Dr. David Szymanski begins a new role this season as LA Tech’s Director of Baseball Performance. 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.
Szymanski is also the department chair and a professor in the Louisiana Tech Department of Kinesiology. He is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS*D) with distinction, Registered Strength and Conditioning Coach (RSCC*E) emeritus and Fellow (FNSCA) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). Szymanski has trained and assessed 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 will be published by the NSCA and Human Kinetics later this year.
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 baseball performance, such as throwing and bat velocity.
During the fall of 2019, he completed two pitching studies with the Bulldog pitchers; one that correlated their power from numerous field tests (vertical jump, standing long jump, lateral jump and overhead medicine ball throw) to pitching velocity while the second provided a profile of the pitcher’s isokinetic shoulder strength that was used to identify shoulder strength and weakness. He presented his findings virtually at the NSCA’s National Conference this past summer.
Szymanski has been collecting pitching data from the wind-up and stretch analyzed by 3D motion capture and force plates while also evaluating various pitches using the Rapsodo pitching device. Dr. Mu Qiao, assistant professor at Tech, Dr. Ryan Crotin, Director of Performance Integration for the Los Angeles Angels and two graduate students have been working with Szymanski to analyze all of the data.
Szymanski completed his bachelor’s degree in kinesiology at Texas Lutheran and completed his master’s in physical education 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 which play baseball at Ruston High School. Jessica Szymanski holds a CSCS certification through the NCSA and is assisting in the training of Bulldog baseball players this season.
