Happy New Year, everyone!
I thought I'd use this first post of 2010 as a way of looking forward to what's on tap at EricCressey.com for the year. In true "Random Thoughts" fashion, here we go:
1. Nate Green just interviewed me for what I think will be a great feature at T-Muscle in the next week or two. It will be similar in structure to this piece Nate did with Dave Tate, which definitely turned out to be an entertaining read. Keep an eye out for it!
2. Speaking of interviews, I'll be doing one with Brian Grasso for the IYCA on Tuesday. Brian's a very forward-thinking guy and I'm excited to catch up with him.
3. Speaking of T-Muscle, I'm finishing up my "What I Learned in 2009" article this weekend. It follows the articles I wrote for 2006, 2007, and 2008.
4. Also coming up in the next month or so will be the release of the DVDs of Mike Reinold and my seminar from November: Testing, Treating, and Training the Shoulder: From Rehabilitation to High Performance. It's being edited as I type this.
5. This January 24, Cressey Performance will be hosting Neil Rampe of the Arizona Diamondbacks for his seminar, . You can register HERE, or for more information on Neil's background, click HERE. If you'd like to see a seminar agenda, please just email me at ec@ericcressey.com.
6. I'll be presenting in Tampa, FL (Jan); Winchester, MA (Jan); Las Vegas, NV (March); and Vancouver, BC (March); and Boston, MA (May) in this first part of 2010. Check out my schedule page for more information on these events.
7. I'm very anxious to hear more of the feedback on Assess and Correct, which has already sold in more than two dozen countries. This is a product I truly believe will help a lot of people, and the short-term feedback we've received since its release in October has been tremendous.
8. At Cressey Performance, our staff has started up what (for lack of a more masculine term) we're calling the Staff Book Club. Each staff member will present on what he learns in a different book each week. I think it'll be a great way to cover more material and keep us all accountable to each other on getting our continuing education done.
9.I'm pumped for more content from Matt Blake in 2010. He's been a fantastic resource for all our athletes and I'm excited to share with you all how Matt and I collaborate to make our pitchers better. I think it'll make for some great content.
10. I'd really like to continue to grow both the newsletter and blog. You can sign up for notifications on both fronts to the right of the screen, if you haven't already.
11. I'm really pumped for all our guys who have found great college choices; it's an exciting time for both the 2010 and 2011 guys. Most recently, CP athlete Adam Ravenelle committed to Vanderbilt on a baseball scholarship. Adam's been with us since before his freshman year, and we're all really proud of him. He actually joins another CP pitcher, Tyler Beede, who committed to Vanderbilt just a few weeks ago. Both guys are in the class of 2011, and join Barrett O'Neill (University of Virginia) and Joe Napolitano (Boston College) as our early committees from that class.
There should be plenty more guys with exciting news along these lines in the months to come as well.
12. I'm really excited to watch Cressey Performance grow in the months ahead. While I was certainly thrilled at the growth we saw (15%) in 2009 and I hope it continues, I am most thrilled at how many clients we've seen change their bodies and their lives since they started up, and how many friendships we've seen cultivated inside CP. If you'd have told me a few years ago that we'd have over 25 people in on Thanksgiving morning, for instance, I would have told you that you were crazy!
In addition to our clients' accomplishments, I'm so proud of our staff. I could never do what I do without such great guys working alongside me, and the best part is that they are insatiable in their desire to get better. We're constantly getting better and it makes every new day fun. The best part is that I feel like it's something that's carried over to our interns, too; there are some really talented people with bright futures coming through here.
13. I'm very excited for the new CP website, which should be done in a matter of a few days. Along those same lines, there is a pretty sweet training and testimonial montage being pulled together about our Elite Baseball Development program. I was actually getting pretty fired up just watching some of the footage that had been gathered thus far.
14. I can't wait to attack all the books and journal articles that are in my stack of "Things to Read" right now. There's too much material to cover, but never enough time!
15. Last, but certainly not least, it'll also be a very busy (but exciting) year for me personally in 2010, as my fiancee Anna and I will be getting married this October. And, even before we get to that, we're planning to buy our first home in the next 4-6 months. Obviously, we're already doing a lot of planning!
Needless to say, I'm looking forward to all of this - and probably a few surprises along the way. Best wishes for 2010, and stay tuned!
I'm working my way back into the swing of things after the holiday and will have some new content to you later on today, but in the interim, I thought some of you might like to check out this feature on Cressey Performance athlete Tyler Beede, who just committed to Vanderbilt on a baseball scholarship. Tyler has put in a ton of hard work over the past 14 months at CP, and in the process, has increased his strength and throwing velocity substantially on top of packing 30 pounds on his frame.
Beede Makes Early Decision: Vandy
One of the most common issues we see in both athletes and our general population clients is a lack of ankle mobility - and more specifically, dorsiflexion range-of-motion.
For just about everything in life - from sprinting, to lunging, to squatting - we need a certain amount of dorsiflexion (think of how far the knees can go over the toes, or the positive shin angle one can create without lifting the heel). If we don't have it, we have to compensate.
One of the most common things we see in people with a lack of dorsiflexion ROM is an "out-toeing," as this opens up the ankle and allows for them to get to where they need to be - even if it isn't the most biomechanically correct way to do so.
This out-toeing may also be caused by hip internal rotation deficit (HIRD), so it's important to assess both. Check out this previous video blog for more information on how to assess for HIRD.
In a more "uncompensated" scenario, an athlete with poor ankle mobility may push through the toe instead of the heel - creating a quad-dominant propulsion in a scenario that should have signification contribution from the posterior chain musculature. In the pictures below, you'll see that Josh Beckett requires a considerable amount of dorsiflexion range-of-motion to get the job done (push-off without the heel leaving the ground).
This lack of ankle mobility may also negatively affect knee function. Research has shown that a lack of ankle mobility can increase rotational torque at the knee. This falls right in line with the joint-by-joint school of thought with respect to training; if you lock up a joint that should be mobile, the body will look elsewhere to create that range-of-motion.
This definitely applies to what happens to the lumbar spine during squatting in a person with an ankle (or hip) mobility deficit. If someone can't get sufficient dorsiflexion (or hip flexion and internal rotation), he'll look to the lumbar spine to get that range of motion by rounding (lumbar flexion). We know that combining lumbar flexion with compressive loading is a big-time no-no, so it's important to realize that folks with considerable ankle mobility restrictions may need to modify or eliminate squatting altogether.
Take, for example, Olympic lifters who wear traditional Olympic lifting shoes with big heel lifts. This artificially created ankle mobility allows them to squat deeper. While I'm not a huge fan of this footwear for regular folks for squatting, used sparingly, it's not a big deal.
Other individuals may be better served with hip dominant squat variations (e.g., box squats) that allow them to sit back and not squat quite as deep while they work to improve that ankle mobility and get closer to squatting deeper (with more dorsiflexion). With these individuals, we supplement the more hip dominant squatting with extra single-leg work and plenty of deadlift variations.
The take-home message is that ankle mobility has some far-reaching implications, and it's important to be able to assess it to determine if it's the factor that's limiting someone's safe and efficient movement.
For more information on how to evaluate and address ankle mobility, check out Assess and Correct.
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Note from EC: Great content from Matt Blake today. If you want to read more of Matt's stuff, enter his name in the search box to the right of your screen, and you'll get some of his previous writing here.
Since the Christmas pre-sale is over on the 95 MPH arm, I figured I would follow up with some more insight into the way we are working with a wide range of pitchers here at Cressey Performance.
To give you perspective, recent throwing sessions in the CP cage have included anything from minor leaguers working through controlled flat-ground drills and some simulated long-toss, to high-school guys working on velocity drills or throwing bullpens getting ready for college winter camps (for better or worse). We've also had a handful of players come to us following injuries as they try to build their arms back up from essentially scratch. With the wide variety of development and training that needs to take place as a result of these different situations, a strong need emerges for an effective communication style with your athlete.
For me, this is tremendously important if I expect to push a player in a sport that will have 57% of their population suffer some form of shoulder injury during a playing season (1). It seems a little absurd to think that more than half the athletes in this population will get hurt in a given season, but it's not that crazy when you consider the fact that we're asking the shoulder to internally rotate at velocities greater than 7,000 degrees/second and the elbow to extend at 2,000+ degrees/s during the throwing motion. If that's not bad enough, at maximum external rotation the torque placed on the elbow is equivalent to 40lbs pulling down on the hand. When all of this is considered, it becomes clear how serious it is to actually ask an athlete to perform 80-100 repetitions of a skill at near human capacity.
Once you understand the implications of what you are requesting your player to do, the ability to effectively communicate in a manner that gains quality feedback from your pitcher becomes essential. With the tremendous amount of stress being placed on the body and no objective way to know how a particular player's arm or body feels during practice or competition, we need to have open lines of communication to make sure each and every piece is monitored for stress.
Obviously the easiest way to gather information is to verbally ask players how they are feeling, or have them rate their fatigue on a 1-10 scale with 1 being, "My arm feels like gold", and 10 being, "I think I just tore something". The only problem with this is that every player will have a slightly different pain threshold and one person's "3" may be another person's "6." So, if you are going to use this scale, it is important to stay on top of it and ask the player on a regular basis to calibrate the stress and watch how it slides one way or the other as they get loose or as the discomfort begins to build.
The other problem with the verbal scale is that you have to account for each player's personality and level of competitiveness. Some players will run themselves through a wall and not think twice about the damage they could be doing. These players will under-report their pain levels in an attempt to continue throwing. With players like this, you need to resort to other means of monitoring pain levels. This is where understanding a player's natural temperament is important. By knowing how a player normally acts, picking up subtle behavioral cues can play a large part in identifying underlying pain.
These subtle behaviors can include anything from the way they make eye contact, their facial expressions and head talk, body gestures, postural changes, etc... For example, if they grimace after throwing, shake out their arm after throws, or cross their arms when they're standing still, then you are probably looking at some tenderness building somewhere in the arm. Mechanically, you can watch the elbow/arm slot begin to drop as they throw, the torso might become more upright, and the ball to begin to stay up in the zone more often. Velocity changes may or may not occur as well. As you begin to see one or more of these traits, it's important to make sure you open the dialogue with the player to make them verbalize how the arm feels.
Identifying these traits and gaining trust from your pitcher to speak honestly with you about his arm's health is the foundation for developing them to their ceiling. Once you understand how much a player can be pushed while maintaining a healthy volume or amplitude, driving the development with this same mindset becomes just as critical.
One of the problems that I believe stands in the way of a lot of players/athletes in their personal development tends to be their inability to relate to new information that you are trying to give them. It's not that they weren't listening or the fact that what you gave them was right or wrong, but more that it didn't fit neatly with what they had previously learned. Different personalities, different backgrounds, different learning styles, can't all be expected to work off the same lesson plan.
Each piece of the development needs to be looked at dynamically to see how the information is registering for the player. Two of the main things I work hard to identify early in the process are:
1) what style of learning does the player prefer?
2) where are they in their development?
Once you have the answers to these questions, you can begin to provide the necessary information in the right form for the player, so they understand why they would want to apply it and, more importantly, how they apply the new information.
By using multiple avenues to find out what the player is looking to learn or needs to learn, you can optimize the use of certain tools to flush out higher levels of performance. One of the main tools we use here is slow-motion video analysis. I find this to be very effective in getting everyone on the same page regarding what is actually happening during these highly complex movements. From there, we'll agree on a plan of action going forward that might use lead-up drills, velocity drills, weighted baseballs, medicine balls, etc. All of these pieces help to teach something, whether it be rate of force development, knowledge of the kinetic chain, or simply a consistent rhythm and tempo in the delivery.
Obviously, the examples I'm using here are baseball related, but this can be just as easily applied to strength and conditioning, as well as other skill-specific sports. It really just comes down to the proper application of each drill or exercise with targeted work that fits the developmental needs of the athlete. If player and coach are effectively communicating, the learning loop can certainly be shortened and the sky is the limit for your athletes' development. With that said, I hope everyone enjoys the holidays and the rest of 2009, and I certainly look forward to continuing this ongoing conversation with you guys in 2010.
References
1. Ouelette, H et al. Spectrum of Shoulder injuries in the baseball pitcher. Skeletal Radiol. 2007 Oct 3.
2. Fleisig, GS. The Biomechanics of Baseball Pitching. Spring 2008 Southeast ACSM Conference.
Matt Blake can be reached at mablak07@gmail.com.
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used by Cressey Performance Pitchers after they Throw!
It's not easy buying holiday gifts for me. I'm "that guy" who really can't think of anything that he really wants - or even needs. Call me simple, or call me stubborn (or a bit of both), but short of books, audiobooks, and DVDs within my field (all of which are continuing education write-offs that go directly to the Cressey Performance library), I'm generally really at a loss for what to write after "Dear Santa."
So, I thought I'd make my holiday wish list a bit non-traditional for the sake of this blog. Without further ado, here's my holiday blog wish list:
1. I'd like for the phrase "it's all you" to be permanently banished from gyms worldwide.
2. I'd like to see it get markedly more difficult to be in a position to train people for a living. In other words, I think that states ought to implement licensing requirements that - even if not very strict - would discourage folks from getting into the industry if they weren't fully committed to being good at their chosen craft.
Now, don't get me wrong; I would never discourage someone from making a career change to become a fitness professional. I know some excellent coaches/trainers who have done just this and been very successful - and helped a lot of people. These effective transitions, though, were made by people who invested the time, energy, and patience to do it the right way.
3. Similarly, I'd like for more people in the fitness industry to appreciate the process (human interaction) more than just the destination (making money). There's been a big push on the business side of things in this industry to help people run their business more efficiently, and I think the intentions are fantastic. However, I think it's important to not lose sight of the fact that training people should be fun; I'm a firm believer that if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. If you aren't enjoying it and letting your enthusiasm show because all you can think about is getting to the four-hour work-week, then you're not doing everything you can to help your clients.
I know I can say that I am like a little kid on Christmas morning when it comes to helping out up-and-coming high school athletes with the college recruiting process, and I watch dozens of high school baseball games every spring. In addition to the great time I have working with all our pro and college guys at CP, I'm also following all of them during their seasons - because it really does matter to me how they do. While it may add value to your services in your clients' eyes, this extra stuff isn't "billable" (and never should be). It may extend your "work" week, but you don't perceive it because it's all part of a process that you enjoy, not just something you "get through" as quickly as possible so that you can do something else. Case in point: here's how I spent one Friday afternoon last spring after the facility had closed up for the day (this video followed a crazy circuit we'd designed for the guys, and the winners got the hoses):
So, if you find that you aren't having fun and taking an active interest in your clients' successes, then your job should be to rearrange things to either find your enthusiasm or put someone else in your place who can provide enthusiasm of their own. I guess the take-home point is that it doesn't take any extra time to simply care.
4. I'd like for Tony Gentilcore to misplace every techno CD he owns.
5. I'd like to see more rehabilitation specialists be proactive with soft tissue work. Please understand that it may not be indicated in every condition, but for me, knowing that a rehabilitation specialist is willing to use some elbow grease with a patient is a sign that he/she isn't just going through the motions.
6. I'd like to know why my business partner needs to wear a weight belt to answer the phone. Is it really that heavy?
7. Shameless (but justified) self-promotion alert: I'd like to see anyone who exercises purchase a copy of Assess and Correct. The overwhelming majority of people who come through our doors with a history of pain are not just people who have dysfunction. Rather, they're often people who have had dysfunction for a long time and accumulated exercise volume on top of it. Or, they've done therapy just enough to get asymptomatic, and then gone right back into their "normal routines" without addressing an underlying imbalance. That, to me, is why we made Assess and Correct.
It's a proactive approach in a more reactive fitness world. People wait for something to go wrong with the knee, back, shoulder, or something else. To me, it makes a lot more sense (both financially and in terms of the cost of one's time) to assess oneself and address what's wrong than it is to wait for symptoms to kick in - and then spend time in physical therapy. As hackneyed as the saying is, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Click HERE to check it out.
8. Along these same lines, I'd like to see people think more along the lines of "contraindicated people" than contraindicated exercises. Short of a few movements (e.g., upright rows, behind-the-neck pulldowns, empty cans), there aren't many exercises I'd completely "banish" from my training arsenal. Mike Boyle's "The Death of Squatting" interview kicked off a lot of interest on this front. I think that it's our job to fit the exercise program to the individual, and not the individual to the exercise - and as such, we don't need to worry about excluding certain exercises altogether.
9. I'd like to see distance running for pitchers (or any baseball player) completely abolished. I've wrote about my opposition to it in A New Model for Training Between Starts: Part 1.
10. I'd like for this kid to get the record deal he deserves.
1. Sorry for the slower week here on the blog. In addition to trying to catch up from my three days in Houston, I had a few projects that needed to get sorted out this week. For starters, we had to finalize the agenda for my seminar in Vancouver in March.
And, the bigger task of late has been finishing up a chapter (on baseball testing and training) that I'm contributing to Dr. Craig Liebenson's newest book. Others contributing include Dr. Stuart McGill, Sue Falsone (Athletes Performance), Dr. Ben Kibler, Dr. Pavel Kolar, Ken Crenshaw (Arizona Diamondbacks), and Mike Boyle (among others). Needless to say, I'm lucky to be in such awesome company, and you'll definitely want to check it out once it's available. In the meantime, you might be interested in Liebenson's most popular work, Rehabilitation of the Spine: A Practitioner's Manual.
2. Mike Reinold and I are also working on getting our seminar, Testing, Treating, and Training the Shoulder: From Rehabilitation to High Performance, ready for production and sale. We're hoping it'll be ready by the first of the year, but only time will tell; editing takes time, and it's out of our hands now! Speaking of Mike, he just posted a blog outlining the recently revised pitch count rules. If you coach young players or one of your kids plays ball, definitely check it out HERE.
3. On the topic of little league, the clinic with Matt Blake and I at Cressey Performance on Tuesday night was pretty popular with local coaches. One of the things that Matt and I tried to stress is that kids almost never get hurt for JUST one reason. Usually, injuries are multifactorial, so you have to look at a host of different causes - from overuse, to physical limitations (weakness or immobility), to mechanical flaws in the pitching delivery.
The questions we received gave me some ideas for future posts, so keep an eye out for those in the not-so-distant future. Along those same lines, if there are specific baseball development questions you'd like covered, feel free to post some suggestions here as a reply to this blog.
4. I got the following question the other day, and thought it might make for a quick Q&A here:
Q: I am planning on training Westside style but I do not have access to bands and chains (or any other special equipment for that matter). What should I do to change up my dynamic effort days? Should I just use variations of the lifts (i.e. close grip vs regular grip bench, sumo vs conventional deadlifts)?
A: The whole idea that you absolutely have to have bands, chains, and specialized bars to learn from the Westside school of thought (which is constantly evolving anyway) couldn't be further from the truth. There are bits and pieces borrowed from Westside teachings in Maximum Strength, and you'll see that there is plenty of rotation among movements in the four-month program - and the assumption is that you don't have any of these goodies. Rotating among back squats and front squats (without a box, with a box, or from pins) and deadlifts will give you a great rotation of movements.
Regarding dynamic effort days, I don't think it's as important to rotate exercises on a regular basis, as this speed work is there to improve bar speed on that specific movement and help you groove the movement pattern itself. However, if you want to change it up, it's not too difficult.
In the lower body, simply go to a different deadlift or squat variation, or change the percentage at which you're working. In the upper body, you can change the grip width on the bench press, do some plyo push-ups, or even just throw the medicine ball around.
5. I'm going to see The Nutcracker tonight with my fiancee. In the words of Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that."
6. I will, however, say that I'm a little bummed that Jim Breuer is in town tonight about ten minutes from where I live, and I'm not going to get to see him. Doh!
1. First off, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Before I get to the video footage from yesterday morning, I wanted to give you a couple of quick heads-ups on some seminars at which I'll be speaking in 2010 (just confirmed):
January 30, 2010: Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning 4th Annual Winter Seminar - Winchester, MA
March 7-8, 2010: NSCA Personal Trainers Conference - Las Vegas, NV
May 8-10, 2010: Sports Medicine 2010: Advances in MRI and Orthopaedic Management - Boston, MA
Hope to see some of you at one or more of these events!
2. A big congratulations goes out to CP athlete CJ Retherford, who hit the game-winning HR in the championship of the Arizona Fall League (Video HERE). CJ will be out to Boston to train when January rolls around.
3. And, just when we thought the post-baseball-season celebration was over, we learned that CP athlete Tim Collins was named Toronto Blue Jays Organizational Pitcher of the Year. Congratulations, Tim!
4. John Berardi is running a great sale on Precision Nutrition through December 1. They're offering them the Precision Nutrition System - including Gourmet Nutrition Version 1 and an all-access membership to their private Member Zone - plus a one-year subscription to their Results Tracker program, and free shipping to the US and Canada for just $99.00. If you haven't checked it out - or you have a family member or friend who could use some help on the nutrition side of things - I'd strongly encourage you to check this out. It's the single-best nutrition resource available on the web today: Precision Nutrition
5. We'll have the pictures and videos from the CP Thanksgiving lift posted as soon as possible. A camera was lost and we're in the process of finding it!
6. In the meantime, here are some recommended readings from the past here at EricCressey.com that might interest you:
Hip Injuries in Baseball: My take on the huge increase in hip issues in MLB players.
Stagnancy vs. Stability: Even in a dynamic field like strength and conditioning, the status quo is sometimes still just fine.
7. Just got this little bit of feedback on Assess and Correct from Mark Young of markyoungtrainingsystems.com:
"As a strength coach myself, I have literally read thousands of studies, textbooks, and articles relating to assessment and correction. But when I heard that Mike, Eric, and Bill were going to be putting together a product on this very subject I wanted to be first in line to put my hard earned money on the table. I think this product is going to change how people prepare for performance and that owning it is a must for anyone who is absolutely serious about results."
Check it out for yourself: Assess and Correct.
Q: Inspired by your articles on T-Nation, I've started to measure IR/ER/Total shoulder rotation deficits using a goniometer. I did have another question, however: you mentioned in an article that Hip Internal Rotation Deficit (HIRD) is a serious problem among baseball pitchers and hitters due to the asymmetrical front leg blocking in both mechanics. I absolutely agree, and I use corrective exercises and stretches to help alleviate these problems. However, I lack a good way to test for this; do you have any suggestions?
A: We check hip internal rotation in the seated position. Basically, you just have the individual sit up tall at the end of a table, and position the hips and knees at 90 degrees. Then, without allowing the hip to hike, you internally rotate the femur. This is one of the many assessments on our new DVD set, Assess and Correct, and it's featured on page 50 of the tag-along e-manual. Check it out:
For more information on how to correct the problem - and assess for other issues like this, check out www.AssessandCorrect.com.
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1. Exciting week around here, as it's getting to be that time of the year when our high school ballplayers - both 2010 and 2011 - finalize some of their plans.
Last weekend, RHP Barrett O'Neill (2011) verbally committed to the University of Virginia on a baseball scholarship, and on Tuesday, RHP Travis Dean (2010) signed his letter of intent to pitch at Kennesaw St. University in Georgia. A few weeks earlier, RHP/3B Joe Napolitano (2011) had verbally committed to Boston College. These three comprise 3/8 of our current 90mph+ high school crew - and I suspect that the other five will be following soon!
Also this week, 2B Erik Watkins (2010) committed to Skidmore and CF Billy Bereszniewicz (2010) committed to Binghampton. Previously, catcher James Alfonso (2010) had accepted a scholarship to play at the University of Hartford. Plenty more to come soon, no doubt...
2. Speaking of Travis, here is something I love about him: he has INTENT on every single medicine ball throw he makes. It isn't just about "tossing" a ball to a wall and rotating your hips. It's about getting your entire body into the effort - to the point that you're trying to break the ball (or wall!) on every single drill.
Once we have taught our guys the technique for the drill, it's about getting after it. If you aren't training rotation aggressively, you might as well not do it at all.
3. I got a lot of great comments from readers on my A Few Days in Arizona on Monday; I'd encourage you to check it out.
4. One of the key points I made was that respiratory function was essential for ideal performance and posture, and I recognize that the concept might be completely foreign for a lot of my readers. To that end, I'd encourage you check out The Anatomy of Breathing.
It's a pretty quick read that gives you good insights into the anatomy of the respiratory system and common dysfunctions that occur. Once you start getting an appreciation for the muscles involved, you can start to see how poor diaphragmatic function can easily lead to overactivity of sternocleidomastoid, scalene, pec minor, intercostals - basically, a lot of muscles commonly implicated in upper extremity dysfunction. You can just stretch and massage those areas, but it's just like putting a bucket on the floor when the roof is leaking; it's better to just fix the roof (aberrant breathing patterns).
5. I also touched on breathing patterns a bit in my seminar this past weekend. Check out a few great reviews of the event:
6. Some interesting findings HERE that shows that there may be a strong link between childhood obesity and the development of multiple sclerosis later on in life. One hypothesis is that it may be linked to the low levels of Vitamin D that one sees in overweight kids, and another that it could be related to the fatty tissue itself. One more reason to take Vitamin D!
7. We're all headed to Providence tonight to watch CP client and pro boxer Danny O'Connor try to run his professional record to 10-0. I think we'll be setting a world record for the number of professional baseball players in attendance at a boxing match. Let's go, Danny!
Sorry for the delay in getting this one posted, everyone; I just got back from a seminar with Pavel Kolar in Phoenix and my brain is fried (in a good way!). Luckily, Matt Blake has provided some more excellent content - and it is incredibly appropriate, as I spent the entire weekend with physical therapists, athletic trainers, chiropractors, and strength and conditioning coaches in an awesome learning environment. Check it out:
Philosophizing from Goliath's Shoulders
By: Matt Blake
In continuing the theme of discussing some of the basic tenants of the Elite Baseball Development Program here at Cressey Performance, I wanted to follow up on one of the thoughts I had in a previous post. This idea is that the leaders in most fields are polymaths. This is something that I think should be expounded upon and I'm going to take that opportunity in this post.
For those of you who are not sure what a polymath is and do not feel like looking it up, I'll provide the definition for you here from Wikipedia:
"A polymath (Greek polymath?s, ?????????, "having learned much")[1] is a person, with superior intelligence, whose expertise spans a significant number of subject areas."
I think this term can be used on many levels. In the post to which I'm alluding, I used it to describe people who reach outside their own field and acquire knowledge from other disciplines. I also think this is a term that should apply to people who stay within their niche and look to other thought leaders and how they go about their business.
For Eric, this would be like pulling from physical therapists, strength coaches in other sports, manual therapists, athletic trainers, powerlifters, golfers, tennis coaches, Olympic lifters, sprinters, and vision experts. By doing this, he is acknowledging that he doesn't know everything and is working to fill in some of his own gaps. He is making his personal philosophy and his own school of thought that much more solid. Look at his latest product, Assess and Correct,as an example: it's a collaboration of two strength and conditioning coaches and a physical therapist with great soft tissue treatment skills. It brings together three people who specialize in the shoulder, knee, and lower back.
Eric doesn't have to like everything that each of these people teach or preach, but if he blends one new thought into his own training, then he just made himself a better trainer. Applying one piece of someone else's puzzle doesn't have to signal a 100% endorsement of an individual. There should always be some level of individuation and originality if you expect to contribute at the highest level. I'm not even talking about being inventive in nature, but simply blending up the same ingredients, in your own proportions, to create a different concoction that is unique to you.
I think this applies in the very same way in the baseball industry, and particularly with respect to teaching pitching. Both of these fields share similarities in that they have been around a while, and if you're attempting to reinvent the wheel in these fields, you are failing to acknowledge that people have been able to do some pretty amazing things with what's already there.
For me, it is looking at what the great pitchers and great pitching coaches before me have done. Obviously, Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, and Greg Maddux are modern day legends who can show us a thing or two about pitching, and, more importantly, pitching healthy.
To look even further back, take guys like Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, and Whitey Ford (just to name a few). When building what we'll call post-modern pitchers, wouldn't it make sense to grab a little bit of each and apply it on a case-by-case basis? A little rhythm here, some little knee lift there, and maybe mix in a type of stride for a particular body type, and top it off with the signature arm action? We have the same components, but a new pitcher - unique to his build.
The same could be said for all of the pitching coaches and pitching gurus that have preceded me. Dave Duncan, Lee Mazzone, Tom House, John Bagonzi, Ron Wolforth, Paul Nyman, and dozens more: each one presents something a little different from the next. I don't have to love everything that Ron Wolforth or Tom House does to appreciate that they are tremendous teachers of pitching and get great results. Wouldn't I want to know how they're doing it and see if there is anything I can borrow from their brand of pitching? I would never sell these thoughts as completely my own, but the fact that I understand them and can apply them properly allows me to use them, assuming I make the necessary acknowledgements.
For example, I love Ron Wolforth and Brent Strom's ideas for developing velocity using specific drills to activate and optimize different pieces of the mechanics (pitchingcentral.com). I like the way Tom House advocates controlling the body with different mechanical cues (tomhouse.com). I like pieces of Alan Jaeger's arm care and long toss program (jaegersports.com). I even like how Dick Mills breaks down video (pitching.com). All of these guys have pieces I like, and pieces of which I'm not a huge fan. I'd like to think if I blended a little bit of all of them into my own philosophy, I'd have a pretty good starting point to teach people about pitching.
I also think the reason it has to be my own is because I don't have the same experiences or resources as these people do, so naturally I have to make the most of my own ingredients. What we lack in warm winter throwing sessions outdoors, we make up for by optimizing individual strength training and throwing programs indoors in an attempt to condition pitchers to throw the ball as hard and healthy as anyone in the country. That's the reality of the situation. We wouldn't complain about the hand we are dealt in the Northeast, we would just make the most of what we have available to us.
The real importance in all of this comes down to whether or not Eric and I are able to get the desired results for our players. Your philosophy is only as good as the results it can continuously demonstrate. Can my pitchers throw the ball harder because of what I have showed them? Can they command the ball better than before because of what I explained to them? Will our players stay healthier because of what Eric has provided them in programming? Do our players understand the importance of a diligent work ethic, because of our collective training platform? At the end of the day, whether or not we get them to perform at the level they decided to commit to is all that it comes down to. If they don't, then the philosophy needs to be continuously shaped based on the evidence available to us.
I would like to believe the X factor in all of this is: can we effectively communicate our ideas to the point that the people around us understand how to apply these thoughts into their own world? The ability to command the attention of an individual to a degree that they are willing to open up their mind and acknowledge that there is a different way of doing things to get better is a tremendous skill that needs to be constantly refined. There are a lot of facets to this idea of effective communication that I will touch on in a future post, but one of the foundations is simply having something worth communicating, whether it be one idea from many fields, or many ideas from one field. Either way, viewing your methodology as limitless in its capacity for development, and embracing all knowledge as a potentially worthy addition is a good starting point.
Matt Blake can be contacted at mablak07@gmail.com.
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