In baseball and in life, results or problems never stem from one single variable. Everyone wants velocity. However, is velocity just trained through weighted balls? No, it's a compounding effect of multiple training variables. Many programs neglect the most important part of throwing hard: establishing a base and becoming what we call “Connected.” This is the foundation of our throwing program and business (hence Connected Performance). We define being connected as our body working in sequence and synergy with no leaks of energy or efficiency. By establishing a connected delivery we can not only increase velocity, but an increase in command and durability will also piggy back off of this transformation. So how do we get there? It starts with creating a blend of constraints to force our body into efficient movement patterns. We can accomplish this through a series of drill work at the beginning of our training program. This phase is the most monotonous yet important aspect of our training as we establish the base and foundation of what we build upon. According to this peer reviewed journal, it takes 21 days to form a new habit, or in our world, a new movement pattern. These methods have been commonly used by some of the pioneers in our industry such as the Florida and Texas Baseball Ranch.
Once we establish a connected delivery we can then get into the sexy part of training as you all have seen. Long toss, plyo velo, and pulldowns are all common and proven ways to develop increased velocity. By cycling through a series of low, moderate, and high intensities we can begin to see a trajectory of improved performance.
Our method to mobility:
Throwing the baseball hard is ultimately dependent on our ability as pitchers to not only get into extreme positions, but also to be strong and transfer force and energy through these movements. This is one reason why you can look at guys who look weak and get into the weight room and barely lift 200 pounds, throw 90+ mph. Throwing is a specific skill which we need to prepare our bodies for. By being strong around specific joints and extreme positions, we are bulletproofing our body from injury. If we are lacking a full range of motion, we are sacrificing velocity as the energy and the force we have generated cannot go through this longer range. Think of pulling a rubber band back 2 inches and shooting it, rather than 4 inches, which is going to go farther?
Sometimes mobility and corrective work can be tedious and boring, but no one ever said becoming the best version of you is always going to be thrilling and exciting. This work is going to require your full attention and intent. The worst thing you can do is skip it and ignore it, but a close second is passively and mindlessly go through it. You can break the exercises up throughout the day, incorporate them in warm ups and lifts, do a few exercises before bed.There is no excuse not to be able to get these in, they are simple and most require 0 equipment.
We offer daily mobility which should be done well... daily. The program should be pretty quick and prepare the spine and shoulders to throw that day. We offer a spine routine that can be completed in the morning right when you wake up. This is going to be the best time to open up new ranges of motion for the day. The athlete can complete specific mobility routines the day after they've finished the lift for that area. For example, if the athlete completes a heavy upper body lift on Tuesday, the upper body mobility day will be performed on Wednesday. They can get it in before they throw (probably optimal) or at some point in throughout the day.
With the stretches, they shouldn’t be passive. They need to be contracting the antagonist muscle. What we mean by that is say you’re doing a pec stretch, you shouldn’t be just passively hanging out and leaning into the wall. You should be actively contracting your back muscles and feel yourself pulling your pec to lengthen it. You should be contracting and stretching at 75-85% intensity. Another example of this would be the couch stretch for the quads, the only way you’re going to make legitimate progress is by squeezing your glutes and hamstrings in order to lengthen the quad, that is how we get strong and are actually able to control this specific range of motion rather than being passively flexible.
Strength Training:
The Conventional sense of the word strength training and lifting can be extremely vague, misconstrued, and wrongly interpreted. While some could think about power cleans and bench press, others think about Arnold Schwarzenegger and training to be a world-class bodybuilder. Some think that training should only involve bodyweight and yoga because somehow lifting makes you ‘tight’ and others scream that the more you lift, the better athlete you will be. Discussing the different recipes and ingredients can be very interesting, but if we do not know what we are trying to make and why, then it is going to be truly impossible to understand the rest.
To understand the importance of lifting, we must first understand our purpose for training. Our first goal is to create a bulletproof and healthy body that can withstand the forces and stress of throwing a baseball at maximum effort. Without a fully healthy body, we cannot reach our potential as athletes as time will be spent rehabbing injuries and missing practice and games. The second goal is to throw harder and maximize our genetic potential as athletes and throwers. Throwing hard is ultimately a product of 5 interconnected factors: strength, power, movement efficiency, elasticity, and mobility. We need to first realize that we are throwers, and everything done in the weight room should supplement and build our ability as throwers. We only have a limited amount of time and energy to train as athletes.
Example: let’s say every athlete has a dollar per week to train. If we are spending 70 cents total to lift and train, only allowing are remaining 30 cents for throwing work (long toss, velocity work, command work, mechanical drills, pitch design, etc), recovery, extra mobility, and every stressor outside of baseball, then we are going to run our athletes into a massive debt, and with this massive debt over time, we are really spiking a risk for injury, thus going against priority #1 from above.
The 5 factors we focus on through training are all very interconnected: strength, power, movement efficiency, elasticity, and mobility. Strength is ultimately the foundation for each of the other four as well as overall health and durability. The stronger the muscles protecting a joint are, like the elbow or shoulder, the more load and intensity the joint can withstand. Power is how quickly one can express a certain amount of strength. Logically, which athlete is going to have more powerful legs—the athlete that can only squat 200lbs, or the athlete that can squat 350lbs? Pretty simple—the 350lb squatter. The more powerful athlete is usually the better athlete, and if we are going to spend time and energy training, let’s focus on becoming more powerful throwers. Mobility and movement efficiency are also directly linked to strength. Throwing a baseball hard is dependent on putting the body through extreme positions and transferring energy up the chain to the ball at release. A muscle is not tight because it has just become short for no reason, it has become tight and shortened as a compensation and protective mechanism because the body knows it does not have the strength to go beyond that length. If we are limited in mobility, then how can we expect our body to consistently move in and out of these extreme positions to throw the baseball? We really attack mobility through corrective protocols to address the strength of specific muscles and joints in order to allow our body more control. Look at professional gymnasts—insanely jacked and strong, but they’re going in and out of splits as well as insane shoulder positions. They have strength in these absurd positions, allowing their body to know they can go in and out of these positions without injury.
You can check out a sample of our workouts on this link here.
At the end of the day, nothing translates more to throwing hard than efficient movements and mechanics. A perfect example: Jacob DeGrom. If we do not have the specific mobility and strength to get in elite positions, then we are putting a ceiling on how good we can be.The last factor is elasticity—think about this as springiness with a rubber band. The stiffer and stronger a rubber band is, the farther it is going to shoot. We like to think of throwing as one giant whip or rubber band where we are getting a stretch across our entire body, and then shooting the ball out.Energy must be transferred up the whip (the body) from the ground through the feet and ankles and then the legs and hips, through the trunk and chest, then finally to the shoulder, elbow, and ball. Energy is leaked through weaknesses in this chain, so it is vital to address and target every aspect of the chain.Then, we must train the body to move like a powerful whip. At the end of the day, velocity is dependent on how well a thrower moves and how strong he is through these movements. It is our job as trainers to find and address each athletes weaknesses and raise their potential and ability to stay healthy by training their body holistically through different exercises and protocols.
Mental Performance:
Mindset is an underrated tool and is rarely executed properly in a training method. There are multiple outlets and techniques we can use to help enhance our mental focus and capacity, for that refer to our blog. To quickly touch upon two simple and useful methods of applying a mental routine to our training is to focus on our breathing and intention. Alan Jaeger has covered this in extent in his long toss programming. When we have a purpose to why we are completing a task we tend to become more cognitive of our surroundings and applied practice. When we focus on our breathing we become hyperaware of own presence. For more on mental training, visit our blogs here.