elite throwers / 90 posts found
Smooth is Fast? Not So Fast.
Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast? Not so fast. I’m sure we’ve all heard that catchline plenty of times, but has anyone ever really considered what it means? The connotation is that a pitcher or hitter should be completely “relaxed” as he throws or swings — that there should be no tension at all. As a hitter in college, I occasionally tried to think about being smooth and relaxed during my swing. Every time I did, it felt like I was hitting with a rolled-up newspaper.…
Beware The Cult Of Average.
A few years back, one of our clients sent me a link to a TED talk by Shawn Achor that got me thinking. Baseball is abuzz with the new catch phrases “science-based” and “data driven.” “If it’s not based in science, it’s not true.” “Make sure you have data to prove that.” “If you can’t prove it works you shouldn’t do it.” The terms “Science -based” and “Data Driven” have quickly become marketing tag lines for training centers across the…
How We Individualize Workload To Decrease Injury Risk And Maximize Performance Gains
To become an elite throwing athlete, you need to throw … a lot. Quick, off the top of your head, name me one skill in life where becoming elite at that skill involves … NOT DOING THAT SKILL. You want to be a great guitar player? Sure. Here’s what you do … Don’t play guitar too much. Save your bullets. Take three months off every year to give your body time to recover. You want to be a great chemist? Ok, listen up. Whatever you do … Don’t do too much chemistry …
The Work Ethic Ruse
“If you wanna be successful, you gotta work hard.” That’s what they say. Heck, that’s what I’ve always said. And, it made perfect sense. I’ve always viewed work ethic as the most important quality a baseball player — indeed any person — can possess. As I’ve learned more about the human body, motor learning, and the dynamics of skill acquisition, it no longer makes perfect sense. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all about hard…
Find Your Dog
Everyone, and I mean everyone has a dog in ‘em. You wanna throw hard, you gotta find your dog. Over the past 3 summers we’ve worked with more than 450 players from all over the world in our Summer Training Program. If they stayed 4 weeks, the average guy gained over 4 mph on his fastball. For most of them, it wasn’t about adding anything. It was about using what we call SAVAGE Training to reveal the dog they already had inside them. Some really smart movement scientists label it “self-organization.”…
Anatomy Of Hip-To-Shoulder Separation
Unless you’ve been living in the baseball equivalent of a Himalayan monastery, you’ve heard pitching and hitting coaches avowing the importance of “hip-to-shoulder separation.” I’m not exactly sure when it began, but sometime in the last several years, someone coined the term, and it spread like wildfire. According to advocates of this tenet, pitchers and hitters should rotate the pelvis while the torso remains closed for as long as possible. The resultant…
Impulse And The GMs: The Most Important Contributors To Pitching Velocity
In the spring of 2019, we got a call from Kyle Barker, CEO and founder of Aeronautic an aeronautical engineering company in Little Rock, Arkansas. Kyle’s son, Will had trained with us for several years, and Kyle was one of the closest friends of Minnesota Twins pitching coach Wes Johnson. When Wes was the pitching coach at The University of Arkansas, Wes had a state-of-the-art pitching lab installed. The lab included a mound with force plates embedded. According to Kyle…
It Will Be Hard
Raise your hand if you want to be a major league baseball player. Don’t be shy. If you want it, say it. I understand your reluctance. For most people and most training facilities, if you tell them your dream, they’ll caution you to have a plan B. They don’t want you to have false hope. They want you to be “realistic.” They’ll often refer you to what we call “The Pyramid of Hopelessness,” which highlights the long odds against you. Frankly, we’re…
I Don’t Have To Be Better Than You.
I played college baseball at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina — The ONLY Military Academy in history to make it to the Division 1 College World Series. They did it in 1990, 4 years after I graduated — they had to get rid of some deadwood like me before they could make their run. We played in the Southern Conference. Still, every year, our schedule featured 10-12 games against powerhouse teams like North Carolina, Clemson, South Carolina, and NC State. By all accounts,…
