Pitchers Overall Development

Very good stuff Andro. Definitely keep it coming. Just curious, what kind of warm-up do you have your players do? By that, I mean do you have them do the usual, jog a lap then static stretch, or do you have them do a dynamic warm-up? Also, what are your thoughts on the "Big 3" Lifts, bench press, squat, and deadlift?

 

Andro,
I just got back from the Ultimate Pitching Coaches Bootcamp at http://www.texasbaseballranch.com/. and have the first DVD of the new Athletic pitcher 2011 in my hot little hand. ;-)

I ran into an old friend who i hadn't seen in 30 years at the UPBC. He's a coach for Chet Lemon's Juice 12u team that won 3 AAU national titles in a row. His 3 son's all use the program. Great results. The oldest has throws mid-90's, pitches in college. And get this....he does REHAB for a living. If a coach for the organization that tied the Dirtbags in the WWB and does arm rehab for a living doesn't convince you that you are on the right track, what will?


Tired of people "stuck on stupid" and phrases like....:
"go throw and warm up", "run your poles", "finish in a good fielding positon", "up down glide out", "stay back","elbow up", "pull the glove", "keep shoulders level", "balance point", "separate your hands early", "point the ball at 2nd base" and......"just throw strikes".

 

Andro should write a book, but since he hasn't and he has decided to help the members of TBR, I sincerely thank him for his time and advice.

People, believe me, he is a very busy man; but Andro has always helped us here at TBR and he is doing me a huge favor. I hope everyone realizes this and appreciates his involvement.

If one has any questions about anything posted or have a question about anything else pitcher-related, post it here.

 

Thanks again andro for giving this info out freely. You have always been a sort of ambassador of this new information instead of "hording" it. I would say the info on this thread is better than most pitching plans in college programs today, including the ones we assume are the top flight programs in NC and SC.

Some of the baseball people I work with have a tough time swallowing this idea. It's somewhat frustrating that they don't see it. Or, for that matter realize how the body works enough to see how basic and fundamental momentum versus frame-by-frame deliveries differ.

The best way I have been able to process it for myself and explain it is there is a balance between linear and rotational movements in the delivery. This linear movement is the stride length and the tempo/momentum created by it. The rotational movement is the initiation of the backside rotation and the residual torque that flows up the body from the ground up.

There are alot of good baseball people who will argue adamantly that the best pitcher's delivery involves staying back as long as possible and "doing your work over the rubber." If you think about the balance of rotational and linear movements, it is easy to see how this staying back can cause an imbalance. The less linear movement in the delivery the more rotational movement is necessary. So what this staying back and getting balanced over the rubber does is actually increase the spin off and flying open that a pitcher does. That's what I mean by the balance of both. Too little of one will cause too much of the other.

Alot of people argue that it affects command to have momentum and no specific balance point. This is not the case at all. Command is simply the consitent ability to get to the same release point. That's where the back-shaping and timing drills come into place. Andro talks about the flat bed truck, merry go round, and ferris wheel...The actual timing of these three movements is where command and consistent release point come into play. I would argue it is easier to pitch with command this way instead of having pauses and imbalances in the levers that create handspeed.

Just a couple thoughts. The last two things I would say on this subject are simple.
1, when a SS or OF tries to make a strong accurate throw he will never stop and get to certain check points. He will use his athleticism and feet to create momentum and time up the movements.
2, find some video of guys from past generations and you will see the delivery Andro is talking about. Some of it is flair like the hand sweep to start the delivery and the over the head stuff and odd leg kicks. Those were ways of creating momentum and timing. But look at what their hips annd lower half did to create tempo and energy to the plate. Then ask your self why those guys threw 300 innings a year on three days rest for entire careers.

 

Can u explain your drill that helps with triple extension??
To increase stride length?
"Stride Length –
We do a new drill called ankle starters and gradually increase that to what we call hurdle hoppers in order to get to our three joint extension. We are forcing our kids to improve stride length and to be able to stabilize it. Remember, hip flexibility, hamstring flexibility and strength will create a limitation on a pitchers stride range.

 

Ankle Starters and Hurdle Hoppers

Post15 Fan,

It's a really difficult thing to explain the process. But, my point being with the ankle starters is that we start in the stretch with our foot at a 45 degree angle and slightly lifted. In other words we cheat our back foot. What we are trying to accomplish is starting the kinetic chain from the drive foot and not somewhere up the chain.

We've got goals of....

1) Driving into the three joint extension per our ankle extension starting it
2) Improving our stride length
3) Working on the function of the kinetic chain from our toes to finger tips

We want to emphasize the process of the kinetic chain. Tom House calls it kinematic sequencing. Which to me is the verbage of the kinetic chain, or putting the kinetic chain into action. I want to start it from the back foot (The beginning of the kinetic chain IMO)

Hurdle Hoppers are the next step in line. The the 300 level course in three joint extension. What we do is set a hurdle out, based off of the pitchers initial stride, and as they stride through their delivery they have to hop the hurdle as the reach the three joint extension. It allows them more time to rotate the back foot around and get full extension with their ankle, knee, and hip. It also does a fantstic job of extending stride length. The goals of these two drills are the same. The hurdle hoppers are just a little more difficult to acheive because it asking our guys to stretch their limitations.

We are trying to open the box of our kids athleticism. Watch the old time pitchers. They do a tremendous job of allowing their athleticism to take over in their deliveries. They don't have limitations like balance point, staying over the rubber with your weight, power tee position, or slowing down to acheive any goal. Timmy Lincecum is our new generation. The latin explosion has helped me understand it even better. I've heard from many minor leaguers that they don't get off the island throwing changeups and having "good mechanics". They throw the sh*% out of it! No limitations!

 

First, I want to say I'm sorry for not continuing to post. I apologize for that, I had to go through a minor surgery this off season and it has kind of thrown me off my game a little. I will get back to the overall development of pitchers here in the next couple of weeks. I've got a few more topics I would like to post on this subject, but I would love to answer some questions if you guys have any. I have been doing some PM's with individual questions, but I would ask for you to post them online as some other people might want to read the Q and A's as well.

xpectus6; I love doing squats. I believe that they are vital in gaining power in our legs. Once again we usually try to go with about 120% of our body weight in short bursts. We go in sets of 8-10 seconds. I would ask you if you want to add. Don't go longer than 8-10 seconds and don't do a particular amount of reps. Add more sets of 8-10 seconds. If 120% is not enough to push you, then start working off a percentage of your three rep max. I.e. if your three rep max is 300 lbs, then start at 60% and gradually increase to 70, 80, and 90%. I want to you to be very careful as squat can be very difficult on your spine, shoulder blades, and hips. It can cause major issues in alignment if not done properly.
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We also do deadlift. We do it in a bit different manner than most of you have done. We have drop bars set up low so the weight cannot touch the ground. I believe that going to the point of the weight touching the ground is where there is the most risk of injury. We want a very straight spine when we do dead lifts. Sumo dead lift is the style that we go about our plan with. We use the straight bar and not the diamond bar for sumo dead lift.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XynUSDVyd6Q

This clip is ok. She does a good job of explaining the foot placement. What I don't like about it is that she really puts her low back in a bad position to reach and pull. I like to have our guys take their rearends to the ground, as opposed to bending at the waist. Another reason we put the drop bars down so the weight won't touch the ground and they won't bend at the waist, enabling them to keep their spine straight.
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Bench is not in our repetoire. I believe that using your body weight when working our muscles is a much more controlled environment. I have seen a lot of labral tears under the bench press. To me the risk is greater than the reward, and when that is the case, we can throw it in the trashcan. I have a pushup series that we go about our plan with that is very unique and hard to explain.
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We also do hang cleans. It is pure explosion, probably moreso than any other lift that we do. A twist that we have is that we use dumbells as to train our bodies on each side individually with different landing sequences. Again, very tough to explain. I'll try and look for a clip that demonstrates this properly. The one that I'm thinking about posting shows a clean and jerk as well. We just subtract the jerk from the clean simply because we get a lot of our above shoulder work with our kettlebell routine.
http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/excercise.html

On that link, scroll down to dumbell split lifts and click on the windows media player file. Most of us have windows media player on our computers, and BTW the girl demonstrating is a BEAST!

 

Just Keeping You Honest but the man asked what kind of warm-up do you do with your athletes.

 

Underload

Great thread although most is over my head. What is meant by underload? What is the training routine?

 

Underload means...

No probelm. Underload means throwing with 4oz baseball. This generally means starting with weighted balls and move progressively lighter eventually to a 4oz ball. (ie. 2lb, 21 oz, 14 oz, 7oz, 5oz (baseball), 4oz (underload). I use them as a part of a program and I caution my pitchers about the underload ball more than the weighted balls.