Coaching the Perfect Arc: Left and Right Leg Strategies in Base Running
- George M. Perry
- May 5
- 8 min read
Updated: May 12
In soccer or football, players can be guided toward their dominant leg for better cuts and turns. Baseball doesn’t offer that luxury. Every base runner makes the same 90° left turns, every time. In this article, coach George explores an overlooked performance factor: leg dominance. If a player's "good side" is their left leg, they may naturally run the bases more efficiently than right-legged teammates. Keep reading to learn how to adjust base running drills and find the best running paths based on your player's leg dominance for improved COD efficiency.
Base running in baseball occupies a unique place in the change of direction domain. Or would it be the agility domain?
Think about it. All changes of direction in base running are the same — a 90° turn to the left —which means they can be precisely replicated in training and "pre-programmed" by the player.
COD in Baseball
Make the turn, or don't
The base runner decides whether to change direction based on visual and auditory stimuli, such as the trajectory of the ball, the position and movement of the outfielders, and the signals from the base coaches. But his decision can occur so far in advance of the actual turn that there is no reactivity as he goes into the change of direction. When the batter watches his line drive go deep into the gap between center and right field, he knows he's going to second base before he's barely out of the batter's box, and can start planning his run accordingly.
Plus, he is not deciding what to do from a near infinite range of options like a football, soccer, or hockey player. He is deciding whether or not to do one thing: make the turn, or don't. If he's not making the turn to the next base, then he has to decide whether to slide or decelerate while standing, but that's a different article.
A base runner decides to change direction early—based on the ball’s trajectory, fielder positions, and coach signals—so the actual turn involves no reactive adjustment.
And then there's the matter of how baseball players execute the 90° turn. There's no amortization phase, no cut. Not only would a velocity-vs.-time graph of a base runner not have the crisp, narrow V-shape that we expect to read about in a change of direction (or agility) article, but there would barely be a deflection in his speed trace as he runs between 1st and 2nd base and then between 2nd and 3rd.
Is it really "change of direction" just because he changes direction?
Most high speed runs in field sports are curved—over 85% in professional soccer (Filter, 2025), for example. Curvilinear running is, necessarily, a change of direction maneuver. But the demands of a high speed curved run are quite different from a quick cut, even if the player is changing his direction of travel the same magnitude of the same distance in both circumstances.
If the goal is travel 180 feet with a 90° turn in the middle, then curved running is the better framing. If the goal is to use a 90° turn to evade a defender, then agility is the better framing. Curved running is more energetically efficient and places less load on the legs, at the expense of adding more distance. It optimizes for the shortest time between Points A and B, even while it increases the distance between A and B. Agility maneuvers exert a higher toll during their execution, but they are optimized for what they can accomplish immediately.
Curved running minimizes time over distance with less strain, while agility maximizes immediate impact despite higher physical cost.
For coaches who like to think in terms of sport specificity and transference, a 30-meter linear sprint and a 5-0-5 change of direction test are equally off the mark (Martínez-Rodríguez, 2024). High speed (or even maximum speed) running and change of direction training might be a matter of intent and detail, rather than physical capacities and how we set up the cones.
Using gates and lights in curved running
Sportreact reaction lights and timing gates can help coaches improve the cognitive and physical aspects of their players' base running, whether they think of it as curved running or agility.
Positioning Sportreact's reaction lights at different places can mimic baseball players' need to detect and respond to stimuli while going around the bags. Placing a light some distance away from each segment of the run will simulate the player looking into to see how close the opponent's outfielders are to making the throw to a baseman. A light next to the end of the segment or 90° from the end of the segment is the stand-in for the third base coach.
The location of the light and the timing of the signal will develop another important skill of sport-specific running: looking in a direction other than the direction of motion. Outside of training, players don't run from Point A to Point B. Point B is wherever they end up based on the movements of their teammates, opponents, and the ball. En route to the undefined Point B, they have to be observing and processing all those other movements, which means looking almost everywhere but where they are going.
Following a hit to right field, especially if it's down the line, a base runner going to second will have to look over 90° clockwise from his direction of motion to get an indication of whether he will try for third base. He will also have to look counterclockwise from his direction of travel to get the signal from the third base coach.
Running while responding to reactive cues helps athletes hone the skill of running effectively while looking away from their direction of motion, improving their ability to track the game and respond to dynamic situations.
Reaction lights: notice the signal, identify it, and react appropriately
Sportreact's reaction lights will help the player develop the skill to hone in on the source of the signal, identify the signal, and react appropriately. For example, in a game he may not see the ball as he comes around first: he may be watching the movements of the right and center fielders. He'll then have to determine which has the ball (the salient stimulus) in order to make his determination about what to do at second. Placing two or more lights in either visual field will improve the player's ability to locate and discriminate the signal. The coach's instruction could be "Respond to whichever light turns on first," or could be based on a shape or color, forcing the player to look back and forth between the two until he gets a signal.
Timing gates, beside commonly used COD tests, can also help coaches determine the best trajectory for their players to take around the bases.
Base running timing: how left and right leg-domination impacts speed
Like anything else in sport, there's no one optimal way for every player to do something (despite the occasional mathematician's attempt). Everything is specific to context, and the most important context is the individual. Curved running — as any 200m/400m sprinter will tell you — places different demands on the inside and outside leg.
Left vs. right leg difference
A 2020 study with soccer players found that the inside leg had longer ground contact times than the outside leg, and that the inside and outside legs had different patterns of muscle activation. The study also noted players' "good side" and "weak side," that is, the good side was the leg that was faster when it was the inside leg. The researchers found that there was no significant difference between linear sprinting and curved sprinting in the "good direction"; but there was a significant difference between linear sprinting and curved sprinting in the "weak direction," and between curved runs on the good side and the weak side (Filter et al, 2020).
In soccer, players and coaches can shape a player's positioning and movements to give them more runs in their good direction. Baseball players don't have this flexibility: all the turns are the same direction. If your good side is your left side—let's call them "left legged"—you might have an advantage over a right legged base runner.
Left-dominant runners may have an edge in base running since turns favor the stronger inside (left) leg for control and speed.
The study did not look at how different trajectories affected performance and muscle activation on each leg—the athletes only ran on one curve.
How to adjust base running arcs based on leg dominance?
The change of direction and curved sprinting literatures tell us, though, that tighter arcs or angles will increase the load on the body and the time to perform the maneuver. Left legged baseball players may be able to run the bases with a narrower arc than right legged players. For the right legged players, a wider arc may better satisfy the fundamental optimization: yes, it adds more distance, but by better accessing their physical abilities, they may still reduce their time to cover the distance.
1) Timing to discover optimal arc
Coaches can set up cones in different arcs for players to run, with a timing gate on the straightaway before and after the curved portion. Over several trials, the optimal arc for each player will emerge.
2) Use lights for decision-making aspect
To add a bit more training value, the coach can use the different signals on a reaction light to direct the player to run a particular arc. This will keep the activity closer to a sporting context, where an observation and decision will precede the curved run.
Base running in baseball is a great application of the coaching maxim "repetition without repetition." On paper, all turns are the same. But as you work through the lineup and watch each player go around the bags, the between- and within-player variations reveal themselves.
Injecting sport-specific context into base running training with reaction lights and timing gates lets coaches improve their players' physical and technical performance around the bases. And as an added bonus, we can take credit for working on change of direction, agility, and curved running, all with a single activity.
GEORGE M. PERRY
George M. Perry is a sport performance and track & field coach in Houston, Texas, working mainly with youth athletes. In addition to helping athletes build a foundation for success across sports, he also applies his principle of "You can't move fast if you can't move well" to prepare clients for the physical demands of the military and law enforcement.
When not coaching, George is a widely published writer across all facets of the sports industry, from human performance to policy and law.
References:
Filter, A. Testing and Training Curvilinear Sprinting in Team Sports. Sportsmith 2025. https://www.sportsmith.co/articles/testing-and-training-curvilinear-sprinting-in-team-sports/ (accessed May 2025).
Filter, A., Olivares-Jabalera, J., Santalla, A., Morente-Sánchez, J., Robles-Rodríguez, J., Requena, B., & Loturco, I. (2020). Curve sprinting in soccer: Kinematic and neuromuscular analysis. International journal of sports medicine, 41(11), 744-750.
Martínez-Rodríguez, J. A., Crotin, R. L., & Szymanski, D. J. (2024). Introduction to an advanced change of direction test in baseball and softball: The curvilinear ability test. Strength & Conditioning Journal, 46(3), 279–286. https://doi.org/10.1519/SSC.0000000000000799
