In the first half of this two-part installment on why pitching velocity changes during the course of a season, I outlined 9 Reasons Pitching Velocity Increases Over the Course of a Season. As you'll appreciate after reading today's post, there are actually a lot more ways by which pitching velocity can decrease over the course of a season. Let's examine them individually:
1. Body weight reductions
This is far and away the most prominent reason pitchers lose velocity as a season goes on. In fact, it's so big a problem that I devoted an entire blog to it: The #1 Cause of Inconsistent Pitching Velocity.
2. Strength loss
As I discussed in my first book, The Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual, strength is an important foundation for power. And, taking it a step further, power is certainly an important part of pitching. As the season goes on, many guys just don't get in the quality weight room work they need to maintain strength, and power on the mound tails off.
3. Injury
It goes without saying that if you're hurt, you won't throw as hard. This isn't just a shoulder or elbow thing, either; sprained ankles, sore hips, tight lower backs, oblique strains, and stiff necks can all wreak havoc on velocity. If something is bothering you, get it fixed before it causes you to develop bad habits.
4. Loss of mobility
When people hear the word "mobility," they typically just of tissue length. However, mobility is simply one's ability to get into a desired position or posture. In other words, it's a complex interaction of not just actual tissue length, but also strength/stability, tissue quality, and kinesthetic awareness. If you don't continue working on mobility drills, static stretching (when appropriate), foam rolling, and your strength training program, one of the components of this equation can suffer.
Obviously, as I wrote previously What Stride Length Means and How to Improve It: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, stride length is the best example of this phenomenon. However, what happens at the shoulder is another great example, too. One who loses thoracic mobility or scapular stability may stiffen up at the glenohumeral (ball-and-socket) joint; it's possible to gain range of motion without even stretching at the "stiff" joint!
5. Excessive workload
This is the time of year when a lot of guys start hitting all-time highs for innings in a season. And, with the games getting more important at the end of the high school and college seasons, pitch counts often rise when the innings really matter. It's very simple:
Fatigue masks fitness.
If you're dragging and the velocity is down, a short-term reduction in throwing volume is often the quickest path to getting velocity back - particularly in pitchers who are throwing more innings than ever before. Throwing an easy flat-ground instead of a bullpen between starts is one way to stay fresh, or you may opt to alternating higher pitch counts with shorter outings. If I hear about one of our high school pitchers who has an exceptionally high pitch count (105+), I usually tell him to make sure the next one is in the ballpark of 80 pitches. At that age, arms always seem to be dragging if kids go over 100 pitches in back-to-back outings.
6. Cumulative effect of bad throwing programs
This is best illustrated by a "hypothetical" example that actually happens far too often.
a. Pitcher makes great velocity gains in an off-season with comprehensive throwing program that includes long toss.
b. Pitcher goes in-season and encounters pitching coach that doesn't believe in long toss as part of a throwing program.
c. Pitcher has a velocity loss.
This scenario doesn't just happen because a specific modality (long toss) is removed, but also because of the effect it has on a pitching routine. This, for me, is why it's so important to have conversations with pitchers on what throwing programs they've done in the past. What's worked? What hasn't? It's all about tinkering, and rarely about overhauling.
These researchers divided a collegiate pitching staff into two groups of eight pitchers over the course of a season, and each group did everything identically – except the running portion of their strength and conditioning programs. Three days per week, the “sprint” group did 10-30 sprints of 15-60m with 10-60s rest between bouts. The endurance group performed moderate-to-high intensity jogging or cycling 3-4 days per week for anywhere from 20-60 minutes.
Over the course of the season, the endurance group’s peak power output dropped by an average of 39.5 watts while the sprinting group increased by an average of 210.6 watts. You still want to distance run?
Of course, there are still the tired old arguments of "it flushes out my arm" (much better ways to do that), it clears my head (go see a psychologist), "it keeps my weight down" (eat less crap, and do more lifting and sprinting), and "it helps me bounce back better between starts" (then why are so many players in MLB living on anti-inflammatories?). The system is broke, but instead of fixing it based on logic, many coaches continue to change the oil on a car with no wheels.
8. Insufficient warm-ups
While there are definitely some outstanding opportunities out there to develop in the summer, the truth is that summer baseball is notorious for sloppy organization. Guys are allowed to show up ten minutes before game time, do a few arm circles, and then go right to it. If you're walking directly from your car to the mound, don't expect your velocity to be too good in the first few innings.
9. Cumulative effect of altered sleep patterns
Early in my training career, I realized that missing sleep the night before a training session really didn't have any effect on my next training session. However, if I had consecutive nights of little to no sleep, it crushed me. I know of a lot of people who are the same way.
Now, imagine an entire season of red-eye flights, 3AM bus departures, and going to bed at 1am every night. Beyond just the sleep deprivation component, you have the dramatic change in circadian rhythms that takes place. Just head over to Pubmed and look at the hundreds of studies examining the health impact of working night shifts (shift work disorder); you'll see preliminary research linking it to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and a host of other issues. I firmly believe it's one of many reasons injuries in baseball are on the rise - and certainly one potential culprit when velocity declines as a season progress.
10. Pitching off a crappy mound
Many players wind up pitching off terrible mounds during summer ball, and when the mound isn't groomed nicely, you get into "oh crap, I don't want to get hurt" mode with your landing leg. If you aren't comfortable landing, you shorten your stride, or reach for a "safe" part of the mound, messing with your mechanics in the process. Additionally, velocity is going to be lower when the mound height isn't as elevated; it's just how gravity works.
11. Mechanical tinkering for the bad
In part 1, I noted that mechanics changes in the summertime can be a source of velocity improvements. They can also, however, be a reason for guys losing velocity. Not all changes are new changes, and it's important to be careful about overhauling things on the advice of each new coach you encounter. Repetition is important, and it's hard to get it if you're always tinkering with something.
12. Dehydration
Dehydration can have a dramatically negative effect on strength and power. Most athletes are chronically dehydrated at rest, and certainly during pitching outings in the summer heat. Hydration status is an important thing to monitor if you want to throw gas.
13. Throwing to a new catcher
Being comfortable with the guy who is catching your pitches is a big part of success on the mound. When the catcher is constantly changing, there is more hesitation - especially if his pitch-calling tendencies are different from those of your previous catcher. If you're constantly shaking him off, it'll mess with your pace on the mound and slow you down.
14. More erratic throwing schedule
One of the biggest adjustments a pitcher will ever have to make is switching from starting to relieving or vice versa. While going to the bullpen can often lead to an increase in velocity, it can make other guys erratic with their delivery, as they've learned to rely on the pre-game period to get everything "synced up."
Meanwhile, thanks to an increased pitch count, guys who go from the bullpen to the starting rotation sometimes see a drop in velocity. As examples, just compare John Smoltz or Daniel Bard out of the bullpen to what they have done in the starting rotation.
The only thing tougher than making that switch is to constantly bounce back and forth between the two, as it really hurts your between-outings preparation. How you prepare to throw seven innings is considerably different than what you do if you're just going to go out and throw 10-15 pitches.
These are only 14 reasons velocity may dip, and their are surely many more. Maybe your girlfriend cheated on you with the bat boy and you got distracted, or you decided to just throw knuckleballs. The point is that - as if the case with many things in life - it's a lot easier to screw up (lose velocity) than it is to thrive (gain velocity). Plan accordingly!
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We're a few months into the college and professional baseball seasons. Not every pitcher's velocity is where it needs to be just yet, and that's no surprise. In today's post, I'll cover nine reasons why pitching velocity increases over the course of a season.
1. Increased external rotation
Over the course of a season, pitchers acquire slightly more external rotation at the shoulder (roughly five degrees, for most). Since external rotation is correlated with pitching velocity, gaining this range of motion is helpful for adding a few ticks on the radar gun as compared to early in the season. However, this added external rotation comes with a price; more range of motion (especially if it's acquired too quickly) means that you be consistent with your arm care routines to make sure that you've got adequate motor control/strength in those positions. As I've often said, what makes you spectacular can often make you susceptible, too.
2. Optimization of mechanics
Many pitchers integrate subtle or dramatic changes to their mechanics in the off-season and early in-season periods, but these changes won't "stick" until they have some innings under their belt. A few months in is often when those corrections start to settle in.
3. Transfer of strength to power
Some pitchers build a solid foundation of strength in the off-season, but take extra time to learn to display that force quickly (power). In short, they're all the way toward the absolute strength end of the continuum, as described in this video:
If you want to dig in a bit deeper on this, this video on delayed transmutation is a good place to start.
4. More important game play
Some guys just don't get excited to pitch in games that don't mean much. While that is an issue for another article, the point here is to realize that a greater external stimulus (more fans, playoff atmosphere, important games) equates to a greater desire to throw cheddar. Soon, the MLB season will start, and high school and college post-seasons will be underway, so you'll start to see some of the big radar gun readings more frequently.
5. Warmer weather
Many pitchers struggle to throw hard in cold weather. Some of the most dominant pitchers in the game have April fastball velocities that don't hold a candle to what they do during the rest of the year.
Warmer weather makes it easier to warm up, and many guys - especially the more muscular, stiff pitchers - need to lengthen the pre-game warm-up early in the season. If you're a guy who typically doesn't see your best velocity numbers until you've got several innings under your belt, extend your pre-game warm-up, dress in layers, and don't pick up a ball until you're sweating.
6. New desire to prove oneself
For many pitchers, summer ball is a new beginning. This might be in the form of a Cape Cod League temp contract, or a situation where a player is transitioning from a smaller high school that doesn't face good competition on to a program that plays a challenging summer schedule. Again, that external stimulus can make a huge difference, as it often includes better catchers, better coaching, more fans, better mounds, and more scouts behind the plate.
7. Mechanical tinkering
Piggybacking on the previous example, some pitchers may find their mechanics thanks to help from summer coaches. So, a change in coaching perspective can often bring out the best in guys.
8. Freedom to do one's own thing.
I know of quite a few cllege pitchers who've thrived in the summer time simply because their pitching coaches haven't been in the way. Usually, this means they can go back to long tossing rather than being restricted to 90-120 feet all season. It's a great way to get arm speed back.
9. Different pitch selection
The college season is about winning games, whereas summer ball is more about developing. There are quite a few college coaches who have guys throw 75% sliders in their outings to accomplish the former objective, whereas those same pitchers might go out and throw a lot of changeups in summer ball in order to develop the pitch. This is also often the case when you see MLB pitchers get absolutely shelled during spring training; they're usually working on something, or simply just trying to build up their pitch counts.
As an extension of this, summer ball is a chance for many guys to take a step back and really work on commanding their fastballs, so it's not uncommon to see a few more mph on the radar gun as this becomes more of a focus.
On the topic of summer baseball, in case you missed it, registration is now open our Elite Collegiate Baseball Development Summer Program, a comprehensive experience we offer to pitchers from around the country to enhance velocity, develop new pitches, and stay healthy in the process. You can learn more HERE.
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We have quite a few baseball coaches, athletic trainers, physical therapists, and strength and conditioning coaches who stop by Cressey Sports Performance to observe our training. While they are the ones visiting to learn, I actually learn quite a bit about the "norms" in the baseball strength and conditioning field by listening to them tell me about what surprises them about what they observe at CSP. Here are some of the areas that seem to surprise quite a few people:
1. They're surprised we don't do more sprint work and change-of-direction training.
The competitive baseball season essentially runs from mid-February all the way through early September, and during that time, guys are sprinting, diving, and changing directions constantly during fielding practice. They're also on their feet in cleats for an absurd number of hours each day. To that end, when the off-season rolls around, most guys want a few weeks away from aggressive sprinting and change-of-direction work. Once they get their rest, we typically go to 2-3 movement training sessions for October through December, usually on off-days from strength training. I prefer to break them up so that we can get more quality work in with our strength training program, and also so that the sessions don't run too long. Once January 1 rolls around, the volume and intensity of sprinting increases, while the strength training program volume is reduced.
Summarily, because we often separate our sprint/agility work from our resistance training, many folks get the impression that we don't do much movement training - but that couldn't be further from the truth. It's a big part of our comprehensive approach to baseball development; we just fit it in a bit differently than most coaches, and emphasize or de-emphasize it at different point in the year.
2. They're surprised how much medicine ball work we do.
One of the reasons there is a bit less movement training than you might see in other strength and conditioning programs is that we do a ton of medicine ball work, particularly during the months of October through January (for our pro guys).
Medicine ball drills are great for not only training power outside the sagittal plane, but also because it helps to iron out excessive asymmetries while maintaining pitching- and hitting-specific mobility. Our guys may do 240-360 medicine ball throws per week during their highest volume phases.
3. They're surprised that we don't Olympic lift our baseball guys.
On multiple occasions, I've written at length about why I don't like overhead pressing and Olympic lifts in light of the unique demands of throwing and the crazy adaptations we see in throwers.
While the Olympic lifts might have great power development carryover to the sprinting one encounters on a baseball field, the carryover to power in the frontal and transverse planes just isn't as pronounced. In other words, power development is extremely plane-specific. I'll take medicine ball work and non-sagittal plane jumping exercises over O-lifts for baseball players in a heartbeat.
4. They're surprised we don't do more band work.
It's not that I think bands are useless; I just think most guys use them incorrectly, and even when used correctly, they just don't really offer that much advantage other than convenience.
The fundamental issue with bands is that the resistance is generally so light that guys can quickly develop bad habits - poor humeral head control, lumbar hyperextension, etc. - while doing them. They'd be much more effective if guys would just slow down and use them correctly. I am also not a fan at all of using the bands to get the arms into all sorts of extreme positions; you're just using a passive implement to create more laxity in an already unstable shoulder. If you want (and need) to stretch a shoulder, do so with the scapula stabilized.
Additionally, I'll take cables over bands whenever possible simply because the resistance is heavier and it matches the strength curve for external rotations better. Throwers are generally weakest at full external rotation, yet the band has the highest tension in this position; meanwhile, the cable's resistance remains constant. Obviously, manual resistance is ideal, but bands are a distance third.
5. They're surprised how "aggressive" our throwing programs are.
The overwhelming majority of our guys long toss, and most of them throw weighted baseballs at certain points of the year as well. They pitch less and throw more. They all still get their 2-3 months off from throwing each year, but when they are throwing, they work hard.
This is in stark contrast to some of the throwing models I've seen in professional baseball, where many organizations limit players to 90-120 feet with their long tossing, and the only time a baseball is "weighted" is when it gets wet on a rainy day. Guys take so much time off that they never have any time in the off-season to actually develop. I firmly believe that while you have to have strict limits on how you manage pitchers, you also have to stop short of completely coddling them.
These are surely just five areas in which we deviate from the norm with respect to baseball development, but important ones nonetheless.
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I'm always surprised when I see "arm care" portions of baseball strength and conditioning programs that attempt to break rotator cuff exercises and scapular stability exercises into different categories. In my eyes, while you can certainly prioritize one over the other, treating them as mutually exclusive means that you're missing out on a great opportunity to educate an athlete on "positional stability." Here are a few examples to demonstrate my point:
In Band Distractions w/Rhythmic Stabilizations, you'll see that Orioles prospect (and Twitter phenom) Oliver Drake, actively counteracts the distraction force created by the band by pulling the scapula back onto the rib cage. Then, we challenge the rotator cuff with rhythmic stabilizations.
Likewise, in this Half-Kneeling 1-arm Manual Resistance External Rotation, Sam needs to make sure to position the scapula appropriately on the rib cage to make sure that he's in the best position to create eccentric strength for the cuff. This is of particular importance in guys with low shoulders who may be very lat-dominant; gravity will have an additional downward pull on the scapula, so many guys need to intentionally activate upper trapezius prior to starting the set.
Or, consider a Prone External Rotation (one of our old Strength Exercises of the Week). This is definitely viewed as a rotator cuff exercise, as the goal is to learn to externally the humeral head in the socket without the "ball" migrating forward (preventing anterior instability). However, you also have to appreciate that gravity is forcing the scapula forward into anterior tilt, so the lower trapezius must be turned on to counteract it.
Likewise, just about every time you do any exercise that involves holding weights in your hands, your rotator cuff is firing reflexively.
With all these examples - and surely many more - in mind, we realize that "categorizing" arm care exercises can be pretty difficult, as we're always looking to find a balance between doing enough and doing too much.
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Everyone wants to improve pitching velocity, but unfortunately, the answer to the question of "how" is different for everyone. To that end, I pulled together a quick list of 101 strategies you can use to improve pitching velocity. They aren't the same for everyone, but chances are that at least a few of these will help you. I'd encourage you to print this off and highlight the areas in which you think you can improve.
1. Optimize mechanics (this could be 100 more ways in itself; I will leave it alone for now).
2. Gain weight (if skinny).
3. Lose weight (if fat).
4. Get taller (shorter throwers can’t create as much separation, and are further away from homeplate)
5. Get shorter (taller throwers have more energy leaks).
38. Change footwear (guys usually throw harder in cleats).
39. Throw less.
40. Throw more.
41. Pitch less.
42. Pitch more.
43. Politely ask your mom to stop yelling, “Super job, kiddo!” after every pitch you throw.
44. Do strength exercises outside the sagittal plane.
45. Take all the money you were going to blow on fall/winter showcases and instead devote it to books, DVDs, training, food, and charitable donations. If there is anything left over, blow it on lottery tickets and sketchy real estate ventures, both of which have a higher return-on-investment than showcases in the fall and winter.
46. Switch from a turf mound indoors to a dirt/clay mound outdoors.
51. Improve glute activation so that you can fully extend your hip in your delivery.
52. Stop thinking that the exact workout a big league pitcher uses is exactly what you need to do.
53. Subcategory of #52: Remove the phrase "But Tim Lincecum does it" from your vocabulary. You aren't Tim Lincecum, and you probably never will be. Heck, Tim Lincecum isn't Tim Lincecum anymore, either. You can learn from his delivery, but 99.9999% of people who try to copy his delivery fail miserably.
54. Read more. This applies to personal development in a general sense, and baseball is certainly no exception. The guys who have the longest, most successful careers are usually the ones who dedicate themselves to learning about their craft.
55. Stay away from alcohol. It kills tissue quality, negatively affects protein synthesis, messes with sleep quality, and screws with hormonal status.
56. Incorporate more single-leg landings with your plyos; you land on one leg when you throw, don't you?
57. Be a good teammate. If you aren't a tool, they'll be more likely to help you when you get into a funk with your mechanics or need someone to light a fire under your butt.
58. Respect the game. Pitchers who don't respect the game invariably end up getting plunked the first time they wind up going up to bat. Getting hit by a lot of pitches isn't going to help your velocity.
59. Train the glutes in all three planes (read more HERE).
60. Remember your roots and always be loyal. You never know when you'll need to go back to ask your little league, middle school, high school, or AAU coach for advice to help you right the ship.
61. Get focal manual therapy like Active Release.
62. Get diffuse manual therapy like instrument-assisted modalities or general massage.
63. Make sweet love to a foam roller.
64. Throw a jacket on between innings to keep your body temperature up.
65. Pitch from the wind-up.
66. Drink magical velocity-increasing snake oil (just making sure you were still reading and paying attention).
67. Pick a better walkout song.
68. Get on a steeper mound (expect this to also increase arm stress).
69. Train hip mobility and core stability simultaneously.
70. Get around successful people in the pitching world and learn from them. Find a way to chat with someone who has accomplished something you want to accomplish. If you hang around schleps who complain about their genes and have never thrown above 75mph, though, expect to be a schlep who throws 75mph, too.
71. Pick the right parents (sorry, genes do play a role).
74. Get 8-12 weeks off completely from throwing per year. Read more about why HERE and HERE.
75. Be candid with yourself about how hard you’re really working (most guys talk about working hard when they should actually be working hard).
76. Take the stupid sticker off your hat.
77. Stop thinking so much.
78. Think more.
79. Stop stretching your throwing shoulder into external rotation (read more on that HERE).
80. Get in a better training environment.
81. Surround yourself with unconditionally positive and supportive people.
82. Talk to a different pitching coach to get a new perspective.
83. Stop talking to so many pitching coaches because too many cooks are spoiling the broth.
84. Lengthen your stride (learn more HERE, HERE, and HERE).
85. Shorten your stride.
86. Get your ego crushed when you realize that no matter how strong you think you are, there is a girl somewhere warming up with your max. And, my wife might even be able to do more pull-ups than you!
87. Stop trying to learn a cutter, knuckle-curve, slider, and “invisiball” when you can’t even throw a four-seam where you want it to go.
88. Play multiple sports (excluding cross-country).
89. Stay healthy when other pitchers are getting hurt.
90. Stop pitching for five different teams in the same season.
91. Pre-game routine: dynamic warm-up, sprinting progressions, long toss, pull-down throws, flat-ground, bullpen. Post-game routine: make out with prom queen after complete game shutout.
92. Do rhythmic stabilizations before you throw (if you’re a congenitally lax/”loose” guy) to "wake up" the rotator cuff.
104. Breath better (less shoulder shrug and more diaphragm).
105. Train the rotator cuff less.
106. Change the day on which you throw your bullpen.
107. For relievers, stay loose and warm throughout the game (read more about that HERE). Staying entertained is also important, as CP athlete Joe Van Meter demonstrates.
108. Here and there, between starts, skip your bullpen and throw a flat-ground instead to give your arm a chance to bounce back.
109. Consider creatine (the most researched strength and power supplement in history, yet surprisingly few people in baseball use it)
110. Work faster (the fielders behind you will love you).
111. Work slower (recover better between pitches and self-correct).
112. Stop ignoring your low right shoulder and adducted right hip.
113. Pick a college program where you’ll have an opportunity to play right away and get innings.
114. Move from a 5-day rotation to a 7-day rotation.
115. Decide to wake up in the morning and piss excellence!
These are really just the tip of the iceberg, so by all means, feel free to share your own strategies and ask questions in the comments section below.
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With an old post, Strength Training for Pitchers, I *thought* I had put to rest the silly idea that strength training doesn't help with improving throwing velocity. Unfortunately, some pitching gurus are still insisting that weight training is the devil when it comes to pitching velocity.
To that end, I thought I'd use today's brief post to highlight some newly published research from (among others) the bright folks at the American Sports Medicine Institute (ASMI). This research showed that strength training doesn't just improve throwing velocity, but also that ANY type of strength training does!
Researchers looked at the effects of three different six-week strength training programs on velocity in 14-17 year-old baseball players, and found that all three programs led to significant improvements (1.2-2.0%) in throwing velocity over controls.
And, as is usually the case in the research, the programs were less than comprehensive. Just imagine if you borrowed the best bits and pieces from several programs and put them together in a comprehensive program that lasted an entire career, rather than just six weeks!
So, the next time you hear a pitching coach say that strength training for pitchers doesn't work, please rock a "face palm" and then inform him that even crappy strength training works in most scenarios (especially high school athletes).
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One of the biggest concerns players have when it comes to in-season strength and conditioning programs is whether or not a particular exercise will make them sore. It's a valid point, when you consider the profound effect soreness can have on a baseball athlete's performance - both physically and mentally. As such, it's important to select exercises that provide a great training effect, but won't necessarily create a lot of soreness for a player.
The first important point to recognize is that strength exercise familiarity will minimize soreness. In other words, if an athlete has already done an exercise in the previous 7-10 days, it shouldn't make him very sore (if at all). This is one reason why I like to introduce new exercises in the week prior to the start of the season; we can "ride out" those exercises through the first 4-6 weeks of the season without worrying about soreness.
Of course, once you get past that initial stage, it's a good idea to change things up so that athletes will continue to progress and not get bored with the strength training program. One way to introduce new strength exercises without creating soreness is to minimize eccentric stress; so, essentially, you're selecting exercises that don't have a big deceleration component. This is tricky, as most athletic injuries occur from poor eccentric control (both acutely and chronically). So, we can't remove them completely, but we can shoot for a 50/50 split. To that end, we'll typically introduce our more intensive lower-body eccentric strength exercises (e.g., Bulgarian Split Squats) on a day when an athlete can afford to be sore (e.g., the day after a pitcher starts) for a few days. If that isn't a luxury, we'll simply go much lighter in that first week.
To that end, here are five "general" strength exercises I like to use in-season with many of our athletes.
1. Step-up Variations - I'm normally not a big fan of step-ups for off-season programs because they don't offer a significant deceleration component, but they can be useful in-season when you're trying to keep soreness out of the equation. Anterior-Loaded Barbell Step-ups are a favorite because they still afford you the benefits of axial loading without squatting an athlete.
2. Deadlift Variations - It goes without saying that I'm a huge fan of the deadlift (check out this tutorial if you need suggestions on How to Deadlift), as deadlift variations afford a host of benefits from strength, power, and postural perspectives. They're also great because there isn't much of an eccentric component unless you're doing stiff-leg deadlift variations. With that in mind, we utilize predominantly trap bar and sumo deadlift variations in-season.
3. Sled Pushing/Dragging - A lot of people view sled training as purely for metabolically conditioning guys, but the truth is that it actually makes for a great concentric-only strength exercise while helping to enhance mobility (assuming you cue an athlete through full hip extension on forward pushing/dragging variations).
Just make sure to keep the load heavy and distance short.
4.1-leg Hip Thrusts off Bench - This is a great "halfway" exercise with respect to eccentric stress. For some reason, even if you lower under a ton of control and with additional load (we drape chains over the hips), this exercise still won't make your posterior chain sore. A big shout-out goes out to Bret Contreras for bringing it to the forefront!
5. 1-arm DB Bulgarian Split Squats from Deficit - The asymmetrical load to this already asymmetrical (unilateral) exercise allows you to get a training effect without a ton of resistance (especially with the increased range of motion provided by the deficit). It'll still create some soreness, but it's another one of those "halfway" exercises where the soreness isn't as bad as you'd expect, especially if you phase it in a bit lighter in week 1 of the new strength training program.
These are just five of my favorites, but a good start, for sure. Of course, we still need to do a better job of educating "the masses" about how important it is to even do an in-season strength training program!
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Last week, I contributed on a pitch counts roundtable for ESPN Boston. You can read it HERE.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter in the comments section below, as it is a certainly a heated debate that has come to the forefront in recent years with pitching injuries on the rise.
Q: I read your series, A New Model for Training Between Starts, and love the ideas you introduced. Since eliminating distance running between outings, I've noticed a big difference in how I feel and how I pitch. I did have one question about the weekly rotations you outlined in Part 2. What happens if I have an extra day between starts due to erratic scheduling or just a rain out?
A: This is a great question - and one I have received several times - so I'm glad I'm finally getting around to answering it here on the blog!
I usually look for guys to do a "bridge" training session. Basically, these sessions are all about leaving the gym feeling refreshed; you work, but not so hard that you're exhausted.
In the typical in-season baseball strength and conditioning program we use with professional pitchers on a five-day rotation, here's how we'd schedule it:
Day 0: pitch
Day 1: challenging lower body lift, push-up variation (light), horizontal pulling (light), cuff work
Day 2: movement training only
Day 3: Single-leg work, challenging upper body lift (less vertical pulling in-season), cuff work
Day 4: low-intensity dynamic flexibility circuits only
Day 5: next pitching outing
However, if the next outing isn't until Day 6, we will integrate one of two options:
The first option would be to simply split the Day 3 training session into two shorter sessions: one upper, one lower. These sessions might only be 10-12 sets in all. Then, Day 5 would be the low-intensity dynamic flexibility circuits.
The second option would be to keep the strength training component as-is, but perform some medicine ball circuits on Day 4, then use Day 5 for the low-intensity dynamic flexibility circuits.
Both options keep you training hard without interfering with the subsequent pitching outing. Particularly in professional baseball, there are more days off early in the season, so it's important to be able to roll with the punches like this.
At the college and high school levels, the 7-day rotation is usually implemented. If a pitcher starts on Day 0, I like to see him strength training on Day 1, Day 3, and Day 5, with Day 5 being a lower-intensity lift (Days 2 and 4 are movement training, and Day 6 is low-intensity dynamic flexibility). If there is an extra day on the end, we simply treat our Day 5 lift like we did the Day 3 option in the 5-day template from above; it can either be split into upper and lower body sessions, or we can do it as-is, and add medicine ball circuits on Day 6, taking Day 7 for dynamic flexibility before starting again on Day 8.
That said, as in my experience, guys rarely get that extra day in high school and college; they're more likely to have their starts pushed up. In this case, we just drop the Day 5 lift.
Getting training sessions in between starts is incredibly important, but that doesn't mean that one must be rigid in the scheduling of these sessions. In fact, one must be very flexible in tinkering with that scheduling on a week-to-week basis to make sure that guys are getting in their lifts, but not at the expense of their performance on the mound. Hopefully this blog provided some strategies you can employ when weather or scheduling throws you a curveball!
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It goes without saying that poor adductor length is a huge problem in many of the athletes I encounter, particularly those participating in sports (e.g., hockey, soccer, baseball) involving a lot of extension and rotation. As a result, we always spend a lot of time with self myofascial release, static stretching, and mobility exercises for the adductors.
As I've written in the past, though, after you transiently reduce stiffness in a tissue, you want to build some stability through that newfound range-of-motion. Unfortunately, it isn't exactly easy to load folks up in the frontal plane, and some folks still won't be able to get in to a lateral lunge position without pitching forward. Enter the Dumbbell Goblet Lateral Lunge, which borrows the "counterbalancing" benefits we see with a traditional goblet squat to allow us to get back "into" the hip and build some longer-term mobility in the frontal plane.
I don't worry about folks really loading this up; in fact, form tends to break down a bit if you go heavier than 40 pounds with the dumbbell. We'll usually include it as the last exercise on a lower-body day, for 2-3 sets of 8-10 reps.
We spend a lot of time focusing on building strength and power, but a lot of times, movement quality gets overlooked. Here's an exercise that helps you to improve the latter without forgetting the former. Give it a shot and let me know how it goes!
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