Denzel Clarke – Professional Baseball Strength Training Success

Chapter Overview:

0:01 Who is Denzel Clarke
0:37 What are the benefits of playing variety of sports
1:24 How did Denzel hear about LPS
1:51 How did LPS help Denzel improve
2:22 How LPS stands out from other gyms
3:18 How is the term DOMINATE translates to Denzel
4:04 What advise Denzel wants to give to younger athletes

Denzel Clarke signing to Oakland A's

My name’s Denzel Clarke. I play baseball and I’m actually playing for the Oakland Athletics right now.

I always knew I wanted to do something in sports. I didn’t know I was gonna be baseball till I was around 16 years old, so I grew up playing soccer. I grew up volleyball, tennis, basketball, like I grew up playing almost everything.

My first love was originally soccer, but I ended up getting like asthma and kind of pushed me out the game because I couldn’t keep up with the running and stuff.

But I ended up clicking with baseball. I started playing around 10 and then when I reached 16, I think it was, I realized I really have a chance to like do something with this game, with this sport, and that’s like, that’s really when I was like, it’s time to like go all in with this.

I feel like playing a lot of sports definitely helped my success in baseball grow because there’s so many things you can take from other sports.

I’ll give you an example, in tennis, the footwork you need in tennis, like it translates so much to whether you’re playing on the infield or playing in the outfield, your feet always needs to be moving.

And in tennis, if your feet stopped moving, you’re probably gonna lose the point. So that’s a big thing. My uncle played professional football in the CFL, so a lot of stuff we used to do when we were younger, just playing catch the football, just obviously cleans up the arm action and throwing a football. But just learning how to track a ball, track a football, like reading it out of the hand or, and in that case, it eventually translates to reading it off the bat. You’re gonna get good jumps, you know, how to like follow like the flight of the ball and everything. So that’s something that really, really helped.

I heard about LPS. They actually reached out to me through Instagram. I think how old was I? I was probably like around 16 at the time and I wasn’t too big on like strength training at that time. So I kind of like my mom, she’s an Olympic athlete. So she’s kind of provided my base through a lot of my training and stuff. So I was time. I was like, I’m good right now. But then when I really need to take that next step, I reached back out to LPS and I’m like, I’m ready to take that next step. And I knew they could do it for me.

Just results while I’ve been here at LPS in terms of just physically, I’ve put on a lot more weight, but it’s not just like any type of weight. It’s like good weight and it’s weight that I can, it’s weight that I can move with.

So I’m faster, I’m stronger, I’m more powerful, and it really translates to baseball as well. My arms gotten a lot stronger, there’s a lot more carry on the baseball. When I throw, when I’m hitting the balls, coming off the bat a lot hotter, flying a lot farther. And then on the base paths too, I’m moving around the bases like I haven’t before. So it’s really been amazing.

The difference between LPS and where it was before in any other gym I really just see is the atmosphere.

You can’t be mediocre coming in here. Like nobody, nobody’s gonna allow you to. And it’s not even like the people wanna lie you to it’s the atmosphere. Like you just feel that as soon as you walk in the gym, like you can’t like give anything below a hundred percent when you’re in here, the athletes in here, everyone else is just a level calling you higher.

Where was training before in regards to movements compared to LPS. LPS preaches full range of motion and making sure you maximize everything you’ve been given.

Where I train it before, it’s like it’s teaching like not full range of motion, and one quote that really comes to mind when I think by LPS versus any other place, if you treat an athlete like glass, they’re gonna break.

LPS really builds you up. They don’t treat you like glass. They train you and treat you to be a MONSTA versus other organizations and other environments I’ve been in they’re very tentative, but you can’t do that.

If you wanna be a beast, you gotta train like one.

The term DOMINATE as used in the gym and how it kinda like translates to me playing baseball and just even the culture in the gym. Like I said before, you can’t be mediocre when you come in this gym and it really, really wise their brain differently because there were times where I just like, kind of go through the motions and it was good enough, but to really dominate you, can’t go through the motions.

You need to take your mind to a different level. And through the past year really while I’ve been at this gym, I’ve seen my, just mentally like is obviously strenuous physically, but the mental strain is creates a different type of like durability and endurance, even in baseball to know that I’ve done something more difficult than what I’m doing right now.

And one piece of advice I’d like to give to myself, younger athletes, just play a lot of sports. It’s, it’s really beneficial in the long run because there’s so many things you can take from other sports and bring into whatever you end up choosing as your profession.

And then find the right pieces of the puzzle. You need to make yourself better. And it’s obviously very difficult when you’re young, when you don’t know what’s going on. I had a lot of great guidance from my mom who made it to the top of the top of sports. So she’s able to guide me, but you need to find the right guidance and find great strength coaches, great therapists, it coaches for your specified sports. So that’s a big thing.

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