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Common Arm Care Mistakes: Installment 1

As you probably already know, I see a ton of baseball players on a weekly basis.  And, the majority of them come in with some pre-existing perceptions on what good arm care really is.  These ideas relate to exercise selection, coaching cues, frequency, timing, load, and a host of other factors.  I'm a firm believer that just about everyone does some things that are appropriate, and some things that are wrong. 

This may be "right vs. wrong" in a general sense. An example would be that it's always right for baseball players to strengthen their rotator cuff and scapular stabilizers.  And, it's always wrong to do so many arm care exercises before throwing that the cuff is actually fatigued before a thrower picks up a ball.

There are, however, specific cases of right and wrong.  For instance, if someone has a ton of congenial laxity (joint hypermobility), it's wrong to stretch their shoulders out, as you're making unstable joints more unstable.  However, if it's a very stiff individual, stretching may very well be completely indicated and productive.

To that end, I want to kick off this series to educate my baseball audience on how to evaluate arm care options so that you can ensure that they're the best fit for you.  Here's our first mistake:

Assuming all shoulder blades start in the same position.

There are tens of millions of throwing shoulders around the world, and each one of them responds slightly differently to a throwing stimulus - and this has been well documented.  The problem, however, is that when creating arm care programs, not a lot of people take into account that scapular (shoulder blade) position is going to differ - sometimes dramatically - from one throwing athlete to the next.  As examples, check out these two resting scapular positioning photos:

depressionanteriotiltadductedscap

 

 

 

 

 

On the left, you have an anteriorly tilted, abducted, and depressed scapular presentation.  This is what we often expect to see with throwers (usually with a bit more asymmetry, though). On the right, though, we have a very adducted scapular posture; the shoulder blades are almost touching the spine (the medial border of the scapula should be roughly three inches away from it).

The classic "down and back" cue that gets thrown out to just about everyone for every exercise could give both of these guys issues, but for different reasons.  The left example would potentially preferentially recruit lat (which is already cranking the shoulder girdle down) over lower trapezius, so we'd get more scapular depression instead of the posterior tilt and adduction we're seeking.  The right example would yank aggressively toward the spine with the rhomboids and "fight" the shoulder blades as they try to upwardly rotate.  Down and back isn't a good cue for this scapular presentation because he's literally as far back as he can possibly go.

This goes to show you that resting posture governs function, and function (or lack thereof) governs whether or not you're going to get hurt.  If you don't take resting posture into account, how can you be sure that you're creating the type of movement that you seek?

Thsi is just one more reason why I don't believe in "organizational arm care programs."  If every posture presentation and subsequent functional performance is different, why are we painting them all with the same broad stroke instead of giving them the individual attention they need?  Check out this video example, where I talk about how different folks might need different cues for the prone 1-arm trap raise, a commonly prescribed arm care exercise. 

Looking for more insights like this?  Check out one of our Elite Baseball Mentorships, where we discuss scapular posture and movement evaluation techniques (along with many other topics) in great detail.  We just announced our next Phase 1 (Upper Extremity) event: June 14-16.

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 12/9/13

Here's this week's list of recommended strength and conditioning reading:

Crossfit: The Good, Bad, and Ugly - I enjoyed this candid look at a controversial topic, courtesy of Mark Rippetoe.

I Know What to Do; Why Am I Still Not in Shape? - Precision Nutrition delves into a discussion about how knowledge doesn't really matter without application - and they help you to make application happen with easy-to-apply strategies.

Strength Exercise of the Week: 1-arm Band Rotational Row w/Weight Shift - I discussed this exercise in quite a bit of detail with our Elite Baseball Mentorship attendees this morning, and it reminded me of this post from last year.  It's a great exercise we like to use with our throwers.

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 11/27/13

Here's this week's list of recommended strength and conditioning reading:

Food is Not Fuel - This was a fantastic post from the crew at Precision Nutrition.  In it, they demonstrate that quality nutrition is about a lot more than just calories or energy.

Throwing Programs: Not One-Size-Fits-All - With a lot of our pro baseball guys starting up with throwing in mid-to-late November, it seemed like a good time to reincarnate this post from the archives.  I talk about a lot of the considerations that go into writing up a throwing program.

5 Hacks for Half-Kneeling - Mike Robertson does a good job of discussing the benefits of half-kneeling exercises, and provides coaching cues and examples you can use.

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The Truth About CC Sabathia’s Weight

Earlier this week, the New York Times published Joe Brescia's article, For Yankees' Sabathia, It Appears Less (Weight) is Less (Success).  It stirred up quite a bit of controversy among those "in the know" in the baseball world, particularly those with a knowledge of how the body actually works.  As is often the case with articles targeted toward the lay population, this piece didn't delve into the specifics in too much detail, so I thought I'd use this post to do so.  Be sure to read the article before proceeding, if you haven't already.

The Body Mass - Pitching Velocity Relationship

To begin, research has demonstrated a clear relationship between body mass and pitching velocity, so this is at least a question that has to be asked.  However, I think it needs to be answered fairly - via a compilation of anecdotal reports and actual research. And, most importantly, nobody except CC Sabathia knows how he feels at different body weights - and certainly nobody can speak to his injury history better than he can. Instead, we got some heavily dated and biased opinions with some cherry-picked interviews by Mr. Brescia.

CC_Sabathia_2009

The problem with cherry-picked interviews in this realm is that they always seem to fall back on a sample size of just a few pitchers.  "Greg Maddux did this, so everyone has to do this."  The problem is that not everyone has Greg Maddux's abilities with respect to pitching location, movement, and sequencing.  Other guys need to make it up with athleticism, especially in today's game - where fastball velocities blow those of yesterday out of the water. The game has changed dramatically; it's played with faster throwing, running, and swinging velocities than ever before (one of MANY reasons for the increase in injuries, contrary to what Lou Piniella and Leo Mazzone seem to think) - and if you want to compete at the MLB level, you don't have the option of not pushing your body to be better.  With that in mind, we have to look at what the majority of players have done to get to improve their bodies. To speak to Piniella's assertions, players don't get hurt or fall off in performance simply because they train; these problems occur when they train incorrectly, whether it's poor exercise technique, excessive volume, imbalanced programming, inappropriate loading, lack of attention to mobility and soft tissue quality, or any of a host of other factors. 

I've devoted my career to helping players get better and stay healthy by avoiding these common errors. To that end, at Cressey Performance, I work with over 100 professional players each off-season on top of a large college, high school, and middle school clientele - so I feel that I'm in a good position to give valid anecdotal evidence in the context of this weight gain vs. weight loss discussion. 

ECtable

While weight gain is almost universally beneficial at the younger ranks, as kids get past ages 17-18, things shift a bit.  As an example, in our professional pitchers crowd, I'd estimate that about 70% can really benefit from gaining weight.  Roughly 20% are at a good weight - and need to focus on improving body composition rather than actually making the scale go up or down.  Finally, only about 10% need to actually lose weight.

As it relates to throwing, weight gain is a perfect example of the Inverted-U curve.  In his latest book, David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell writes,

Inverted-U curves have three parts, and each part follows a different logic.  There's the left side, where doing more or having more makes things better.  There's the flat middle, where doing more doesn't make much of a difference.  And there's the right side, where doing more or having more makes things worse.

In other words, there is a weight that helps performance, but gaining more doesn't help past a point. Here's what the inverted U looks like graphically, with body weight on the x-axis and performance on the y-axis:

invertu

The 40 pounds Tim Collins has put on at Cressey Performance since he was drafted have had a profound impact on his pitching velocity, as he's gone from 82mph to the mid-90s.  So, as you can imagine, I look to take advantage of this weight gain window whenever possible.

TimCollins250x_20110610

The Body Mass - Pitching Stress Relationship

Unlike examples like Collins, I don't think Sabathia is a candidate to thrive with weight gain. You see, pitching is a combination of absolute and relative strength and power. From an absolute standpoint, more body weight equates to more force to push off the mound, and more momentum moving downhill; that's why gaining weight can have such a profound impact on pitching velocity.

On the other hand, from a relative strength and power standpoint, you eventually have to "accept" all the force you create.  We know that there are substantial ground reaction forces taken on by the front leg, and research has demonstrated that they are (not surprisingly) directly impacted by body weight.  Additionally, according to 1998 research on professional pitchers from Werner et al., at ball release, the distraction forces on the shoulder are approximately 108% of body weight.  You could also make the argument that these forces are even higher now, as average fastball velocity has crept up significantly since 1998, and the subjects in that study averaged only 89mph.  As is the case with body weight increases, as arm speed rises, so do shoulder distraction.  With this research in mind, there should be no question that carrying extra body weight at this critical instant in the delivery wasn't helping his cause:

CCSabathia

And, at risk of playing Monday Morning Quarterback, if you look at his recent injury history, you shouldn't be surprised. He had torn meniscus in his right (landing) leg repaired in 2010, and bone spurs removed from his left elbow in 2012.  Both are ball release/deceleration mechanism injuries to passive restraints.  In other words, they take place because the active restraints (muscles and tendons) can't keep up with the workload placed on them.  If you can't keep up with shoulder distraction forces, you only have two options, when you're in panic mode and trying to get big league hitters out:

1. Let your arm fly off your body.

2. Crank your elbow into more aggressive extension, increasing the likelihood of bony injury (loose bodies) or protective adaptation (spurs).

Clearly, gaining weight won't do much for his longevity - and, to be fair, the New York Times piece did discuss that. I'd also argue that it'd make it more difficult to field his position and run the bases during interleague play. Plus, his fat loss will make any future diagnostic tests - MRIs, x-rays, etc. - more accurate, should he encounter additional musculoskeletal problems. Here's what radiologist Dr. Jason Hodges had to say when I interviewed him five years ago:

By far, the biggest limitation is obesity. All of the imaging modalities are limited by it, mostly for technical reasons. An ultrasound beam can only penetrate so far into the soft tissues. X-rays and CT scans are degraded by scattered radiation, which leads to a higher radiation dose and grainy images. Also, the time it takes to do the study increases, which gives a higher incidence of motion blur.

I also found it interesting that there was no mention of the reduced risk of chronic problems like heart disease and diabetes; I give him a ton of credit for getting the weight off so that he can be a healthy role model for his kids (not to mention fans who've witnessed his transformation).

Your velocity doesn't matter if you're on the disabled list...period.  However, we have to ask the question of whether CC's velocity drop in 2013 was really just a function of him losing weight.

Finding the Right Body Weight to Maximize Velocity

If there are two thing I've learned over years of working with pitchers, it's that no two deliveries are alike, and every body is unique.  What works for Steve Cishek (6-6, 220lbs) won't work for Tim Collins (5-7, 170lbs).

CresseyCishekCollins

Beyond just height and weight differences, some guys have more joint laxity than others.  Each pitcher has a unique injury history. Some throwers have more retroversion in their throwing shoulders, or a larger valgus carrying angle at the elbow. 

crazyvalgus

I could go on and on about these individuals differences, but the point is that it's dangerous to assume that all guys will respond exactly the same to a given stimulus - whether it's a mechanical adjustment, modified throwing program, added athleticism, a change in body weight, or something else.

On the body weight side of things, I've had a few years to develop a sample size of where pitchers seem to fit in best weight-wise.  Obviously, there are individual differences in body weight distrubtion, limb length, and body composition, but we can generalize a bit if you think about the average build of a professional pitcher.  Being about 220-225 pounds for a 6-3 pitcher, as an example, seems to be a sweet spot.  If their weight drops, so does their velocity.  If their weight climbs, they don't necessarily benefit - and may actually feel worse.

By contrast, go to someone who is 6-5, and 240-245 pounds seems to be a good spot - so you could make the argument that each inch equates to about 10 pounds.  At 6-7, I'd estimate 260-270 pounds.  This is something that's been reflected in my conversations with the really tall guys I've trained over the years:

Really tall guys simply don't thrive with weight gain like shorter guys do.

While there are obviously exceptions to this rule, in the 6-7 and above pitchers I've encountered, we're usually focusing a lot more on improving body composition (dropping some body fat while gaining muscle mass, even if the scale weight doesn't change).  It all depends on their starting points - but I can't say that I've ever pushed hard for a guy to go from 250 to 270 pounds.

I should also note: interpreting online height/weight listings in MLB pitchers is tricky, as guys are always listed about an inch tall without a change in body weight. Plus, they are rarely updated - and guys don't grow much after they enter pro ball, but they do gain weight.  As an example, Felix Doubrant is currently listed at 165 pounds by Yahoo Sports, but ESPN.com and MLB.com have him at 225 pounds.

Obviously, there are exceptions to the "norms" I just set forth.  As an example, Cishek is more comfortable slightly lighter than typical 6-6 guys because he drops down and throws across his body, landing really closed off.  This gives him more deception and movement, but also requires a lot more mobility and athleticism than a big donkey who just stands upright and throws downhill. That same argument could be made for Jered Weaver and Andrew Miller, who are both listed at 6-7, 210 pounds.

Based on what I've heard and seen in his delivery, Sabathia is also a super athletic guy - and you can tell from the way he really gets down the mound.  I'd argue that he's better off at 270; it's a happy medium between velocity and health, in my eyes - and that's the Holy Grail of pitching we're always working to find.

The Mathematics of Sabathia's Weight Loss

According to the New York Times piece, Sabathia has lost 45 pounds over the past two years - effectively bringing him from 315 to 270 pounds. If these numbers are accurate, he lost 14% of his body weight over the course of 24 months - and that's certainly a notable reduction that has to raise his eyebrows.

However, those eyebrows are only raised if you look at things in absolute terms.  A 14% loss for a 6-3, 225-pound pitcher would be 31.5 pounds - and would certainly equate to a huge drop in velocity.  However, that 225-pound pitcher wasn't starting out from a point of what could actually be classified as obesity.  The 45-pound drop brought Sabathia back to a more normal range, whereas the 31.5-pound drop would put a 6-3 pitcher far too light to thrive. Unless he's got an insanely quick arm, it's not going to work.

This parallels my own experiences in cutting weight as a competitive powerlifter.  Losing 5-10 pounds would lower my lifts dramatically, but I knew guys in the 242-, 275-, 308-pound weight classes (and super heavyweights) who could do it in a matter of minutes without noticing a thing.  The heavier you are, the less sensitive you are to changes - especially when they happen over the course of two years.

Heavy people (especially taller ones) who diet don't experience the serious lethargy and lack of satisfaction lighter-weight dieters notice because of the total amount of calories that are still being taken in.  I remember talking to a world-class bench presser who wanted to stay above 350 pounds to shorten the distance the bar had to travel while pressing.  He told me he was drinking three gallons of Powerade a day on top of his normal diet just to keep his weight up - and was absolutely miserable.  He also couldn't go for a 1/4 mile walk without his lower back tightening up.  So, we can kill off the myth that CC was starving himself to take the weight off; he was probably just making better food choices - which actually meant he probably ate a higher volume of food.

Regarding mechanical changes that occur with significant weight gain or loss, I simply haven't seen it.  I've put 25 pounds on guys in off-seasons on countless occasions, and can't ever recall someone saying it interfered with their mechanics.  I've also had guys lose that same amount, without ever complaining about it throwing them off.  It's a much more dramatic change at these lighter weights, too.  Losing 20 pounds during an off-season when you're 320 pounds doesn't dramatically change your mechanics. And, even if it did, a high-level, intelligent athlete like Sabathia would sort it out, particularly with the video analysis resources at his fingertips.

In fact, I'd actually argue that his weight loss would improve his ability to get to the positions he needs to be successful with his delivery, as Sabathia lost a lot of abdominal fat. 

CChomeplate

When you carry a lot of weight in your midsection, there is a tendency to slip into lumbar extension (lower back arching) to counteract it.  This is one reason why pregnant women often have back pain; beyond the mechanical impingement on the posterior aspect of the spine, the muscles of the anterior core are excessively lengthen as the pelvis tips forward and rib cage slides up.  CP pitching coordinator Matt Blake and I discussed this common fault in our recent series, Understanding Trunk Position at Foot Strike (part 1, part 2, and part 3).  A larger belly would shift a guy like Sabathia into a more extended (arched) posture - similar to what we see with Lincecum on the right - as opposed to to the more neutral core positioning we see on the left with Zach Greinke.

grelin

Greinke is older and has thrown more innings over the past two years than Lincecum, yet his average fastball velocity this year was 1.5mph higher. According to Fangraphs (Lincecum vs. Greinke), since 2007, Lincecum has dropped from 94.2mph to 90.2mph, while Greinke has dropped from 94.0mph to 91.7mph.  This is one of many factors that may contribute to Greinke's ability to sustain his velocity better than Lincecum has, but I'll take a neutral core posture and clean drive line over the long haul over a heavily extended one - and that's where CC's larger abdomen was shifting him.

Finally, from a common sense standpoint, I don't think anyone would call 6-7, 270 pounds "light" - especially when we're talking about a guy who still looks pretty damn intimidating on the mound. His body weight is fine, people - as much as that doesn't sell controversy in the New York Times.

How, then, do you explain his loss in velocity? Read on.

Fatigue Masks Fitness

As the Lincecum vs. Greinke example demonstrates, getting older and throwing a lot of innings means a velocity drop. Sabathia's average fastball velocity is consistent with this trend, going from 94.7mph in 2005 to 91.1mph in 2013. Let's have a look at the active leaders in innings pitched (courtesy of Baseball Reference):

IP

As you can see, Sabathia is an outlier.  He was among the youngest on this list (if not THE youngest) to make the big leagues - and he's certainly the only one with a track record of sustained success without missing considerable time due to injury. 

Throwing a baseball is the single-fastest motion in all of sports, and CC Sabathia has done it at the highest level more than anyone else on the planet over the past 13 years.

It's virtually impossible to compare him to anyone on this list in terms of both innings pitched, admirable health, age and consistently. The only four parallels who can help for the sake of this discussion are Dan Haren, Josh Beckett, Jake Peavy, and Mark Buerhle.

Haren is the same age as Sabathia and also made his MLB debut at age 21. While he's averaged 186 innings per year over the past 11 years, he's thrown 729 innings (almost four full seasons worth) less than Sabathia, who has averaged 213 over the past 13.  Haren's average fastball velocity has declined from a peak of 91.9mph in 2005 to 88.9mph in 2013.

Beckett, like Sabathia, was an absolute stud in his early 20s and threw a ton of innings over his first decade in the big leagues - but his 149IP/year rate can't touch CC's because of the amount of time he's spent on the disabled list, especially in light of this year's season ending surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome.  He is a good comparison for Sabathia in terms of velocity, though, as Beckett's average fastball velocity dropped from 94.7mph in 2006 to 91.4mph in 2012 (his last full season). 

Jake Peavy is the same age as Sabathia, but got to the big leagues a year later than CC, and like Beckett, Peavy has missed too much time with injuries to really be a valid comparison (averaging 162IP/year). Peavy's average fastball velocity drop has been more subtle - 92.5mph in 2007 down to 90.7mph in 2013 - but you have to wonder where it would be if he'd thrown over 800 innings more during that time period - as Sabathia has.

Buerhle is a bit different, though, as he's averaged 205IP per season over the past 14 years - making him the only guy who can touch Sabathia's streak of longevity and performance.  The main difference?  Sabathia throws a lot harder than Buerhle, and that's a lot more stress.  Make no mistake about it: you don't pull your hamstrings if you don't run fast (even Lou Piniella's strength and conditioning approach supports that) - and the same applies to pitching.  Still, Buerhle's average fastball velocity has dropped from a peak of 87.1mph in 2004 to 84.2mph in 2013.

I've often heard that many front office people in baseball consider the prime of a player to be age 26-31. It's the point at which increased knowledge of the game coincides with peak athleticism and recovery ability.  After 31 - as each of these examples shows, things start to decline.  It stands to reason that power pitchers like Beckett and Sabathia, who rely heavily on athleticism, will fall off faster than those like Buerhle and Peavy, who rely more on location and movement.  I'd also add that those with considerable congenital laxity (loose joints) will fall off the fastest (more strength = more stability = better force transfer) - and based on what I've seen of Beckett and Sabathia, they are both freakishly flexible. Getting old sucks.

CCBack

What do these examples - and literally hundreds more in guys who weren't even close to as successful as Sabathia - show us?  Fatigue masks fitness.  If you throw a ton of innings (impose fatigue) and get older (reduce recovery capacity), your performance suffers. We saw it early this season after Justin Verlander's heavy workload in the playoffs last year.  And, this is true of every single sport in the history of mankind. 

That is, of course, unless you're CC Sabathia, in which case it's only because you lost some fat, at least according to a few of Brescia's cherry-picked interviewees.  To me, it's proof that there are scenarios where professional athletes can never win with the media.  Sabathia should be lauded for taking control of his health - and for taking the ball every time his team needed him to do so, pitching in some cases on three days rest.  We hear complaining all the time about how today's pitchers are soft and can't do what the pitchers of yesterday did.  How about praise for a guy who has made more sacrifices on the mound for his teams than anyone in MLB over the past 13 years?

And, who is to say that he would have pitched at all in these past few years if he hadn't taken the weight off?  If he'd come back and reaggravated the meniscus, then everyone would have been calling him too fat to perform.  There's literally no way to win without having the ability to predict the future - and that's why you have to apply common sense, anecdotal evidence, and research - none of which support the idea that being over 300 pounds is healthy or productive for a pitcher.

I, for one, am a huge CC Sabathia fan and think he can be a successful pitcher at this body weight given the right management in the years to come.  It's unfair, however, to expect him to throw 200+ innings per year in perpetuity and not anticipate a velocity loss to ever kick in.

And, more specific to the New York Times piece, it's incredibly shortsighted and borderline irresponsible to even attempt to to blame it on weight loss - which in all likelihood was necessary for him to continue to be able to perform at a high level in spite of the insane physical demands placed on him.

Note: A big thanks goes out to Matt Blake for the great photos from Right View Pro, and to the good folks at Fangraphs.com, who provide awesome stats info in the baseball world.

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 11/18/13

Here's this week's list of recommended strength and conditioning reading:

The Most Startling Trend in Baseball - Jeff Sullivan did a great job of not only bringing attention to the significant increase in average pitching velocity in Major League Baseball, but also quantifying these changes and discussing some of the possible reasons for the increase.

Protein Power: 5 Tasty Recipes to Help You Stay Fit - These are some great healthy recipes from Anna Sward for Precision Nutrition.  I'm going to be trying a few of them out in the next week!

19 Squat and Deadlift Variations - Bret Contreras never disappoints, and in this article, he covers a ton of different variations of the "Big 2" from which you can choose. I prefer the puggle deadlift.

TankTrapBar

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Why You Struggle to Train Overhead – and What to Do About It

A while back, I posted the following on my Facebook page:

"Fill in the Blank: ________ is the exercise that gives me the most trouble in the gym."

I've received 132 replies.  Of that 132, 21 were people trying to be funny on the internet, so they're thrown out the window - which leaves us with 111 replies.  Not surprisingly, more respondents highlighted trouble with an overhead movement - snatch, military press, overhead squat, etc. - than any other category of strength exercise.  In fact, it was one-third of people (37/111).  In a distant second place was squat variations, which comprised 19% of responses (21/111).

Digging a bit deeper, the most common "subcategory" of this overhead movements trend was the snatch, with 12 people saying that it was the exercise that gave them the most trouble. It shouldn't come as any surprise that the most high velocity movement in this category would be the most commonly cited, but what should surprise you is the sheer volume of people who are woefully unprepared to train overhead who try to fit a round peg in a square hole in this regard. 

If you can't get your arms overhead correctly at rest, do you really think you'll be able to do it when you're in panic mode just trying to catch a barbell you've launched over your head?  Heck no!  You're going to hyperextend your lower back and slip into forward head posture. And, chances are that you'll have already set up with an ultra wide grip to ensure that you can catch the bar with as little shoulder mobility as possible.

Before we proceed, let's cover this classic presentation in more detail. Here's a video I originally filmed for Wil Fleming.

(Side note: if you're trying to learn to Olympic lift, definitely check out Wil's fantastic DVD on the topic: Complete Olympic Lifting.)

The people who struggle learn the snatch - or really perform any overhead lift - are generally adults.  Why?  Because they've lost a fundamental movement pattern - overhead reaching - that everyone should have!  Barring some developmental disorder, everyone has the ability to get the arms overhead when they are kids, whether it's to reach for the cookie jar or to climb on the jungle gym at the playground.

Think about it: the overwhelming majority of teenagers can learn to Olympic lift in a matter of a few weeks or months.  And, it's been discussed time and time again how Eastern European kids would practice Olympic lifting patterns with broomsticks to maintain these crucial movement patterns to prepare for the day when they'd load them up.  They understood this very important lesson:

[bctt tweet="It's much easier to maintain mobility than it is to lose it and try to get it back."]

This isn't just because tissues can become fundamentally short and degenerative.  And, it's not just because resting posture becomes more aberrant or individuals accumulate more wear and tear.  It has a lot to do with the plasticity of the human brain.  Just like it's a lot easier to train a puppy than it is to teach an old dog new tricks, it's much easier to shape the neuromuscular patterning of a developing child or teenager than it is to change the more concrete patterns of an adult with poor movement quality - especially when that adult insists on trying to learn the pattern with 65 pounds or more on the barbell (rather than just a broomstick) - and after years of sitting at a computer.

Really, we're just reaping what we've sowed over the past 15-20 years.  The new generation of adults spent more time on Instant Messenger than on the basketball court. Fewer kids than ever did manual labor in their teenage years.  It became cooler to get an iPhone than a bike for your birthday. And, society pared back on physical education classes and recess time.  While this was happening, kids got more specialized on the sports front, meaning they were exposed to even less variety in movements when they actually did get exercise. Our health has obviously suffered, but so has our movement quality.

Before I get off on too much of a tangent, though, let's circle back to the back-to-wall shoulder flexion test from the video I posted earlier. If you failed it miserably, don’t worry! The "good" thing about struggling to get overhead correctly is that you know that there are a number of different things that could be limiting your ability to get there:

  • Limited shoulder flexion (short/stiff lats, long head of triceps, teres major, inferior capsule)
  • Limited shoulder external rotation (short/stiff pecs, lats, subscapularis)
  • Lack of scapular upward rotation (weakness of lower traps, upper traps, and/or serratus anterior; and dominance of levator scapula, rhomboids, and pec minor)
  • Poor thoracic spine extension
  • Lack of anterior core stiffness

With all these potential problems, chances are that improving each just a little bit will yield big results, especially since they interact with each other on a number of fronts.  For instance, if you reduce stiffness in your lats, your anterior core won't have to work quite as hard to overpower that stiffness, so its relative stiffness improves.

Below, you’ll find six videos of exercises you’ll want to incorporate in your warm-ups daily to gradually build up your range-of-motion and overhead stability. Be sure to perform them in this order:

1. Supine Alternating Shoulder Flexion on Doubled Tennis Ball: 8 reps/side

(Note: perform the rest of your foam rolling series, too - and make sure to spend some extra time on the lats and pecs.)

2. Bench T-Spine Mobilizations: 8 reps

3. Side-Lying Windmills: 8 reps/side

4. Dead Bugs: 8 reps/side

5. Back to Wall Shoulder Flexion (it's a test and a training exercise): 8 reps

6. Wall Slides with Upward Rotation and Lift-off: 8 reps

Do these drills each day during your warm-ups and - if schedule allows - another time during the day.  You'll find that it'll be much easier to get overhead in a matter of days and weeks. In the meantime, gradually build toward your ultimate goal with some regressions in your strength training program.  You can use a landmine press instead of a true overhead press, and cleans or high pulls in place of snatches. Eventually, once your body is ready to tackle these more complex movements, you'll find that learning them will be much easier.

Looking for more great self-assessment and mobility tips like these – as part of a comprehensive strength and conditioning program? Check out my resource, The High Performance Handbook, which features versatile strength and conditioning programs you can modify to suit your needs.

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Improving Thoracic Mobility in Throwers

It goes without saying that all rotational sport athletes need adequate thoracic spine (upper body) mobility in order to create appropriate separation as they work to transfer force from the lower extremity to the upper extremity during swings, throws, shots, and changes of direction.  In a throwing population, however, you need to take some special precautions as you work to build it.

One thing we know about pitchers is that their shoulder external rotation improves over the course of a season, and this likely takes place because the ligamentous structures in the front of the shoulder become looser. In this image of a left shoulder, it would be the area labeled "capsular ligaments:"

ghligaments

Effectively, the looser one's anterior capsule is, the more external rotation one will have.  The problem, however, is that if this area becomes too loose, the biceps tendon must pick up the slack as an important anterior stabilizer during external rotation.  Additionally, there are many nerve structures at the anterior shoulder that can be irritated because the humeral head isn't controlled.  This is yet another reason why it's not a good idea to stretch a throwing shoulder into external rotation.  In this video, I go into greater detail:

This knowledge gives rise to two thoughts:

1. If we lack thoracic rotation, our arm will drag during the pitching delivery, as it's a means of creating better separation (albeit in the wrong places).  Guys who have quick arms can often make up for it, but still inevitably irritate the anterior shoulder over time.  So, if your thoracic rotation stinks, you'll need to try to find more external rotation in the wrong places.  Additionally, if we lack thoracic extension, we often substitute lumbar extension (lower back arching) to maintain an upright torso.  These guys wind up with low back pain, oblique strains, and hip issues.

2. We can't just throw any thoracic mobility drill at throwers, particularly in the early off-season, when the anterior shoulder is all stretched out and it may be the path of least resistance.  As an example, the kettlebell arm bar might be a great drill for many folks in the population, but I would never use it with a thrower:

Instead, particularly in the early off-season, we need to pick drills that heavily emphasis thoracic movement independent of humeral (arm) movement. Here's a progression we might use over the course of the off-season:

Off-Season Months 1-2 (and during the in-season phase): Supine Alternating Shoulder Flexion on Doubled Tennis Ball, Thoracic Extension on Roller, Rock-Back Quadruped Extension-Rotation

tspineexte

Off-Season Months 3-4: Side-Lying Windmill, Bent-Over T-Spine Rotation

You'll notice that these options integrate a lot more humeral movement.  In many cases, you can use them earlier in the off-season, but only if they're coached really meticulously to ensure athletes are moving in the right places.

We use these exercises right after our foam rolling and positional breathing drills during the warm-up, and before anything we'd do to directly work on scapular stabilization and rotator cuff strength/timing.  Hopefully, this article gives you a little feel for not just some of the exercises we may use, but also the way we'd program them throughout the competitive season.

If you'd like to learn more about how we manage throwers, be sure to register for one of our Elite Baseball Mentorships.  The next one will take place June 14-16 in Hudson, MA.

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 11/4/13

Here's is some strength and conditioning reading (and viewing) to kick off your week:

5 Tips to Keep Your Shoulders Healthy for the Long Haul - This is a guest post I wrote up for Greatist.com.

ECtable

Dreaming of a Title - In light of the World Series run by the Red Sox, CP's Elite Baseball Development Program was featured, with interviews with several of our pro guys.  Check out this video.

Boosting Recovery: Solutions to the Most Common Recovery Problems - This was an outstanding guest post by Examine.com's Kurtis Frank at Precision Nutrition.

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Pitching Performance: Understanding Trunk Position at Foot Strike – Part 3

Today marks the third installment of this series on trunk position at foot strike during the pitching delivery.  In case you missed them, be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2.  In those installments, we outlined the problem of early and excessive lumbar (lower back) extension, and how to address it with drill work.  In today's final installment, we'll introduce some drills we like to use with our athletes to teach them about proper positioning and build stability within those positions.

At the end of the day, there are a few things that can contribute to a pitcher drifting into excessive extension from the time he begins his leg kick all the way through when his front foot strike.  Obviously, the foremost concern is what cues the athlete has been given that may be leading him in this direction.  Once those have been cleaned up, though, we have to look to see how physically prepared an individual is to get to the right positions. I think the first question you have to ask in this case is, "Where does the posture start?"  If an athlete looks like this at rest, he's going to at least look like this dynamically - and this heavily extended posture is going to be much more exaggerated.

APT

With that in mind, step 1 is to educate athletes on what acceptable resting posture is.  In this case, we need the athlete to learn to bring the pelvis and rib cage closer together, most notably through some posterior pelvic tilt.  Once that has been established, here are some of my favorite warm-up drills for athletes with this heavily extended posture. You'll notice that exhaling fully and learning to get the ribs to come down are key components of these drills.

In addition to these low-level core stability exercises, we'll progress to some balance drills, especially in the early off-season.  Effectively, we're teaching athletes to resist extension and rotation in single-leg stance.  Yes, it's static balance training, but I firmly believe these drills have carryover to bigger and better things at higher speeds. And, you're certainly not going to overtrain on them, so you've got nothing to lose.

With all these exercises out of the way, it takes a lot more high level core stability for this posture to carry over to the high level throw.  You need to improve both anterior core control (your ability to resist excessive extension/arching) and rotary stability (your ability to resist excessive rotation at the lower back).  I've outlined loads of options on these front, but here are two to get the ball rolling for those who aren't up to speed on my writings just yet:

And, remember that the different types of core stability never work in isolation - especially during the basebal throw.  Check out this video for more details:

The core stability you build must, however, be accompanied by a strong lower half.  Candidly, I don't think having a huge squat is necessary.  Athletes seem to get much better carryover from deadlift variations, in my experience - likely due to the fact that the deadlift does such a tremendous job of teaching good hip hinging.  We see so many athletes who drift (LHPs toward 1st base, and RHPs toward 3rd base) early in the leg kick and subsequent movement toward home plate in part because they can't hip hinge at all.  Once you've gotten that hip hinge back (in part with the toe touch video from above), you have to strength train in that pattern to get it to stick.  For the most detailed deadlift technique video tutorial out there, check out my free one here.

Additionally, single-leg strength is insanely important, and there are lots of ways to attack it. 

I think it's equally important to be able to build and maintain strength outside the sagittal plane, especially when it comes to carrying that good hip hinge over to movements when a pitcher is starting to "ride his hip" down the mound.  With that said, definitely check out an article I wrote previously, 7 Ways to Get Strong Outside the Sagittal Plane.

Once you've established hip and shoulder mobility, core stability, and lower half strength, you can really start to make the most of your medicine ball training.  As you can see, I think Tim Collins is a great example from which young throwers can learn a lot, as he has built up a lot of these qualities to make the most of a smaller frame in order to consistently throw in the mid 90s.  That said, I couldn't ask for a better demonstrator for our medicine ball drills for a few reasons.

First, he always throws the ball with intent; there are no half-speed reps. If you want to develop power, you have to try to be powerful in each throw during training.  Second, his direction is outstanding.  You never see him drift forward as he builds energy to apply with aggressive hip rotation. Third, he's got a great hip shift, which is necessary to get the most out of his posterior chain.

As a follow-up to that video, CP coach Greg Robins has a great tutorial here to teach you how to get "in and out" of your hip on rotational medicine ball exercises:

As you can see, there are a lot of different factors that contribute to an athletes being in excessive extension - but also allowing that extension to carry over to their pitching mechanics to the point that trunk position will be out of whack at foot strike.  Additionally, these exercises should demonstrate to you that athletes who land in a very extended position - but still have success and don't want to change things - will need to take special precautions in terms of physical preparation to make sure that their bodies don't break down over time with this delivery style.

This wraps up our series on understanding trunk position at foot strike during the pitching delivery; we appreciate you following along for all three articles!I If you'd like to learn more about how we manage throwers, be sure to register for one of our Elite Baseball Mentorships.  The next one will take place December 8-10.

 

 

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Pitching Performance: Understanding Trunk Position at Foot Strike – Part 2

Today is part 2 of a collaborative series on a key portion of the pitching delivery from Matt Blake and me. In case you missed part 1, you can check it out here.  In today's installment, Matt delves into the mechanical side a bit deeper and introduces some drill work and examples of where trunk position can go astray.

In order to understand where this extension at landing is coming from and how we can control it in the throw, we have to look at it with a more global perspective and realize that there were preceding movements that were driving this pattern into the landing position.

In part one, we used a picture of Tim Lincecum to exemplify a heavily extended position, but one thing you’ll notice is that the foot positioning in his stride pattern is actually driving a lot of the extension in the torso at landing. If we take a look further back in his delivery, you’ll notice that he has a considerable front leg swing that pulls a lot of his weight forward, causing him to land closed off. In order to keep the segmental separation unfolding efficiently through his target line, he is forced to include more extension in his throw. Here is a brief clip with a couple markers throughout the delivery to highlight the movements in question.

The issue then becomes that the same leg swing Lincecum uses to create power in his stride pattern is also what makes it susceptible to inconsistency, because of the timing and degree of pre-stretch it requires to make the driveline efficient.  Ideally, you would just be able to tell Lincecum to straighten out his stride line, and the problem would be solved. Unfortunately, it’s not always that easy. He has been using a stride pattern that is front leg swing dominant with a closed orientation at landing for years to help create the necessary tension it takes to throw the ball 95mph.  So, to that end, he’s nearly cemented these patterns – for better or worse.

With that in mind, sometimes it’s easier to give a pitcher some drill constraints to help find the tension in a different manner before they get back on the mound and try to recreate the new line of tension for which we’re looking.

In this case, we’ll introduce some simple drills to close the kinetic chain down a bit and move through a progression that goes from static in nature to a more dynamic and athletic movement pattern. Ideally, we’d cue our way through each drill depending on where we need to alter the individual’s line of tension until we’re able to repeat the new motion at full speed on the mound.

To give you an example of one of the more static drills in our “lead-up” sequence to help set the pattern in place, here is a simple demonstration of the “stride drill” with a three-step progression.

In this example, the intensity was obviously low for the sake of demonstration, so some of the variables of the throw are not exact.  With that said, we do also use this drill in a more explosive capacity during some of our weighted ball and velocity drill series in order to turn up the intent and attempt to create some hand speed.

To give you an example of what this looks like in an amateur pitcher with an excessive extension pattern that may lead to some inconsistency, here are three videos depicting the wind-up and then corrective stride drill work:

Wind-up

Stride Drill

Stride Drill with Load

Obviously, these drills aren't quite where we want them to be yet, as there is still plenty to correct, but that was the idea: I want you to see where most “live-arm” high school athletes are before they acquire an efficiency of movement. This athlete, in particular, has pretty good stuff and works about 86-89mph with this particular delivery. If he can control his feet a little better and know where his weight is positioned, he can control his pelvis and rib orientation in the stride phase, and he’ll be able to create some cleaner sequencing. 

One the flip side of that, I want to emphasize with an athlete like this is that, yes, I do want him to throw hard with intent, but I also want him to be in positions to compete in the strike zone on a consistent basis. These don’t necessarily have to be competing interests if we understand how our movements can work together and not fight each other.  The main point ends up being that these drills, if cued properly, are attempting to have him consider more efficient movements, and in turn, a more stable and centered delivery.

At the end of the day, as much as we want to control extension in the delivery, by having a strong anterior core that can help limit the amount of hyperextension we get in the lumbar region, most high level throwers have some level of extension in their sequence. The key for me is getting the athlete to understand if it’s excessive or if it’s controlled extension that we can managed within normal limits on a consistent, repeatable basis. If it’s not, we need to be able to find the corrective measures to bring it under control.

In Part 3, EC will cover some core stability exercise progressions he utilizes to help athletes build stability in these positions. In the meantime, if you'd like to learn more about how we manage throwers, be sure to register for one of our Elite Baseball Mentorships.  The next one will take place December 8-10.

 

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