Home Posts tagged "Cressey Sports Performance" (Page 22)

Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 4/8/16

Happy Friday! I hope everyone is gearing up for a great weekend. Before you kick off the festivities, though, here are a few good reads to wrap up your week:

The $100 Billion Hoax - My buddy Adam Bornstein authored this fantastic post on how outrageously spending has increased in the health, fitness, and nutritional supplement sectors while Americans have become more obese than ever.

Fergus Connolly Coaching Series: Part 1 - Great Coaches - This was a fantastic article written by Fergus Connolly, who has a fantastic background in sports science at the highest levels.

The Arm - Jeff Passan recently released this great read - and it's the culmination of several years of research all around the country to examine the causes of the pitching injury epidemic. He actually stopped by CSP-Florida last spring to interview me. The finished product is great "infotainment," where you'll learn to see injuries through a different light while being drawn in by various stories on baseball development, new research on the horizon, and rehabilitation struggles. I'll be posting an interview with Jeff on EricCressey.com soon.

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Random Thoughts on Sports Performance Training – Installment 17

It's time for the April installment of my random thoughts on sports performance training. Here are a few ideas that are currently rattling around my brain.

1. The absolute speed-strength continuum doesn't matter if you're weak.

I posted this on my Facebook page last week, but thought it merited a mention here. With respect to this old video of mine...

One thing I didn't mention that is an important consideration, though, is that an athlete has to have a foundation of strength and work capacity to even "get on" this continuum. This is one reason why it's absolutely absurd for a 10-year-old to be embarking on a crazy aggressive throwing program. Before he introduces overload/underload throwing or high volume, he needs to establish a base of general stability and work capacity to be able to handle more specific stress.

2. In-season training isn't just about lifting.

When people hear "in-season lifting," they seem to immediately think that the sole justifications for incorporating it is to maintain strength, power, and muscle mass. Surely, that's a huge part of the equation. However, I'm quick to point out to our athletes that in-season training includes a lot more. 

Each time an athlete trains at Cressey Sports Performance during the season, he's also going through his foam rolling work. And, he's working his way through a more individualized warm-up than he'd typically get at the field during practice or at games.

Likewise, it's an exposure to an environment that "nurtures" good lifestyle behaviors. There are invariably discussions about optimizing sleep quality, and improving nutrition. These exchanges just don't happen as often at the field.

All that in mind, in-season training isn't just about lifting weights.

3. There aren't absolutes when it comes to discussing packing the neck.

I can't definitely tell you that packing the neck during lifting will guarantee that you'll lift more weight.

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However, I think it's very safe to say that if - 20 years down the road - we take MRIs of the necks of lifters who lifted with a more neutral cervical spine posture and compared them to MRIs of those who looked up at the ceiling when they squatted and deadlifted, the packed neck group's diagnostic imaging would be a LOT cleaner.

4. Culture matters more than expertise, programming, finances, and just about anything else.

I've been fortunate to visit a lot of different strength and conditioning facilities in the private, collegiate, and professional sector. Without fail, the most successful facilities are the ones with an awesome culture. In other words, the athletes and staff are excited to be there. They're thrilled about the prospects of innovations, and there is great communication without consideration of organizational rank, service time, or any other sort of hierarchy. I think this awesome post from Matt Duffy of the Giants is a great example of this in action in professional sports. 

Culture matters because it's a limiting factor. Expertise and good programming are super important, but they don't matter if you don't have an environment that accommodates the implementation of these things. And, if you look at professional sports, you can't outspend a crappy culture. This is why you can see small market teams competing with the highest payroll teams in just about every professional sport. And, it's one reason why you see fancy facilities with seemingly limitless financial resources fail miserably in the private sector all the time.

This is one reason why I always emphasize to our staff and interns that we hire based on both competency and fit.

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Competency can be taught, but fit is something that is directly drawn from one's character. Character is something that needs to be established at a young age and reinforced over the course of decades in a professional career. It's a challenge to hire someone with the right fit for your culture, and this is one reason why we like to hire from our internship program; it's a test drive to determine "fit" and work to fine-tune it if the alignment isn't quite perfect.

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Making the Case for Training in the Post-Surgery Period

If you were to spend a day at either the MA or FL Cressey Sports Performance location, invariably, you’d see something that might surprise you: athletes training in spite of the fact that they recently had surgery. On a regular basis, we have athletes referred our way after everything from Tommy John surgeries to knee replacements. They may be on crutches, using an ankle boot, in an elbow brace, wearing a shoulder sling, or even rocking a back brace. Working with post-operative athletes has become a big niche for us; we work hand-in-hand with surgeons and rehabilitation specialists to make sure that we deliver a great training effect in spite of these athletes’ short-term limitations.

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Unfortunately, athletes will sometimes run across hyper-protective therapists and doctors who are overly cautious in this period. Certainly, for a period, this is incredibly important, as there are risks of not only the repair being vulnerable to movements and direct pressure, but also it being compromised by infection in the first few weeks. However, in my opinion, it’s absolutely unnecessary to tell an athlete to just take 3-4 months off completely from exercise and instead just “rehab” – and yes, I have heard this before.

With this in mind, I wanted to outline six reasons I think strategically implemented strength and conditioning work in the post-surgery period is incredibly important.

1. It’s important to make an athlete feel like an athlete, not a patient.

There is a different vibe in a physical therapy clinic or training room as compared to a strength and conditioning setting. This isn't intended to be a knock on rehabilitation specialists, but athletes would rather hang out in the latter realm! And, while great therapists make rehabilitation upbeat and keep the athlete's competitive psyche engaged, getting back into the gym affords a big mental boost - a break from their current physical reality - for athletes.

Speaking of mental boosts, I won't even bother to highlight the favorable impacts of exercise on mood and the reduction in risk of a wide variety of chronic diseases. Suffice it to say that there are a ton, and it's important that athletes continue to have these benefits during their rehabilitation period. If you really want to dig deeper, I'd highly recommend this recently published meta-analysis: Exercise as a treatment for depression.

2. Small hinges swing big doors in terms of behaviors.

Most people eat healthier when they train. Whether this is conscious or subconscious is dependent on the individual, but it's something I've seen time and time again.

Likewise, many student athletes perform better in the classroom when exercising regularly, and struggle to stay on task when they’re given too much free time.

What's my point? Effectively, training pushes out certain bad behaviors. Likewise, on a physiological level, it supports better brain activity that makes for more productive members of society.

3. Injuries don’t occur in isolation.

Pitchers don’t just blow out their elbows because of functional deficits at the elbow. Rather, the elbow usually gets thrown under the bus from a collection of physical deficits all along the kinetic chain. As an example, Garrison et al (2013) demonstrated that players with ulnar collateral ligament tears scored significantly worse on the Y-balance test than their healthy peers.

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With this in mind, it would be silly to spend months and months only focusing on rehabilitating the arm to the exclusion of the rest of the body. Unfortunately, physical therapists only have so much time with athletes because of insurance restrictions, so they may not get to these important complementary rehabilitation approaches. This is a great place for a competent strength and conditioning professional to pick up the slack.

4. Training improves body composition, which facilitates a number of favorable outcomes.

It drives me bonkers when I hear about an individual dropping a bunch of muscle mass and gaining substantial body fat during the post-surgery period. This should never happen. 

Just as a healthy body composition will help a grandfather avoid setbacks following a hip replacement, having a good strength-to-body weight ratio will increase the likelihood that a college soccer player will avoid setbacks after a meniscal repair.

These benefits aren't just conferred to weight-bearing scenarios. Remember, obesity is arguably the biggest limitation to diagnostic imaging accuracy. In other words, if you have a setback in your rehabilitation and need an MRI or x-ray, being fatter makes it hard for your radiologist to give you an accurate reading. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

5. Exercise facilitates motor learning improvements.

When rehabbing, you’re trying to acquire new, favorable movement patterns. Research (good reads here and here) has demonstrated improved motor learning when new tasks are introduced alongside exercise (particularly aerobic exercise).

Maintaining a robust aerobic system and solid work capacity makes rehabilitation efforts more effective.

6. Contralateral strength training has carryover to immobilized limbs.

Via a mechanism known as cross-transfer (or cross-education), an untrained limb's performance improves when the opposite limb is trained. As an example, if you have knee surgery on your right leg, but do what you can do to safely train your left leg while your right knee is immobilized, you'll still get carryover to the post-surgery (right) side. It won't do much to attenuate the atrophy of muscle mass on an immobilized limb, but it will absolutely reduce the fall-off in strength, power, and proprioception. Effectively, it's "free rehab" that offers a huge leg up with respect to return to play.

As an aside, research on cross-transfer from Hortobagyi et al has demonstrated that the strength carryover seems to be stronger with eccentric exercise, so prioritizing this approach seems to have extra merit.

Some Important Notes

Before I sign off on this one, I should be clear on a few things:

1. Not every trainer and strength and conditioning coach is prepared to take on every injury.

If you’ve never heard the word “spondylolysis,” you shouldn’t be programming for a kid in a back brace. And, if you don’t know the difference between an ulnar nerve transposition and an ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, you’re not ready to take on a post-op baseball elbow. Don’t be a cowboy.

2. Effective post-operative training mandates outstanding communication.

You should be speaking on a regular basis with the physical therapist or athletic trainer who is overseeing the rehabilitation plan. They’ll let you know if an athlete is prepared for progressions, and also to help you avoid overlapping with what they do in the rehabilitation sessions. I’d even encourage you to sit in on some of their rehabilitation sessions not only to monitor progress, but also as continuing education.

3. When in doubt, hold athletes back.

One of my graduate school professors, Dr. David Tiberio, once said that physical therapists “should be as aggressive as possible, but do no harm.” I’ll take this a step further and say that fitness professionals conditioning “should be conservative and do no harm” during the rehabilitation process. It’s our job to maintain/improve fitness and facilitate return-to-play, but in no way set back the recovery process. In short, let the rehab folks take all the chances when it comes to progressions.

4. Remember that progressions occur via many avenues.

Progressions don’t just come in terms of exercise selection, but also absolute loading, speed of movement, volume, frequency, duration, and a host of other factors. You need to keep all of them in mind when programming and coaching, as even one factor that is out of whack can set a rehabilitation program back. Additionally, there will be times when stress in one area goes up, which means it must be reduced in another area. As an example, during rehabilitation from Tommy John surgery, the stress on the medial elbow increases when an athlete begins throwing at the 4-6 month mark, and many athletes will benefit from a reduction in the amount of gripping they do in their strength training and rehabilitation programs. 

EverythingElbow

5. Watch for "accidental" stabilization demands.

Many muscles work reflexively, with the rotator cuff being the absolute best example. After a shoulder surgery, you have to be careful training the opposite side too soon (or with too much loading) because the cuff on the surgery side can turn on reflexively. As the aforementioned cross-transfer effect dictates, it's not as simple as right vs. left training effects; our nervous system governs everything - and in curious ways. 

Wrap-up

I hope that in publishing this article, I made a strong case for the importance of appropriate exercise during the post-surgery period. Remember that what is "appropriate" will be different for each individual, and should be determined via a collaborative effort with input from a surgeon, rehabilitation specialist, strength and conditioning professional, and the athlete. And, it should always be a fluid process that can be progressed or regressed based on how the athlete is doing.

For the fitness professionals out there, if you're looking for more information, here are a few good reads:

4 Reasons You Must Understand Corrective Exercise and Post-Rehab Training
7 Random Thoughts on Corrective Exercise and Post-Rehab Training


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4 Strategies for Improved Base Stealing Jumps

Today's guest post comes from former Cressey Sports Performance intern and current University of Washington Strength and Conditioning Coach, Dave Rak. Enjoy! -EC

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Coaches often talk about gaining an extra step when it comes to improving speed. For a baseball player an extra step could be the difference between a stolen base or a jog back to the dugout. There are many ways to gain that valuable extra step. Strength training, drill work, and refining technique all play an important part. As a coach you need to help the athlete feel the correct positions in order to maximize efficiency when stealing bases. Here are 4 simple ways to improve common mistakes.

1. Videotape everything.

With almost everyone having a smartphone or a tablet device on them 24/7, cameras are easily accessible, which leaves no excuse as to why you can’t video tape your athletes. Whether you are working 1-on-1 with an athlete, or with all of your position players at once, video feedback will be crucial. This gives the athlete a view from your perspective as to how they could improve their movements. Video feedback will not only allow you to show the athlete what is going on from a technical standpoint, but in a team setting, it will allow you to work efficiently with large groups. As a coach you will be able to see every rep from each of your athletes. This allows you to go back, take notes, and identify what needs to be worked on for each player. The athlete can use this information to better correct movements and execute proper form.

Most importantly, having video allows you to study the athlete’s movement and learn what corrections need to be made. This grows your knowledge on this specific movement. You may not have all the answers right away, but video will help you and your athletes figure out what can be corrected. Video is nothing new in sports and especially baseball; why not use it when trying to gain an extra step on your steal jump?

Video programs such as Hudl Technique (formerly known as Ubersense) and Coach’s Eye are great apps that can be used on a smartphone or tablet to record video It can then be played back in different speeds for the athlete.

2. Overload the movement. 

After breaking down video of my athletes I noticed some players were over reaching or stepping too high with their right foot on their initial leg drive. This is wasted movement that does nothing but prolong the steal jump, and put the athlete in a poor position to accelerate from. The photo below is an example of an ineffective directional step. The foot comes up too high, which prolongs the movement:

steal

By taking a smaller and more direct step the athlete will achieve a better position for acceleration. Below is a video that shows an example of a more efficient step.

To help with this common mistake, you can physically pull the runner towards second base and overload the movement using a bungee cord attached at the waste as seen in the video below.

Lee Taft suggested told me about this drill, and it has been very helpful with allowing my athletes to figure out how to make that direction step more efficient. The pull of the bungee cord forces the runner to be quicker and more direct with their step. The pull of the cord will cause the athlete to shift their weight towards second base and onto the right foot. Once they take a directional step they have to replace the foot quickly, if they don’t they will fall. The bungee cord allows the athlete to feel their mistakes in the moment. After a few repetitions the athlete should be able to make the adjustment on their own.

NOTE: Bungee cords work better than jump stretch bands for these drills.

3. Gently resist the movement.

A lot of time is spent on developing power and becoming more explosive in the weight room. The initial push of the steal jump is a great place to show off these attributes. Using video feedback, you can easily see if an athlete is lacking that “push” when they take off for second base. Yelling “triple extension”, or “push harder” may not always work. Instead give the athlete something to push against. To do this take the bungee cord from our previous drill and instead of overloading the sprint, gently resist the start. This will make the athlete have to overcome the resistance of the bungee cord when they make their first move. This should force the athlete to get better extension with their left leg. The video below is an example.

Again, the bungee cord will work better than a pair of jump stretch bands.

The athlete should feel the resistance of the cord before they start their sprint. This will force them to be aggressive when they push off. The goal is for the athlete to feel how hard they need to push with the lower body. It is also important to note that too much resistance will change the outcome of the drill. We are not weighing down the runner and having the partner get dragged behind. The runner should have to overcome the resistance on the push off and then be able to run normally as they accelerate.

4. Use a towel to teach arm movement.

After speaking with Lee Taft about what I was seeing with my athletes I began to realize how important the arms are, especially in the initial move. Lee helped me to realize that by achieving better arm action, common mistakes will be corrected on their own. These mistakes include: popping up on their first move, weak initial push-off, inability to stay low through the acceleration phase, and not turning the body quick enough to get into a linear sprint.

To help get the athlete to become more aggressive and throw the arms on their initial move we can hold a towel or shirt behind him. One of my former players actually came up with this idea on the spot during a training session. We told him to knock the towel out of his partner’s hand, which forced him to drive his arm back in a more aggressive manner. Originally this athlete did not have an aggressive arm action from the start position, preventing him for getting his body turned efficiently. This drill is an exaggerated movement; keep in mind the goal is to get a feel for what his arms should be doing.

Throwing the arms too much can be a bad thing and can cause the runner to over rotate. Make sure to find a good middle ground.

In addition to the actual action of the arms, the hand placement is also important. Longer arms require a greater distance to be traveled which takes up more time. Instead of letting the arms dangle near the knees, try to move the hands to belt level. This shortens the path of the hands, therefore allowing the runner to drive their arms back faster. This will get he body turned in a quicker fashion.

The purpose of these drills is to allow the athlete to feel mistakes and then provide an opportunity to self-correct. When the runner gets out of position the bungee cords will provide instant feedback. The video will provide visual feedback as well. The towel drill forces the athlete to accomplish a movement with the arms that they previously may not have done. The ultimate goal is for the athlete to feel the correct technique for themselves and carry it over into game time situations.

About the Author

David Rak is in his third year as an assistant strength & conditioning coach at the University of Washington. David directly oversees sports performance for Baseball, Men's & Women's Golf, and Men's Tennis. He can be reached at davidrak25@gmail.com.  

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Random Thoughts on Sports Performance Training – Installment 15

This is my first installment of this series since October, so hopefully I can atone for that with a solid January performance. Here goes!

1. On several occasions, I've written that if you are going to include an exercise in a program, you absolutely have to be able to justify how it's going to create the training effect you want. In particularly, this is a question that should be asked constantly during sprinting and agility progressions. The end goal is obviously to (safely) put a lot of force into the ground as quickly as possible to create powerful athletic movements in all three planes of motion. Sometimes, I feel like we get very caught up in just programming drills for the sake of programming drills. There are a million different types of skipping drills, for instance, and we use a lot of them. Athletes certainly ought to be able to skip, but at the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves if making a skip more advanced and elaborate is really going to make an athlete move better. Or, would we be better off devoting that training volume to actual sprint work? There isn't really a "correct" answer to these questions, but I do think it's important to critically analyze our programs to see if the carryover from drills to actual athletic performance is really that good.

2. Earlier today, I was discussing outfield "jumps" with a few of our Cressey Sports Performance clients, including Sam Fuld, an Oakland A's outfielder who is well known for making some pretty crazy plays in center field. We were talking about lower-body movement (hip turn, crossover run, etc.) during the initial break as he reads a ball off a bat, but as we went to actually find some video online, my attention went elsewhere. Check out this play where Sam traveled 58 feet to make a diving catch:

What I noticed was the fact that he never actually got upright. He stayed in acceleration mode the entire time. If you replay the video from above, watch the :08 through :11 second interval. You'll rarely see a player cover more ground in the field.

This is yet another reason why I think a 30-yd (or home-to-first) time is more appropriate for assessing baseball-specific speed than a 60-time. Baseball players rarely get to top speed, whether it's in running the bases or playing the field. And, more importantly, they'd never do it in a straight line. I'm beginning to think that a 60-time is about as useful for a baseball evaluation as the 225lb bench press test is for NFL players...

3. Remember that not all your anterior core work has to be slower tempo drills like rollouts and fallouts, or low-level isometrics like prone bridges. Rather, remember that any time you go overhead while maintaining a neutral spine, you're working to resist excessive extension at your lumbar spine. In other words, overhead med ball drills can be great anterior core progressions - and here's a way to take them to the next level:

4. Resistance bands are awesome on a number of training fronts. They can be used to accommodate the strength curve, making the movements more challenging at the points in the range of motion where we are strongest. They can also be used to deload certain movements at positions where we are weakest.

In sports performance training, though, I'd say that their biggest value is in teaching direction - and subsequently loading it. As an example, I like band-resisted broad jumps because they allow us to produce force in a path that would be challenging to load in any other way. And, we need to produce force in this path during everyday athletic endeavors:

This is an area where Lee Taft really excels. When I watch experienced coaches teaching and coaching, I look for patterns that stand out: strategies that they return to frequently. In his new Certified Speed and Agility Coach course, Lee uses a band a ton to teach direction of force application and create appropriate angles for acceleration. It made me realize that we can get more efficient in some of our coaching strategies by busting out the band a bit more.

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Speaking of Lee, the early-bird $100 discount on his new certification wraps up this Friday at midnight. I'm finishing it up myself and really benefited on a number of fronts - and our entire Cressey Sports Performance staff will be going through the resource as well. You can learn more about the course HERE.

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Coaching Cues to Make Your Strength and Conditioning Programs More Effective – Installment 13

It's time for another installment of my series on coaching cues we utilize at Cressey Sports Performance on a daily basis. Today, I'll feature some of my favorite medicine ball coaching cues:

1. "Keep the head behind the belly button a bit longer."

Creating good "separation" is absolutely essential for producing power in rotational sports. This separation occurs when the pelvis rotates toward the target as the torso continues to rotate (or at least stay back) in the opposite direction. In the example of a right-handed pitcher, the pelvis rotates counter-clockwise toward the plate while the torso is still rotating clockwise toward second base. This separation stores elastic energy - but can also predispose athletes to injuries (as I wrote in 2008) if the motion doesn't come from the right places. 

med ball

In this regard, one of the biggest mistakes we see is the athlete "leaking" forward at the torso. This is a bad habit to get into in terms of power production (loss of separation), injury risk (can make a pitcher's arm "late" and subject the elbow and shoulder to undue stress), and effectiveness (hitters can't stay back to adjust on pitches, pitchers make struggle with "catching up" to find a consistent release point, etc.). 

My feeling is that the head goes where the torso tells it to go, so trying to keep the head back a bit longer will force the torso to stay back long enough for the athlete to get sufficient hip rotation to create the ideal stretch. 

2. "Make your front leg and back legs work like a slingshot."

Throwing a medicine ball - whether it's an overhead or rotational variation - is all about putting good force into the ground on the back leg and then accepting it on the front leg. In the analogy of a slingshot, if the back leg doesn't create enough eccentric preloading and subsequent force production, it's like not pulling back hard/far enough on the elastic portion of the slingshot. Athletes usually "get" this really quickly.

What they often fail to recognize is that the front foot has to stiffen up to accept force and - particularly in the case of overhead variations - help to create an effective downhill plane. One of the things I watch for on the front foot is whether athletes "spin out" of their shoes; you'll actually see some guys roll right over the sides of the sneakers if they don't stiffen up enough on the front leg to accept all the force that's being delivered. This is just like having a "limp" front arm when using a slingshot.

In over ten years of coaching these drills, CSP athletes and Royals pitcher Tim Collins is probably the absolute best example of effective "slingshot" force transfer on medicine ball work. He's got excellent reactive ability and absolute strength/power to create force, but is equally proficient at knowing how to stiffen up at the right time on his front side. I firmly believer that this proficiency plays a big role in his ability to create a great downhill plane and throw one of the best curveballs in baseball even though he's only 5-7. 

3. "Take your hand to the wall."

This is a cue I blatantly stole from my business partner, Brian Kaplan, who is the best coach I've ever seen when it comes to cleaning up medicine ball technique - and also creating context for our pitchers and hitters so that the drills carry over to what they do on the field.

One of the common issues we see with athletes with scoop toss variations is that they use too much wrist and get around the ball. You'll see the spin on the ball, and it won't sound as firm when it hits the wall. Effectively, what's happening is that the athlete is cutting off hip rotation and using the wrist redirecting the ball to the intended target. This causes the athlete to be around the ball instead of through it - so it's analogous to throwing a bad cutter with a baseball. By encouraging the athlete to take the hand to the wall, the ideal direction of force production is preserved, and we train hip and thoracic rotation more than just compensations at the wrist and hand.

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Understanding Scapular Positioning in the Throwing Motion

Today's guest post comes from Cressey Sports Performance - Massachusetts pitching coordinator, Matt Blake (@Blake_Matt). Matt is an integral part of the Elite Baseball Mentorships team. Enjoy! -EC 

At a recent conference, Eric Cressey gave a presentation that tackled the importance of baseball professionals understanding scapular mechanics and the integral role they play in the throwing athlete’s kinetic chain. Eric Schoenberg also recently showed a great drill to incorporate scapular motion into the kinetic chain of activity. Given that I’m the third member of the Elite Baseball Mentorships team with these two, I figured I might as well chime in to highlight its importance from my perspective as well.

This is an important discussion to have because it can help demonstrate the need for all phases of development to work together to keep the high-level thrower operating on all cylinders. If we’re all speaking the same language, we can work to build the athlete’s awareness for their overall movement and integrate the education from the warm-up through the initial phases of the throwing progression.

If we’re all saying different things to the athlete using our own jargon, it’s easy for them to misinterpret the carryover of certain drills, exercises, and concepts across channels. If we all lay down similar verbiage in our conversations with the athlete regarding their prehab work, dynamic warm-up, strength training and throwing motion, it makes it a lot easier for them to appreciate the importance each piece holds in the puzzle.

In order to get started, let’s look at where the scapula is positioned and introduce its fundamental movements so we can begin to appreciate its role in the kinetic chain.

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When looking at the scapula’s position and actions, you have to acknowledge the importance of its relationships with the rib cage and the humerus. These relationships are integral in tying the torso and the arm action together in a high-level throw. These interactions between the thoracic region, scapula and humeral head may be the most overlooked or misunderstood components of the delivery – especially for the average coach who has no anatomical background.

The degree of misunderstanding is mainly because the actions are so subtle and can’t be fully appreciated when the athlete throws with their shirt on. This is why its so vital to have a strength/rehab professional in the mix, who can provide a shirtless scapular screen to give us a baseline on where the scapula lies at rest and how it functions in relation to the movement of the arm.
 

Once you can identify how an athlete presents, you can begin to build a more individualized corrective movement progression. This will serve to help the athlete identify and turn on the appropriate movement patterns to keep the humeral head flush with the scapula through its full range of motion. This is essential in the throw, because of the importance of a “clean” arm action to help alleviate some of the stress involved in the high-level motion. For demonstration sake, here’s an example of a HS pitcher, who throws 88-91, with a relatively efficient arm action for his age.

The ability to create elite levels of hand-speed in a durable manner can be won or lost based on how the humeral head functions in conjunction with the scapula. In my mind, this is the crux of the delivery, where you need to be able to tie the “whip-like” arm action into the sequential actions of the torso.

As the thrower engages his landing position, the kinetic forces of the delivery are beginning to flow up through the chain towards the scapula and arm. It’s crucial at this point for the arm to get set up in a sound position to optimize control of the (glenohumeral) joint in an effort to handle the energy that’s about to drive through that portion of the chain towards release. The “optimal” timing of this set-up will be dictated by how the athlete sequences hip and torso rotation, as well as how much laxity they present with, etc. - but for the sake of discussion, we’ll say landing is a crucial checkpoint.

From here, the key actions that we’re going to break out today are upward rotation and protraction. This isn’t to say that they are more important than the other actions, but throughout the season, throwers tend to lose upward rotation from the stress of the throwing motion. With that in mind, let’s identify what it is and how it works with protraction to aid the durability of the high-level delivery.

This concept is something that EC has written and produced videos about countless times over the years, but it continues to be a point that needs to be reiterated time and again. For those who haven’t seen it, this is a great video to consider in this discussion.

From this video, we’ll take it a step further, so you can visualize how this actually plays out in the throwing motion itself.

As you can see, there is a considerable amount of range of motion and control that needs to be in place if you expect to keep the humeral head “centered” from lay-back through the entirety of the deceleration phase. The challenge here is that we can’t always see how the arm action is working with the shoulder blade. One way to combat this is via communicating with your athletes about where they feel their soreness the day after throwing.

Generally speaking, I like to have guys tell me they’re sore near the medial border of the scapula, in the meat of back, where the scapular retractors are eccentrically controlling the scapula as it moves away from the mid-line. If guys are sore near the back, top, or front portion of the shoulder joint itself, then we’re probably getting too much “joint-play” and the humeral head is gliding and translating away from the center of the socket too much during the throw.

If these other patterns of soreness are presenting somewhere along the line, either the rotator cuff wasn’t doing its job, the scapula wasn’t working in sync with the humeral motion, or the thrower’s motion in general is putting them in positions that aren’t utilizing the correct patterns. In this case, let's assume that we did have a “good” post-throwing stress pattern.

Once we’ve identified that we are using scapular upward rotation and protraction to our benefit to control the socket, now we need to work extremely hard to counteract the eccentric damage associated with these actions. This is where the recovery protocol and the warm-up itself are crucial on a daily basis to make sure we’re getting back both the range of motion that we need, as well as activating it correctly before we begin to throw again.

To learn more about how physical assessment, strength and conditioning principles, video analysis, and drill work for the pitcher fit together, be sure to check out one of our Elite Baseball Mentorships. Our next event will be held January 17-19, 2016 at Cressey Sports Performance in Hudson, MA. The early-bird registration is December 17, 2015. For more information, check out www.EliteBaseballMentorships.com.  

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Coaching Up the Bottoms-up Kettlebell Carry

I love bottoms-up kettlebell carrying variations for teaching scapular control and getting reflexive rotator cuff recruitment. Sometimes, though, folks won't feel these drills in the right positions. With that said, check out today's video to learn how you can usually quickly and easily shift the stress to the right spots in the shoulder girdle:

If you're looking to learn more about our approaches to assessing and training the shoulder girdle, I'd encourage you to check out out one of our Elite Baseball Mentorships. Our next upper extremity course takes place January 17-19, 2016 at Cressey Sports Performance in Hudson, MA, with December 17 serving as the early-bird registration deadline. For more information, check out www.EliteBaseballMentorships.com 

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Is Your Strength and Conditioning Internship a One-Way Street?

A while back, my Cressey Sports Performance business partner, Pete Dupuis, ran a live fitness business Q&A on my Facebook page, and he delivered some great insights on a number of fronts. I chimed in on one question that jumped out at me as worthy of an entire article, so here is my "expansion" on my initial response:

Q: We have had struggles trying to find a decent referral source for quality interns. How have you had success finding them?

Certainly, there are ways that you can “recruit” new interns. Establishing a good relationship with a nearby college with an exercise science program is a good place to start. Or, you can even look to your former high school athletes who have pursued a degree in a related field; they know your systems and can definitely hit the ground running.

However, I’d argue that the absolute best way to grow your internship is the same way that you’d grow your “normal” training clientele: deliver a high-quality product and generate great word of mouth buzz. In other words, as Cal Newport’s popular book’s title suggests, Be So Good They Can’t Ignore You.

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The problem, unfortunately, is that a lot of internships in the fitness industry aren’t very good. Before we delve into the “why” behind this, I’m going to let the numbers do the talking for a few paragraphs.

Each year at Cressey Sports Performance (CSP), we receive roughly 200 internship applications; this corresponds to roughly “accepted” 25-30 interns per year between the Massachusetts and Florida facility. In other words, we can only accept about 10-15% of applicants.

As a frame of reference, in 2015, the acceptance rate of Ivy League schools ranged from 5.33% (Harvard) to 14.9% (Cornell). Have you ever heard of an Ivy League school saying that they just don’t have enough smart, talented, hard-working kids on campus? Absolutely not – and it’s because their reputation precedes them; this reputation generates a lot of “leads.”

Regardless of whether your issue is not having enough applicants, or not having enough “good” interns, the answer is the same: you need to deliver a better product. It sounds kind of like running a training business (or any business), doesn’t it?

We get 200+ applicants per year for internships because we go out of our way to deliver a quality experience. As a frame of reference, every incoming CSP intern goes through a 10-week online course and a video database of close to 800 exercises. In other words, they effectively have 60-80 hours of studying that needs to take place before they arrive. That’s roughly the equivalent of two college courses.

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On the first day of the internship, during their 90-minute orientation, they are handed about $250 worth of head-to-toe New Balance gear. Over the first few weeks, there are daily 30-minute "onboarding" workshops to cover a specific coaching topic. Thereafter, each week, there is a 60-90-minute in-service delivered by one of our staff members. Over the course of the internship, they receive free admission to any seminars we host. They can sign out books/DVDs from the training/nutrition library in the office. Finally, we are always looking for part-time employment opportunities for them during the internship – and full-time employment opportunities after the internships end. We also have a closed Facebook group for all former interns that keeps them connected for everything from sharing employment opportunities, to brainstorming on tough client/patient cases, to finding good referrals in different areas. Over the years, it's led to positions in professional and college sports, plus a host of private facilities around the country.

Above all else, though, we do our best to empower our interns as soon as they’ve proven they’ve capable of taking on more challenging roles. In other words, the internships evolve to allow their coaching responsibilities to expand as they become more proficient. As an example, in the past year alone, we’ve had two interns who were so awesome during their internships that they “forced our hand” to create positions for them as full-time staff members.

To me, this still doesn’t seem like enough. These folks are putting their lives on hold to work unpaid internships – and in many cases, moving across the country to do so. They become part of our “CSP Family” for life and we want to treat them accordingly.

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Unfortunately, we are an exception to the rule. There are still a lot of fitness internships that are “observation only.” If you don’t empower a young coach to grow, how can you truly evaluate whether he/she will be a great employee? Supervisors shouldn’t stay as supervisors; they should ultimately become “peers.” In this regard, I owe tremendous credit to coaches Chris West and Teena Murray (now of the Sacramento Kings) for not only giving me an opportunity to help out during my University of Connecticut years, but for continuing to challenge me in different ways as my internship experience progressed. Great coaches bring their athletes along the right pace, but they also do so for those they mentor on the coaching side of things.

Sadly, a lot of people in the industry view internships as a one-way street, treating up-and-comers as just cheap or free labor. Cleaning may be a responsibility, but it shouldn’t be the only responsibility.

I know I can speak for our staff when I say that we take a lot of pride in trying to go out of our way to help them all develop. We really enjoy teaching.

To that end, a lot of our intern applicants are referrals from previous interns. And warm introductions from previous interns make it easier for us to select the best applicants, too. Just like building and managing a successful training business, it’s a continuous cycle:

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With that in mind, I reached out to our former interns to get their “hindsight insights” on the CSP internship experience. Specifically, I asked "What part of the CSP internship experience did you a) enjoy the most and b) find the most crucial to your longer term success?" I apologize for the lengthy copy and paste, but I think the sheer volume of similar responses speaks volumes (skip ahead to my point after the last testimonial, if you want):

Doug Kechijian, Physical Therapist at Resilient Performance in NYC:
“A) Being surrounded be people who challenged me to think critically (this included the other interns).
B) The network you have access to upon completion of the internship/the communication skills you develop from the volume of coaching you accumulate‬‬‬.”

Connor Ryan, Former Physical Therapist for the Phoenix Coyotes (and now back at CSP-MA):
“A) Gaining family and friends through means of collaboration, learning, and helping be a part of something genuinely special. You can feel the hard work around you from the staff and the athlete's. The environment breeds a standard of excellence.
B) The most crucial component is having network to lean on, having a growing team to learn from, and have people to identify with and push you and help you find others that want to get better and hold standards of performance and progress to a very high level.”

Dave Rak, Minor League Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Minnesota Twins:
“A) My time interning at CSP put me in an environment where I was always learning whether it was from a staff in service, learning hands on through coaching, or even staff training sessions. I was surrounded by professionals who wanted to see me be successful and always pushed me to be better. ‬‬
‪B) The relationships I built at CSP have been the most crucial to my success. They have opened doors I never would have imagined. I can easily reach out to the CSP community of coaches/former interns for guidance with career advice, training/coaching advice, and anything in between. I feel like I am never on my own because I always have someone to reach out to for help when needed.”‬

Tim Geromini, Former Director of Performance at CSP-Florida, Now Performance Manager at Future:
“A) The most enjoyable part of my experience as a CSP intern was the people I got to work with and for on a daily basis. Clients become friends when you take the time to get to know them and find out their backgrounds. Same goes for the coaches. Everybody has their own style from past experiences and it was fun to see how many different ways you can gain results with the same intent.‬‬
‪B) The most crucial part of a successful CSP internship was being open minded and making the atmosphere a true family feel. If you're not open to learning new styles or open to different personalities, then you won't be successful in this field. It always keeps you hungry. The experience is more fun when you and your fellow interns get along, go to dinner, lift together, and get to know each other. It's a life experience, not just learning to coach.‬”‬

Molly Caffelle, Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach at The University of North Carolina:
“A) Gaining lifelong friendships with the staff and intern group. The whole CSP environment in general, creates a very welcoming and learning atmosphere. All around best internship experience for any new young professional‬‬.
‪‬B) Learning how to connect one on one with clients. Understanding the true meaning of ‘they don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.’”

Rob Rabena-Director of Sports Performance at Maplezone Sports Institute in Garnet Valley, PA.:
“A) I enjoyed being treated like I was on staff as a strength coach and not just an intern. ‬‬
‪B) for my long term success the most important aspect that I learned was every little detail matters from a brand perspective, marketing, coaching, evaluations, facility design, customer service, program design etc. ‬”‬‬

John O’Neil, Director of Performance at CSP-MA:
“A) Being part of something special, because of the culture that CSP has created, when you put on the logo, you feel like it's a shield and your job becomes important...
B) professional connections, both in job searching and in a network of bright, motivated individuals. As a coach, seeing a high volume of athletes and needing to appreciate cuing different people differently has had great carryover to my every day work.”

Do You See a Trend?

Every single former intern refers back to becoming part of a family, or something special. They reflect fondly on being around people that empowered them and challenged them to be better, holding them to a higher standard of professional excellence. A good internship welcomes strength and conditioning up-and-comers as an integral part of a team.

Closing Thoughts

You wouldn’t spend a ton of money on marketing your training facility if you didn’t know that your training product was solid, would you? Of course not!

With that in mind, before you start going out to find interns, ask yourself why you’re doing it. Is it because you love to teach and feel a responsibility to deliver a great product to benefit the future of the industry? If so, make sure a quality product is in place and then have at it. However, if you’re just looking for someone to help you sweep the floors, maybe you’re not meant to run an internship program.

To learn more about CSP's internship opportunities, click here.

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Cressey Sports Performance Upper Extremity Elite Baseball Mentorship – January 17-19, 2016

The Cressey Sports Performance Elite Baseball Mentorships provide an educational opportunity to become a trusted resource to this dramatically underserved athletic population. Through a combination of classroom presentations, practical demonstrations, case studies, video analysis, and observation of training, you’ll learn about our integrated system for performance enhancement and injury prevention and rehabilitation in baseball athletes. Cressey Sports Performance has become a trusted resource for over 100 professional players from all over the country each off-season, and this is your opportunity to experience “why” first-hand at our state-of-the-art facility.

Our next upper extremity course will take place on January 17-19, 2016 in Hudson, MA.

Course Description:

The Upper Cressey Sports Performance Elite Baseball Mentorship has a heavy upper extremity assessment and corrective exercise focus while familiarizing participants with the unique demands of the throwing motion. You’ll be introduced to the most common injuries faced by throwers, learn about the movement impairments and mechanical issues that contribute to these issues, and receive programming strategies, exercise recommendations, and the coaching cues to meet these challenges.

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Course Agenda:

Sunday

Morning Session: Lecture

8:30-9:00AM – Registration and Introduction (Eric Cressey)
9:00-10:00AM – Understanding the Status Quo: Why the Current System is Broken (Eric Schoenberg)
10:00-11:00AM – Common Injuries and their Mechanisms (Eric Schoenberg)
11:00-11:15AM – Break
11:15AM-12:15PM – Flawed Perceptions on “Specific” Pitching Assessments and Training Modalities (Eric Cressey)
12:15-1:00PM – Lunch (provided)

Afternoon Session: Lecture and Practical

1:00-3:00PM – Physical Assessment of Pitchers: Static and Dynamic (Eric Cressey and Eric Schoenberg)
3:00-3:15PM – Break
3:15-5:15PM – Prehabilitation/Rehabilitation Exercises for the Thrower (Eric Cressey and Eric Schoenberg)
5:15-5:30PM – Case Studies and Q&A

5:30PM Reception (Dinner Provided)

Monday

Morning Session: Lecture and Video Analysis

8:00-9:00AM – Strength Training Considerations for the Throwing Athlete (Eric Cressey)
9:00-10:00AM – Key Positions in the Pitching Delivery: Understanding How Physical Maturity and Athletic Ability Govern Mechanics (Matt Blake)
10:00-10:15AM – Break
10:15-11:30AM – Video Evaluation of Pitchers: Relationship of Mechanical Dysfunction to Injury Risk and Performance (Matt Blake)

11:30AM-12:00PM – Lunch (on your own) 

Afternoon Session: Observation at Cressey Sports Performance – 12PM-5PM*

Tuesday

Morning Session: Practical

8:00-9:00AM – Preparing for the Throwing Session: Optimal Warm-up Protocols for Different Arms (Eric Cressey and Eric Schoenberg)
9:00-11:00AM – Individualizing Drill Work to the Pitcher and Live Bullpens from CP Pitchers (Matt Blake)
11:00-11:30AM – Closing Thoughts and Q&A (Eric Cressey, Eric Schoenberg, and Matt Blake)
11:30AM-12:00PM – Lunch (on your own)

Afternoon Session: Observation at Cressey Sports Performance – 12PM-5PM*

* The afternoon observation sessions on Monday and Tuesday will allow attendees to see in real-time the day-to-day operation of the comprehensive baseball training programs unique to Cressey Sports Performance. This observation of live training on the CSP floor with our professional, college, and high school baseball players will allow you to experience firsthand our approaches to:

• Programming
• Proper coaching cues for optimal results
• Soft tissue techniques
• Activation and mobility drills
• Strength/power development
• Medicine ball work
• Multi-directional stability
• Metabolic conditioning
• Sprint/agility programs
• Base stealing technique
In addition, you will experience:

• Live throwing sessions
• Biomechanical video analysis using the Right View Pro system
• Movement evaluation
• Live case examples
• Live evaluations of attendees with Eric Schoenberg
Location:

Cressey Sports Performance,
577 Main St.
Suite 310
Hudson, MA 01749

Cost/Registration Information:

$899 early-bird (before December 18), $999 regular. No sign-ups will be accepted on the day of the event. Click here to register using our 100% secure server.

Continuing Education Credits:

2.0 NSCA CEUs (20 contact hours)

Notes:

• Participants will receive a manual of notes from the event’s presentations.
• Space is extremely limited. We are keeping the size of this seminar small so that we can make it a far more productive educational experience.
• This event will not be videotaped.
• For details about travel, accommodations, and other logistics, please email cspmass@gmail.com.

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