Written on July 17, 2009 at 5:01 am, by Eric Cressey
1. I started this week off with a bang with a few good (and goofy) YouTube clips in my newsletter, so there’s no reason to shy away from a continuation of the awesomeness in this blog.
2. Tony Gentilcore got the day off from work today. He claimed it was to go see the filming of the next Functional Strength Coach seminar, but we all know it was just a front for his regular ol’ “weird ninja dude in the woods” routine. Glad you enjoyed your alone time, big guy.
2. Congratulations to CP athlete and New York Mets minor leaguer Tim Stronach (St. Lucie Mets: High A), who just missed both a perfect game and no-hitter on Wednesday. “Stro” took a perfect game into the 8th inning, and then lost the no-no with one out in the 9th. The wildest part is that Tim didn’t even know until the day before that he’d be making the start.
Stronach packed 21 pounds on his 6-5 frame this off-season with loads of hard work at Cressey Performance, and deserves all the success that comes his way. Great job, Tim!
3. I received an email with the following question yesterday: “I play basketball. I watch how guys lose lots of weight and bodyfat preparing for the combine. How do they do that?”
Answer: The overwhelming majority of college basketball players I’ve encountered live on sugary sports drinks, chicken wings, pizza, and booze. Simply cleaning up their diets for a month or two will work wonders even if training is held constant. Did you expect something more revolutionary?
4. Here’s another study showing that swinging a heavy bat prior to regular hitting is an inferior warm-up protocol as compared to swinging the normal bat or an underweighted bat. Researchers “suggested that when preparing to hit, 5 warm-up swings with either a light or normal bat will allow a player to achieve the greatest velocity of their normal bat.” This is in complete contrast to the use of weighted baseballs to increase throwing velocity; I love ’em when used with the right population.
5. Huh? What? Come again?
6. I went back through Jim Smith’s Accelerated Muscular Development today to check up on how he approaches formatting for e-books (as we prepare some for the upcoming project’s release). While I was looking it over, I got to thinking about how it never ceases to amaze me how thorough Smitty is with his products; he just seems to cover everything. I’ve said it before: this is a great resource; I’d highly recommend you check it out.
What would you recommend checking out for more on how to properly use weighted balls with pitchers and how to determine which populations for whom they’d be the right fit?
Ever since my observation at CP I have been keeping up with the informative postings on your blog. As a coach, I have found many articles that have helped my athletes with even the smallest competitive edge. This is why I feel as though the post about weighted vs unweighted bats is appropriate for my first reply. I couldn’t tell you who was more amazed by the results. Maybe myself, our players, or the buckets of (now useless) weighted bats around our facility. It is the small and informative links that keep your blog so important. Keep up the good work. Some of these small posts will dramatically change an athletes success (I mean isn’t that what the blogs all about).
July 17th, 2009 at 5:54 am
Neckline slimmer? Seriously? I’m getting one 🙂
July 17th, 2009 at 7:40 am
Eric,
What would you recommend checking out for more on how to properly use weighted balls with pitchers and how to determine which populations for whom they’d be the right fit?
July 17th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Definitely very amusing!
July 17th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
You have to admire that ninja all the same
July 18th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Why stop at just the neckline EC?
July 18th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Ever since my observation at CP I have been keeping up with the informative postings on your blog. As a coach, I have found many articles that have helped my athletes with even the smallest competitive edge. This is why I feel as though the post about weighted vs unweighted bats is appropriate for my first reply. I couldn’t tell you who was more amazed by the results. Maybe myself, our players, or the buckets of (now useless) weighted bats around our facility. It is the small and informative links that keep your blog so important. Keep up the good work. Some of these small posts will dramatically change an athletes success (I mean isn’t that what the blogs all about).
July 19th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Why do we still see the big leaguers still swinging the weighted bats?
July 20th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
I hope that ninja guy did some dynamic warm-up drills before going crazy.