Increasing Pitching Velocity: What Stride Length Means and How to Improve It – Part 3
Posted: February 22, 2012 Filed under: Baseball Content, Blog, Core Stability Exercises, Hip Mobility, Improve Stride Length, shoulder mobility, shoulder mobility drills, Strength and Conditioning, strength and conditioning program, strength and conditioning programs, Stride Length, thoracic spine mobility, Tim Collins, Tim Lincecum, Trevor Bauer Comments OffIn part 1 of this series, I touched on some of the mechanical factors one must consider in relation to increasing stride length in pitchers. Then, in part 2, I got discussed physical factors – hip mobility and lower-body strength/power – that govern how far you can stride. In wrapping up today with part 3, we’ll work our way up the kinetic chain to discuss three more physical factors that control stride length.
3. Rotary Stability – As I discussed in my recent article at T-Nation, What I Learned in 2011, hip mobility “sticks” better when you have adequate rotary stability, so we’ve been doing more of our core stability exercises in more “extreme” positions of hip mobility.
If you’re going to push the limits of hip abduction, internal, and external rotation range of motion, you need to be sure that you have adequate rotary stability to be stable in these positions in weight-bearing and not destroy the spine. Anybody can just get into these positions in slow speed, but not everyone can control the body precisely with a combination of isometric and eccentric muscle action at the high velocities we see with pitching.
Additionally, many of the big-time long stride guys rely heavily on controlling lumbar spine hyperextension as they ride the back hip down the mound. This is something you’ll see if you watch the deliveries of smaller, athletic guys like Tim Lincecum, Tim Collins, and Trevor Bauer. If they don’t maintain adequate anterior core function, they’ll wind up with extension-based back pain in no time.
4. Thoracic Mobility – Throwing and hitting (and really any rotational challenge like a hockey slapshot or tennis stroke) present a unique challenge to an athlete: the hips and shoulders are temporarily moving in opposite directions. This creates separation, which allows an athlete to store elastic energy and create velocity via the stretch-shortening cycle.
The first issue to consider is that not all separation is created equal. You can create separation with the hips and lower back – and jack up a lumbar spine over time. The goal is to having adequate thoracic spine mobility to ensure that this separation occurs higher up (and engages the upper extremity well).
The second issue is that the more you push the limits of hip mobility, the more you must push the limits of thoracic mobility. We’ve always heard “equal and opposite” when it comes to the throwing arm and glove arm, but the truth is that it probably apply to the lower half and thoracic spine as well. You simply don’t see guys with terrible thoracic mobility getting way down the mound, as that lack of thoracic mobility would cause them to leak forward with the upper body. I covered this in part 1, but the Cliff’s Notes version is that the head doesn’t stay behind the hips long enough, so throwers lose separation.
The third issue is that poor thoracic mobility will really interfere with getting an adequate scap load, so the arm speed will be slower. Throwing with a poorly positioned scapula is like trying to jump out of sand; you just don’t have a firm platform from which to create force.
A very basic thoracic spine mobility drill that would be a “safe” bet for most throwers would be the quadruped extension-rotation.
This drill doesn’t crank the shoulder into excessive external rotation, which may be a problem for the really “loose” arms in the crowd. Progressions for the really stiff pitchers would be the side-lying windmill and side-lying extension-rotation. I also like the yoga plex, a drill I learned from Nick Tumminello, as a means of syncing everything up with a longer stride.
Note: be sure to read this shoulder mobility blog on why not all thoracic spine mobility drills are created equal for throwers!
5. Quick Arm – When I say that you have to have a quick arm to have a long stride, I really just mean that you need some upper body power to make things work. The longer the stride, the quicker your arm must be to catch up in time to create a downward plane and throw strikes.
You simply don’t see guys with long strides competing at high levels unless they have a quick arm that can catch up to the lower body.
When a guy’s arm isn’t quick enough to catch up to his lower half, you see him miss up and arm side.
This type of thrower would be better off shortening up his stride (at least temporarily) and spending more time on good throwing programs to increase arm speed.
This is one reason Justin Verlander is great. If you watch him, he’s not an insanely long stride. Rather, he’s shorter with it, and much stiffer on his landing leg to create an awesome downward plane. Plus, he actually does have a ridiculously quick arm and outstanding secondary stuff. A lot of pitching coaches would try to lengthen his stride – and while this might work, I don’t know about you, but I think overhauling a Cy Young winner’s mechanics is silly.
The “long stride, slow arm” issue is (in my experience) most common in young, lax players who have the joint range-of-motion and just enough stability to get a long stride, but don’t have adequate arm speed to catch up. This is really common in the 14-17 age ranges, and I think it’s one reason why so many of these kids respond incredibly favorably to long toss; it teaches their arms to go faster and keep up with their strides.
Conversely, as you start to deal with 18-year-olds and older (or kids who have grown quickly), you start to see that preparing everything below the arm is arguably more important than arm speed. You don’t pitch in college or professional baseball unless you have a reasonably quick arm, and getting more aggressive with the lower half to stride longer is often exactly what guys need to make the big velocity jump. Likewise, when guys don’t take care of the lower half, but continue on aggressive throwing programs, they often wind up with velocity drops, injuries, or control issues because they’ve lost the separation that made them successful.
Closing Thoughts
While a long stride can certainly be advantageous in the throwing motion, as I’ve shown in this series, forcing it when you don’t have the right physical preparation or mechanical coaching in place can actually hurt an pitcher’s performance and health. Remember that the best changes are subtle ones; in other words, you might increase a stride by six inches over the course of a year, not in a single session.
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4 Factors that Make or Break a Baseball Strength and Conditioning Program
Posted: January 29, 2012 Filed under: Baseball Content, baseball strength and conditioning, Blog, Cressey Performance, Strength and Conditioning, strength and conditioning program, strength and conditioning programs Comments OffAt Cressey Performance, we’re getting to the time of the year when things gradually start to slow down for us. For many business owners, this is a source of frustration, as they worry about paying the bills when things get quieter. I, on the other hand, view it as a source of excitement, as it signifies that the beginning of baseball season is at hand, and our athletes will have an opportunity to put all their off-season hard work into action on the baseball field.
You’d be surprised, however, at how many collegiate and professional players get genuinely worried about how they’ll be managed once they get back to school or their organizations. In the private sector, we can individually manage guys with their unique needs in mind, but in collegiate and professional, because of the larger volume of athletes (and fewer coaches per athlete), limited training time, and additional competing demands (i.e., practicing and playing games), player development can be quickly stunted. Believe it or not, 2012 is the first year that Major League Baseball has mandated that every minor league affiliate have a strength coach on staff; many teams didn’t have anyone (in-person, at least) watching over their highly-touted prospects during critical minor league development periods.
That said, though, there are some colleges and professional organizations who are doing a solid job of managing guys – and I wanted to use today’s post to highlight four areas in which they’re getting the job done effectively.
1. Synergy – As I outlined in Weight Training Programs: You Can’t Just Keep Adding, we have a limited recovery capacity, so if you’re going to add something to a program, you have to take something away. Unfortunately, this “give and take” gets overlooked in some team settings. As an example, a strength and conditioning coach, athletic trainer, and pitching coach might all prescribe different rotator cuff exercises for their players without knowing that an overlap is taking place. Or, a strength coach might prescribe a challenging lower body lift, then have a pitching coach send his players to run poles – only to have the head coach tack a very taxing practice on top of an already hefty workload. If you’re always adding, but never taking away, it’s only a matter of time until athletes break down. As such, communication among coaches, medical and strength and conditioning staffs, and players is absolutely essential for optimal synergy.
2. Individualization – I’m constantly amazed at how – even at the highest levels – players aren’t managed on a case-by-case basis. That is, of course, until they get hurt and need unique rehabilitation prescriptions. Just imagine how much less rehabilitation would be needed if players were simply managed more individually on a proactive basis so that injuries didn’t occur nearly as often. Additionally, we’d be much more likely to see late-round draft picks and undrafted free agents become MLB superstars if they were managed differently than already-talented players who are just coddled on their way to the big leagues. I think you’d see more stories like Tim Collins’.
I also see this as a huge competitive advantage for college coaches on the recruiting side of things. Not everyone can boast beautiful weather, an amazing baseball complex, a pristine academic reputation, and beautiful girls everywhere when recruiting prospects, but being able to guarantee an individualized approach to development goes a long way in making up the difference.
3. Specificity – You’d be amazed at how many folks in the baseball world have absolutely no knowledge of exercise physiology or the unique demands of baseball – but are still prescribing strength and conditioning programs for baseball players. Some of what I have seen is so atrocious that the players would have been better off doing absolutely nothing. I’ve seen programs with 10+ mile runs, kipping pull-ups to failure, 1-rep max bench presses, and high rep clean and presses. I seriously can’t make this stuff up.
The most common justification for this type of garbage is that coaches want to build mental toughness. Well, I’m here to tell you that there are much better ways of doing that, as your mental toughness won’t mean much when your pitchers are having surgeries or throwing 74mph and well on their way to those surgeries.
When we discuss throwing a baseball, we are talking about the single fastest motion in all of sports. General training is absolutely valuable, but if you don’t have the specific nature of that throwing motion – and the adaptations it creates – in mind when we implement that general training, you’re asking for problems.
4. Effort – The best program on the planet won’t do any good if it isn’t executed with loads of effort and attention to detail. If you have issues like players skipping warm-ups, athletic trainers refusing to do manual therapy, and coaches showing up late to practice, whatever is written on the paper doesn’t matter at all.
At the end of the day, these four factors are just a few of many that will ultimately determine how effective a baseball strength and conditioning program is. Unfortunately, many of these factors are outside of a player’s control, so what do you do?
Very simply, control what you can control.
Educate yourself so that you can be your own best coach. Optimize your nutrition and get plenty of sleep. Write down what has and hasn’t worked for you so that you can refer back to it down the road and avoid making the same mistakes twice.
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The Skinny on Sodium Intake: Is Salt Bad for You?
Posted: January 26, 2012 Filed under: Blog, Cressey Performance, Is Salt Bad, Jordan Syatt, Salt, Salt Intake, Sodium Consumption, Sodium Intake, Sports Nutrition, Strength and Conditioning, strength and conditioning program Comments OffToday’s guest post on sodium intake comes from current Cressey Performance intern, Jordan Syatt.
Sodium intake is a highly controversial topic within the fitness industry, mainstream media, and even the medical community. Very simply, everyone wants to know: “Is salt bad for you?” Nobody seems to have a clear-cut answer.
While many are quick to demonize the tasty mineral, I’ve long wondered if the evils associated with salt are the result of poorly constructed and misinterpreted research or actual cause for concern.
In an attempt to settle the debate once and for all, I began to dig up all the research I could find pertaining to sodium intake, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and general health.
To make things as simple as possible, I’ve outlined my findings below. I think the results may surprise you!
Sodium Intake: What Does the Research Say?
First and foremost, high-blood pressure is perhaps the most prevalent risk factor associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD). Bearing in mind that CVD is currently the world’s leading cause of death, any information we can find to aid in reducing the risk of CVD is of the utmost importance.
Therefore, considering it is well established that diets excessively high in sodium may result in increased blood pressure (BP), it should come as no surprise that doctors and health professionals alike strongly encourage maintaining a low-sodium diet in the long-term. Epidemiological research suggests high-salt diets may not only affect blood pressure (BP) and thereby cardiovascular disease (CVD), but could also “increase the risk of stroke, left ventricular hypertrophy and renal disease.”
Perhaps worst of all, great sodium consumption tends to cause water retention, thus giving leaner individuals a noticeably “softer” appearance. In other words, their abs won’t appear to be as cut-up.
What the hell, salt!?!?
Based on the information provided above, it would appear as though high-salt diets are the primary cause of illness, death, and guys making excuses for why they don’t look as lean as they should.
We should probably cut it out of our diet, right?
Not so fast.
While high BP is certainly a major risk factor of cardiovascular disease, recent research has clearly shown the ratio of sodium intake to potassium intake within the diet has a much greater effect on BP than sodium (or potassium) alone.
Other studies have confirmed this finding and even the USDA recommends individuals place an emphasis on increasing potassium-rich foods and/or lowering sodium intake in order to lower BP.
While excessive sodium consumption can have a negative impact on BP (thus increasing one’s risk of various diseases), simply increasing the amount of potassium consumed on a daily basis holds the same benefits as lowering salt intake. As low-sodium diets are rather difficult to maintain in the long-term, placing an emphasis on potassium-rich foods may help individuals keep BP in check without causing undue stress notably in social situations.
In addition to the ratio of salt to potassium within the diet, other factors such as age, gender, genetics, activity level, and body fat are tremendously significant in determining ones risk of high BP, CVD, and other related illnesses. Not surprisingly, exercise and weight loss significantly reduce the risk of CVD. As such, rather than solely focus on reducing salt intake, beginning an appropriate training routine and maintaining a healthy body weight would most likely be the ideal first step in preventing CVD.
Finally, one need only look at the extremely high amounts of sodium in processed foods to understand why greater sodium consumption is associated with high BP and CVD. I’d venture to guess that those individuals who base their diets largely on processed foods are not only consuming too much salt, but are also not eating enough potassium, neglecting to exercise, failing to get an adequate amount of sleep, not maintaining an appropriate body weight, nor living a healthy lifestyle in general.
Taking the above into consideration, is it really the heavy sodium consumption causing high BP and CVD? Or, could it possibly be the overall sedentary lifestyle, overconsumption of processed foods, being overweight, etc?
I bet it’s the latter.
If otherwise healthy individuals are eating a diet largely consisting of whole/unprocessed foods, consuming adequate potassium, regularly exercising, and maintaining a healthy bodyweight, they can probably stop worrying over the minutia and feel free to add a dash, or two, of the ever-so-tasty mineral.
My General Recommendations:
Individuals should maintain a diet largely consisting of whole/unprocessed foods and make a concerted effort to acquire enough potassium on a daily basis. Examples include, but are not limited to, baked potatoes, cooked spinach, bananas, oranges, and cooked beans. For a detailed list of potassium-rich foods, click HERE. Additionally, I encourage individuals to follow an appropriate strength and conditioning program designed specifically for their individual needs.
Note: those who already have high blood pressure, first and foremost, you must consult with your primary care physician and follow his/her directions, as various anti-hypertensive medications can interact differently with food and exercise. Plus, you want to find out why you are hypertensive in the first place in order to individualize your treatment approach.
I hope you enjoyed this article, and if you have any questions please feel free to leave them in the comments section below.
About the Author
Jordan Syatt is a strength training and nutritional consultant out of Boston Massachusetts. He is Westside Barbell Certified, currently interning at Cressey Performance, and studies Health Behavior Science at the University of Delaware. In addition to actively competing in various Powerlifting Federations, Jordan works with a diverse population of clientele, focusing on fat loss, mass gain, and athletic performance. Jordan is the owner and operator of www.syattfitness.com. Feel free to contact him directly at: jsyattfitness@gmail.com.
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Baseball Strength and Conditioning Programs: How Much Rotator Cuff Work is Too Much? – Part 2
Posted: January 11, 2012 Filed under: Baseball Content, baseball strength and conditioning, Blog, Optimal Shoulder Performance, Rotator Cuff Exercises, Strength and Conditioning, strength and conditioning program, strength and conditioning programs, Strength Exercises Comments OffIn part 1 of this feature, I talked about how many throwers actually overuse the rotator cuff because they don’t appreciate that throwing in itself is a tremendously stressful challenge to the shoulder. I also made the point that cuff timing is more often the problem than cuff strength, so many folks are really training the rotator cuff incorrectly with thousands of reps of band exercises. Let’s examine that in a bit more depth.
First, I should preface this piece by saying that I think there are definitely places for utilizing bands to strengthen the rotator cuff in a baseball training context. They obviously provide outstanding convenience for on-field work and travel circumstances, as well as scenarios where players may not have qualified professionals at hand to help with manual resistance work and rhythmic stabilizations. Some cuff work is better than no cuff work! Additionally, many players swear by bands during the warm-up phase to help with getting blood flow to the shoulder complex with a bit of activation at the same time.
However, there are two primary issues with relying exclusively on bands:
1. In an external rotation variation, the resistance is actually greatest at the point (near maximal external rotation) where the athlete is weakest. In other words, the band doesn’t ideally accommodate the strength curve. This is a huge concern for me, as one of the biggest things I notice in athletes is that when training in a position of somewhat significant external rotation, they can’t “pick up” the resistance quickly enough. More on this later.
2. Most people simply overlook eccentric control. This is something that is coachable, no doubt, but most people do band exercises for so many reps per set that the athlete can quickly lose focus and resort back to bad habits.
As you can imagine, these are shortcomings that also exist – albeit to a slightly lesser extent – with cable and dumbbell/plate external rotation rotator cuff strength exercises:
So, how do we overcome these shortcomings while helping to address rotator cuff timing? You have two great options.
1. Rhythmic Stabilizations
The true role of the rotator cuff is to stabilize the humeral head (ball) in the glenoid fossa (socket). And, during throwing, it does a ton of work, as the humerus goes through extreme ranges of motion in all three planes. Rhythmic stabilization drills are a great way to train the cuff to fire quicker, and they’re particularly valuable because you can train them at various points in the range of motion, modifying the challenge depending on how stable an individual is in a given position. Plus, this is an outstanding way of monitoring cuff function over the course of weeks and months with athletes you see regularly; regular improvements are easily perceived.
You’ll notice that I don’t crank him back to extreme external rotation in this video; rather, we stop short of it and just assume that we’ll get some carryover in stability a bit further (as per previous research on carryover of isometric exercise).
The sky is really the limit in terms of how you train this one; we have about a dozen variations that we use on a daily basis. A few quick guidelines:
a. The more congenital or acquired laxity an athlete has, the less aggressive you’ll want to be with your perturbations. When someone is less proficient, gently destabilizer, and apply the perturbations closer to the shoulder. When someone is more stable, perturbate a bit more firmly, and apply it further down the arm.
b. I generally start those with significant laxity with closed chain exercises so that they can draw some stability from the floor. Here’s an example:
c. Make sure that the scapula is positioned appropriately; it certainly shouldn’t be protracted, but don’t crank it into excessive retraction, either. Just keep it from winging off the rib cage.
d. I like 2x/week rhythmic stabilizations during off-season training. We typically integrate it between sets on lower-body strength training days.
2. Manual Resistance External Rotations
These drills are “where it’s at.” On one hand, they are the best strength-building exercise for the cuff because they train it in its most function context: eccentric control. However, more specific to today’s point, they are great for improving cuff recruitment at the most vulnerable point in the throwing motion: lay-back.
When we do a drill like this, I encourage the athlete to “pick it up early.” In other words, I won’t apply downward pressure (eccentric overload) until they apply some external rotation force into my hand). This is another variation I like to use:
Some quick guidelines for manual resistance external rotations:
a. Emphasize eccentric overload, but make sure you aren’t pushing all the way down, as most people will go into scapular anterior tilt as they are more internally rotated. Pushing someone all the way down puts the shoulder in a pretty vulnerable position, as scapular stability is lost and the subacromial space is closed down.
b. Given that you have to apply the force further down the arm, make sure that the athlete isn’t cheating by just utilizing the wrist extensors.
c. Use the other hand to ensure ideal scapular positioning on manual resistance side-lying external rotations at 30 degrees abduction. In the manual resistance external rotations at 90 degrees in the scapular plane, your other hand should “cup” the elbow to make sure that the rotation is taking place at the shoulder (as opposed to horizontal adduction/abduction).
d. I like to utilize manual resistance external rotations twice a week during the off-season, usually toward the end of upper body strength training sessions. We’ll use less manual resistance work in this regard, though, when guys start to ramp up their throwing, as it tends to create a bit more soreness.
This wraps up our look at a different perspective on how to attack rotator cuff exercises with timing – and not just strength – in consideration. For more information, I’d encourage you to check out Optimal Shoulder Performance: From Rehabilitation to High Performance.
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Baseball Strength and Conditioning Programs: How Much Rotator Cuff Work is Too Much? – Part 1
Posted: January 9, 2012 Filed under: Baseball Content, baseball strength and conditioning, Blog, Eric Schoenberg, Off-Season Training for Baseball, Optimal Shoulder Performance, Pro Baseball Pitcher Workout, Rotator Cuff Exercises, Rotator Cuff Rehab, Strength and Conditioning, strength and conditioning program, strength and conditioning programs, throwing program, throwing programs, Tommy John Surgery, UCL, Ulnar Collateral Ligament Comments OffI just got back from presenting in front of 3,500 coaches at the American Baseball Coaches Convention in Anaheim. I had an absolute blast, and since I received some great feedback from many coaches in attendance after my talk, I thought I’d use the first few posts of this week to recap a few highlights of my presentation. To start off, one statement I made that I know turned some heads was:
I think most people overtrain the rotator cuff nowadays, and they do so with the wrong exercises, anyway.
To illustrate my point, I’m going to ask a question:
Q: What is the most common complication you see in guys as they rehabilitate following a Tommy John Surgery?
A: Shoulder problems – generally right around the time they get up to 120 feet.
Huh? Shoulder pain is a post-operative complication of an elbow surgery? What gives?
First, I should make a very obvious point: many of these guys deal with shoulder stiffness as they get back to throwing simply because they’ve been shut down for months. That I completely expect – but remember that it’s stiffness, and not pain. They always throw their way out of it.
The more pressing issue is what is taking place in their rehabilitation – and more specifically, what’s taking place with the synergy between their rehabilitation and throwing program. Let me explain.
Rehabilitation following a UCL reconstruction is extensive. While different physical therapists certainly have different approaches, it will always be incredibly heavy on rotator cuff strength and timing, as well as adequate function of the scapular stabilizers. Guys always make huge strides on this front during rehab, but why do so many have shoulder pain when they get further out with their long tossing? The answer is very simple:
Most people don’t appreciate that throwing a baseball IS rotator cuff training.
Your cuff is working tremendously hard to center the humeral head in the glenoid fossa. It controls excessive external rotation and anterior instability during lay-back.
It’s fighting against distraction forces at ball release.
And, it’s controlling internal rotation and horizontal adduction during follow-through.
Simultaneously, the scapular stabilizers are working incredibly hard to appropriately position and stabilize the scapula on the rib cage in various positions so that it can provide an ideal anchor point for those rotator cuff muscles to do their job.
A post-op Tommy John thrower – and really every player going through a throwing program – has all the same demands on his arm (even if he isn’t on the mound, where stress is highest). And, as I wrote previously in a blog about why pitchers shouldn’t throw year-round, every pitcher is always throwing with some degree of muscle damage at all times during the season (or a throwing program).
Keeping this in mind, think about the traditional Tommy John rehabilitation approach. It is intensive work for the cuff and scapular stabilizers three times a week with the physical therapists – plus many of the same exercises in a home program for off-days. They’re already training these areas almost every day – and then they add in 3-6 throwing sessions a week. Wouldn’t you almost expect shoulder problems? They are overusing it to the max! This is a conversation I recently had with physical therapist Eric Schoenberg, and he made another great point:
Most guys – especially at higher levels – don’t have rotator cuff strength issues; they have rotator cuff timing issues.
In throwing – the single-fastest motion in all of sports – you’re better off having a cuff that fires at the right time than a cuff that fires strong, but late. Very few rotator cuff exercise programs for healthy pitchers take that into account; rather, it’s left to those doing rehabilitation. Likewise, most of the programs I see altogether ignore scapular stability and leave out other ways to train the cuff that are far more functional than just using bands.
Now, apply this example back to the everyday management of pitchers during the season. Pitchers are throwing much more aggressively: game appearances, bullpens, and long toss. They need to do some rotator cuff work, but it certainly doesn’t need to be every day like so many people think.
I’ll cover how much and what kind in Part 2. In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about the evaluation and management of pitchers, check out Optimal Shoulder Performance.
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