It's time for the April installment of my random thoughts on sports performance training. Here are a few ideas that are currently rattling around my brain.
1. The absolute speed-strength continuum doesn't matter if you're weak.
I posted this on my Facebook page last week, but thought it merited a mention here. With respect to this old video of mine...
One thing I didn't mention that is an important consideration, though, is that an athlete has to have a foundation of strength and work capacity to even "get on" this continuum. This is one reason why it's absolutely absurd for a 10-year-old to be embarking on a crazy aggressive throwing program. Before he introduces overload/underload throwing or high volume, he needs to establish a base of general stability and work capacity to be able to handle more specific stress.
2. In-season training isn't just about lifting.
When people hear "in-season lifting," they seem to immediately think that the sole justifications for incorporating it is to maintain strength, power, and muscle mass. Surely, that's a huge part of the equation. However, I'm quick to point out to our athletes that in-season training includes a lot more.
Each time an athlete trains at Cressey Sports Performance during the season, he's also going through his foam rolling work. And, he's working his way through a more individualized warm-up than he'd typically get at the field during practice or at games.
Likewise, it's an exposure to an environment that "nurtures" good lifestyle behaviors. There are invariably discussions about optimizing sleep quality, and improving nutrition. These exchanges just don't happen as often at the field.
All that in mind, in-season training isn't just about lifting weights.
3. There aren't absolutes when it comes to discussing packing the neck.
I can't definitely tell you that packing the neck during lifting will guarantee that you'll lift more weight.
However, I think it's very safe to say that if - 20 years down the road - we take MRIs of the necks of lifters who lifted with a more neutral cervical spine posture and compared them to MRIs of those who looked up at the ceiling when they squatted and deadlifted, the packed neck group's diagnostic imaging would be a LOT cleaner.
4. Culture matters more than expertise, programming, finances, and just about anything else.
I've been fortunate to visit a lot of different strength and conditioning facilities in the private, collegiate, and professional sector. Without fail, the most successful facilities are the ones with an awesome culture. In other words, the athletes and staff are excited to be there. They're thrilled about the prospects of innovations, and there is great communication without consideration of organizational rank, service time, or any other sort of hierarchy. I think this awesome post from Matt Duffy of the Giants is a great example of this in action in professional sports.
Culture matters because it's a limiting factor. Expertise and good programming are super important, but they don't matter if you don't have an environment that accommodates the implementation of these things. And, if you look at professional sports, you can't outspend a crappy culture. This is why you can see small market teams competing with the highest payroll teams in just about every professional sport. And, it's one reason why you see fancy facilities with seemingly limitless financial resources fail miserably in the private sector all the time.
This is one reason why I always emphasize to our staff and interns that we hire based on both competency and fit.
Competency can be taught, but fit is something that is directly drawn from one's character. Character is something that needs to be established at a young age and reinforced over the course of decades in a professional career. It's a challenge to hire someone with the right fit for your culture, and this is one reason why we like to hire from our internship program; it's a test drive to determine "fit" and work to fine-tune it if the alignment isn't quite perfect.
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Today's guest post comes from former Cressey Sports Performance intern and current University of Washington Strength and Conditioning Coach, Dave Rak. Enjoy! -EC
Coaches often talk about gaining an extra step when it comes to improving speed. For a baseball player an extra step could be the difference between a stolen base or a jog back to the dugout. There are many ways to gain that valuable extra step. Strength training, drill work, and refining technique all play an important part. As a coach you need to help the athlete feel the correct positions in order to maximize efficiency when stealing bases. Here are 4 simple ways to improve common mistakes.
1. Videotape everything.
With almost everyone having a smartphone or a tablet device on them 24/7, cameras are easily accessible, which leaves no excuse as to why you can’t video tape your athletes. Whether you are working 1-on-1 with an athlete, or with all of your position players at once, video feedback will be crucial. This gives the athlete a view from your perspective as to how they could improve their movements. Video feedback will not only allow you to show the athlete what is going on from a technical standpoint, but in a team setting, it will allow you to work efficiently with large groups. As a coach you will be able to see every rep from each of your athletes. This allows you to go back, take notes, and identify what needs to be worked on for each player. The athlete can use this information to better correct movements and execute proper form.
Most importantly, having video allows you to study the athlete’s movement and learn what corrections need to be made. This grows your knowledge on this specific movement. You may not have all the answers right away, but video will help you and your athletes figure out what can be corrected. Video is nothing new in sports and especially baseball; why not use it when trying to gain an extra step on your steal jump?
Video programs such as Hudl Technique (formerly known as Ubersense) and Coach’s Eye are great apps that can be used on a smartphone or tablet to record video It can then be played back in different speeds for the athlete.
2. Overload the movement.
After breaking down video of my athletes I noticed some players were over reaching or stepping too high with their right foot on their initial leg drive. This is wasted movement that does nothing but prolong the steal jump, and put the athlete in a poor position to accelerate from. The photo below is an example of an ineffective directional step. The foot comes up too high, which prolongs the movement:
By taking a smaller and more direct step the athlete will achieve a better position for acceleration. Below is a video that shows an example of a more efficient step.
To help with this common mistake, you can physically pull the runner towards second base and overload the movement using a bungee cord attached at the waste as seen in the video below.
Lee Taft suggested told me about this drill, and it has been very helpful with allowing my athletes to figure out how to make that direction step more efficient. The pull of the bungee cord forces the runner to be quicker and more direct with their step. The pull of the cord will cause the athlete to shift their weight towards second base and onto the right foot. Once they take a directional step they have to replace the foot quickly, if they don’t they will fall. The bungee cord allows the athlete to feel their mistakes in the moment. After a few repetitions the athlete should be able to make the adjustment on their own.
NOTE: Bungee cords work better than jump stretch bands for these drills.
3. Gently resist the movement.
A lot of time is spent on developing power and becoming more explosive in the weight room. The initial push of the steal jump is a great place to show off these attributes. Using video feedback, you can easily see if an athlete is lacking that “push” when they take off for second base. Yelling “triple extension”, or “push harder” may not always work. Instead give the athlete something to push against. To do this take the bungee cord from our previous drill and instead of overloading the sprint, gently resist the start. This will make the athlete have to overcome the resistance of the bungee cord when they make their first move. This should force the athlete to get better extension with their left leg. The video below is an example.
Again, the bungee cord will work better than a pair of jump stretch bands.
The athlete should feel the resistance of the cord before they start their sprint. This will force them to be aggressive when they push off. The goal is for the athlete to feel how hard they need to push with the lower body. It is also important to note that too much resistance will change the outcome of the drill. We are not weighing down the runner and having the partner get dragged behind. The runner should have to overcome the resistance on the push off and then be able to run normally as they accelerate.
4. Use a towel to teach arm movement.
After speaking with Lee Taft about what I was seeing with my athletes I began to realize how important the arms are, especially in the initial move. Lee helped me to realize that by achieving better arm action, common mistakes will be corrected on their own. These mistakes include: popping up on their first move, weak initial push-off, inability to stay low through the acceleration phase, and not turning the body quick enough to get into a linear sprint.
To help get the athlete to become more aggressive and throw the arms on their initial move we can hold a towel or shirt behind him. One of my former players actually came up with this idea on the spot during a training session. We told him to knock the towel out of his partner’s hand, which forced him to drive his arm back in a more aggressive manner. Originally this athlete did not have an aggressive arm action from the start position, preventing him for getting his body turned efficiently. This drill is an exaggerated movement; keep in mind the goal is to get a feel for what his arms should be doing.
Throwing the arms too much can be a bad thing and can cause the runner to over rotate. Make sure to find a good middle ground.
In addition to the actual action of the arms, the hand placement is also important. Longer arms require a greater distance to be traveled which takes up more time. Instead of letting the arms dangle near the knees, try to move the hands to belt level. This shortens the path of the hands, therefore allowing the runner to drive their arms back faster. This will get he body turned in a quicker fashion.
The purpose of these drills is to allow the athlete to feel mistakes and then provide an opportunity to self-correct. When the runner gets out of position the bungee cords will provide instant feedback. The video will provide visual feedback as well. The towel drill forces the athlete to accomplish a movement with the arms that they previously may not have done. The ultimate goal is for the athlete to feel the correct technique for themselves and carry it over into game time situations.
About the Author
David Rak is in his third year as an assistant strength & conditioning coach at the University of Washington. David directly oversees sports performance for Baseball, Men's & Women's Golf, and Men's Tennis. He can be reached at davidrak25@gmail.com.
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With all our Major League Baseball affiliated athletes having left for spring training, things are a bit quieter at Cressey Sports Performance.
At this time of year, I always like to look back and reflect on the offseason and some of the lessons we've learned. Invariably, it leads to a blog of random thoughts on sports performance training! Here are some things that are rattling around my head right now:
1. Just getting a baseball out of one's hand improves shoulder function - even if an athlete doesn't actually do any arm care or "corrective exercises."
If you look at the glenohumeral joint (ball-and-socket of the shoulder), stability in a given situation is essentially just a function of how well the ball stayed in good congruency with the socket. This congruency is governed by a number of factors, most notably the active function of the scapular stabilizers and rotator cuff. This is what good arm care work is all about.
However, what many folks overlook is that there are both passive (ligamentous) and active (muscular) structures that dramatically influence this congruency. In the throwing shoulder, we're talking predominantly about the inferior, middle, and superior glenohumeral ligaments and long head of the biceps tendon; collectively, the provide anterior (front) stability to the joint so that the ball doesn't fly forward too far in the socket in this position:
These ligaments and biceps tendon are always working hard as superior (top) stabilizers of the joint at this point, especially in someone with a shoulder blade that doesn't upwardly rotate effectively. By the end of a long season, these ligaments are a bit looser and the biceps tendon is often cranky. Good arm care exercises shifts the stress to active restraints (cuff and scapular stabilizers) that can protect these structures.
What often gets overlooked is the fact that simply resting from throwing will improve shoulder function in overhead athletes. When you avoid a "provocative" position and eliminate any possibility of pain, joint function is going to improve. And, ligaments that need to stiffen up are going to be able to do so and offer more passive stability.
This is a huge argument in favor of taking time off from throwing at the end of a season. It's effectively "free recovery" and "free functional improvements." Adding good arm care work on top of abstaining from throwing makes the results even better.
*Note: this isn't just a shoulder thing; the ulnar collateral ligament at the elbow can regain some passive stability with time away from throwing as well.
2. Coaches need to find ways to be more efficient - and shut up more often.
Each year, we start up three intern classes at both the Florida and Massachusetts facilities. As such, we have an opportunity to interact with approximately 30 up-and-coming strength and conditioning coaches. Mentoring these folks is one of my favorite parts of my job - and it has taught me a lot about coaching over the years.
Most interns fall into one of two camps: they either coach too much (the "change the world" mentality) or too little (the "don't want overstep my bounds" mentality). This is an observation - not a criticism - as we have all "been there" ourselves. I, personally, was an over-coacher back in my early strength and conditioning years.
The secret to long-term coaching success is to find a sweet spot in the middle. You have to say enough to create the desired change, but know when to keep quiet so as to not disrupt the fun and continuity of the training process. My experience has been that it's easier to quickly improve the under-coacher, as most folks will develop a little spring in their step when it's pointed out that they're missing things. That adjustment usually puts them right where they need to be.
The over-coacher is a different story, though. It's hard to shut off that "Type A" personality that usually leads someone in this direction. My suggestion to these individuals is always the same, though:
Don't let the game speed up on you. Before you say anything, pause - even take a deep breath, if you need to - and then deliver a CLEAR, CONCISE, and FIRM cue. Try to deliver the important message in 25% as many words as you normally would.
The athletes don't get overwhelmed, but just as importantly, the coach learns what the most efficient cues are. You might talk less, but you actually deliver more.
3. Use the "hands and head together" cue with rollouts and fallouts.
One of the biggest mistakes we'll see with folks when they do stability ball rollouts is that the hands will move forward, but the hips will shoot back. This reduces the challenge to anterior (front) core stability, and can actually drive athletes into too much lumbar extension (lower back arching). By cueing "hand and hips move together," you make sure they're working in sync - and then you just have to coach the athlete to resist the impacts of gravity on the core.
You can apply this same coaching cue to TRX fallouts, too:
4. Ages 28-30 seems to be a "tipping point" on the crappy nutrition front.
I should preface this point by saying that there is absolutely nothing scientific about this statement; it's just an observation I've made from several conversations with our pro guys over the winter. In other words, it's purely anecdotal, but I'd add that I consider myself one of the "study" subjects.
We all know that many young athletes seem to be able to get away with absolutely anything on the nutrition front. We hear stories about pro athletes who eat fast food twice a day and still succeed at the highest levels in spite of their nutritional practices.
One thing I've noticed is that I hear a lot more observations about "I just didn't feel good today," "my shoulder is cranky," or any of a host of other negative training reports in the days after a holiday. The pro baseball offseason includes Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve/Day, and Valentine's Day. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these observations almost always come from guys who are further along in their career - and as I noted, it's something I've felt myself.
If you eat crap, you're going to feel like crap.
Why does it seem to be more prevalent in older athletes? Surely, there are many possible explanations. More experienced athletes are usually more in-tune with their bodies than younger ones. Recovery is a bigger issue as well, so they might not have as much wiggle room with which to work as their younger counterparts. Older athletes also generally have more competing demands - namely kids, and the stress of competing at the highest levels - that might magnify the impacts of poor nutrition.
Above all, though, I think the issue is that many young athletes with poor nutritional practices have no idea what it's like to actually feel good. They might throw 95mph or run a 40 under 4.5 seconds, but they don't actually realize that their nutrition is so bad that they're actually competing at 90-95% of their actual capacity for displaying and sustaining athleticism. It's only later - once they've gotten on board with solid nutrition - that they have something against which they can compare the bad days.
Again, this is purely a matter of anecdotal observations, but as I've written before, everyone is invincible until they're not. As coaches, it's our job to make athletes realize at a younger age the profound difference solid nutrition can make. We can't just sit around and insist that they'll come around when they're ready, as that "revelation" might be too late for many of them.
Speaking of nutrition, today is the last day to get the early-bird registration discount on Brian St. Pierre's nutrition seminar at Cressey Sports Performance - MA on April 10. Brian is the director of performance nutrition for Precision Nutrition, and is sure to deliver a fantastic learning experience. You can learn more HERE.
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Happy Monday, folks. I hope everyone had a great weekend. We brought our twin daughters to their first MLB game yesterday, and they did surprisingly well, behaving through all nine innings! Hopefully, this momentum carries over into the rest of the week. Here's some good strength and conditioning reading to get the ball rolling:
Today's guest post is the second installment in a series on cryotherapy from Tavis Bruce. In case you missed Part 1, you can check it out HERE. -EC
In Part 1 of this two-part series on cryotherapy, I summarized the literature to-date on the short- and long-term effects of post-exercise cryotherapy.
To briefly recap:
• Cryotherapy, particularly cold water immersion (CWI) seems to reduce perceptions of fatigue and muscle soreness and increase perceptions of recovery which may benefit performance in the short-term.
• However, chronic use of cryotherapy is contraindicated due to the detrimental effects on long-term training adaptations.
Today, in Part 2, I’m going to discuss more of the practical side of cryotherapy—basically, how to make the most of it, if and when you choose to use it.
But first, I thought I would discuss some baseball-specific research that may be of interest to the baseball players and coaches out there who are reading this article.
Should Pitchers Ice?
As a pitcher, my relationship with ice is definitely what I would describe as hot n’ cold (pun intended). When I was younger, slapping an ice pack on my arm was somewhat of a post-game ritual. But, by the time I got to college, I found myself questioning how much icing my arm actually “helped”. I eventually stopped icing altogether, save maybe a few times when I was particularly sore. Suffice to say, I’ve always been curious what the research had to say about icing after throwing, so I was pretty stoked to find a few studies that looked at exactly that. (If you don’t care about baseball, go ahead and skip to the next section.)
In a study of “highly skilled”* amateur baseball players, Yanagisawa et al. found that light shoulder exercise (20 minutes on an arm ergometer at a low-intensity) was more effective than ice at restoring internal and external shoulder strength and range of motion (ROM) 24 hours after a 7-inning, 98-pitch simulated outing (38,89). However, improvements in shoulder strength, ROM, and muscle soreness were greatest when ice and light shoulder exercise were combined. These results indicate that active recovery (such as light shoulder exercise) may be an effective recovery strategy between pitching appearances, and that ice may provide some additional benefits, particularly relating to the management of delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) in the throwing shoulder after pitching.
*The participants were college-aged, but the authors did not explicitly state if they were college or recreational baseball players, nor did they state average velocities.
Two studies (90,91) looked at the effects of icing the throwing arm between innings of a simulated game. Interestingly, both studies found that pitchers’ velocities dropped off less when they iced their throwing arms between innings compared to when they didn’t. In addition, icing between innings decreased perceived exertion and increased perceived recovery (91) as well as increased the number of innings and the total number of pitches pitchers threw when pitchers threw to volitional fatigue (90).
While these findings are intriguing, I wouldn’t go icing my arm between innings just yet. It’s certainly possible that cooling the pitchers’ throwing arms modified perceptions of effort and fatigue in a way that allowed for a greater output as the game went on. But, as I alluded to earlier in this article, cooling can disrupt both neuromuscular drive as well as proprioceptive feedback from the arm, both of which have important implications for throwing a baseball fast, accurately, and (perhaps) “safely”. This may be less problematic in low velocity pitchers (with an average fastball of about 70 miles per hour, the pitchers in these two studies weren’t exactly lighting up the radar gun!) but we have no idea how pitchers with elite-level fastball velocities would respond to this kind of protocol.
There is no direct evidence that suggests that ice is detrimental to pitching performance. In particular, ice combined with active recovery strategies such as light shoulder exercise may help reduce DOMS and restore shoulder strength and range of motion between pitching appearances. However, these findings need to be interpreted with caution as the effect of icing after throwing in the elite-level pitcher has not been quantified nor are there any longitudinal studies assessing the long-term effects of icing after throwing on functional or morphological adaptations to a comprehensive, periodized throwing program. Given the detrimental effects of CWI on resistance training adaptations, regular icing of the shoulder is not recommended in the off-season.
Does Cooling Method Matter?
It turns out that how you choose to cool down after exercise may be important. A 2013 meta-analysis by Poppendieck et al. found that CWI was more effective than ice packs and cryogenic chambers for performance recovery in trained athletes (92). This findings may be biased due to the large majority of studies that use CWI as their cooling intervention but there’s a reason for this: CWI is by far the most effective method for cooling the body (93) and, as such, it has become the gold standard in both research and athletic settings.
Whole-body cold water immersion also appears to be more effective than cooling only the exercised limb(s) (92). This may be due to a greater reduction in core temperature with whole body cooling than with partial-body cooling (94) in addition to the (potentially) therapeutic effects of hydrostatic pressure experienced during water immersion10. If CWI isn’t available, compression wraps can enhance the intramuscular cooling effects of ice packs (95,96) in addition to providing a compression effect (albeit to a far lesser degree than water immersion), although it’s not quite clear what effect (if any) this might have on recovery.
Whole body CWI is not only the most effective way to cool the body, it may also have the greatest therapeutic benefit, due to the temperature-independent effects of water immersion.
Is There an Optimal Temperature or Duration?
There is no definitive evidence on an “optimal” temperature or duration for cryotherapy; however, the available research provides some insight.
In their meta-analysis, Poppendieck et al. concluded that water temperatures of 12-15ᵒC are sufficient to elicit positive effects on post-exercise recovery in trained athletes and that cooler temperatures are not likely to produce any additional benefit (92).
As for duration, 10 minutes of whole body CWI at 12-15ᵒC is more than enough to elicit a reduction in intramuscular temperature (93) and 20 minutes seems to be the upper limit of what is used in the literature (with the exception of warmer immersions, of course). Logically, the less body mass that is exposed to cold, the longer the exposure needs to be to elicit a similar reduction in core body temperature (94). Similarly, colder temperatures require shorter exposures (97).
Further evidence suggests that CWI for longer durations (30 minutes) may exacerbate the inflammatory response to exercise (64) and there are several documented cases of peripheral nerve injury when ice packs are left on for too long (98,99). Don’t be the guy that falls asleep with an ice pack on!
A 10-minute, whole body immersion at 12-15ᵒC is more than enough to reap the benefits of CWI. Cooler temperatures or longer durations are unnecessary and potentially harmful, so always be sure to err on the side of caution.
What About Placebo Effects?
Despite the placebo effect being well-documented in sports (see Beedie et al. [100] for review), there hasn’t really been an attempt to quantify its role in the positive outcomes we (sometimes) see with cryotherapy. Sugar pills are one thing, but it’s not exactly easy to convince someone they’re taking an ice bath—without actually having them take an ice bath! So, when Broatch et al. published their placebo study in 2014 there was a lot of hype on the internets. And for good reason: it was the first study that compared CWI to, what I consider to be, a pretty decent shot at a placebo condition.
In the study, participants in the placebo group performed 15 minutes of thermoneutral immersion but were led to believe it contained a special “recovery oil” that was just as effective as CWI. And the results were pretty compelling: the thermoneutral placebo was just as effective as CWI at restoring quadriceps strength (MVC) up to 48 hours post-exercise and both groups recovered significantly better than the thermoneutral control group. In addition, both the CWI and the thermoneutral placebo group reported similar subjective ratings of recovery.
Now, we can’t generalize these results to all scenarios because the study looked at recovery of quadriceps strength following four 30-second maximal sprints on a cycle ergometer. We have no idea to what extent placebo effects are involved in recovery from, say, resistance training, endurance exercise, or team sports. I think it’s pretty safe to say they likely play a role, though.
So how do we interpret these results?
Well, we could throw the ice out with bathwater. After all, cold water immersion is no better than placebo, right? But I don’t think that’s necessary. As a coach, I think it’s always important to consider the preferences of your athletes. And I think this study supports the use of CWI with athletes who believe it to have a recovery benefit (e.g., Cook & Beaven found that repeat sprint performance following CWI was related to how much athletes “liked” it [67]). Said differently, there’s not enough solid evidence to encourage your athletes to use CWI, but I see no reason to discourage an athlete who sees value in it either.
This last point comes with one major caveat: as long as an athlete’s use of CWI does not impede on your training goals for that athlete. In this sense, it may be valuable to educate athletes who regularly use CWI on its potentially detrimental effects on long-term training adaptations and explain to them it is best used sparingly throughout the competitive season.
Placebo effects almost certainly play a role in the recovery benefits of cryotherapy, but it’s not clear to what extent. Coaches should pay attention to the preferences of their athletes, and not necessarily discourage an athlete who perceives cryotherapy to be beneficial from using it sparingly, and in a manner that is congruent with their training goals.
Practical Recommendations
If you’re an athlete (or if you coach an athlete) that likes using ice or ice baths for recovery, that’s great! Keep doing what you’re doing. But to make the most of it, I suggest you following my recommendations below:
• Use ice baths over ice packs or other forms of local cooling whenever possible.
• Make sure the water temperature is between 10-15 degrees Celsius but not any colder. Colder does not mean better. Warmer temperatures (up to 20 degrees Celsius) for longer durations can also be used.
• Ice baths should last between 5-15 minutes. The colder the water, the shorter the ice bath should be.
• Submerge your whole body (up to your neck/shoulders), or as much of your body as you can.
• After the ice bath, allow time for rewarming and ensure an adequate warm-up before your next game, event, or training session. Avoid using ice baths immediately (<1 hour) prior to exercise, particularly before training or events involving high-intensity or explosive efforts such as sprinting, jumping, or weightlifting. The exception to this rule would be if you’re competing in an endurance event in warm or hot weather. In this case, precooling may enhance subsequent performance.
• Use ice baths sparingly. Regular ice baths kill strength and muscle mass gains! They’re best saved for strategic use during the competitive season when you’re trying to recover performance within a few hours to a few days.
• Important: Be careful! Cryotherapy does not come without its dangers. Exposing your body to cold temperatures for too long can have potentially dangerous effects. (E.g., don't fall asleep with an ice pack on your shoulder. I used to do this. It’s moronic!) Set yourself a timer and stick to it. And if things start to feel sketchy before the timer goes off, call it quits!
Note: the references for this entire article will be posted as the first comment below.
About the Author
A native of the Great White North, Tavis Bruce (@TavisBruce) is no stranger to the effects of cold on athletic performance. He holds a Bachelor of Kinesiology and Health Science from the University of British Columbia, where he pitched for the Thunderbirds baseball team for three seasons. Tavis is currently the Director of Education for the Baseball Performance Group, where he integrates his passion for sports science with his love of baseball. He can be contacted at tavis.bru@gmail.com.
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Today's guest post comes from Tavis Bruce. A while back, I asked Tavis to pull together an article examining the literature on cryotherapy with athletes, and as you'll see below, he really overdelivered. Enjoy! -EC
Sports and ice go together like peanut butter and jelly (or steak and eggs, if you’re into Paleo). From ice packs to ice baths, various forms of “cryotherapy” have long held a sacred place in sports medicine to treat acute injuries and facilitate recovery from training or competition. But despite its popularity and widespread use, the evidence in support of cryotherapy remains equivocal.
More recently, cryotherapy—particularly the use of ice baths, or cold water immersion—has come under increasing scrutiny from both the scientific community and the strength and conditioning industry at large...and rightfully so! However, in the process, we may be swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction, indicated by those who have come to the conclusion that “ice baths are a complete waste of time for every athlete in every sport in every possible situation.” Now, others may disagree with me on this one; but, the evidence (or lack thereof) for cryotherapy appears to be a little more nuanced than that.
I guess what I’m trying to say is: I’m not so sure I’m ready to throw the ice out with the bathwater just yet. Perhaps, instead of pondering black-and-white questions like, “to ice or not to ice?” we should be asking:
“When is ice appropriate?”
I’d like to examine why.
A quick note before we get started: this article will not discuss the use of cryotherapy for the management and/or rehabilitation of acute soft tissue injuries. I am NOT a medical professional; I just play one on Facebook.
As such, this article will only cover the efficacy of cryotherapy as a post-exercise recovery strategy.
Is there a Physiological Rationale for Cryotherapy?
Note: I’m not going to spend much time discussing the physiological rational (the “why”) behind cryotherapy for two reasons. First, the mechanisms are still quite hypothetical. Second, and more importantly, it’s a bit outside the scope of this article to convey practically relevant and actionable information for my fellow coaches and athletes. We can debate the mechanistic stuff until the cows come home, but in my humble opinion, the gold standard measurement for post-exercise recovery is the measurement of performance variables. And, I like to think that most athletes, coaches, and sports scientists would agree with me. That being said, I do think it’s always a good idea to establish if there is at least a physiological rationale for any method we may use with ourselves and/or our athletes. With that said…
Cryotherapy results in various physiological changes (most of which are temperature-dependent) that have long been proposed to exert a therapeutic effect post-exercise. Although the most cited physiological change is a blunted inflammatory response, there exists a range of other effects through which cooling the body after exercise may accelerate the recovery process. Of note, cryotherapy may:
• Improve tissue oxygenation1 and removal of metabolic waste (2) by reversing exercise-induced muscle edema (3,4).
• Reduce reactive oxygen species (ROS)-mediated muscle damage (5) by reducing local metabolism (1).
• Induce analgesia by decreasing nerve conduction velocity (6) in addition to directly activating sensory afferents (7).
• Restore parasympathetic tone by increasing vagal tone (8,9).
In addition, cold water immersion (or “ice baths”), a popular form of cryotherapy, may have additional benefits resulting from the compressive forces experienced during water immersion, but I won’t be covering them in this article (see Wilcock et al. [10] for a good review). For more information on the physiological effects of cold water immersion and other forms of cryotherapy, I encourage you to check out this (open access!) review by White and Wells.
The Effects of Cryotherapy on Recovery from Sport or Exercise
Perceptual Measures of Recovery
Cold water immersion reduces perceptions of fatigue (11-16) and increases perceptions of recovery (17,18) and physical readiness (19) between training sessions; however, it doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) during subsequent training bouts (20-23).*
*Except for when CWI is used as a precooling strategy before exercise. (More on precooling later.)
Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness
Though it’s pretty well accepted that cooling injured tissue can temporarily reduce or relieve pain (24), it’s not really clear if post-exercise cooling has any effect on delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS): the type of soreness you feel in the days following a bout of intense or novel exercise.
There is some evidence that cold water immersion (CWI) alleviates DOMS better than passive recovery (25), particularly when CWI is used following exercise that involves a large degree of metabolic stress (26) (e.g., running, cycling, or team sports). However, this effect is less clear when CWI is compared to warm (27), thermoneutral1 (4,28), or contrast (27,29,30) immersion, and recent evidence suggests that CWI may be no more effective than a placebo (19) for relieving DOMS. Collectively, these findings highlight the perceptual nature of muscle soreness and the importance of athletes’ perceptions of cryotherapy (or any recovery method, for that matter).
Icing and cold water immersion may help reduce delayed-onset muscle soreness after running or team sports, but the effect likely depends on the athlete’s belief in cryotherapy as a method of recovery.
Range of Motion
There is conflicting data on the effect of cooling on range of motion (ROM). Cooling alone does not appear to improve ROM (28,31-38), but it may enhance the effects of stretching (39-43) by increasing stretch tolerance (44). On the one hand, this increased tolerance to stretch does not appear to translate into long-term improvements in ROM (45-47). On the other hand, heat combined with stretching may have more lasting effects than stretching alone (44).
If your goal is to restore lost ROM following exercise, combine heat (not cold!) with stretching.
Strength
The short-term effects of post-exercise cooling on recovery of strength characteristics are mixed and seem to depend on the type of exercise stress from which you’re trying to recover before you hit the weights.
There is some evidence that CWI may reduce or recover losses in maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) following simulated team sports (48-50) or intermittent sprint exercise (51-53), but not after downhill running (54) or cycling (55,56). And, in the only study of its kind, Broatch et al. found that CWI following high-intensity sprint intervals recovered MVC no better than a thermoneutral placebo (19).
Roberts et al. demonstrated that CWI was effective for restoring submaximal (but not maximal) strength between two lower body training sessions within the same day (57). Vaile et al. found both cold and contrast water immersion were effective at restoring strength up to three days after heavy eccentric strength training (27)*, but most studies show no or non-significant improvements over this time period (28,58-62). However, it’s important to note that all of these studies used (potentially) “less effective” cooling methods (such as when only the exercised muscle is cooled) compared to more therapeutic methods such as whole-body CWI.
*I highlight the study by Vaile et al. because it is the only study that compared multiple hydrotherapy modalities in trained males, and in a cross-over design with a “washout” period between treatments of sufficient duration to eliminate any residual effects of the repeated bout effect. Thumbs up for study quality!
Cold water immersion may help recover muscle contractile properties following running or team sports. Benefits following resistance training are less clear and may require the use of cold water immersion over local cooling of exercised tissue.
Jump Performance
Most studies show significant recovery of jump performance within 24-48 hours post-exercise with no clear additional benefits to CWI (18,49,53,63,64). Furthermore, CWI may impair jump performance within the first two hours (57) possibly due to the acute effects of cold exposure on force production (65).
Here’s the deal: jump performance seems to recover just fine on its own. However, there is some evidence that CWI may maintain jump performance in scenarios of accumulated fatigue, such as during tournament play in team sports. One study of basketball players found that the CWI maintained jump performance better in players who saw more playing time throughout a 3-day tournament (66).
Sprint Performance
Like jump performance, many studies report that sprint performance returns to baseline within 24 hours after exercise, regardless of treatment intervention (18,49, 61). Accordingly, most studies do not find a benefit in favor of CWI compared to other recovery interventions because the initial exercise bout was not sufficiently intense to elicit a significant 24-hour performance decrement.
However, when exercise was sufficiently intense to affect 24-48 hour sprint performance, CWI maintained repeat-sprint performance (a measure of speed-endurance) better than thermoneutral immersion (67), contrast water therapy (12,13,48), and passive recovery (12,13,48,67).
The effect of CWI on absolute speed is less clear. Of the two studies I found, one found no benefit to CWI over passive recovery on immediate and 24-hour recovery of 50-m dash time (68), while the other showed that CWI maintained 20-m speed better than compression or stretching over a 3-day simulated basketball tournament (66).
There’s not a lot of data on the effects of CWI on same-day recovery of sprint performance, but one study showed no significant differences in repeat-sprint performance between CWI and passive recovery immediately and up to two hours after intermittent sprint exercise in the heat (61). This ties in well with the research in sprint cycling that shows neutral—or even detrimental—effects on 30-second Wingate performance following CWI when sufficient re-warming does not occur (69,70). This makes sense: reduced muscle temperature will negatively affect muscle contractile properties (71), impair energy metabolism (72), and slow nerve conduction velocity (6,73), which collectively will negatively affect the force- and power-generating capabilities of muscle. Thus, caution should be taken when using CWI between or prior to exercise that requires a high-degree of muscular force (sprinting, jumping, etc.). Athletes should allow sufficient time to rewarm following CWI and make sure to include a dynamic warm-up before their next event, which has been shown to offset the negative effects of cold exposure on power production in the vertical jump (65).
When exercise is sufficiently intense, CWI may help restore short-term (<48 hour) sprint and jump performance. However, reduced muscular temperatures negatively affect the force-generation capacities of muscle. Thus, when using ice baths between two training sessions or events within the same day, it is important to allow the body sufficient time to re-warm and/or to include an extensive dynamic warm-up.
Endurance Performance
Given the number of endurance athletes that use ice baths to recover between workouts or events, it was somewhat surprising that very few studies looked at endurance performance following recovery periods of 24 hours or longer. Two of those studies showed that CWI improves endurance performance following a 24-hour recovery period (17,74), and two other studies demonstrated similar recovery benefits across 3-day (75) and 5-day (23) training blocks.
Most studies that looked at the effects of CWI on recovery from endurance exercise utilized recovery periods of <60 minutes between exercise bouts. But here’s the thing: When an athlete takes an ice bath between two bouts of exercise with a short (<1 hour) duration between bouts that ice bath creates a “precooling” effect for the second bout. Precooling is proposed to increase performance (particularly in hot conditions) by increasing heat storage capacity, reducing thermal strain, and decreasing perceived exertion by reducing core body temperature prior to exercise (76).* And, based on the abundance of data showing a benefit to precooling on endurance performance** (particularly in hot conditions), this is probably why we see such an immediate recovery of endurance performance following CWI (56,77-81). This effect diminishes with longer recovery periods (82), presumably as core body temperature returns to baseline.
*If you’re interested in learning more about precooling check out this (open-access!) systematic review as well as the results of two recent meta-analyses here and here.
**Just to reiterate: the beneficial effect of precooling likely does not hold true for short-duration, maximal efforts (see above).
Ice baths may be useful for recovering endurance performance, particularly when an athlete has to compete in multiple games or events in one day.
The Effect of Regular Cold Water Immersion on Long-Term Training Adaptations
Very few studies have looked at the effects of ice baths on long-term training adaptations. But, the evidence-to-date paints a pretty clear picture:
Strength Training
The evidence is pretty clear on this one: regular use of CWI impairs long-term gains in muscle mass and strength (83-86) at least in part by blunting the molecular response to resistance exercise (84). This seems to apply to both trained (84) and untrained (85,86) individuals.
Ice baths blunt the acute molecular response to resistance training and impair long-term gains in muscle mass and strength. Athletes should reconsider using ice baths after strength training, particularly in the off-season or preparatory period when the focus is on adaptation rather than performance.
Endurance Training
The evidence for the effects of CWI on adaptations to endurance training is not so clear. One study in competitive cyclists found that regular CWI neither enhanced nor interfered with cycling performance over a three-week training block (87). Furthermore, recent evidence suggests that regular CWI may actually enhance molecular adaptations to endurance training (88). However, it’s important to interpret these results with caution, as molecular adaptations do not always reflect functional outcomes and the study did not measure changes in performance. Of note, there is some evidence that regular CWI at very cold temperatures (5ᵒC) for very long durations (>30 minutes) may disrupt local vascular adaptations and attenuate improvements in VO2max to endurance training in untrained subjects (85).
There is no direct evidence to suggest that ice baths enhance nor interfere with endurance training adaptations. In trained athletes, ice baths can be used sparingly after endurance training, but regular use is not recommended, particularly during the preparatory period when the focus of training is on adaptation. Finally, ice baths of excessive duration or at extremely cold temperatures should be avoided.
Major Take-Aways
The evidence for cryotherapy is pretty mixed, but there are some patterns that seem to emerge from the literature:
• Cold water immersion and other forms of cryotherapy reduce exercise-induced inflammation.
• This reduction in inflammation may lead to reduced perceptions of fatigue and muscle soreness and increased perceptions of recovery which may benefit performance in the short-term.
• Importantly, the short-term recovery benefits of cryotherapy may depend considerably on the mode exercise (i.e. the type of stress), the physiological and perceptual qualities one is trying to restore, and (as I will discuss further in Part 2) the athlete’s belief in cryotherapy as a recovery modality.
• Meanwhile, a growing body of evidence indicates that inflammation is a necessary process for tissue regeneration and, as such, regular use of cold water immersion may impair long-term muscular and vascular adaptations to exercise.
• As such, cryotherapy should be used sparingly, particularly in the off-season when the goal is to maximize training adaptations.
In Part 2, I will address:
• whether baseball pitchers should ice their arms
• whether there an optimal cooling method, temperature, or duration
• whether cryotherapy is just one big fat placebo
• practical recommendations for athletes and coaches
Stay tuned for Part 2!
Note: the references for this entire article (including the upcoming part 2) will be posted as the first comment below.
About the Author
A native of the Great White North, Tavis Bruce (@TavisBruce) is no stranger to the effects of cold on athletic performance. He holds a Bachelor of Kinesiology and Health Science from the University of British Columbia, where he pitched for the Thunderbirds baseball team for three seasons. Tavis is currently the Director of Education for the Baseball Performance Group, where he integrates his passion for sports science with his love of baseball. He can be contacted at tavis.bru@gmail.com.
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Back in my early-to-mid-20s, my focus shifted into powerlifting and away from a "traditional" athletic career. While I got a ton stronger, I can't say that I felt any more athletic. In hindsight, I realize that it was because I trained strength at the exclusion of many other important athletic qualities. Since then, I've gone out of my way to include things that I know keep me athletic, and as a result, into the latter half of my 30s, I feel really good about taking on anything life throws my way. With that in mind, I thought I'd pull together some recommendations for those looking to remain athletic as they age.
1. Stay on top of your soft tissue work and mobility drills.
Without a doubt, the most common reason folks feel unathletic is that they aren't able to get into the positions/postures they want. As I've written in the past, it's much easier to do a little work to preserve mobility than it is to lose it and have to work to get it back. Some foam rolling and five minutes of mobility work per day goes a long way in keeping you athletic.
2. Do a small amount of pre-training plyos.
I think it's important to preserve the ability to effectively use the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC). That's not to say that every gym goer needs to be doing crazy depth jumps and sprinting full-tilt, though. A better bet for many folks who worry about tweaking an Achilles, patellar tendon, or hamstrings is to implement some low-level plyometric work: side shuffles, skipping, carioca, and backpedaling. Here's a slightly more advanced progression we use in The High Performance Handbook program:
The best bet is to include these drills right after the warm-up and before starting up with lifting.
3. Emphasize full-body exercises that teach transfer of force from the lower body to the upper body.
I love cable lift variations to accomplish this task in core exercises, but push presses, landmine presses, and rotational rows are also great options.
4. Emphasize ground-to-standing transitions.
Turkish Get-ups are the most well-known example of this challenge, but don't forget this gem:
5. Get strong in single-leg.
Squats and deadlifts will get you strong, no doubt, but don't forget that a big chunk of athletics at all levels takes place in single-leg stance. Lunges, 1-leg RDLs, step-ups, and split squats all deserve a place in just about everyone's training programs.
6. Use core exercises that force you to resist both extension and rotation.
Efficient movement is all about moving in the right places. The lower back isn't really the place to move, though; you should prioritize movement at the hips and upper back. With that in mind, your core work should be focused on resisting both extension (too much lower back arching) and rotation. Here are a few favorites:
7. Train outside the sagittal plane.
It's important to master the sagittal (straight ahead) plane first with your training programs, but once you get proficient there, it's useful to progress to a bit of strength work in the frontal place. I love lateral lunge variations for this reason.
8. Chuck medicine balls!
I'm a huge fan of medicine ball drills with our athletes, but a lot of people might not know that I absolutely love them for our "general population" clients as well. I speak to why in this article: Medicine Ball Workouts: Not Just for Athletes. Twice a week, try adding in four sets at the end of your warm-up and prior to lifting. Do two sets of overhead stomps and two sets of a rotational drill, starting with these two variations in month 1:
In month 2, try these two:
Trust me; you'll be hooked by the "8-week Magic Mark."
9. Be fast on your concentric.
If you want to stay fast, you need to keep a fast element in your strength training program. This can obviously entail including things like Olympic lifts, jump squats, and kettlebell swings. Taking it a step further, though, you can always just make a dedicated effort to always accelerate the bar with good speed on the concentric (lifting) portion of the movement.
10. Play.
In a given week, on top of my normal lifting, I might catch bullpens, sprint or condition with my athletes, play beach volleyball, or run a few football receiving routes at the facility. The old adage, "Variety is the spice of life" applies to fitness and athleticism, too. Don't be afraid to have some fun.
The longer you've been training, the more you realize that your strength and conditioning programs have to be versatile enough to preserve your athleticism and functional capacity while still keeping training fun. If you're looking for a flexible program that's proven effective across several populations, I'd encourage you to check out my flagship resource, The High Performance Handbook, especially since it's on sale for $50 off through Sunday at midnight. The discount is automatically applied at checkout at www.HighPerformanceHandbook.com.
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Happy Friday, everyone! Here are three good reads from the strength and conditioning world to kick off your weekend on the right foot:
Would I Be Healthier If I Quit Drinking? - Camille DePutter takes a close look into how alcohol and fitness can co-exist, and what tradeoffs the choice to drink may entail. As usual, Precision Nutrition delivers excellent content.
Resume Building 101 for Fitness Professionals - My business partner, Pete, reviews well over 300 resumes each year for both CSP internships and jobs. Suffice it to say that if you're looking to strengthen your resume in the fitness industry, this is must-read material!
Also, just a friendly reminder that the $30 off sale on The High Performance Handbook ends this Sunday at midnight. Be sure to take advantage of this discount on my most popular resource of all time!
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This is my first installment of this series since October, so hopefully I can atone for that with a solid January performance. Here goes!
1. On several occasions, I've written that if you are going to include an exercise in a program, you absolutely have to be able to justify how it's going to create the training effect you want. In particularly, this is a question that should be asked constantly during sprinting and agility progressions. The end goal is obviously to (safely) put a lot of force into the ground as quickly as possible to create powerful athletic movements in all three planes of motion. Sometimes, I feel like we get very caught up in just programming drills for the sake of programming drills. There are a million different types of skipping drills, for instance, and we use a lot of them. Athletes certainly ought to be able to skip, but at the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves if making a skip more advanced and elaborate is really going to make an athlete move better. Or, would we be better off devoting that training volume to actual sprint work? There isn't really a "correct" answer to these questions, but I do think it's important to critically analyze our programs to see if the carryover from drills to actual athletic performance is really that good.
2. Earlier today, I was discussing outfield "jumps" with a few of our Cressey Sports Performance clients, including Sam Fuld, an Oakland A's outfielder who is well known for making some pretty crazy plays in center field. We were talking about lower-body movement (hip turn, crossover run, etc.) during the initial break as he reads a ball off a bat, but as we went to actually find some video online, my attention went elsewhere. Check out this play where Sam traveled 58 feet to make a diving catch:
What I noticed was the fact that he never actually got upright. He stayed in acceleration mode the entire time. If you replay the video from above, watch the :08 through :11 second interval. You'll rarely see a player cover more ground in the field.
This is yet another reason why I think a 30-yd (or home-to-first) time is more appropriate for assessing baseball-specific speed than a 60-time. Baseball players rarely get to top speed, whether it's in running the bases or playing the field. And, more importantly, they'd never do it in a straight line. I'm beginning to think that a 60-time is about as useful for a baseball evaluation as the 225lb bench press test is for NFL players...
3. Remember that not all your anterior core work has to be slower tempo drills like rollouts and fallouts, or low-level isometrics like prone bridges. Rather, remember that any time you go overhead while maintaining a neutral spine, you're working to resist excessive extension at your lumbar spine. In other words, overhead med ball drills can be great anterior core progressions - and here's a way to take them to the next level:
4. Resistance bands are awesome on a number of training fronts. They can be used to accommodate the strength curve, making the movements more challenging at the points in the range of motion where we are strongest. They can also be used to deload certain movements at positions where we are weakest.
In sports performance training, though, I'd say that their biggest value is in teaching direction - and subsequently loading it. As an example, I like band-resisted broad jumps because they allow us to produce force in a path that would be challenging to load in any other way. And, we need to produce force in this path during everyday athletic endeavors:
This is an area where Lee Taft really excels. When I watch experienced coaches teaching and coaching, I look for patterns that stand out: strategies that they return to frequently. In his new Certified Speed and Agility Coach course, Lee uses a band a ton to teach direction of force application and create appropriate angles for acceleration. It made me realize that we can get more efficient in some of our coaching strategies by busting out the band a bit more.
Speaking of Lee, the early-bird $100 discount on his new certification wraps up this Friday at midnight. I'm finishing it up myself and really benefited on a number of fronts - and our entire Cressey Sports Performance staff will be going through the resource as well. You can learn more about the course HERE.
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We're at a point in time where just about everyone knows that throwing a baseball year-round is a bad idea. Moreover, we know that it's best for kids to avoid early sports specialization.
Dr. James Andrews has been outspoken against early specialization and year-round throwing for roughly a decade.
John Smoltz devoted a big chunk of his Hall-of-Fame acceptance speech in Cooperstown to discouraging kids and parents from early specialization and year-round baseball.
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll recently referred to the trend of kids playing only one sport as "an absolute crime."
USA Baseball launched their Pitch Smart campaign - featuring an advisory board of many MLB team doctors and athletic trainers - to prevent overuse in youth baseball.
All the way back in 2006, a landmark study by Olsen et al. clearly demonstrated strong associations between injuries requiring surgery and pitching "more months per year, games per year, innings per game, pitches per game, pitches per year, and warm-up pitches before a game" as well as showcase appearances during adolescence. Overuse is the one factor that predicts injury over and over again in the research.
A 2011 study demonstrated that players in warm weather climates had less shoulder strength and more problematic range-of-motion adaptations than those in cold weather climates. And, speaking from personal experience from having Cressey Sports Performance facilities in both states, it's been far more challenging to develop players in Florida than it is in Massachusetts. There is simply too much baseball competing with general athletic development.
These are just a few examples, too. Hundreds of professional athletes have spoken out against early sports specialization. College coaches have in some cases refused to recruit one-sport athletes. And, there are more anti-specialization posts and websites freely available on the Internet than one could possibly imagine. Yet, the problem isn't even close to going away, and injuries still at all-time highs.
Now, I can understand how some players, parents, coaches, and scouts don't stay on top of the American Journal of Sports Medicine and might have missed this important information. What I can't understand is how they'd miss it when the world's most recognized orthopedic surgeon is speaking out against it. Or how they can miss it when one of the most accomplished pitchers of the last century devotes the biggest media spotlight of his life to bashing early sports specialization. Or how they'd overlook one of the premier coaches in the NFL so vehemently putting down the practice. Or how a governing body like MLB would devote time, money, and resources to a problem that they think will have a significant negative impact on the future of the game beyond just the billions of dollars that are already being wasted on players on the disabled list.
The problem is not a lack of knowledge; the problem is a lack of action and consequences.
When you were a little kid and stole a cookie from the cookie jar - even after your mother told you it was off limits - you got punished for doing so. If you didn't have consequences, you'd keep stealing cookies. Unfortunately, this isn't an option with youth baseball. Really, the only consequence is injury, and it's surprisingly not that great a teacher.
A lot of kids and parents continue to make the same mistakes even after an arm surgery and extended layoff. They've been brainwashed to think that the only way kids can succeed in baseball is to play year-round to keep up with other kids and get exposure to college coaches and pro scouts. There are too many coaches, showcase companies, and scouting services lining their pockets by lobbying hard to make these false assumptions stick.
If knowledge ("eating too many cookies is bad for you") isn't working, and it's hard to deliver consequences, what's the next step? You've got to make it really hard to get to those cookies - and they better taste like crap if you do manage to do so.
Stepping away from this analogy, the big governing bodies that matter need to step up their game. Here are six quick changes that I personally feel could have a profound impact on reducing injury rates across all levels:
1. Major League Baseball needs to implement a high school scouting "dead period" from October 1 through January 1. It is entirely hypocritical for MLB to push PitchSmart, but turn a blind eye when literally hundreds of scouts are showing up for October-December showcases and tournaments that directly compete with the PitchSmart initiative. Most of the highest-profile players aren't even attending these events anymore (advisors know it's an unnecessary injury risk), and there is absolutely nothing a scout would see in November that they can't see in the spring during the regular season.
2. MLB should also mandate that no pitcher can throw in more than three consecutive games - including "getting hot" (throwing in the bullpen, but not entering the game). Some might criticize me for this, but after extensive interaction with relievers at this level, I firmly believe that bullpen mismanagement is one of the biggest problems in MLB pitching injuries. Fans and the media only see the actual number of appearances, but when you factor in the number of times a pitcher "gets hot" without entering the game, you have relievers who are literally throwing over 120 times in a season.
3. The NCAA needs to implement innings limits on freshman and sophomore pitchers. Keep freshman pitchers to 120 innings and sophomore pitchers to 140 (combining the college season and summer ball). Additionally, any pitcher who throws more than 120 innings during the spring/summer should have a mandatory 60-day period of no throwing prior to starting fall ball.
4. The NCAA should also implement a conservative pitch count limit for college starters. I think 130 is a good place to start, and while I still think it's unnecessarily high, it reins in those coaches who'll leave a guy in for 150+ pitches. Sadly, this happens far too often in college baseball these days, and there are zero repercussions (although I do commend ESPN's Keith Law for always calling these coaches out on Twitter).
5. State athletic associations in warm weather climates need to structure high school seasons to allow for athletes to compete in multiple sports. As an example, in Massachusetts, the high school baseball season begins on the third Monday in March, while the first basketball practice is November 30. If a high school basketball player wants to play baseball, he might only have a 1-2 week overlap during that month - and it only happens if his team goes deep into the playoffs.
Conversely, the high school baseball season here in Florida begins on January 18, while the last regular season basketball game doesn't occur until January 30. The state championship games take place February 23-27 - which is roughly halfway through the baseball season! There is absolutely no reason for a high school baseball season (in which teams play about 30 games) needs to start prior to March 1.
That extra six weeks would make a huge difference in getting more baseball players to also participate in winter sports and help to get a baseball out of young hands a bit longer. And, you'd see a lot more players well prepared on day 1 of baseball tryouts because they'd have more off-season preparation under their belts. It would simply force teams to play three games per week instead of two; this is exactly what's done in Northern states (and they'll sometimes play four, if weather interferes).
6. Similar to point #4, state athletic associations should also have regulations on permissible pitch counts for high school arms. I think 115 pitches is a good number.
Closing Thoughts
I should note that I actually think Little League Baseball does a solid job of disseminating information and including specific regulations within the game and between games. The changes - at least in my eyes - should rest with high school athletic associations, the NCAA, and Major League Baseball. Impact will come from the top down.
As you can see, with only two exceptions, I'm much more about managing the competitive year than I am about micromanaging pitch counts. And, the two pitch count recommendations I put out are remarkably conservative and just reaffirm common sense (which, unfortunately, isn't so common anymore). Pitch counts alone haven't proven to be tremendously effective, but do have a place when implemented alongside guidelines for managing the overall baseball calendar.
There is absolutely no reason for skeletally immature middle and high school baseball players to have longer competitive seasons than professional players.
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