SKANSTRENGTH
SkanStrength
Catching School
A comprehensive, long-term developmental program for catchers in Central New York — from beginners through advanced and collegiate players.
Program Overview
Catching School is a comprehensive program for beginner through advanced players that incorporates catching skill, hitting, and strength and conditioning specific to catchers — all in each session.
Classes run in groups of six or fewer. Schedules vary throughout the year depending on off-season and in-season demands.
The focus is to develop well-rounded, athletic catchers — with every aspect provided to teach them and train them to excel.
Comprehensive Training
Covering every facet of the position.
Catching
skill.
The foundation of the program. Fielding the position. Receiving, framing, blocking, throwing, footwork, and game awareness — taught as a connected set of skills that build on each other through structured progression.
Hitting
development.
Hitting is built into every session, not treated as an afterthought. Athletes get reps and instruction so they develop as complete players — confident in the box and behind the plate.
Sport-specific
training.
Catchers need to be extremely athletic, strong, fast, explosive, reactionary and resilient. The strength and conditioning component is built around the actual demands of the position — hip mobility, lower-body strength, throwing-shoulder durability, and the conditioning to stay sharp deep into a doubleheader. The goal is building exceptional athletes who can perform and stay healthy across long seasons.
Program Options
A developmental pathway for kids who want to learn the position.
Beginner Programs & Clinics
For athletes new to catching, or new to structured catching instruction. Foundations of stance, receiving, and working behind the plate, taught from the ground up.
Intermediate Sessions
Training sessions for catchers with some experience behind the plate. Structured, progressive development across receiving, blocking, throwing, footwork, game awareness, and hitting.
Participants must schedule an Intro Session to join this program.
Advanced Sessions
For experienced catchers ready to refine the finer skills — game management, advanced receiving and framing, throwing under pressure, and the mental side of leading a pitching staff. Entry is by invitation, based on an introductory session and availability within the program.
Meet Your Coach
Coach Dan
Dan Flanick is the owner and head coach of SkanStrength in Skaneateles, New York, and the Associate Head Baseball Coach at Cayuga Community College.
Dan has spent more than twenty-five years in athletics as an athlete, strength and conditioning coach, and sport coach. His career began in the Hudson Valley, where early experience in competitive sports led to a Division II baseball scholarship at Molloy College. After stepping away from the game during college — following the loss of a family member and a period of burnout — Dan found his way back through coaching and athletic development.
He transferred to Ithaca College to study Exercise Science and graduated in 2014. He then served as a Strength & Conditioning intern at Cornell University, working across baseball, football, basketball, track and field, and equestrian sports. From Cornell he went to Baylor University in 2014 as a Graduate Assistant in one of the country's top Division I athletic programs, training under Coach Kaz Kazadi — the 2013 collegiate Strength Coach of the Year — and working with football, tennis, acrobatics and tumbling, and cross-country. He earned his Master's degree in Sport Pedagogy at Baylor in 2015.
After graduate school, Dan returned home to Central New York. In 2017, he and his family opened SkanStrength in a 500-square-foot space below a local bar. Over the years that followed, they grew it into a 7,500-square-foot facility serving thousands of people across a wide range of ages, abilities, and athletic goals.
Today, Dan coaches at SkanStrength while also serving on the baseball staff at Cayuga Community College. Over his career, he has worked with an unusually broad range of populations, including individuals with disabilities — athletes with Down syndrome, autism, and other intellectual and developmental disabilities — as well as youth, high school, and college athletes in baseball, softball, and a wide variety of sports - lacrosse, hockey, basketball, soccer, wrestling, tennis, golf, etc..
Dan brings deep baseball coaching experience to his work. A former catcher himself, he has coached catching, hitting, throwing, and all-around baseball development — from youth and Little League levels through high school and college athletes.
As Associate Head Coach at Cayuga Community College, Dan runs day-to-day player development, catching instruction, and strength and conditioning for the NJCAA program.
His approach combines strength and conditioning, sport-specific skill development, a healthy pedagogical approach, and the mental skills and confidence-building that athletes need to perform — built around a long-view philosophy of healthy, sustainable athletic development. Dan is particularly focused on what keeps athletes healthy and improving over years, not just weeks and seasons.
Dan holds a B.S. in Exercise Science from Ithaca College and a Master's in Sport Pedagogy from Baylor University.
Upcoming Clinics
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