With football season now officially over, loads of sports fans are now turning their attention to the fact that pitchers and catchers "reported" this week, signifying the start of spring training and a new Major League Baseball season. Truth be told, most college programs will have already started their seasons - and many high school programs will be playing official games - before the big leaguers start having regular season contests.
Unfortunately, with the start of a new season comes injuries...and lots of them. In fact, according to researchers who examined MLB injury statistics from 2002 through 2008, professional baseball players are 10.6 times more likely to get injured in April than they are in September. In other words, they are far more likely to get hurt because they haven't prepared adequately for specificity than because they've had too much specificity.
Think about that for a second. By the time September rolls around, most MLB players have logged 150 games between spring training and regular season play. On a regular basis, they've fouled balls off their feet, gotten hit by pitches, made 100 slides, attempted dozens of diving catches, and sprinted full-tilt when they aren't warmed-up thoroughly after standing around doing nothing for a few innings. Pitchers have logged hundreds of innings, in some cases, and catchers are sick of squatting for hours on end. Yet, guys are dropping like flies in April, when they're supposed to be the most fresh.
Huh?
There are four legitimate reasons that this is happening.
First, rosters expand in September, so teams can easily keep a guy with a minor injury on the roster without putting him on the disabled list, which would make him "officially" hurt. However, this doesn't explain why August injury rates are still dramatically higher than April's.
Second, the weather is colder - which means it's tougher for guys to stay warm and loose during early season games. This doesn't explain the high injury rates we see in spring training, though, as all games take place in Arizona and Florida.
Third, guys may be ramped up too quickly. Too many swings or throws in a short period of time may be the problem - but this really isn't something that can be changed, as guys need to become game ready, getting their timing, coordination, and mechanics down cold while they've got proper coaching at hand.
Fourth (and this is the main message of this article), guys simply aren't preparing correctly in the off-season with their baseball strength and conditioning programs. They may not be showing up with the right mobility and stability in the right places, or they may simply be waiting too long to start throwing, hitting, or sprinting. This happens all the time at the high school, college, and professional levels.
In the high school ranks, kids may be winter sports athletes, and not pick up a ball until a week or two before tryouts. Or, they may have just lifted weights all winter, but not done enough sprinting or mobility work.
In the college ranks, some athletes will skip throwing and hitting altogether over winter break - and then wind up with issues when they return to campus and ramp up quickly to prepare for the start of the season.
Finally, in the professional ranks, many players simply wait too long to start baseball activities. You can lift all the weights you want, throw medicine balls, sprint, take yoga classes, and participate in any of a number of other general training modalities, but nothing prepares you for being in baseball cleats and hitting, throwing, taking ground balls, or shagging fly balls for hours on end - and doing so every day of the week. It's why I encourage our professional baseball crew to always get started on these things well in advance. Guys might start playing catch as early as Thanksgiving, start hitting off a tee in early December, and start working on defensive drills when January rolls around. And, we'll do movement training - sprinting, change of direction drills, ploys - throughout the off-season. We don't add everything at once; instead, we gradually introduce a more and more baseball-specific stimulus as the off-season progresses so that nobody gets surprised when they show up to spring training; it should feel like a breeze.
So, with anywhere from a few weeks to a few months of your off-season remaining, make sure you're not just getting bogged down in the weight room. Keep in mind that you lift weights to stay healthy on the field and improve performance, not just for the sake of lifting weights. Look for more and more specificity in your programming with increased participation in baseball activities - but not so much that it becomes a "too much, too soon" scenario. And, keep an eye out for the media reporting on loads of hamstrings, hip flexor, adductor, and oblique strains in the months to come, as it's a sign of the season!
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I just wanted to use today's blog post to let you know about some upcoming strength and conditioning speaking engagements I'll be doing. If you're like me, you always want to get these planned well in advance.
February 19, 2012: Fitness on the Field Baseball Clinic – Santa Cruz, CA. Email joey@paradigmsport.com for details.
In a recent presentation in front of a bunch of baseball coaches, I made the following statement - and it turned a lot of heads:
I think most people overtrain the rotator cuff nowadays, and they do so with the wrong exercises, anyway.
To illustrate my point, I'm going to ask a question:
Q: What is the most common complication you see in guys as they rehabilitate following a Tommy John Surgery?
A: Shoulder problems - generally right around the time they get up to 120 feet.
Huh? Shoulder pain is a post-operative complication of an elbow surgery? What gives?
First, I should make a very obvious point: many of these guys deal with shoulder stiffness as they get back to throwing simply because they've been shut down for months. That I completely expect - but remember that it's stiffness, and not pain. They always throw their way out of it.
The more pressing issue is what is taking place in their rehabilitation - and more specifically, what's taking place with the synergy between their rehabilitation and throwing program. Let me explain.
Rehabilitation following a UCL reconstruction is extensive. While different physical therapists certainly have different approaches, it will always be incredibly heavy on rotator cuff strength and timing, as well as adequate function of the scapular stabilizers. Guys always make huge strides on this front during rehab, but why do so many have shoulder pain when they get further out with their long tossing? The answer is very simple:
Most people don't appreciate that throwing a baseball IS rotator cuff training.
Your cuff is working tremendously hard to center the humeral head in the glenoid fossa. It controls excessive external rotation and anterior instability during lay-back.
It's fighting against distraction forces at ball release.
And, it's controlling internal rotation and horizontal adduction during follow-through.
Simultaneously, the scapular stabilizers are working incredibly hard to appropriately position and stabilize the scapula on the rib cage in various positions so that it can provide an ideal anchor point for those rotator cuff muscles to do their job.
A post-op Tommy John thrower - and really every player going through a throwing program - has all the same demands on his arm (even if he isn't on the mound, where stress is highest). And, as I wrote previously in a blog about why pitchers shouldn't throw year-round, every pitcher is always throwing with some degree of muscle damage at all times during the season (or a throwing program).
Keeping this in mind, think about the traditional Tommy John rehabilitation approach. It is intensive work for the cuff and scapular stabilizers three times a week with the physical therapists - plus many of the same exercises in a home program for off-days. They're already training these areas almost every day - and then they add in 3-6 throwing sessions a week. Wouldn't you almost expect shoulder problems? They are overusing it to the max! This is a conversation I recently had with physical therapist Eric Schoenberg, and he made another great point:
Most guys - especially at higher levels - don't have rotator cuff strength issues; they have rotator cuff timing issues.
In throwing - the single-fastest motion in all of sports - you're better off having a cuff that fires at the right time than a cuff that fires strong, but late. Very few rotator cuff exercise programs for healthy pitchers take that into account; rather, it's left to those doing rehabilitation. Likewise, most of the programs I see altogether ignore scapular stability and leave out other ways to train the cuff that are far more functional than just using bands.
Now, apply this example back to the everyday management of pitchers during the season. Pitchers are throwing much more aggressively: game appearances, bullpens, and long toss. They need to do some rotator cuff work, but it certainly doesn't need to be every day like so many people think.
I'll cover how much and what kind in Part 2. In the meantime, if you'd like to learn more about the evaluation and management of pitchers, check out Optimal Shoulder Performance.
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In Part 1 of this series, I outlined the first three reasons that I'm opposed to baseball pitchers using year-round throwing programs. Here are the next four:
4. They need to get their shoulder and elbow range of motion back.
As I noted in Part 1, throwing a baseball is the single-fastest motion in sports. With the crazy arm speeds one encounters, you have to keep in mind not only the muscles trying to accelerate the arm, but also the ones trying to slow it down. This "braking" challenge is called eccentric stress - and I'll talk more about it in a second.
What you need to know now, though, is that when left unchecked, significant eccentric stress can lead to tissue shortening. If you need further proof, Reinold et al. reported that immediately after a pitching outing, pitchers lose an average of 9.5° of shoulder internal rotation and 3.2° of elbow extension - and that these losses persisted at 24 hours post-throwing.
Now, imagine these acute range of motion losses being left unchecked for an entire season - or a season that simply never ends because pitchers are always throwing. That's how elbows wind up looking like this:
Fortunately, we can prevent losses in range of motion during the season with appropriate mobility exercises, manual therapy, and breathing exercises - but the truth is that not everyone has access to these initiatives in terms of expertise, finances, or convenience. So, while we work to educate the masses on arm care, emphasizing time off from throwing programs is also a key component of an overall strategy to reduce injury risk.
One last thing on this topic: it is a nightmare to try to improve shoulder or elbow range of motion in a pitcher during a season, as the very nature of throwing works against everything you're trying to achieve. The off-season is "where it's at" in terms of optimizing range of motion in throwers.
5. They need to “dissipate” eccentric stress.
Okay, here's where I take #4 and geek out a bit. I apologize in advance.
Sometimes, you have to get away from the baseball world in order to learn about the baseball world. To that end, I need to think Mike Reinold for bringing this great 2004 study from Tomiya et al to my attention.
These researchers created eccentric stress in muscle tissue of mice using an electrical stimulation model, and monitored blood markers of muscle damage for a period of time thereafter. What you'll see in the graph below is that myofiber disruption really peaks at three-days post-exercise, then start to return down to baseline, yet they still aren't even there at seven days post-intervention.
Source: Tomiya A, et al. Myofibers express IL-6 after eccentric exercise. Am J Sports Med. 2004 Mar;32(2):503-8.
Now, let's apply this to the world of pitching. Every single pitcher who throws more than once every 7-10 days is surely pitching with some degree of muscle damage. And, I can tell you that the two toughest challenges pitchers have reported to me are:
a) moving from starting to relieving
b) going from a 7-day high school or college rotation to a 5-day professional rotation
I'm firmly believe that pitchers need to throw in-season to stay strong, but I also know that we can't trump physiology. Sure, we need to have optimal nutrition and regeneration strategies in place, as we can't just baby guys and expect them to get better. However, make no mistake about it: high-level pitchers simply have to get good at pitching at 90% capacity (at best) if they are going to succeed.
If I already have a guy whose arm is working at a deficit for 8-9 months of throwing, the last thing I want to do is beat him up for the other three months with the same kind of volume and stress.
6. They need to allow any undetected low-grade injuries to heal.
As I discussed in an old blog, Pitching Injuries: It's Not Just What You're Doing; It's What You've Already Done, most injuries (especially ulnar collateral ligament tears) come from the accumulation of chronic, low-level stress. Maybe you get some calcification on your ulnar collateral ligament or a low-level rotator cuff tendinosis, and it takes a few years and hundreds of innings before something finally "goes."
Old, low-level injuries are less likely to reach threshold if you give them some downtime and work on redistributing training stress. By strengthening the rest of your body in the off-season, you're dramatically reducing the demands on your rotator cuff with throwing.
You can't teach other joints to share the burden if the burden is never removed temporarily.
7. They need a chance to prioritize other competing demands.
Throwing is a good 20-30 minute endeavor each time you do it - and possibly even more. When I think about all the things that pitchers can be doing to get better in the off-season from a strength and conditioning standpoint, I have a really hard time justifying giving away that much time and recovery capability. There are other things that need to be prioritized at this time - and year-round throwing is an especially tough pill to swallow when you know that throwing is working against many of the very qualities - rotator cuff strength, scapular stability, mobility, and tissue quality - that you're trying to establish.
Closing Thoughts
The lack of downtime from throwing is especially problematic in younger populations, as they are skeletally immature and weaker. I’d argue that a really weak 15-year-old kid throwing 74-76 mph does far more damage to his body on each throw than a moderately strong professional player throwing 90-92 mph, especially given that the pro pitcher’s mechanics are more optimized to protect the arm. This underscores the importance of "syncing up" mechanics, throwing programs, and the overall baseball strength and conditioning program.
Last, but certainly not least, remember that two weeks doesn't constitute "time off." Rather, I firmly believe that pitchers need the ball completely out of their hands for at least two month per year, preferably continuously. In other words, eight one-week breaks throughout the year is far from ideal, as it doesn't really allow for positive adaptations to occur.
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Today is just a quick blog, as I wanted to give you a heads-up on an article at MLB.com about off-season training for professional baseball players, as Cressey Performance was featured. Check it out:
Players Turning to Group Offseason WorkoutsSign-up Today for our FREE Baseball Newsletter and Receive a Copy of the Exact Stretches used by Cressey Performance Pitchers after they Throw!
In the past few months, I've gotten quite a few inquiries about whether Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better is a good fit for baseball players.
While I never wrote the book with the intention of training this athletic population, it can be quickly and easily modified to fit the unique needs of baseball. The principal changes are going to be:
The big differences are going to be:
1. Use more front squatting, and little to no back squatting (we do use a lot of giant cambered bar and safety squat bar variations at Cressey Performance).
2. Eliminate barbell bench pressing and overhead pressing, instead plugging in some dumbbell bench pressing and pushup variations, as seen here and here.
3. In the off-season, we usually do medicine ball work 2-3x/week. The medicine ball volume is higher in the early/mid-off-season and lower during the late off-season and in-season phases. For some exercise ideas, you can check out this post of mine, as well as my YouTube Channel.
Usually, this medicine ball training is incorporated before lifting or movement training.
4. I'd add some rhythmic stabilization work 2x/week - as seen here.
All in all, the program is surprisingly versatile for the baseball player. In the off-season, the 4x/week template works great. Then, as the late off-season and pre-season get underway, the 3x/week program is a better fit. In-season, you'll see more position players and relief pitchers using the 2x/week approach, whereas starters can get in 3x/week lifting. Obviously, the volume may be reduced, but the exercise selection, overall training schedule, training stress fluctuations, core training, and warm-up sequences are all very applicable. It won't be perfect, but it'll be markedly better than any of the cookie cutter or football lifting programs you'll see out there.
If something is going to be controversial and potentially elicit a negative response from my readers, I "sit" on the topic for 24 hours. During that time, I weigh the decision of whether me publicly writing about something is for the better good - meaning that it'll help people in the long-term even if it makes them recognize that they've been goofing up in the short-term.
I did some thinking on that front last night (actually, for the past several nights), and decided to go through with this blog, as I feel like it's something that every single baseball player, parent, and especially coach ought to read. So, if you're in one of those categories - or are just a baseball fan who loves the game - please spread the word on what you're about to read, whether it's with a Facebook "recommend," "Tweet," or just a friendly email with the link to this article.
If you've perused my Baseball Content page much in the past, you'll know that I don't try to hide the fact that throwing a baseball is an incredibly unnatural and flat-out dangerous motion. It's the single-fastest motion in all of sports, and every day, physically unprepared athletes go out and essentially play with fire every single time they try to light up a radar gun - or even just play catch.
Not surprisingly, when you mix physically unprepared bodies with arguably the most dangerous sporting challenge on the planet (the folks in Pamplona, Spain might argue with me, but that's a blog for another day), athletes get hurt. Arm injuries (like all youth sports injuries) are rising exponentially thanks to not "less athletic athletes" taking part in high-risk sports, but also this participation taking place at all-time high rates thanks to the proliferation of little league all-star teams, AAU teams, fall ball, private pitching instruction, and the baseball showcase industry. A fantastic study by Olsen et al. in 2006 (must-read for anyone involved in baseball development) clearly demonstrated strong associations between injuries requiring surgery and pitching "more months per year, games per year, innings per game, pitches per game, pitches per year, and warm-up pitches before a game" as well as showcase appearances during adolescence. The message was very clear: throw too much - especially at a young age - and you're going to wind up hurt.
Unfortunately, though, many people glaze over numbers in studies (if they ever read them), and while they may walk away with the "overuse is bad" message, they don't appreciate what true overuse really is - especially since it's age-dependent. Fortunately, a February 2011 study from Fleisig et al. showed in no uncertain terms that, in ages 9-14, throwing more than 100 innings per year was associated with a 3.5 times higher risk of elbow or shoulder surgery - or retirement altogether.
To put this into context, I'll first ask you: do you realize how challenging it is to throw 100 innings in a little league season? Let’s say you start baseball the first week of April (little league) and even manage to play on a summer team that runs through the end of July. That’s a four month season: exactly what I was accustomed to growing up - at the absolute most.
If you look at the Major League Baseball leaders in innings pitched, those at the top of the list generally throw about 35 innings per month (4-5 starts each). In other words, high-performance, skeletally mature pitchers in the most elite baseball league in the world are on pace for roughly 140 innings pitched over the first four months of the year. However, there are parents and coaches out there that actually think it's okay to send an 11-year old out there for a comparable number of innings? It's especially troublesome when you realize that younger kids always throw more pitches per inning than their older counterparts, as they don't have good command and insist on trying to strike everyone out instead of pitching to contact here and there.
Just think about how hard that is to do. Major League pitchers throw on a five-day rotation, and Little league games are, at most, twice a week. If a kid pitches once a week for four months, even if he throws complete games every time out (not something I'd advise, for the record), he'd still struggle to hit 100 innings (16 starts x 7 inning games =112 innings). Rats! It's actually tough to overuse kids when the season is kept in check.
So, instead, they add seasons. Join an AAU team (or seven of them). Play fall ball so that you can rack up another seven innings every weekend. Be sure to hit up a few college camps on Saturdays and throw as hard as you can so that your Sunday outing in 25-degree weather is extra miserable. Make sure you see your pitching coach for bullpens as soon as fall ball ends. Get your registration in early for that showcase that's taking place the first week in January. Just do some band work and a couple of half-ass stretches and you'll be fine. Riiiight....good thinking.
At risk of sounding arrogant, I'm good at what I do. I've devoted my life to keeping baseball players healthy. They comprise 85% of our clientele at Cressey Performance, and I work with millions of dollars of arms every off-season and see players from ages 9 to 50+. I do my best to surround myself with the smartest people in strength and conditioning, rehabilitation, and skill-specific training in and outside of the game. I managed the first subpectoral biceps tenodesis in major league history. I can talk mechanics with the best pitching coaches around, write strength and conditioning and throwing programs, manually stretch guys, you name it. I've got two fantastic therapists in my office to do massage, ART, Graston, chiropractic adjustments, and a host of other manual therapy approaches - not to mention great physical therapists nearby who can handle all our complex cases. You know the only things I, we, or anybody on this planet can't control?
Poor judgment by athletes and their parents and coaches.
And that - no doubt about it - is the primary reason that kids get hurt. We can do all the strength training, mobility work, and soft tissue treatments in the world and it won't matter if they're overused - because I'm just not smart enough to have figured out how to go back in time and change history. Worried about whether they're throwing curveballs, or if their mechanics are perfect? It won't matter if they've already accumulated too many innings.
While athletes might be playing with fire each time they throw, the pain presentation pattern is different. You burn your hand, and you know instantly. Pitching injuries take time to come about. Maybe you do microscopic damage to your ulnar collateral ligament each time you throw - and then come back and pitch again before it's had time to fully regenerate. Or, maybe you ignore the shoulder internal rotation deficit and scapular dyskinesis you've got and it gets worse and worse for years - until you're finally on the surgeon's table for a labral and/or rotator cuff repair. These issues might be managed conservatively if painful during the teenage years (or go undetected if no pain is present) - but once a kid hits age 18 or 19, it seems to automatically become "socially acceptable" to do an elbow or shoulder surgery.
Of course, this isn't just applicable to coaches in the 9-14 age group. You see "criminal" pitch counts in the high school and collegiate ranks as well, and while they may be more physically mature than the 9-14 year-olds, that doesn't mean that they're exempt from the short- and long-term consequences.
This is why we need the best coaches at the youngest levels. It's also why we need pitching coaches that understand "managing pitchers" as much as - if not more than - teaching pitching mechanics. And, it's why coaches need to understand the big picture in terms of what different kids can do at different ages, at different times in the year.
It's also while parents need to be proactive with their young pitchers. If a coach isn't going to track his innings - and a 9-year-old kid certainly can't be expected to do so - the parent needs to step up and do so. I've met a lot of parents of kids who have been injured at ages 17-21, and most of them look back with a lot of anger toward coaches at younger levels for overusing their sons. Hindsight is always 20/20, but foresight is what saves an arm. Don't be afraid to step up and say something, as you aren't telling a coach how to do his job; you're protecting your kid, just as you would be locking the door at night or making sure he brushes his teeth.
In terms of planning the competitive year, I have no problem with a 9-14 year-old kid playing baseball 4-5 months of the year, as the other 7-8 months per year should be devoted to at least two other sports. It's basically the "rule of thirds" for long-term athletic development: three sports, four months apiece. Kids can strength-train year round.
At ages 15-16, I'm fine with kids changing things up and going to only two sports. Baseball might occupy 7-8 months, but a big chunk of that should be focused on preparation. So, a kid might start playing catch in November, start his high school season in March, and then play summer ball through the end of July. August through November would be devoted to a fall sport and fall ball would be altogether omitted, as it was the only idea worse than making Rocky V. Kids would, of course, strength-train year-round.
At ages 17 and up, it's fine with me if you want to specialize in baseball, but that doesn't mean you should play year-round. I actually advocate kids only throw for 8-9 months of the year (at most) - which is right on par with what most professional players do. The only thing that'd be different is that the season would be shifted up a bit in the year, as the high school season usually starts a few weeks before the professional season. Pro guys get half of October, then all November and December off from throwing. "Specialized" high school players get August, September, and October off (again, because fall ball is as useful as a trap door in a lifeboat). Strength training is year-round.
You'll notice that there isn't a single penny spent on off-season baseball showcases. That wasn't an accidental omission (read here why I don't like them). If you insist on going to one, pick one between June and early August.
I'm convinced that the next big thing in Major League Baseball's "scouting revolution" is meticulously analyzing what players did when they were younger. If they are going to draft kids, they want to know that they haven't been overworked for years prior to entering professional baseball. You're already seeing this taking place in collegiate baseball based more on an assumption: pitchers from the North are getting more and more opportunities to play down South because coaches recruit them (beyond just talent) under the assumption that they've accumulated less wear and tear on their arms.
This piece might have ruffled some feathers. Kids want to play year-round. Parents want to make kids happy - and they enjoy watching them play. You know what else? Kids love chocolate, and parents want to see kids happy - but that doesn't mean that kids should get a limitless amount of chocolate to consume, right? You put away the Easter candy this week to stress moderation and look out for their long-term well-being.
Coaches enjoy coaching and want to win - and they may take a commentary like this personally because they're the ones who sent a 9-year-old out for 120 innings one year - and now he's the one having the elbow surgery. Or, maybe it's the college coach who let a kid throw 160 pitches in a game and killed his draft status because teams know he'll have a shoulder surgery in three years. Admitting you're wrong is hard enough, but admitting you're wrong and learning from that mistake to help future kids is even harder - but all the more rewarding.
This post wasn't intended to make anyone feel bad, but bring to light an issue (throwing volume) that I think is the absolute most important consideration when taking care of arms. We can do everything right in terms of physical preparation, but if you throw too much - especially at vulnerable ages - none of it matters.
Again, if you could help spread the word on this, I'd really appreciate it. And, feel free to comment below; I'm here to help.
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It's been a few months in the making, but we just finished up a promo video about how we attack off-season baseball training at Cressey Performance for our professional, collegiate, and high school baseball players.
We'd love to hear what you think - and hopefully you'll like it enough to help spread the word on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks!
A big shoutout goes out to Jamie and Matt at Lasting Memories Videotaping; these guys do an awesome job, and we can't recommend them highly enough!
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Five months ago, I wrote an article called How to Find Your Fitness Niche – and it was one of the more popular posts in my site’s history. I realized after writing it, though, that I never bothered to talk about how I developed the niche I was in once I discovered it.
If you didn’t read the original installment, definitely check it out now. However, as a brief background, about 80-85% of our clients at Cressey Performance are baseball players. This past off-season, we had 44 professional players travel from all over the country to train in snowy Hudson, MA. So, you could say that my dream “niche” came true. Here are some of the strategies we employed along the way.
1. Don’t go for the big fish right away.
People are always blown away when I tell them that I started out with training high school baseball players, not big leaguers. That’s the truth, though; a few younger guys got great results, won a state championship, earned D1 scholarships, and – in the case of one – received state player of the year honors. My phone started ringing off the hook when some of those results were featured in the Boston Globe.
Eventually, the high school clientele grew to include more college guys and, in turn, pro guys. Once you have a few pro guys and you get results with them, they tell their buddies – and their agents and teams also have more guys to send your way. Then, all the younger athletes see professional athletes training at our facility and it reaffirms in their mind that Cressey Performance is the place to be. If a professional baseball player travels all the way across the country to train here, why wouldn’t they be willing to travel ten minutes? You wind up with a big circle that continuously grows.
What doesn’t work is just shooting for the “red carpet” clients right off the bat. Don’t expect to just be able to call your local professional sports team or some big time agent and “wow” them with a 15-second elevator pitch to get their best players to train with you. The truth is that you probably won’t even get a call back. It’s not my niche, but it works the same with celebrities, TV personalities, politicians, or anyone else who lives their lives knowing that everyone wants a piece of them. Be patient and fish in the river for a bit before you head out to catch the big fish in open waters.
2. Start locally.
Before you can be a national expert, you have to be a local expert. Training my local guys got me motivated to research and write more in the baseball realm. That gave rise to more guys traveling from out of state to train with us.
3. Remember that expertise is perceived differently.
Some perceive expertise as telling them what to do so that all the guesswork is taken out of the equation. They might think you are annoying or clueless if you try to tell them the “why” behind everything you do.
Others perceive expertise as your ability to justify everything that you do. They might think you’re incompetent if you tell them to “just trust you” because you “know” the program will work, or if you’re simply at a loss for words when they ask you to explain the “why” behind your training approach.
Some want to see you coach athletes to be confident in your abilities, and others just want to sit down with you and ask questions to verify your competence. Others might want to see you present at a seminar. Some want to read your writing, and others want to ask current clients about their experiences with you.
The point is that you have to be versatile and multi-faceted in the way that you present your expertise. I can rattle off research and tell guys why we’re doing stuff, or I can skip the science mumbo-jumbo and replace it with loud music and attitude. People are welcome to watch me coach, ask me questions, read my writing (online and the stuff that is framed in the office), view seminars I’ve given, check out flyers in the office, and speak to our clients. We make “perceiving expertise” easier for them.
4. Good will doesn’t run out – and costs nothing to give. Cultivate relationships.
At the end of the day, success in your niche isn’t about making up flyers or some other advertising tactic; it’s about overdelivering relative to clients’ expectations and creating genuinely positive relationships with people. We haven’t spent a penny on advertising since we opened in 2007 – but we’ve made a lot of friends along the way.
5. Remember that impressionable young minds ultimately become opinion leaders.
This is a cool year for us because it’s the first class of guys that we’ve seen all the way through high school. In other words, some kids I started training when they were in eighth grade are now seniors in high school with college baseball scholarships. They might not have been big referral sources when they were 14 years old, but as more accomplished 17-18 year-olds to whom underclassmen look up, they are huge opinion leaders who refer us a lot of business. Likewise, we’ve gotten to know their families well over the years, so the referrals don’t just come from the kids; they also come from the parents.
Tim Collins was the second professional baseball player I ever trained. He was a free agent signing out of high school in 2007 – and at the time, he was 18 years old, 5-5, 130 pounds soaking wet, and topping out at 82-83mph. Tim just wrapped up his fourth off-season with us and stands an outstanding chance of making the opening day roster for the Kansas City Royals after putting up some of the best numbers in minor league baseball over the past few years. He’s now 170 pounds, throws in the mid-90s, and has a ~39-inch vertical jump.
In the fall of 2007, Tim was as much of a longshot in professional baseball as you could have possibly imagined: undersized, underpaid, and undrafted. Now, he’s on the big league radar screen – and along that journey, he’s generated an enormous amount of publicity for Cressey Performance and referred several of his teammates our way.
6. Research like crazy.
If you are going to be the expert, it’s your job to know everything you possibly can about your niche. Being smart is never a bad thing; you need to be on the cutting-edge.
7. Adapt.
Whether you are training fat loss clients, pregnant women, senior citizens, or MMA fighters, we are in a dynamic field where things change daily. New research comes out and better ways of doing things are constantly being discovered. If you’re going to be the “go-to” expert, it’s not just good enough to learn new things; you have to be able to effectively integrate them in your existing philosophy. It’s no good learning something if you aren’t going to use it – and let’s face it: change is hard. Find a way to make it easy.
8. Don’t try to replicate yourself; complement yourself.
The single-worst thing I could have done in developing my baseball niche was hiring someone to be like me. Conversely, the best thing I can do is surround myself with people who have skill sets that complement mine so that we can together offer a more comprehensive product to our niche.
With that in mind, at CP, we have a pitching coordinator, nutrition director, massage therapist, and chiropractor on hand. My business partner handles all the billing, scheduling, and other office tasks. We have a cafeteria in the building to help out with nutrition needs. All these people do their thing so that I can leverage my abilities, which allows us to best serve our niche.
9. Don’t force it.
This one will be brief: you have to enjoy what you’re doing in order to be good at it.
I don’t care what sounds profitable or what your spouse or buddies tell you you’d be good at; it has to appeal to you on a level far more important than financial gain.
10. Success is about what you’re doing right, not what others are doing wrong.
Because we’re so focused on our niche, I have never really paid any attention to what surrounding training facilities are doing simply because I don’t view them as competition. However, that doesn’t mean that I’m not asked about them all the time – almost as if people are trying to bait me into talking poorly about industry colleagues. My policy is strict and straightforward: stay positive and never speak poorly of your competition.
I will gladly talk about what I feel we do well and how this distinguishes us from the industry “norm,” but it’s not my place to comment on what others are doing. Speaking poorly about others only makes you look jealous and petty. And, frankly, this time and effort is much better spent looking in the mirror to determine how you can make your own offerings better.
Closing Thoughts
Surely, these are just a few of the many factors involved in turning a fitness niche from a dream into a reality. And, I’m sure we can all learn from one another. In the comments section, I’d love to hear what your fitness niche is and what strategies you’ve employed to get to where you are.
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I just wanted to give you a quick heads-up that NESN ran this feature on Boston Red Sox Third Basemen Kevin Youkilis' off-season training at Cressey Performance. Check it out:
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