Home Posts tagged "Throw Baseball Faster" (Page 8)

Random Friday Thoughts: 10/23/09

1. I got a question earlier this week about how I felt about swimming for pitchers.  To be honest, I'm not a huge fan for pitchers.  Swimmers actually have a lot of the same issues as pitchers in terms of adaptive changes in the shoulder: an acquired anterior scapular tilt, glenohumeral internal rotation deficit (GIRD), and generalized laxity.  I guess when it really comes down to it, I'd rather have guys actually throwing if they are going to develop imbalances.

2. Last, but not least, Mike Boyle has a good video up in conjunction with the release of his new Functional Strength Coach 3 product.  Check out The Death of Squatting.

3. Even if he never scores another goal in his life, this kid is a stud - quite possibly on par with the West Virginia Ninja from last week.

4. Tony Gentilcore just switched his blog over to a new site.  If you guys want to be entertained and learn something in the process (infotainment), check out www. TonyGentilcore.com.

5. Speaking of Tony, the two of us tested 1RM deadlifts yesterday (yes, together; it's kind of like when women go to the bathroom together).  This came after a month-long deadlift specialization program that kicked the crap out of us (let's just say it was 4x/week deadlifting for three weeks, then one week of rest).  Tony pulled a personal-best 550 pounds; here's our boy in action:

6. As for me, well, there was no PR.  In fact, I got sent down to the JV team.  I got 700 about three inches off the floor, and that was it.  A subsequent attempt at 675 went only slightly better in my fatigued state.  And I put a crater in the middle of my hand when a callus ripped off.

callus

7. If you're a strength and conditioning coach or personal trainer looking for work and are anywhere near (or willing to move to) just east of Philadelphia, please shoot me an email at ec@ericcressey.com.  I have a friend who is looking for some good coaches to work with athletes at his facility in that area.  It's a positive, learning environment - and he's a great dude.

8. And, last, but certainly not least: Assess and Correct will be up for sale on Monday!  Newsletter subscribers will hear about the product first, so if you aren't subscribed already, head HERE to get signed up.

Have a great weekend!

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The Biggest Mistake Pro Baseball Players Make?

The other day, I got to chatting with Tim Collins and Matt Kramer, two of Cressey Performance's longest tenured pro baseball guys.  These two guys were among my first pro baseball guys to get back from the long season and start up training.  Tim's notorious for getting back in the gym just a day or two after his season ends!

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We were discussing baseball development, and one of them mentioned that one of his teammates had just commented on how he was taking a few weeks off and then was going to start training again.  Keep in mind that this conversation took place on October 1, and just about every minor league baseball team wrapped things up on September 7 (playoffs excluded).  While some guys were called up to play at high levels, and others shipped off to instructionals or the Arizona Fall League, most guys went straight home. Now, "home" is a big improvement from the typical professional baseball lifestyle, which (as I described here) consists of a lot of late nights, long bus rides, unhealthy food, alcohol, and (specific to the topic at hand) erratic training.

davidwells

In most cases, the weight rooms aren't even close to adequate.  And, obviously, you can never have a great training stimulus in-season; guys just do what they can to "get by."  Yes, they "get by" for almost seven months per year - which obviously makes the other five months incredibly important. Now, if someone takes an extra month off after the season, he's only getting 80% of the benefit of the off-season that his teammates are getting.  In a sport where only 3% of draft picks make it to the big leagues, if I'm a prospect, I don't like my chances if I only have 80% of the preparation of those around me. Let's do the math on that for a guy who gets released after three years in the minor leagues.  That's three months of preparation down the tubes.  Next, consider how many guys who have COMPLETELY OVERHAULED their physiques and performance in preparing for the NFL combine in less than three months. Last off-season, we put 17 pounds of meat on one of our pitchers (and he got leaner!) between November 11 and February 20. He looked like a completely different person - in just three months and nine days.  His broad jump went up ten inches and vertical jump up 4.3 inches in spite of this big jump in body weight, meaning that he improved in both relative and absolute power.  This is not uncommon at all in the baseball guys with whom I've worked, particularly those who were drafted out of high school and never got the benefit of college strength and conditioning. All that said, in my eyes, guys should be back in the gym as soon as possible after the season ends - even if it's just a few days per week.  Simply getting the ball rolling on the endocrine, immunological, and rehabilitative benefits of strength training will do wonders in itself.  Getting started on improving soft tissue quality and addressing mobility/stability deficits is also tremendously valuable, as it paves the way for better training as the December-February "crunch time."  These guys can take a week to gather their thoughts, and then get back to work; otherwise, they'll have more vacation time when they're out of work!

Truth be told, it's one of just a few common mistakes we see, and this could be applied to just about any professional sport; I just chose baseball because it's what I see the most.  Of course, the guys who probably ought to be reading this are the ones who are probably sitting poolside sipping martinis, or cuddling up in their snuggies and then having Mom's homemade pancakes for breakfast at 1PM!

(For the record, I worked really hard to resist the temptation to insert the "In a Snuggie Rap" video here.  Search for it on Youtube, if you're interested.)

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“My Coach Says I Shouldn’t Lift…”

I got this question in person from the parent of a new athlete the other day and thought I'd turn it into a blog post, as I've received the email before on many occasions. Q: I read with great interest your blog on Crossfit for Baseball, but my question would be what your response would be to a coach that insists that baseball players shouldn't lift weights PERIOD?  My son's baseball coach is completely against it. A:  This is definitely going to be one of those "where to even begin" responses, but I'll do my best.  Rather than reinvent the wheel, I'll start with a quote directly from my e-book, The Truth About Unstable Surface Training: "...resistance training exercises performed on stable surfaces have been demonstrated effective in numerous research studies with respect to improving a variety of athletic qualities, including:
  • muscular strength (5)
  • power (5)
  • aerobic endurance (53)
  • running efficiency (54)
  • anaerobic endurance (5)
  • rate of force development (66,90)
  • hypertrophy (5)
  • reactive strength (66,90)
  • agility (47)
These qualities transfer to improved performance in a variety of sporting tasks, including vertical jump (74), throwing velocity (79), sprinting speed (22), and running economy (53)." (FYI, these numbers are references from the e-book, so if any of you would like the exact studies, please just request them in the comments section) Now, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that your coach IS NOT looking to field a team that lacks agility, sprinting speed, jumping prowess, throwing velocity, rate of force development (think of a catcher's pop time).  In fact, even those who are clinging to a worthless training initiative like long-distance running for pitchers can get closer to their chosen training effect (as silly as it is) from lifting! Taking this a step further, we know that resistance training can enhance immune and endocrine function, so players will get sick less often and feel better when game time rolls around. And, just as importantly, remember that resistance training is one of the foundations of modern physical therapy.  Would your coach tell a physical therapist that resistance training as part of a rehabilitation program was inappropriate? Of course not!  How in the world it is within his scope of practice to tell a kid that lifting is bad for him - either in terms of increasing injury potential or decreasing performance - is completely beyond me.  Throwing a baseball is the single-fastest motion in sports; you simply don't decelerate 7,500 degrees/second of humeral internal rotation without at least a bit of muscular contribution. And, let's not forget that an ideal strength and conditioning program encompasses a lot more than just strength exercises. It includes good self massage work (foam rollers, etc), mobility training, sprinting/agility/plyos, and much, much more.  It begins with a detailed assessment to determine what mobility or stability deficits may lead to injury down the road.  It may also be the only avenue through which an athlete learns proper nutrition. The fundamental problem is that many baseball coaches think of garbage like this when they hear the words "lifting weights:"

Can someone please tell me how my "biceps will develop" with this?  Only at "Expert Village" does the biceps EXTEND the elbow.  Yikes.

Ouch.

The take-home message is that a lot of coaches think that lifting programs are either a) a waste of time or b) flat-out dangerous.  Sadly, as the videos above demonstrate, in many cases, they're right. However, completely contraindicating lifting can really stunt the development of players and predispose them to injuries.  Throwing is dangerous when done incorrectly, and so are sprinting, fielding ground balls, and taking batting practice.  We don't contraindicate those, though, do we?  We educate athletes on how to participate in these training initiatives properly.

I can tell you that at Cressey Performance, each one of our pro baseball players lifts four times a week, throws the medicine ball 2-3 times a week, and does supplemental movement training 2-3 days per week during the off-season - and they continue lifting during the season (at a lower frequency and volume).  This is true of both position players and pitchers.

Our high school guys get after it as well; I don't know of many other private sector facilities in the country who have eight high school guys throwing 90mph+ before the age of 18 (with several more right on the cusp of this milestone).  Something is working.

And, beyond just the direct training benefits of this system, there is something to be said for the camaraderie strength and conditioning does for teammates on top of regular practices.  The fact that kids actually requested this says volumes!

Hopefully, blogs like this - and bright coaches who are "in the know" - will help to spread the word about what safe, effective training is - and where to get it.

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Strength and Conditioning Programs: Crossfit for Baseball?

I've received a lot of emails just recently (as well as some in-person questions) asking me what I think of Crossfit for strength and conditioning programs with baseball players and, more specifically, pitchers.

Let me preface this email with a few qualifying statements.  First, the only exercise "system" with which I agree wholeheartedly is my own.  Cressey Sports Performance programming may be similar in some respects to those of everyone from Mike Boyle, to Louis Simmons, to Ron Wolforth, to the Crossfit folks - but taken as a whole, it's entirely unique to me.  In other words, I will never agree completely with anyone (just ask my wife!).

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Second, in spite of the criticism Crossfit has received from some people I really respect, I do feel that there are some things they're doing correctly.  For starters, I think that the camaraderie and enthusiasm that typifies their training groups is fantastic; anything that gets people (who might otherwise be sedentary) motivated to exercise is a plus.  Moreover, they aren't proponents of steady-state cardio for fat loss, and they tend to gravitate toward compound movements.  So, good on them for those favorable traits. Additionally, I know some outstanding coaches who run Crossfit franchises, so their excellent skill sets may be overshadowed by what less prepared coaches are doing simply because they have the same affiliation.

However, there are several issues that concern me with applying a Crossfit mentality to the baseball world:

1) The randomness of the "workout of the day" is simply not appropriate for a sport that has quite possibly the most specific sport-imposed asymmetries in the world of athletics.  I've written about these asymmetries in the past, and they can only be corrected with specific corrective training modalities.

I'm reminded of this constantly at this time of year, as we get new baseball players at all levels now that seasons are wrapping up. When a player presents with a 45-degree glenohumeral internal rotation deficit, a prominent scapular dyskinesis, terrible right thoracic rotation, a big left rib flair, a right hip that's stuck in adduction, and a complete lack of rotary stability, the last thing he needs to do is a 15-minute tri-set of cleans, kipping pull-ups, and push-ups - following by some 400m sprints. It not only undermines specificity of exercise selection, but also the entire concept of periodization.

Getting guys strong isn't hard.  Neither is getting them powerful or building better endurance.  Finding the right mix to accomplish all these initiatives while keeping them healthy is the challenge.

2) The energy systems development found in Crossfit is inconsistent with the demands of baseball.  I wrote extensively about my complete and utter distaste for distance running in the baseball world, and while Crossfit doesn't go this far, in my eyes, anything over 60yds is "excessive distance" for baseball guys.  Most of my guys sprint two times a week during the off-season, and occasionally we'll go to three with certain athletes.  Let's just say that elite sprinters aren't doing Crossfit, and the energy systems demands of baseball players aren't much different than those of elite sprinters.

3) I have huge concerns about poor exercise technique in conditions of fatigue in anyone, but these situations concern me even more in a population like baseball players that has a remarkably high injury rate as-is.  The fact that 57% of pitchers suffer some sort of shoulder injury during each season says something.  Just think of what that rate is when you factor in problems in other areas, too!  The primary goal should not be entertainment or variety (or "muscle confusion," for all the morons in pro baseball who call P90X their "hardcore" off-season program).  Rather, the goals should be a) keeping guys on the field and b) safe performance enhancement strategies (in that order).

cockingphase

As an example, all I need to do is look back on a program we used in one of our first pro pitchers back for the off-season last fall.  He had a total of 20 pull-up and 64 push-up variation reps per week (in addition to some dumbbell bench pressing and loads of horizontal pulling/scapular stability/cuff work).  This 84-rep figure might be on the low-end of a Crossfit program for a single day.  Just like with throwing, it's important to do things RIGHT before even considering doing them A LOT.

4) Several of the exercises in typical Crossfit programs (if there is such a thing) concern me in light of what we know about baseball players.  I'll cover this in a lot more detail in an article within the next few weeks, but suffice it to say that most have significant shoulder (if not full-body) laxity (acquired and congenital), abnormal labral features, partial thickness supraspinatus tears, poor scapular upward rotation, retroversion (gives rise to greater external rotation), and diminished rotator cuff strength in the throwing shoulder (particularly after a long season).  Most pro pitchers will have more than 190 degrees of total motion at the shoulder, whereas many of the general population folks I encounter rarely exceed 160 degrees.

totalmotion

In short, the shoulders you are training when working with baseball players (and pitchers, in particular) are not the same as the ones you see when you walk into a regular ol' gym.  Want proof? Back in 2007, on my first day working with a guy who is now a middle reliever in the big leagues, I started to teach him to front squat.  He told me that with only the bar across his shoulder girdle, he felt like his humerus was going to pop out of the socket.  Not surprisingly, he could contort his spine and wrists like a 14-year-old female gymnast.  This laxity helps make him a great pitcher, but it would destroy him in a program where even the most conservative exercises are done to the point that fatigue compromises ideal form.  And, let's be honest; if I was dumb enough to let someone with a multi-million dollar arm do this, I'd have agents and GMs and athletic trainers from a lot of major league systems coming after me with baseball bats!

5) Beyond just "acts of commission" with inappropriate exercise selection and volume, there are also "acts of omission."  For example, a rotational sport like baseball requires a lot of dedicated work to address thoracic spine and hip mobility and anti-extension and anti-rotatoin core stability.  If you exhaust your training time and recovery capacity with other things, there may not be enough time or energy to pay attention to these important components.

All that said, I would encourage anyone who deals with baseball players to learn to borrow bits and pieces from a variety of methods available today.   Along the way, take into account the unique characteristics of the overhead throwing athlete and manage accordingly.  Simply saying "I'm a Crossfit guy"  and adhering to an approach that was never intended for a baseball population does a huge disservice to the athletes that count on you to bring them the most up-to-date, cutting-edge training practices available.

If you're interested in learning more about some of the asymmetries and training techniques I noted above, I'd strongly encourage you to check out Optimal Shoulder Performance, where both Mike Reinold and I go into some detail on assessment and corrective exercise for pitchers in this seminar (and there's also a lot more fantastic information for anyone looking to develop pitchers). You can buy it HERE, or learn more about it HERE.

shoulder-performance-dvdcover

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Random Friday Thoughts: 8/21/09

1. Oops!

This is precisely why none of my friends dress up in giant socks.  If I am going to celebrate something, I want everyone with a 100% unobstructed view (none of this half-ass piggyback stuff).

2. This weekend pretty much wraps up the baseball season for all my high school guys.  It's interesting how coaches and athletes' level of excitement about baseball changes over the course of the season - and this is true of all levels.  When the season starts, the players are fired up, and the strength coaches are ready for some down-time after a ton of hard work in the off-season.  Mid-season, the coaches are always fired up and prepared to get the guys in because they can never get as much training in as they need, but the players are just trying to find a day's rest whenever they can.  By the end of the season, the players are tired of baseball and fired up to lift - and the strength coaches are fired up to start building some freaks after not having ideal training scenarios for the previous 6-7 months.

So, I guess you could say that mid-August kicks off the funnest time of the year for everyone.  And, I can honestly say that each year, I get more and more excited about the off-season.  Coming in to this off-season, we've got five high school guys (four of whom will be juniors this year) throwing over 90mph - and several more who are right on the cusp of it.  This is really exciting for me because it's proof in the pudding that if you get guys in a good training program at an early age, you can really expedite their development - and keep them healthy in the process.  We're going to have fun this winter!

3. Funny story: as I've mentioned before, I have a Facebook account, and loads of my readers are my internet "friends." A lot of these folks are in the fitness industry, and as you can imagine, I get loads of invites to join these people's groups - whether they're for bootcamps in Istanbul, online education programs, product sales, or training styles.  Initially, I was a nice guy and accepted all of the invitations - but over time, I wound up getting so many emails that my inbox was overflowing and I didn't have time to read anything, let alone the good stuff.  So, I started being more selective.

Unfortunately, some people don't get the point when I turn down their invitation.  Recently, these folks with a new fat loss program for general population folks invited me to join their group, and I declined.  Now, six days later, I've received NINE more invitations to join their group.  Is that what they call pressure selling?

This is like back in college when you sat down in a big lecture class only to discover that the guy next to you was eating potato chips, coughing non-stop, and taking cell phone calls in the middle of class - basically doing anything he could to make noise.  You move to another seat, and he follows you...NINE times.

Really, I'm just not interested, dude.  Does that make me a bad person?

4. This week, I started up a new book - and a big one at that.  My fiancee looked at me last night like I had two heads, and asked, "Are you reading a textbook?"

My response was, "Yeah, I guess I am."

It's pretty funny that back in undergrad, I hated reading textbooks - probably because they were forced on me (both in terms of content and deadlines).  Now, years later, I have blown through a chapter a night simply because I picked the book and I decided when I wanted to read it.  I guess it's true that experience yields perspective.

Oh, by the way, it's Clinical Application of Neuromuscular Techniques, Volume 1: The Upper Body, by Leon Chaitow and Judith Delany.  So far, it's fantastic.  Anyone who has ever questioned the benefits of foam rolling should be forced to read the first chapter, which outlines several benefits that are commonly overlooked (there is a lot more to this than just the "tissue quality" argument).  You have to consider the role of the autonomic nervous system and lymphatic system as well.

canmt

5. This book was actually recommended to me by Mike Reinold, who actually had a good blog whether or not curve balls are more dangerous than other pitchers for young throwers.  It's a great comprehensive look at the topic.

Speaking of Mike, he and I have been throwing around the idea of doing a shoulder-specific seminar - from rehab to high-performance - at my facility this winter at some point.  We'd only open it up to 30 people at the absolute most, so there would be a lot of hands-on learning and direct interaction.  If you'd be interested, please drop me an email at ec@ericcressey.com.

Have a great weekend!

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Stuff You Should Read: 7/27/09

Here's this week's list of resources to check out: Risk-Reward in Training Athletes - This old newsletter of mine highlights indivividual physical and situational differences among athletes, and spotlights the work of one Cressey Performance athlete who made tremendous progress with these individual factors playing a key role in how that training was approached.  If you play or coach baseball, this is a must-read. Are Tennis Elbow Straps Effective? - This blog post from Mike Reinold provides a great overview of these commonly used rehabilitation adjuncts. In the Trenches: Michael Boyle - Mike Robertson's newsletter last week featured this audio interview with Coach Boyle.
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Shoulder Range-of-Motion Norms

Q: As far as the total motion concept goes, is there a certain minimum of total degrees of motion that the "baseline" limb should have? For example, if a right-hand dominant person has fairly limited total motion on the left side and even more limitations on the right, would the goal be to get total motion symmetrical first and then improve both from there?

A: It is definitely population-specific, as overhead throwing, for example, will simply move that total motion to a different range. So, a symmetrical shoulder might be: Right (dominant): 45°  IR + 125° ER = 170° Total Motion Left (non-dominant): 55° IR + 115° ER = 170° Total Motion The difference between the two would be attributed to retroversion (bony adaptations - more info HERE). A 10° internal rotation deficit would be completely normal in a unilateral overhead throwing population. Of course, if you get a freestyle swimmer, thinks get a bit interesting. You have to go a bit more by end-feel, and mandate that they have at least 25° degrees of total internal rotation. That said, in a "normal" weight training population, I like to have at least 90° of external rotation and 50+° of internal rotation. I wouldn't consider those "good" measurements, but they would be workable (assuming symmetrical total motion).

Now, you are going to have situations here and there where someone has lost total motion in the non-dominant side.  My experience has been that this occurs in athletes who spend too much time in computers and those who get "100% shut down" after an injury.

Believe it or not, I once saw a pro pitcher with only 6° (yes, single digits) of internal rotation on his throwing shoulder, and the medical staff's conclusion was to give him a cortisone shot and make him rest completely - no lifting, sprinting, stretching, anything (I wonder if they assigned an intern to him to help him wash his hair in the shower).  He basically just charted pitches for two months.  This guy lost total motion bilaterally, so the fact that he was forced into inactivity actually made his subsequent evaluation a bit more complex.  The good news is that these guys can generally be recognized by their terrible thoracic spine posture and increased body fat levels!

shoulder-performance-dvdcover

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Random Friday Thoughts: 7/17/09

1. I started this week off with a bang with a few good (and goofy) YouTube clips in my newsletter, so there's no reason to shy away from a continuation of the awesomeness in this blog. 2. Tony Gentilcore got the day off from work today.  He claimed it was to go see the filming of the next Functional Strength Coach seminar, but we all know it was just a front for his regular ol' "weird ninja dude in the woods" routine.  Glad you enjoyed your alone time, big guy.

2. Congratulations to CP athlete and New York Mets minor leaguer Tim Stronach (St. Lucie Mets: High A), who just missed both a perfect game and no-hitter on Wednesday.  "Stro" took a perfect game into the 8th inning, and then lost the no-no with one out in the 9th.  The wildest part is that Tim didn't even know until the day before that he'd be making the start.

Stronach packed 21 pounds on his 6-5 frame this off-season with loads of hard work at Cressey Performance, and deserves all the success that comes his way.  Great job, Tim!

3. I received an email with the following question yesterday: "I play basketball. I watch how guys lose lots of weight and bodyfat preparing for the combine. How do they do that?"

Answer: The overwhelming majority of college basketball players I've encountered live on sugary sports drinks, chicken wings, pizza, and booze.  Simply cleaning up their diets for a month or two will work wonders even if training is held constant.  Did you expect something more revolutionary?

4. Here's another study showing that swinging a heavy bat prior to regular hitting is an inferior warm-up protocol as compared to swinging the normal bat or an underweighted bat.  Researchers  "suggested that when preparing to hit, 5 warm-up swings with either a light or normal bat will allow a player to achieve the greatest velocity of their normal bat."  This is in complete contrast to the use of weighted baseballs to increase throwing velocity; I love 'em when used with the right population.

5.  Huh?  What?  Come again?

6. I went back through Jim Smith's Accelerated Muscular Development today to check up on how he approaches formatting for e-books (as we prepare some for the upcoming project's release).  While I was looking it over, I got to thinking about how it never ceases to amaze me how thorough Smitty is with his products; he just seems to cover everything.  I've said it before: this is a great resource; I'd highly recommend you check it out.

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The Two Year Mark

Today marks two years to the day since Cressey Performance opened.

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Looking at some relatively recent research, you'll find that the US Bureau of Labor Statistics finds that 34% of small business start-ups are no longer in existence two years after their inception.  So, the logical assumption is that we're automatically more awesome than at least 1/3 of the small business world (we stole their lunch money and gave them wedgies, in fact). Kidding aside, you don't just start a business so that you can "not fail."  You do it so that you can thrive - and CP has done just that.  I owe a huge thanks to our clients and staff for all their dedication to helping making CP what it is today: a place where.... ...an Olympic boxer can share a stability ball with Pete in the office while getting awkwardly close to another man's meatloaf lunch

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...it's considered perfectly acceptable to foam roll in catcher's gear.

...ladies and 68-year-old men alike bang out pull-ups like nobody's business.

...the average lifespan of a medicine ball is about seven minutes.

medballgraveyard

...it isn't uncommon for old clients to come back, handcuff Tony, and leave him for dead (out of love, for the record).

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Interestingly, we haven't spent a penny on advertising over the two years; the business has grown purely by word of mouth.  Is it any wonder when you can see stuff like this almost every time you enter the facility?

Thanks again to everyone involved for making my job so fun and for sharing my vision.

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Random Friday Thoughts: 6/19/09

It's been a while since my last dose of Friday Randomness, but when you're got so much intern hazing going on, it's hard to even imagine topping that kind of content! 1. I recently contributed to another T-Muscle feature; check out Advice You Don't Want to Hear: Volume 2 for a little dose of tough love.  I'm the last one down. 2. I have to say, I'm pretty proud of myself.  My fiancee's been out of town since Monday morning, and while the fridge is just about empty and I'm down to one pair of clean underwear, the place didn't burn down, and I didn't put an eye out. 3. Here's a quick takeaway from a great Elbow Biomechanics talk by Mike Reinold earlier this week... Obviously, in dealing with loads of baseball guys, I see a lot of elbow issues come through my door.  The overwhelming majority of those folks are medial elbow pain, but we also see a fair amount of lateral elbow pain - even though we program for these individuals very similarly, as their inefficiencies are pretty much identical.  I've seen it in practice, but never actually gotten the numbers on the forces involved. The same medial tensile force that can wreak havoc with an ulnar collateral ligament or ulnar nerve also applies approximately 500N on the radioulnar joint during the late cocking (maximum external rotation) phase of throwing; that's about one-third of the total stress on the elbow.  This lateral area also takes on about 800N of force at the moment arm deceleration begins (elbow extended out in front). As always, a picture is worth a thousand words:

compressive-forces

I always knew it was going on, and always worked to prevent problems in the area, but suffice it to say that it was nice to get some numbers on this.    If you see these issues, you've obviously got to look at mechanics, but more importantly, tissue quality, all the common flexibility deficits we see in pitchers, and overall strength of the rotator cuff, scapular stabilizers, core, lower body, and muscles acting at the elbow to provide valgus stability. For more information, I highly recommend you check out the 2008 Ultimate Pitching Coaches Boot Camp DVD set.

4. Bill, Mike, and I film our new DVD next weekend out in Indianapolis, so I'm going to end this one here and get to work on finishing up the script.  Stay tuned on this front; we are excited about how thorough this is.

Have a great weekend!

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LEARN HOW TO DEADLIFT
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