As a player, for years I went to pitching coaches and just wanted to be told what to do. I never sat down and truly dissected my process and performances until my later college years. The problem with this is relying on too many outside perceptions can drastically alter your own perception and view of yourself and your performance. Baseball is ultimately a game of human behavior and patterns. That is why synergy is such a useful tool. You can manipulate and exploit each athlete and coach’s tendency objectively. So how can we objectively start manipulating our performance? It starts with critically thinking and recognizing patterns. I will give an example. The first few years of my college career I developed some awful mechanical patterns. Oftentimes, when I struggled, I would miss up in the zone. Instead of thinking through my issue, my breathe would speed up on the mound and I thought I could just power through my mistakes assuming they would fix themselves. I would find myself moving faster and faster to only miss higher and higher. When I write out these patterns the answer smacks me in the face, however, how many of us have found ourselves in the same exact situation either in competition or in life? I would say almost all of us. So how can we recognize this then ultimately fix it? It is a simple process, but it takes a lot of self-awareness and discipline to put this into effect. I like to implement a few exercises here.
The first exercise is red light, yellow light, and green light by Brian Cain. Basically, you are in a red-light phase and not ready to go when you are off the rubber. I like to take this concept one step further and allow you to analyze “where have I been missing?” or “what can I do better?” From there we move to the yellow light phase. Sometimes apprehension creeps into the yellow light phase and we can combat this by focusing on our breathing. Finally, the green light phase is when all thought is out of our mind and we are ready to compete. Throughout the year you may have an outing where you spend the majority of your time in the green light phase. Good, enjoy it and attack the zone. When you are struggling, your process will shift back to the red and yellow light stages. What can we do to be better? What I like to do is when I am away from the field write down 1-3 things that begin to happen when I struggle. I will give an example:
Credit: Brian Cain Peak Performance
When I struggle I…
Leave my fastball up at the letters
Can’t reach my glove side with my fastball
Have no depth on my slider
Now that I know that these are my biggest issues in performance, I can now have a few adjustments to fix them.
Fastball up? Tell the catcher to give me a target 6-8 inches lower than where he wants it?
Can’t reach my glove side? In my warmup pitches begin with a few fastballs on the chalk of the batter’s box
No depth on my slider? Pray. Just kidding. Apply more pressure to your fingertip on your middle finger and pick up a higher target.
These are some tools that you can use to create a more consistent performance and battle through outings when you are not at your best. If you are at your best more times than not, you’re probably already training with us. If not, contact training@connected-performance.com to find a customized plan with our online pitching development. Until then, keep pushing the rock.