Hey Cornholio

[rudedawg]

Got DOT's e-mail on the routine you set up for him and wanted to first say very nice.

I did offer him another exercise to do for the obliques: Not sure what they are called....... I used to call them doing my beach muscle routine before I found out that they didn't do well for the V look. Anyway we used to sit on the floor with our legs bent, lean back at a 45 degree angle and then take a medicine ball or a plate and start on one side and take the plate to the other side and touch it to just outside your hips. Nice and slow and deliberate.


On another note I am setting up pitching camp for the organization that I coach my sons teams in and ran across this article.......Let me know what you think. On first look it seems right on the money but I am not anywhere close to a Physics or Kinetics major or whatever major covers these types of thing:

The damn link won't work for some reason but here is the basics of the article:

How Poor Conditioning Can Actually De-Train A Pitcher And Create Mechanical And Performance Problems
I have said this a number of times. Back ten years ago and before that, there was no weight training in baseball. And pitchers still threw hard and in my opinion they had fewer arm injuries. The fact is that weight room training can actually de-train a pitcher. And we already know that it can cause injury. Keep in mind that throwing is a high speed movement if not the highest speed athletic movement there is. Weight room training on the other hand is very slow and controlled.

So what happens is you are training the muscles to work at a slow and controlled rate? So that's how they will want to respond. And besides that the weights are artificially supported by a bench or a machine instead of being supported by the body.

A pitch is a very complex movement skill that occurs at some 7500 degrees per second from different joint angles and must be performed at the correct sequence and time... "

 

[The Shadow]

The article and you comment on the medicine ball twists bring up an interesting point:

Training for athletic performance should be explosive if power, explosiveness is the desired result. That is why I made it a point to DOT to do those swing thrus for the obliques in an explosive manner. More explosive start=more bat speed = etc....you know the rest.

Look at The Rocket and Nolan Ryan - the most dominating pitchers of our generation - both were big proponents of explosive type training, especially for shoulder girdle training. Slow training conditions the muscle to respond accordingly. That said certain exercises such as rotators MUST be trained slow, almost methodical. Will that hamper pitching speed/strength - of course not.

Interestingly it can be argued that the Atlanta Braves for the past decade have had the least injuries for their pitching staff/per innings pitching in MLB. They throw a LOT, in between starts they are constantly throwing - very little weight training....

 

[rudedawg]

Another interesting note about Nolan....... he was lifting all through his career. He was doing it in secret because it was so taboo at the time.

That article is from Dick Mills. I think it is a bunch of shit myself. If that were true then the guys hitting would have slower bat speed right? Guys like McGwire, Bonds, Griffey......etc...... they all lift and have/had the fastest bat speed of all the big leaguers. Look at former Brave Ron Gant. That mofo is freaking huge and I didn't see his swing as being slow.

Anyway just wanted to get your perspective.

 

[The Shadow]

Another interesting note about Nolan....... he was lifting all through his career. He was doing it in secret because it was so taboo at the time.

That article is from Dick Mills. I think it is a bunch of shit myself. If that were true then the guys hitting would have slower bat speed right? Guys like McGwire, Bonds, Griffey......etc...... they all lift and have/had the fastest bat speed of all the big leaguers. Look at former Brave Ron Gant. That mofo is freaking huge and I didn't see his swing as being slow.

Anyway just wanted to get your perspective.

Weight training, done properly, will make any athlete better....

I think the pitching angle might be related to improper form on shoulder girdle exercises when lifting. That will cause scar tissue formation and affect range of motion and therefore velocity as well.

 

[rudedawg]

Weight training, done properly, will make any athlete better....

I think the pitching angle might be related to improper form on shoulder girdle exercises when lifting. That will cause scar tissue formation and affect range of motion and therefore velocity as well.

True.....I refer to sprinters.....they have enormous legs and usually very well developed upper bodies.

One thing I do remember someone saying (can't remember if it was the Indians or Twins strength coach) that if possible use DB on exercises that might impinge the shoulder... ie: bench press, military press, etc.....

 

[The Shadow]

True.....I refer to sprinters.....they have enormous legs and usually very well developed upper bodies.

One thing I do remember someone saying (can't remember if it was the Indians or Twins strength coach) that if possible use DB on exercises that might impinge the shoulder... ie: bench press, military press, etc.....

Totally agree.