DaviD Szymanski Director of Baseball Performance
Dr. David Szymanski is in his second season as LA Tech’s Director of Baseball Performance. In this role, he serves as head strength coach and sport scientist for the team. Szymanski previously served as a volunteer assistant baseball coach and the head strength and conditioning coach under former head coach Wade Simoneaux for eight years. You can see videos and photos of players training and testing at https://www.latechsportscience.org/
Szymanski is also the department chair and a professor in the Louisiana Tech Department of Kinesiology. He is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist with distinction (CSCS*D), Registered Strength and Conditioning Coach emeritus (RSCC*E), and Fellow (FNSCA) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). Szymanski has trained and tested baseball players since 1992.
Szymanski is a co-editor with Dr. Gene Coleman, professor emeritus, former chair of the fitness and human performance program at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, and former head strength and conditioning coach for the Houston Astros, and a contributing author in a “Strength Training for Baseball” book that was recently published by the NSCA and Human Kinetics. You can find more information about the book at https://us.humankinetics.com/products/strength-training-for-baseball
Before coming to Tech, he served as the exercise physiologist for Auburn University’s baseball team where he trained, tested, and evaluated the player’s athletic performance. Through his evaluation, Szymanski established baseball-specific workouts and training methods to enhance baseball performance.
This year, the Bulldog players have completed various performance tests to assess their body composition, strength and power in addition to completing a resistance training program preparing them for competition.
Szymanski played at Texas Lutheran and later served as an assistant baseball coach and recruiting coordinator for the Southwestern Athletic Conference school for four years. He is a member and a former board of directors’ member of the NSCA.
Szymanski is also a Sports Science Educational Board Member of Power Lift as well as a Senior Contributor for SportsEdTV. He has conducted and contributed to over 70 scientific investigations and reviews examining various aspects of sports performance. His primary research has focused on ways to improve and understand baseball performance, such as pitching and hitting.
During the fall of 2020, he completed three pitching studies with the Bulldog pitchers; one that correlated their pinch and grip strength on velocity and spin variables of different pitch types, one that evaluated the relationship between body stature, body composition, absolute and relative strength (squat, bench press, and 1-arm row) and power (1- and 2-leg vertical jump height and force plate data) to fastball velocity, and the third was the relationship between kinetics (forces) of countermovement vertical jump and trunk mechanics of baseball pitching. He and one of his graduate students presented their findings virtually at the 2021 NSCA’s National Conference this past summer.
Additionally, this fall Szymanski has been collecting pitching data from the wind-up analyzed by Qualisys 3D motion capture cameras, PitchAI app, Bertec force plates embedded into a pitching mound, and CosMed K5 breathing device collecting expired O2 and CO2 while also evaluating various pitches using the Rapsodo pitching device. Dr. Mu Qiao, assistant professor at Tech, Dr. Ryan Crotin, research associate at Tech and Vice President of ArmCare.com, and four graduate students have been working with Szymanski to analyze all of the data. You can see videos and photos of the Tech baseball players at https://www.latechsportscience.org/
Szymanski completed his bachelor’s degree in kinesiology at Texas Lutheran and his master’s degree in sports management at Texas State. He earned his doctorate in exercise physiology at Auburn.
Szymanski and his wife, Jessica, have two sons: Dawson and Justin, both of whom play baseball at Ruston High School. Jessica Szymanski holds a CSCS certification through the NCSA, is an instructor in the Department of Kinesiology, and is the assistant strength coach for the Bulldog baseball team.
