in baseball differs across countries. Korea has a smaller population and less developed baseball infrastructure compared to the United States and Japan, along with distinct educational environments and ways of engaging with sports. Unlike Korea, where young athletes are selected early as elite specialists and focus intensively on one sport for extended periods, both Japan and the U.S. have relatively more developed structures in which a larger number of students engage in sports through daily life, and those showing talent and interest gradually transition into competitive sports.
In Japan, a culture has been widely established where students engage in sports through school club activities from an early age. In the United States, it is not uncommon to see students participating in multiple sports simultaneously. Indeed, some athletes demonstrate high-level competitiveness in two or more sports — such as baseball, football, and basketball — and become eligible for professional drafts. Developing talent within a small, pre-selected group of aspiring baseball players from the outset differs fundamentally from discovering baseball potential within a broad pool of athletes with diverse sporting experiences.
This is precisely why we cannot assume that Korean players will achieve the same results simply by training identically to Japanese or American counterparts. Differences extend beyond physical conditions to include the process through which athletes begin sports, available time and facilities, and the very movements they have experienced.
What is needed, then, is not to determine which country's training methods are superior. Instead, we must first diagnose each athlete's body, define necessary abilities according to age and developmental stage, and find ways to implement these within Korea's realistic training environment. This is why Coach Takahashi emphasized that "now is the time to put everything currently being done back on the table and seriously consider what is truly needed."
Ultimately, a 160 km/h pitcher cannot be created through a single special drill. Athletes must learn diverse movements during their growth phase, develop the ability to control their bodies, and then connect power and stability within their pitching mechanics. Additionally, customized training to address each player's unique challenges, along with the time, facilities, and coaching systems required to sustain such training consistently, are essential. A 160 km/h fastball is closer to a result that emerges only when all these elements align.
Neither American nor Japanese methods provide the definitive answer; they can serve as reference materials. The priority is not to indiscriminately adopt good training techniques, but to build a system that enables Korean players to discover answers suited to them on their own. Now is the time for Korean baseball to establish its own "New Normal."
- How to Create a 160 km/h Pitcher
① "Korean players have excellent cars but cannot drive them" — Why, despite having better physiques than Japanese athletes? A trainer who created MLB's 34-win pitcher and Japanese pitchers offers his diagnosis.
② "Parts are good, but they don't connect" — The 178 cm Japanese Yamamoto throws at 159 km/h... Why can't larger Korean pitchers convert their strength into velocity?
③ "If we throw and hit more from a young age, will they improve?" A top-tier Japanese trainer responded differently: "Playing only baseball does not lead to growth in baseball."
④ "We Must Find Korea's Own Original Style" — After 15 Years of Using U.S. Baseball as a Textbook, Korean Baseball Now Needs Its Own "New Normal"
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*This content was translated by AI.
