A few questions from one of our pro baseball guys inspired me to create this video "tutorial" on how to develop power. It starts general, and progresses to specific. Think about how it applies to YOUR sport and your training history.
For more detail, check out The Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual.
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I know a lot of professional (and college/high school) baseball players read this website on a daily basis, so I figured that with just about one month left in this year's minor league season, I'd report this article from last October. I think it is a must-read for any professional baseball player, based on my years of experience training guys in this population. Check it out: The Biggest Mistake Pro Baseball Players Make.
"In a day and age when you read, daily, about players taking 'shortcuts' and trying to find the quickest way to 'get good,' if you understand anything about the human body and professional sports you know neither of those applies. Eric Cressey is as cutting edge as anyone out there when it comes to throwing a baseball. His insight into not only the bio-mechanics of the action, but in understanding that the kinetic chain is about engaging the entire body and his position specific workouts are far ahead of their time. He also has great insight into the lives we live as professionals and knows that while nutrition is the foundation of any good athlete, there are ways to be healthy, and stay healthy. No matter if you're traveling from Motel 6 to Motel 6 in the NY Penn League, or on charter flights around the AL East, this guy is as good as they come.""In addition to being one of the smartest minds on the planet he's as good a person as he is a trainer, if not better. I couldn't recommend anyone more highly than Eric if you are truly serious about tapping into potential you never knew you had, or pushing yourself to places you never knew you could go."Curt Schilling
Member of the 2001, 2004 and 2007 World Champion Diamondbacks and Red Sox
1. I just realized that it's Friday the 13th. Hopefully that epiphany doesn't jinx this blog and make it suck. Prepare yourself either way.
2. In case you missed it earlier this week, today is the last day you can save $50 off of Muscle Imbalances Revealed, a discount that is only in place for my readers through THIS LINK. As I noted in my Muscle Imbalances Revealed product review earlier this week, it's an excellent product and worth every penny. The sale lasts through tonight at midnight only.
3. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you probably know that I'm a huge advocate of soft tissue work based on anecdotal evidence. This week, however, I want to direct you to a great "case study" guest blog by physical therapist Trevor Winnegge over at Mike Reinold's blog. Trevor writes about the importance of soft tissue release following SLAP 2 repairs. This is great information for both clinicians and those looking to be advocates for themselves following shoulder injuries, so definitely check it out.
4. Check out this excellent blog post from Bret Contreras on stiffness. A lot of folks think that being stiff is always a bad thing, but as Bret shows, there is a time and a place for everything - and it's crucial for successful athletic performance.
5. Cressey Performance athlete Andrew Chin had a nice interview published at ESPN Boston the other day, and talks about his training at CP in some detail. Check it out: Player Perspective: Andrew Chin.
5. Tony's out of town for a lovely romantic weekend with his significant other. He's planning to serenade her, so we did a little trial run at Cressey Performance the other night. I think he did pretty well:
Hey, it beats techno, right?
6. One of my goals for the rest of 2010 is to really kick up the video content here at EricCressey.com. To that end, I am tentatively planning a video series for the blog that is all about exercise technique and how we teach certain lifts. I'm looking for ideas: what drills/exercises/lifts have been a struggle for you to learn? Please post some suggestions as comments below and you might see it in this blog in the next few months with a ton of detail. Thanks in advance for your ideas!
1. Mike Reinold polled some of the best in the world of manual therapy, physical therapy, and strength and conditioning (plus a schmuck named "Cressey") to ask for their best career advice for students and young professionals in our fields. Here is the post that emerged; it came out really well - and actually serves as an awesome adjunct to yesterday's advice on starting out in the fitness industry.
2. I'm pumped to report that my advanced copy of Gray Cook's new book, Movement, arrived yesterday. I'm digging in to it tonight. You can pre-order your own HERE.
Gray's been talking about this book (and working on it) for years now, and there is no doubt in my mind that he won't disappoint. I'm really looking forward to it.
3. Here's a link to an interview with Cressey Performance and Lincoln-Sudbury athlete Adam Ravenelle, who is committed to play baseball at Vanderbilt:
Player Perspective: Adam Ravenelle
The thing I like the most about this interview is the fact that Adam emphasized the importance of in-season training and how valuable it is to young pitchers. You'd be amazed at how many guys work their butts off in the off-season and show up to the start of the season strong...only to skip their lifting and flexibility work for the next 6-8 months. It's one step forward, and one step back - but not for guys like Adam who "get it." "Rav" has gained over 50 pounds with us since 2007 while going from the high 70s to low 90mph range - and having an open-minded and dedicated attitude toward in-season training has been a big part of it.
3. Speaking of throwing the baseball faster, Haag et al. found that pre-throwing static stretching did not negatively affect baseball pitching velocity. This is pretty significant, as many modern coaches generally encourage players to universally avoid static stretching right before training and competition for fear of reductions in power output (that research horse has been beaten to death).
Personally, though, I've always felt that it was really valuable to stretch the throwing shoulder in the majority of our pitchers before they threw (the exceptions being the ones with crazy laxity). Typically, we stretch guys (or encourage them to stretch themselves) into shoulder internal rotation and flexion. It's safe to assume that getting range in their directions is going to not only minimize the effect of the peel-back mechanism for SLAP lesions at lay-back, but also enable them to have a longer, smoother deceleration arc.
While more research is definitely warranted, my hunch is that static stretching is less "inhibitory" in the upper body than the lower body because the upper body deals with predominantly open-chain motion, and is therefore more heavily reliant on mobility than stability.
5. Last, but certainly not least, here's a quick article about CP athlete Tim Collins, who was traded for the second time in three weeks, this time to the Royals.
Related PostsThe Importance of Strength and Conditioning for High School Baseball PlayersThe Lucky 13: Cressey's Top Reading RecommendationsEnter your email below to subscribe to our FREE newsletter:
I came across the abstract for this interesting Australian study the other day: Actual versus perceived lifting ability in healthy young men (18-25 years).
Basically, researchers compared what men under the age of 25 SAID they could lift with what they actually COULD lift when tested. According to the researchers, "One third of subjects were able to accurately self-report their lifting performance, approximately one-third underestimated, and the remaining third overestimated their lifting ability."
So, out of every three people, we have one person who is pretty even-keeled and honest with himself about his physical abilities.
And, we have another who is either a) intimidated and doesn't think he can do it or b) lazy and unwilling to "do it."
Finally,we have everyone's favorite: the tough guy who talks a big game. These are the guys who sit behind their keyboards claiming to squat 500 pounds - or bench 400, or throw 95mph fastballs. However, nobody every witnesses it. They have big balls on the internet.
How many times have you walked into a commercial gym and seen a 400-pound bench press? I think I've seen it once - and the guy weighed about 330 pounds.
How about a legitimate 600-pound squat? I've never seen it in a commercial gym, only a few times without a squat-suit in hardcore powerlifting gyms, and only twice college weight rooms in my life.
And, I'm certainly not seeing 95mph fastballs at every high school baseball game. In fact, as I recall reading last year, there are only about eight pitchers in all of Major League Baseball who have consistent 95+mph fastballs. Maybe the rest of the pros need to spend more time on the internet to be able to throw baseballs faster?
However, go on to any internet forum - whether it's for lifting or pitching - and you'll come across all this hidden talent that is yearning to be discovered. Sorry, folks, but you're the 1/3 of people I referenced above. Put up or shut up. I'd actually say that this 33% figure also applies to baseball fathers; about one in three is CONVINCED that his kid is much better than Junior really is.
Finally, as an interesting little aside, ever wonder why nobody ever lies about their deadlift numbers?
I have to assume that it's because the deadlift is a pretty "yes or no" exercise. You either can or can't pick something heavy up off the floor. It's not like a squat or bench press, where you can shorten the range of motion and instantly improve your numbers.
Related PostsCrazy Dads and Kids Who Throw CheddarShoulder Mobility for Squatting
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Here is this week's list of recommended reading:
Push-ups for Baseball Pitchers - The why, how, and when.
The Truth About Leg Extensions - I just remember this article being really fun to write - mostly because I knew I'd get a lot of hate mail about it. I was right about that.
Simple Asymmetry Fixes - It might be easier than you think!
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1. I haven't done a "Random Friday Thoughts" blog in a while, so in the spirit of randomness, I thought I'd throw you a curveball and kick off the week with some Tuesday random thoughts.
2. Last week, I booked two plane tickets to Halifax, Nova Scotia for my fiancee and I. She's a bridesmaid in a wedding up there in a few weeks, so I'll be making the trip as well. As part of being what amounts to a "third wheel" for the weekend (the only people I know other than Anna in the entire wedding are the bride and groom), I'll have quite a bit of downtime while in the area. Any readers out there have any suggestions for what to do in Halifax? It's not hockey season, and I don't drink Molson, so I'm at a bit of a loss...
Also, just out of curiosity, when did one have to sell off all his/her internal organs in order to afford a flight to Halifax? Roundtrip airfare was over $1,500, and Air Canada followed up with an email that said, "We also mandate that you name your first child after us."
3. I wrote a guest blog for Men's Health last week; check it out: A Quick Fix for Stiff Shoulders.
4. Also on the writing note, I've written a few guest chapters lately. The first was a strength and conditioning chapter for an upcoming pitching book for young baseball players and their parents. The second (which is still a work in progress) is a chapter for a new IYCA project. So far, it's coming along really well - and I'm really honored to be on-board for this with a group of really talented guys who are trying to do something very special.
5. Tonight (Tuesday), Boston Red Sox Head Athletic Trainer (and Optimal Shoulder Performance co-creator) Mike Reinold is hosting a free webinar: "What's New for 2010." Click here for more information.
6. Speaking of Mike, he had a great post last week about Epicondylitis and Cervical Radiculopathy. It's a great adjunct to my "Understanding Elbow Pain" series from back in May. If you missed it, here's a link to the sixth (final) installment (and you can link back to the previous five).
7. I realized the other day that there is one big thing I've always considered in our training programs for pitchers, but failed to mention on this blog: they need both open- and closed-chain hip mobility, as the right and left hips must rotate independently of one another during the stride to the plate. Here's a good example:
You can see that Beckett is just short of stride foot contact here - which means that he's at just about maximal hip external rotation on the lead leg...in open chain motion. The femur is rotating on the acetabulum.
Meanwhile, he's riding out his trailing leg...in closed chain motion. The acetabulum is rotating on the femur.
As such, adequate mobility training for pitchers should include a combination of both open- and closed-chain drills, although I'd say that the majority should be closed-chain.
8. Today's Mike Robertson's birthday; head over to RobertsonTrainingSystems.com and show him a little love.
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Last week, I had three separate pitchers ask me what I thought about swimming between starts. My answer was pretty straightforward: I am not a fan at all.
There are several reasons for my contention with this as a useful modality.
Like pitchers, swimmers have some of the most dysfunctional shoulders in the entire sporting world; they have glaring scapular instability, big internal rotation deficits, and insufficient dynamic stability.
Sound familiar? These are the exact same things we work to address too keep our pitchers healthy.
For me, cross-training is about getting athletes out of pattern overload - not finding a similar means of reinforcing imbalances. Telling a pitcher to go swim is like encouraging a distance runner with a bum Achilles tendon to go jump rope instead. It's an epic fail waiting to happen.
When it really comes down to it, I’d rather have guys actually throwing if they are going to develop imbalances. Pattern overload might as well give you improved motor control and technical precision if it's going to increase your susceptibility to injury!
Speaking of specificity, the energy systems demands of swimming (longer distances, usually) don't reflect what we see in pitching (short bursts of intense exertion). So, the arguments are in many ways similar to my contention with distance running for pitchers.
And, more anecdotally, while incredible athletes in the pool, most of the swimmers I have encountered have been far less than athletic on solid ground, presumably because the majority of their training takes place in the water, where stability demands are markedly different. I'd much rather see supplemental baseball training take place with closed-chain motion on solid ground - just like it does in pitching.
Finally, I'd like to see pitchers lift more - because they simply don't do enough of it during the season. With limited time between outings, it's important to get in the most important stuff first - and I just don't see swimming as "important" when compared to flexibility training, soft tissue work, the throwing program, and strength training.
I'm sticking to my guns here. I'd much rather see pitchers doing what I outlined HERE between starts, as it keeps them strong, gets them moving in ways that don't further ingrain imbalances, and avoids conflicting with the metabolic demands on pitching.
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Though a somewhat "normal" day at the gym, yesterday marked Cressey Performance's three-year anniversary.
While my business partner's blog post yesterday did an excellent job of doling out "thank yous" to a lot of the important people who have been so involved in our success - from clients to parents, coaches, interns, and significant others - I wanted to add my own two cents on the matter today. More than anything, I really wanted to highlight a sentence that illustrates what makes me the most proud about where CP has been, where it is, and where it's going.
We've done this for the right reasons, and we've done it the right way.
I read a business development blog post by Chris McCombs the other day where he wrote something that really hit home for me. When he was talking about how he decides to accept or reject a new project/opportunity, here is one of his guidelines:
"Only Take on Projects That Are In Line With My Current Values and Fulfill Me Beyond Just The Money - A project must fulfill me in some way BESIDE just money...too many people spend their life JUST chasing a buck; to me, that's no way to live. For me, the money must be there, but it should fulfill me personally, be fun, help a lot of people, and build and be in line with my current brand and brand equity."
Back in 2007, I had a tough decision to make. My online consulting business had really taken off, and the Maximum Strength book deal was in the works. My other products - Magnificent Mobility, The Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual, and Building the Efficient Athlete - were selling well and getting great reviews, and I'd just had a study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. This website was growing exponentially in popularity, and I had just wrapped up my first year on the Perform Better tour - so lots of doors were opening for me on the seminar front to present all over the world - and I could have stayed home and just written all day, every day.
I was getting really crunched for time, as I was already training clients 8-13 hours per day, seven days per week, as my in-person clientele had rapidly grown. My phone rang off the hook for about three weeks after Lincoln-Sudbury won a baseball state championship after I'd trained several of their guys, and one of my athletes was named state player of the year. And, after being featured on the front page of the Boston Globe with a nipple so hard I could cut diamonds, I was in demand as a t-shirt model (okay, not really - but it made for an awesome blog post, The School of Hard Nipples).
I was exhausted and stressed - but absolutely, positively, "living the dream" that I'd always wanted.
To make matters a bit more interesting, I had just started dating a great girl (now my fiancee) who I really had a good feeling was "the one" after about three months. The work days, however, were insanely long and I was worried that I'd screw up a good thing by not spending enough time with her.
Every business development coach out there would have seen a "simple" answer to all my problems: stop training people in person. Just write, consult, make DVDs, and give seminars. It would have cut my hours by 80% and still allowed me to earn a pretty good living - and enjoy plenty of free time. There was a huge problem with that, though; as Chris wrote, it wouldn't "fulfill me personally, be fun, help a lot of people, and build and be in line with my current brand and brand equity." I like doing evaluations, writing programs, coaching, sweating, training with my guys, cranking up the music, helping people get to where they want to be, collaborating with and learning from other professionals, and watching my athletes compete - whether it's at some high school field or at Fenway Park. Giving that up wasn't an option; I guess I'd have just been a crappy business coaching client, as I would have been stubborn as an ass on giving that up.
Fortunately for me, Pete Dupuis, my roommate from my freshman year of college, had just finished his MBA and was in the midst of a job search. And, during that MBA, he'd started to train with me and packed on a ton of strength and muscle mass - making him realize and truly appreciate the value in what I was doing (especially since he was and is a goalie in a very competitive soccer league). Pete had also met and become friends with a ton of my clients - and taken a genuine interest in my baseball focus, as a lifelong Red Sox fan. Almost daily, Pete would encourage me to do my own thing and let him handle all the business stuff for me.
Simultaneously, Tony Gentilcore was ready for a change of scenery on the work front. Having been Tony's roommate and training partner for almost two years at that point, I knew he was a genuinely great guy, that he'd read everything on my bookshelf, and that he could coach his butt off and "walk the walk." He, too, had met a lot of my clients - so there was continuity from the get-go.
So, on July 13, 2007, Cressey Performance was born. Here is what we started with.
Boatloads of renovations and equipment additions later, it wound up looking like this.
Of course, we outgrew and demolished this space after about nine months and moved three miles east to a facility twice the size. And, we've continued to grow right up to this day; June was our busiest month ever, and July should be busier. We've got regular weekly clients who come from four states (MA, NH, CT, RI), and in the baseball off-season, I have college and pro guys who come from the likes of OH, AZ, CA, SC, NC, GA, FL, and VA. And, we had 33 applicants for this summer's internships.
To be very candid, though, I don't consider myself a very good "businessman." No offense to Pete or Tony, either, but I don't think they even come close to the textbook definition of the word, either. We just try to be good dudes. "We've done this for the right reasons, and we've done it the right way."
We don't allocate a certain percentage of our monthly revenues to advertising. In fact, we haven't spent a single penny on advertising - unless you count charitable donations to causes that are of significance to us.
We don't search high and low for new revenue streams to push on our clients. In fact, if I get one more MonaVie sales pitch, I'm going to suplex whoever delivered it right off our loading dock. Rather, we bust our butts to set clients up for success in any way possible - and trust that those efforts will lead to referrals and "allegiance" to Cressey Performance. We ask what they want from us and modify our plans accordingly. It's what led to us bringing in manual therapy, a pitching cage, and, of course, pitching coach/court jester Matt Blake's timeless antics.
Along those same lines, we don't measure our success based on revenue numbers; we measure it based on client results. In three years of seeing LOADS of baseball players non-stop, we've only had three arm surgeries: one shoulder and two elbow. All three were athletes who came to us with existing injuries, and in each case, we kept them afloat as long as we could and trained them through their entire rehabilitation. I don't want to toot our own horn, but this is a remarkable statistic in a population where over 57% of pitchers suffer some form of shoulder injury during each competitive season - and that doesn't even include elbows! And, our statistics don't even count literally dozens of players who have come to us after a doctor has told them they needed surgery, but we've helped them avoid these procedures. The college scholarships, draft picks, state titles, individual honors, and personal bests in the gym are all fantastic, but I'm most proud of saying that we've dedicated ourselves to keeping athletes healthy so that they can enjoy the sports they love.
The same goes for our non-competitive athlete clients. The fat loss and strength gains they experience are awesome and quantifiable, but beyond that (and more qualitatively), I love knowing that they're training pain-free and are going to be able to enjoy exercise and reap the benefits of training for a long time.
We don't penny-pinch during our slowest times of the month (late March through mid-May - the high school baseball season). We see it as an opportunity to do more staff continuing education, renovate the facilities, and get out to watch a lot of baseball and support our athletes. And, we adjust our hours to open up on Sundays and stay later on weeknights during the baseball season to make it easier for athletes to get in-season training in whenever they can. If a pitcher wants to come in and get his arm stretched out before or after an outing, he stops by and we do it for him - but don't charge him a penny for it. It's about setting people up for success.
We don't try to just "factory line" as many clients through our facility as possible with everyone on the same program. You might walk into CP and see 20 different clients on 20 different programs - because a 16-year old pitcher with crazy congenital laxity is going to have a markedly different set of needs than a 16-year-old linebacker with shoulder mobility so bad that he needs help putting a jacket on. One program on one dry erase board for hundreds of athletes isn't training; it's babysitting.
Taking this a step further, we don't boot clients out after a certain amount of time. Clients take as long as needed to complete the day's program. And, when they're done (or before they even begin), loads of our clients spend time hanging out in the office just shooting the breeze and enjoying the environment. As an example, Toronto Blue Jays Organizational Pitcher of the Year Tim Collins spends a minimum of five hours a day at CP all off-season.
Tim has sold girl scout cookies for the daughter of one of our clients, and he's been our back-up front desk guy when Pete is out of town. Yesterday, he was back to visit on his all-star break - and he said hello to every client he saw - and remembered them by name. If you're a 15-year-old up-and-coming baseball pitcher, how cool is it to get that kind of greeting when you walk into the office? Well, at CP, kids get that greeting from 10-15 pro guys all the time. And, if they're lucky, they might even get to throw on a bobsled helmet and join these pro guys in a rave to Miley Cyrus, apparently.
At least once a week, I get an email from an up-and-coming coach asking for advice about starting a facility. When I get these emails, I now think about how Rachel Cosgrove recently mentioned that more than 80% of fitness coaches leave the industry within the first year. In most cases, this happens because these people never should have entered the fitness industry in the first place - because their intentions (money) were all wrong. They usually leave under the assumption that they could never make a living training people, but in reality, these folks are going to have a hard time making a living in any occupation that requires genuinely caring about what you do and the people with whom you work, and being willing to hang your hat on the results you produce.
As such, the first advice, in a general sense, is obvious: do it for the right reasons, and do it the right way. Sure, making a living is essential, but only open a facility because it would fulfill you "personally, be fun, help a lot of people, and build and be in line" with who you are and what your values are - which together constitute your "brand." Making the move to start up this business was one of the most daunting decisions I have ever had to make, and all the efforts toward actually getting the business started were equally challenging. However, in the end, it has been more rewarding both personally and professionally than I could have ever possibly imagined.
Thank you very much to all of you - clients/customers, parents, EricCressey.com readers, seminar attendees, and professional colleagues - for all your support over the past three years. We couldn't have done it without you - and look forward to many more years of doing things for the right reasons and in the right way.
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Q: What do you think of Bodyblades and how - if at all- should they be incorporated into a pitcher's routine?
A: As many of you know, I'm a fan of integrating rhythmic stabilization drills that train the true function of the rotator cuff: maintaining the humeral head in the glenoid fossa. I wrote about it in some depth HERE, and Mike Reinold and I spent quite a bit of time on it in our Optimal Shoulder Performance DVD set.
Of course, if you compare the perturbations to stability that the Bodyblade provides, it appears to simulate some of what you'd get with a rhythmic stabilization drill. So, it's probably a good alternative to a pitcher who doesn't have a training partner, therapist, or coach who can provide those destabilizing torques. Shirts, apparently, are optional.
That said, to me, using a Bodyblade is a more closed-loop (predictable) drill, whereas manual rhythmic stabilizations are more open-loop (unpredictable). So, it goes without saying that the benefits of "surprise" stabilization probably extend a lot further - and they don't cost a penny. Moreover, I've heard claims about the Bodyblade being an effective way to build muscle, which (outside an untrained population) just isn't going to happen. There are also much better ways to train the core.
