Three aging Phillies stars adjusted their training routines

Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Roy Halladay arrived for spring training as a trio of aging stars whose ability to play was limited in 2012 by injuries.

The impact on the Phillies could be seen in the standings. After five consecutive division titles, the team finished at .500, and questions arose about the end of perhaps the best era in the franchise's history.

The impact on the players carried into the offseason, in which each man in his own way altered his plan of attack with the hope of an improved 2013 for himself and his team.

For Utley and Howard, the spring-training results could not have been more positive.

Utley, after failing to play in a game in the previous two spring trainings, was part of manager Charlie Manuel's lineup from the start of spring training to the finish, gaining momentum with his swing as the start of the regular season drew near.

Howard, after missing the Phillies' first 84 games in 2012 because of a torn Achilles tendon, showed off his power and endurance, playing in each of the team's first 13 Grapefruit League games and hitting more spring-training home runs than he has since 2009.

Halladay, meanwhile, dealt once again with a lack of velocity, which may also have affected his command. He contracted a stomach virus that stripped him of 10 pounds and a considerable amount of strength. Through it all, he maintained that the back and shoulder problems that dogged him last season were gone. Time will tell whether he still can be an effective big-league pitcher.

That's a story for later. This is the story of how Utley, Howard, and Halladay prepared for 2013.

Utley, 34, did not have an offseason between the end of 2012 and his return to Clearwater for the start of spring training.

"It was more of a preseason, but that's what I need to do to get ready now," the five-time all-star second baseman said.

The preseason before spring training took place at the University of San Francisco. Utley, who deals with a knee condition known as chondromalacia, often called runner's knee, said he felt good at the end of the 2012 season, and he wanted to devise a plan to keep things that way.

"[Trainer] Scott Sheridan and I talked about it through the end of the season . . . and I wanted to keep doing the things I'd been doing and building on that," Utley said. "That was the plan."

It was different from previous plans. Preparing to play the game can be as difficult for aging veterans as playing the game. Workout regimens are a matter of trial and error. What worked at age 20 doesn't cut it at age 30.

"When I was younger, I used to hear the older guys say, 'Just wait until you get older,' " Utley said. "I used to say, 'No, not me. I'll be fine.' But it was true. As you get older, you need to make adjustments, and you need to figure out what you need to do to be ready to go 100 percent during the game."

For Utley, that meant no offseason.

"The program that I followed last year didn't work for me to get on the field," he said. "They were great [at San Francisco]. The coaches . . . hit me ground balls and threw me batting practice daily."

Physically, Utley worked on strengthening his legs without irritating his knees.

"That can be difficult at times, and the one thing I did a little different was distributing my weight different in my body," he said. "I wanted to get more weight in my legs and less in my upper body. Hopefully, that would be beneficial, and so far it has."

When Utley first got to the big leagues, he said his physical pregame preparation consisted of stretching with the team a few hours before the game.

"Now, it takes me a good hour or so of stretches to get ready to stretch with the team," he said.

And he stretches again just before game time.

It's a chore, but Utley is glad to do it.

"I wouldn't say it's any less fun, because I enjoy playing and I enjoy being out there," he said. "If I didn't, I wouldn't put the time into it."

Howard, 33, knew that this offseason would be different from the last one for a couple of reasons. One, he was getting married to former Eagles cheerleader Krystle Campbell. Two, he was able to do all the things he couldn't do during the previous offseason, when his left foot was encased in a boot as he recovered from surgery to repair a torn left Achilles tendon.

He showed up for spring training feeling better than at any point during his injury-shortened 2012 season, when he batted .219 with a .295 on-base percentage and .718 OPS, all career lows.

"Oh, yeah, definitely," an upbeat Howard said late in spring training. "I think the difference from last year was that [my leg] never reached fully 100 percent. But being able to have the offseason to continue to rehab definitely played a factor, and then being out here and being able to move around on the dirt and the uneven surfaces . . . I definitely have felt 100 percent more comfortable doing that."

The difference was noticeable at the plate and in the field.

But Manuel had a plan for Howard, too, and the powerful first baseman did not know about it until just before the Grapefruit League games started.

"Charlie talked to me, and he told me what he wanted to do and what he hoped it would accomplish," Howard said.

Play, play, and play some more was the plan. Howard started 13 consecutive exhibition games to open spring training, a rare feat for veteran players.

"It worked," Howard said. "Baseball is a different sport. You can train and do everything you can in the offseason, but once you get into spring training, it's a whole different animal because you've got stuff that is sore that you didn't even know was there.

"You go from the early days of spring training, when you're doing drills, to batting practice, where you're standing around for 45 minutes. I really had to get my baseball legs under me. It was crazy, because I had never just gone like that out of the chute before. But I think it definitely helped."

Halladay, 35, has always been known as a workout junkie, a guy who arrived for spring-training workouts well before dawn and logged miles as if he were training for a long-distance race.

That has changed. Halladay, working on a program that Sheridan helped develop, has become more of a sprinter to simulate what it is like to pitch in a game.

"It's a lot different," Halladay said. "It's more fast-paced. It's harder. It's quicker. It's less endurance and more high-tempo. I think that's the part that takes adjusting to. The lifting, the running, everything is more high-tempo.

"You're going hard and then taking a break. Then you go hard again and take a break. That's obviously what we're doing when we're pitching. I thought my programs were always hard, but I feel this more the next day than I have in the past. I think you get so used to doing the same thing, your body just becomes accustomed to it and you don't really gain anything from it."

From a physical standpoint, Halladay has been nothing but encouraged by his new routine. But a major concern about the pitcher last year, when he was shut down with a shoulder injury, was that he had lost his velocity. Even more important, he was stripped of his late movement, when the baseball darts away from the barrel of a hitter's bat.

It remains to be seen whether Halladay can recover those attributes that made him one of baseball's most dominating pitchers for more than a decade.

Three Phillies reached the starting line in different fashion this season. It will be fascinating to see where the players as well as the team are at the finish.