Pitchers Overall Development

I initially posted my opinion on weighted balls and long toss in a thread about two weeks ago and Braves asked me to start a new thread in a similar capacity that was geared toward overall development of pitchers... I'm going to start with what I posted a couple weeks ago and move on to some other things that I feel are very important.

"My whole belief on weighted balls is that your arm needs to be trained in several different ways. I like to seperate arm strength and arm speed. When we use weighted balls, we are trying to improve our arm strength. If you look up the word strength in the dictionary it is defined as.... the quality or state of being strong; bodily or muscular power and power of resisting force, strain, wear, etc. So when we train with weighted balls it has a specific purpose. Arm Health! Preparation, for me is the key. We monitor the amount of throws and the specific weights that they throw in an environment that has parameters and guidelines. Bottom line, I believe weighted balls improve arm strength. It builds a strong shoulder and elbow base that allows your arm to handle the physical strain of long toss and pitching.


With Long Toss or underload training, which I also believe in tremendously, promotes arm speed. This is what everyone wants! Improved velo, harder rotation on curveball and slider, better arm action on changeup. There are so many benefits in long toss it is ridiculous. But, my belief is that you must have a strong base to gain benefits with long toss and underload training. That is where the weighted balls come into play.

Having the strength in the shoulder capsule initially is extremely important! Please push your kids to develop that first, then improve the arm speed secondarily. I know I spoke a lot about weighted balls, but that is not the only thing that we do to improve shoulder and elbow strength. Someone mentioned earlier the manual scap phase with light weight and band work. Something that we have started doing over the last three years is Kettle Bell training. We do a lot of "bottoms up" excercises that improve grip strength and elbow strength. I couldn't be more happy with the results of Kettle Bell training. If you are a father with a young kid, please look into it. It is irreplaceable.

There was a point in my life where I was very closed minded to overload and underload training, kettlebells etc. But, since we have implemented it into our program, our injuries have been almost non existent. Our pitching staff has been able to bounce back more quickly and take on a higher pitch count. Again I stress preparation. If you want to improve your velocity, build a strong base first, and then strive for velocity gain. I would be more than happy to post some things if someone would be interested. This is all my IMO. I hope no one takes offense to this and there have been several great points on this thread. I enjoyed reading it."

Kettlebell Shoulder Workouts

Windmills - Notice the range of motion here... We use smaller weight in order to go bottoms up. You will notice with bottoms up excercises it increases grip strength and creates a stronger base around the elbow. We also do windmills where we touch behind or on the outside of our foot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6651sjanpxI

Two Handed Jerk - Keep in mind this is a jerk not a press. The lift is in the explosion with the legs. Get underneath the weight and catch it with arms fully extended with it. We use 25 and could go to 35 lbs. But also go bottoms up again on these.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghZiYKdXC_g

Turkish Get Ups - This guy does a solid job in explanation of the get up. He could be a little more technically sound. We also do these get ups with bottoms up for elbow stability.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmzFAgYCAu0

Overhead Lunge Walks - This gives you a pretty accurate explanation on the general idea of what we are trying to accomplish. We go both arms at the same time as to not overcompensate one or the other. Bottoms up once again for elbow stability. We have a little twist on this as well. One set is in the supine position and one set is in the pronation position.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEDr7Mu0Yak

One Arm Kettle Bell Swings - I don't have a youtube example on this specific excercise, but I would equate it to a negative throw. We take the swing from outside of the knee and take it all the way up to a fully extended position and try to stabilize the momentum that we created with our hips. You want to swing the bell up with the legs and hips but stabilize it with your arm and alternate.

One Arm See Saw Jerk - Most of the examples you will find on this will be a one arm see saw press, but I believe pitchers don't need to press that weight. The jerk on the other side is the explosion and extension with your legs and get underneath it with an extended arm and then lift it up with your legs. I'm posting a see saw press example, but I want to be very clear that we do a jerk instead of a press. This will give you an example of the ideology behind it, but this is not the way we do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhi4l2dBNGY

 

Sorry if this thread is just intended for Andro to post and I am not supposed to post in here. Just thought I would mention something.

I apologize for not being able to recall the specific study itself, however a few years back ('04-ish? no later than '06) a study was conducted using college pitchers with 4oz, 5oz, and 6oz balls. A control group was used that only used 5 oz balls. After warming up, players in the experimental group threw 10 throws with the 5oz ball, followed by 20 throws with the 6oz, then 20 throws with the 4oz, finishing with 10 throws with the 5oz. The control group made the same number of throws, but only used the 5oz ball. The program was conducted for either 6 or 8 weeks with players throwing 3 times a week, I believe. I do not recall what gains the control group made, but I believe the gains of the experimental group was around a 4-6mph increase.

My numbers may be a bit off, but just trust me when I say that the science is there backing up Andro's opinion.

And on another note, why would a weighted ball be "dangerous?" Sure, if its a 16oz ball that's an understandable belief, but a 6oz ball is certainly safe. I have never used anything heavier, but I believe up to an 8 oz would be safe, assuming arm strength has been built up.

I mean if you really think about it, a 5oz baseball is actually an entirely arbitrary number. Its not as though when the baseball regulations were first made that a kinesiologist was on hand and said, "Use a 5 oz ball. Anything heavier will screw up your shoulder."

Do you ever recall skipping rocks as a kid, picking one up and thinking, "Oh this is at least 6 ounces. I can't throw this!" Although it probably wouldn't skip well.

Edit: My older brother also experimented with over-under training to increase bat speed, and he seemed to make solid gains from it. The most important thing to remember is to use weights that won't modify mechanics.

 

Pitchers Overall Development Part II

I spoke earlier on weighted and underload ball training and long toss. One of my favorite long toss plans is the Jaeger Sports Long Toss Program. It's posted on youtube and I'm posting the link at the bottom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w3xwYIx17s

The second part that I want to cover is pitchers functional strength and power. I have several favorites to reference on this matter. There is such a vast array of people to learn from out there. Ron Wolforth, Eric Cressey are my favorites, but always keep an open mind to strength training for pitchers. There are always people and places to learn from in your daily encounters to improve overall strength.

I want to start with defining two terms.

Functional Training for Pitchers - is training for pitchers that involve excercises which directly train the movements in which we perform on the mound.

Power - The speed at which we access our strength

We have expanded the thought process at which we have trained our guys in the last few years. Our goals have been to somehow find lightning in a bottle and combine these two things. We've started by working hard to train the ATP-CP system which is "Fast Twitch" muscle fibers. Every lift that we incorporate into our training is done 8-10 seconds. We chart how many reps and have a conversion chart to how much weight we are doing at the time. There is a balance. We want to move fast, but want to develop strength as well. So you have to find out what that is for yourself. It will be different for every individual. The longer that you perform the lift, the more weight you will be able to move fast with. We want to stay way from anaerobic or aerobic excercises with our pitchers unless it is for recovery. Pitching is about as short burst as any other in sports. We just do it 100 times in a game. Train your athletes to explode 100 or more times each time you are the weight room.

The functional strength aspect is about as subjective as any topic in pitching right now. It is something that I could spend all day on if I had the time. Keep in mind, there is nothing more functional than throwing a baseball! So, once again, trying to capture lightning in a bottle is difficult. What we try to work is breaking down the function of pitching into pieces. This is not easy and takes a lot of thought and once again opinion based research. I believe this is part of where you hear the word "GURU" thrown around a lot. Functional strength can range from something as small as what you would see with dynamic band work or crossover symmetry to heavy incline and decline lunges. There is such wide range of what is functional and what is not that I can't begin to explain my opinion of what it would encompass wholey. My best advice is to break the delivery into pieces and try to work on things seperately at first and then incorporate more to what you are doing daily.

Something that I didnt speak on in the beginning is flexibility. We spend atleast 30 minutes prior to throwing a baseball with our warm up. We start with something that will create a "glow". Usually a set of agility type excercises that we refer to as the wake up prior to stretching. We then move into a dynamic stretch with arms and legs that allows our guys to prepare themselves during the course of movement. We also post stretch after a workout. This is much shorter and is a static stretch that we try to see how far we can test ourselves.

Without flexibility, strength and power will be limited always. No matter how strong you are there will always be boundaries on your performance. Please look into a dynamic warm up for your athletes and end with a post static stretch. I would reference Mark Verstegen and Athletes Performance on this subject. I believe he is on top of the totem pole when it comes to athletes flexibility and performance.

xpectus6* Please keep posting... This is a thread meant for conversation. I'm just posting my opinions.

 

Andro,

This is an inpressive couple posts. This is big time stuff!

People, if you have a young pitcher who wants to get better and improve his arm health please take notice of these posts. Most people probably don't realize what Andro has laid in your lap. This is a decade of research and experimentation. I've watched Andro grow from an excellent pitching coach to an AUTHORITY on the matter. Strength and velo gains combined with improved arm health...that's the point and it's undeniably sitting on this page.

I do not have the background on the weighted balls but Andro has turned it into a virtual science. I would be excited to hear more about it. Why it works? Why it is supposedly dangerous? Where a young arm should start?

For me, there are three directions the science of pitching is going.
1, the old "jog some poles and do some crunches method." I think we are all trying to move away from this but it still amazes me how many open-minded people are still trying to mesh this into their plan.
2, the methodology that comes from a sports medicine and physical therapy background. Things like light weight dumbells and low-resistance bands. Kind of a PG rated workout that came from rehabing hurt pitchers.
3, the school of thought coming from a strength training background.

Andro is the best strength coach for pitchers I know of. His workouts and plans are intense and impressive. Even if you don't have his background you can still find the things that are considered "outside the box" that are excellent for pitchers. I think every pitcher starts from a different base of strength but there is a plan that works for everyone.

Andro, if you have time talk about some things that you would consider basic exercises for a medium strength HS pitcher that would fit into a modest workout plan.

And the last thing I will second is the flexiblility. MLB pitchers are one of two things. They are either the strongest, widest mules you have ever laid eyes on with natural bullish arm strength. Or, they are lean guys with freakish flexibility and ability to incoroporate their power. Your son is a prisoner to his gene pool but he can do things to improve his athleticism, functional strength and power.

The stretches Andro uses are incredible and completely incorporate the movements of the pitchers delivery.


I'll be interested to see how much interest this post gets. It's one of the best ever. THere's no magic potion but this is an excellent direction to work in...

 

Olefty- it's great to hear from you again. Folks, these two guys are some of the best in the business in regards to pitching and preparing during the off season.

Olefty, this is some great stuff, isn't it? I hope everyone realizes how fortunate we are to have an authority as a true pitching coach to have someone like Andro and yourself responding to the members on TBR.

Folks, I hope you realize how fortunate you are to have these two busy guys responding to a Q&A like this...take advantage of it. Whether you are a young arm or an experienced one, you will not get better advice!

 

Pitchers Overall Development Part III

The Delivery
I believe this part is going to be open for the most discussion on this thread and I usually stay away from this topic because we tend to have so many differing opinions on it. I do however think it is very important to talk about the delivery and the different systems that we draw from to create power. I heard Rick Peterson say it best when he was asked how he coaches his pitching staff, "I have 14 pitchers, so I have to speak 14 different languages." I truly believe that statement applies to every staff and every individual. What I want to talk about today is the systems in which all pitchers draw from. The hardest thing to quantify is what you do best and what you don't do well. I'm going to quote Perry Husband here as well and say that, "Pitching is a Ferris Wheel and a Merry-Go-Round on the back of a flat bad truck driving down the road, all which are moving at a high rate of speed."

In my opinion, I want to avoid at all cost, creating pitchers that rely soley on arm strength. I refer to them not too creatively as arm throwers.

The Systems We Draw From

1) "The Flat Bed Truck Driving Down The Road" - Momentum and Stride Length - Tim Lincecum seems to be the buzz in pitching deliveries now, and I'm no different in that thinking. I believe he truly does some things better than anyone else in his delivery. At 5'11" which may be a bit of a stretch in his height he strides almost 7'6" which is 130% of his height roughly. He is freakishly strong and flexible. He creates momentum by driving toward the plate. http://www.pitchingclips.com/players/tim_lincecum.htm
You ask how far do I need to stride? My answer to that question is simple. You can stride as far as you can stabilize. In other words the momentum that you create must be countered with a counter momentum allowing your top half to come over with a bend at the waist. Watch Lincecum's plant leg knee snap back propelling his top half over, almost as if his body is acting as a pole vault, propelling his upper body over.

2) "The Ferris Wheel" - Spinal Swaying or slinging (as I have so ridiculously coined it) - In all honesty this is more simply put as a tilt downward in the back and swaying back up over the top to help create momentum with top half up and over like I was referring to with the pole vault. The bend at the waist is the exclamation point on the end of the delivery. It creates angle more than anything that you can do as a pitcher.
http://www.pitchingclips.com/players/sandy_koufax.htm
When Koufax tilts back you see the extreme momentum that he creates with his spine. It also works two fold in driving his pelvis toward home plate. This has been coined by so many as a "Pelvic Load". Watch the range of motion that Koufax's spine takes from beginning to end. It is amazing! The flexibility that he has baffles me everytime I watch it.

3) "The Merry-Go-Round" - Torque or Rotation - When I explain torque, I usually give the old example of twisting the rubber band one way at the top and the opposite direction at the bottom and then letting it go. I believe that the back foot starts the rotation. We call it 50/50. We want 50% push and drive to home to create momentum and 50% rotation with our back foot to start the kinetic chain working to home plate. For those of you not familiar with the kinetic chain, it is basically the energy that you create from the beginning and the transfer of that energy to the end result. In my mind I want to start that from the very beginning which for me begins at the back foot. Here is where I differ from a lot of people. I want what we call three joint extension before our land foot gets down.
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/Wn0D...+v+Oakland+Athletics/rLJTPSnUeEG/Tim+Lincecum
This is a still frame of what I'm talking about. I will post a moving frame at the end of this. This is the best that I can find, but I'm sure that you can research and find more of many other pitchers. His ankle is in full extension, knee, and backside hip. That is three joint extension before his land foot becomes weight bearing.
http://www.pitchingclips.com/players/david_price.htm
http://www.pitchingclips.com/players/scott_kazmir.htm
http://www.pitchingclips.com/players/felix_hernandez.htm
Its tough to find great clips of big leaguers because mlb won't let them post. So it's usually warm up sessions that you can't see them really getting after it, but I believe you can see some of that early backside rotation working on these three guys. Take a look at Lincecum again on this one too. He's the best.

4) Scapular Loading - This is something that everyone will pass through at some point in their personal delivery and don't have any hesitations on it unless it is happening too late in the delivery. The old way to pull down with the glove side arm causes late Scap Loading. It also causes the arm to drag.
http://www.pitchingclips.com/players/billy_wagner.htm - Great scap load, also check out John Smoltz.

5) Arm Speed - I spoke about this a lot earlier. Have a strong foundation before you begin amping it up on the arm speed. I believe in underloading and long toss. These are both major contributors in promoting arm speed.
http://www.pitchingclips.com/players/bob_gibson.htm

*If you will take a look at every pitcher, he will draw from different systems more than he will others. Find what you are good at and draw from it. Some limitations may be lack of strength or flexibility. Try to develop each on your own time, the more that you can draw from, the less you will have to rely on arm speed alone. I have several other points that I like to coach with our guys too*

Timing - We want arm up in a throwing position when the land foot becomes weight bearing. Late hand break, late rotation on the backside, stopping momentum, etc. can all be red flags in causing bad timing.

Glut and Hamstring activation - Just like a linebacker in football or a defender in basketball they will never stand straight legged when something happens. Same for a pitcher. We want to activate that drive leg by bending slightly to activate your glut and hamstring.

Tempo - When we run fast our bodies compensate with balance and posture more instinctively than anything. I like to speed up the tempo in order to let our bodies instinctively or reactively handle the balance and posture.

Balance - I know I'm going to catch flack for this, but I believe if you coach balance a kid will slow down to "Be Balanced". Instead of coaching balance. Try coaching movements or momentum and countering that movement or momentum and at the end deciding if it was balanced throughout the course of the delivery. I believe you need to be gathered at the top of leg kick but you never see hard throwers with tremendous stuff get to a balance point at the top. "Dan Haren the exception"

 

ANDRO- Great info !!! thank you !!!

 

I think you nailed it ....
Some still misinterpret "balance" to mean stopping movement completely, like putting your plant foot on a chair and holding that position before striding home. As you accurately state, momentum is key...and you can get your your front hip moving early, increase momentum, AND maintain balance at the same time. To see what it feels like to start your hips early, try this :

RHP
* Stand sideways to a wall (or fence), left hip/shoulder facing wall
* Lift your left knee (stride leg) as you would preparing to throw home
* Bump left hip into wall...hold, repeat

Maximizing your forward momentum is a good thing, imo...up to the point where you can still transition weight and get to a consistent release point/finish.

 

Pitchers Overall Development Part IV

Drill Work

I know some of you on this board are very familiar with Ron Wolforth and the work that he does at the Texas Baseball Ranch. He has come out with several things that are worth not only buying, but adhering to religiously. He is one of the best that you will see. He has come out with very beneficial things for me as a pitching coach that have influenced me directly. The Combat Pitcher, The Athletic Pitcher, etc. http://www.texasbaseballranch.com/ The reason that I lead in with these comments about Coach Wolforth is that I want to give him all the credit for the ideology behind what I'm going for today. One of the things that made perfect sense to me early in my career that I still use is what we call "Back Chaining". It was one of his earliest installments, but the thought process was perfectly logical to me. We still use some of his drills, but have tweaked and changed them, added several new drills and I will continue to look for new ways to implement what we call "Backward Chaining".

Backward Chaining - Starting from the end result of the delivery and building back into the full process of the delivery. This process teaches the body to work from the end result and gradually incorporate different systems that we use as we deliver the baseball.

It's going to be impossible for me to explain these drills in great detail, but I want to give you points of emphasis on what we are shooting for. I can’t go into great detail on these drills because several of them are copyrighted on Coach Wolforth’s page and I don’t want to steal any of his business because he has been instrumental in my knowledge as a pitching coach. This is going to be a quick sketch of what we do.

Arm Action –
The arm action drills that we start with are very important. We are trying to teach an efficient path that suits the individual pitcher. We begin with a series of scapular loads and increase into several simple arm path drills that promote arm action and speed. We also emphasize the last 10% of the throw on these drills or the finish.
Torque –
When creating the torque, we want to really separate the bottom half from the top. We also have goals of timing and tempo on these drills. When you create torque, you engage your core strength. Everyone deems core strength and stabilization for pitchers as a high priority, yet if you don’t engage it then you don’t use it. You have to create torque to enable your core strength.
Momentum, Tempo, and Stabilization –
Any movement forward that you would not create on the mound is going to speed up tempo and momentum forcing you to stabilize harder on the plant leg, thus propelling the top half over and bend at the waist to finish. Think of it as an infielder or an outfielder creating momentum to throw.
Reverse Momentum –
Any movement backward that you would not create on the mound that forces a pitcher to create a pelvic load or the afore mentioned backside rotation and engagement of the drive leg. Once again we also focus on timing and hand break with tempo.
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.

*Be creative and open minded in your drill work to emphasize the function of the delivery from the stretch and windup. Break it into pieces to help them work on two or three specific things at a time. I find that it helps simplify the process if they are working on small goals with each drill eventually forcing these things to become second nature. Nothing that we do is stationary! We are moving with our body and arm on all of our drills. We also are very involved with overload and underload training on our drill work. This is a priority as we teach our body the process*

 

Pitchers Overall Development Part V

Hip Flexibility, Mobility, and Strength
Guys these are some basic guidelines for hip flexibility, mobility, and strength. I feel like a lot of us need to improve this first. This will be more beneficial for our lateral movement. You can do this stuff at home on your own at night after your workouts and throwing. More flexible hips equals more torque in your delivery and faster lateral movement. Get after it!

Quality Basic Hip Plan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnC3iKzx30g
Isolated Hip Lift
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqfZ5pftOUo
Half Happy Baby Pose
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00lB10oATck&NR=1
Hip Circles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhk-hwX88Qk&feature=related
IT Band Stretch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnQnRSKAyXI&NR=1
It Band Stretch and Hip Flexor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPuE2aJT-lE
Hip Mobility Wall Drill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTq-VLigdA4&feature=related
Dynamic Hip Mobility
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsINCIFTgFA&feature=related
Splits
Side to Side
Right leg forward left leg back
Left Leg forward right leg back
Raised IT band stretch



In referring to the splits, I literally mean the splits. Like a gymnast. I can't imagine a more beneficial emphasis on stride length. There are several key stretches for your hip mobility, flexibility, and strength listed here. Remember that your hips are a ball and joint socket, just like your arm. We have to work on them just like we do on our shoulder. I am writing this to emphasize the importance of our hips. So many freshman come into college with lack of flexibility and mobility in their hips. This specific thing limits the pitcher in so many different ways. Stride length, torque, and stability. Work on your hips, hamstrings, and quadriceps. So many pitchers think that pitcheing is just a hit and miss thing. Don't let yourself fall into that category. We want to pitch and pitch successfully all of the time. There are always things to continue to work on other than just arm strength and arm speed. Push this at a young age and the product will continue to get better as you get older.