Archive for category training
Appropriate Energy System Development
(Alternate title: Why running long distances is a bad idea for baseball pitchers.)
As high school tryouts commence and spring training games begin, pitchers all over the nation are running poles after they throw their long toss or their bullpens. Coaches are making their kids run 30 minutes at the end of tryouts just to gauge “fitness” and weed out the bad apples, assuming the ones who can’t display shows of endurance over long runs are not fit to play baseball. This practice has got to stop.
The common arguments on both sides of the aisle are:
- Pro-long distance running: It builds endurance for pitchers and helps them to pitch longer into games!
- Anti-long distance running: When’s the last time you ran the ball across the plate?
While the second argument is a bit more funny, it doesn’t address the logical fallacies of the first argument. As such, this ends up being a circular argument and neither side gets much done.
At best, long distance running is mildly useful to the completely untrained athlete (and remember what I said about untrained athletes in my post about P90x – anything works, but that doesn’t make it a good idea) to extremely detrimental for advanced athletes. The most likely result of running long distances is simply wasting the athlete’s time when he can be doing more sport-specific work or training in more efficient ways.
Eric Cressey wrote a post about this subject, but I’d like to go more in-depth on the topic he covered with this statement:
Reason #6: Inappropriate Intensities
In what was – at least in my eyes – a landmark study, McCarthy et al. (1995) looked at “compatibility” of concurrent strength training and endurance training. Traditionally, the attenuation of strength and power gains has been a big issue when endurance exercise is added to a strength training program. As I noted in Cardio Confusion, these researchers found that strength and power loss was only an issue when the intensity of the endurance exercise was greater than 75% of heart-rate reserve (HRR) (4). I can guarantee you that the majority of pitchers who are running distances are doing so at well over 75% HRR.
As I’ll note in my recommendations at the conclusion of this article, I strongly feel that the secret is to stay well above (circa-maximal sprinting, in other words) or below (70% HRR, to play it safe) when implementing any kind of running. The secret is to avoid that middle area where you don’t go slow and don’t go fast; that’s where athletes get SLOW! And, ideally, the lower-intensity exercise would be some modality that provides more mobility benefits.
“Inappropriate intensity” is the exact phrase I use all the time with my pitchers (and coaches I talk to) in explaining to them that long-distance running is a giant waste of time for them. The metabolic energy systems can be viewed as a spectrum: On one end, we have aerobic training that utilizes triglycerides and oxygen to fuel a workout that is long in duration. On the other end, we have two types of anaerobic training that utilizes creatine phosphate or glycolysis to regenerate/recycle ATP (adenosine triphosphate). ATP is the very source of energy – remember that!
For very intense and short duration efforts – 40 yard dash, throwing a fastball, a set of 5 squats – ATP is recycled by creatine phosphate. This is commonly called “anaerobic” work. But remember, there are two types of anaerobic “training.” For efforts that are intense but slightly longer in duration – 400m dash, a set of 20 squats – glycogen molecules are broken down into glucose (glycogenolysis) and eventually turned into ATP for energy. For efforts low in intensity and long in duration – long-distance running/jogging/cycling – ATP is produced through a complicated series of events called the Krebs cycle which essentially transforms fatty acids into ATP with the use of oxygen.
Whew! If you made it this far, you can already probably tell that aerobic training is not specific to baseball pitchers (or hitters, actually) at all. All efforts in baseball involve short bursts of intense effort – throwing a fastball, swinging a bat, stealing a base, bolting after a line drive hit in the gap, fielding a one-hop sharp grounder, throwing to first base, picking a ball out of the dirt, sprinting to cover home plate… you get the idea.
Interestingly enough, training a baseball player’s energy systems are very similar to training a sprinter’s energy systems – we use plyometric jump boxes, short ladder sprints, interval training (on the AirDyne, Concept2 rower, or just sprint intervals), and our favorite new toy, the weight sled:
So believe it or not, training to reduce your 60 yard dash time, 20 yard shuttle time, and jack up your vertical leap (3 out of 4 of the metrics on the SPARQ Baseball test, by the way) will go a long way in making you a better baseball player… and could increase your VO2max better than long-distance running could!
“What,” you say? “You just said that training anaerobically was the best way to train a baseball player… how could that increase an aerobic metric like VO2max?”
Enter… the Tabata Training Method. In a groundbreaking study published in 1996, a Japanese exercise scientist named Dr. Izumi Tabata concluded that “…moderate-intensity aerobic training that improves the maximal aerobic power does not change anaerobic capacity and that adequate high-intensity intermittent training may improve both anaerobic and aerobic energy supplying systems significantly, probably through imposing intensive stimuli on both systems.”
This meant that running long-distances with moderate intensity didn’t help anaerobic efforts, but interval training (20 seconds max effort, 10 seconds rest for 4 minutes as Dr. Tabata defined it) not only improved both energy systems, but that interval training was better at improving VO2max than simply training with moderate intensity efforts!
We’ll talk more about Tabata methods and interval training in a future post, but what you need to know is that long-distance running isn’t going to help you last longer on the mound because “endurance” is specific to the task. Maybe those guys saying “you don’t run the ball across the plate” had something after all…
P90x for Baseball?
In an excellent (and controversial) post about Crossfit for baseball athletes, Eric Cressey talked about why Crossfit’s Workout of the Day is a poor way to train for baseball for many reasons. One such reason was:
3) I have huge concerns about poor exercise technique in conditions of fatigue in anyone, but these situations concern me even more in a population like baseball players that has a remarkably high injury rate as-is. The fact that 57% of pitchers suffer some sort of shoulder injury during each season says something. Just think of what that rate is when you factor in problems in other areas, too! The primary goal should not be entertainment or variety (or “muscle confusion,” for all the morons in pro baseball who call P90X their “hardcore” off-season program). Rather, the goals should be a) keeping guys on the field and b) safe performance enhancement strategies (in that order).
Not only is this an excellent point, but the bolded section (emphasis mine) deserves an in-depth look as well.
P90x is a popular training system sold on infomercials and targets the young adult population from ages 18-30, who unsurprisingly have a lot of dispensable income and are predisposed to watching a lot of television. P90x’s secret?
The secret behind the P90X system is an advanced training technique called Muscle Confusion™, which accelerates the results process by constantly introducing new moves and routines so your body never plateaus, and you never get bored!
Let’s just get this out of the way: This statement is stupid.
Problem One: Constantly introducing new moves and routines on a daily basis ensures that you are unable to accurately track your progress throughout the program.
For those unaware of what P90x looks like, here’s a sample infomercial with their exercises:
You’ll notice a lot of light DB and bodyweight exercises done in rapid succession with a clock timing you.
Problem Two: P90x incorporates little – if any – heavy resistance training to build strength. Contrary to popular belief, strength is not some nebulous word that you throw around and occasionally combine with the word “core.” Strength is binary – it is the answer to the question “Did I move this heavy object that weighs X pounds?” You cannot build strength effectively without the ability to appropriately load an exercise that works your body’s musculature with compound movements. This typically ends up involving barbells and exercises like the squat, deadlift, bench press, press, and rows.
I happen to have a copy of the training schedule (given to me by a friend who failed to complete the program), and while I won’t reproduce it in its entirety, suffice to say that you are “training” six days a week with a single rest day that involves some light yoga and/or stretching.
Problem Three: Any exercise program that has you training hard for six days in a row will eventually lead to overtraining, a phenomenon I discussed in an earlier blog post.
Let’s get to baseball-specific problems with P90x, shall we?
P90x works your body in segments – isolating body parts over given days. Day 1 might be a “Chest and Back” workout while Day 5 is a “Shoulders and Arms” workout. The problem with this approach is that baseball (and every other sport out there, really) is not an isolation-based sport. Training your body to work via isolated movements will have little – if any – carryover to athletic competition. Strength, conditioning, and overall fitness is best built through compound movements that are capable of moving heavy weight through multi-joint activities – just like you would in any sport!
Problem Four: Isolation-based training – which P90x is – has little carryover to athletic competition.
While P90x can lead to building instabilities and promote dysfunction through isolated movements, I’m not terribly worried about the injury factor that it can absolutely lead to in baseball players (particularly pitchers). Why? Because P90x uses movements that necessitate low resistances, and so not much is getting done.
I can already see your responses: “But Kyle,” you say, “my completely sedentary and untrained friend did P90x Lean and got in much better shape over 90 days! Take that!”
There’s an easy response to this – and one that I hope everyone who reads my blog understands and memorizes. They are the three tenets of exercise science, and they are:
1. Everything works.
2. Some things work better than others.
3. Nothing works forever.
P90x for completely untrained individuals fall directly under the first bullet point. Training 3-4 times a week while focusing on squats, deadlifts, chin-ups, rows, explosive movements, and a focus on mobility fall directly under the second bullet point. And Olympic athletes who are trying to increase their Clean and Jerk from 212 kg to 214 kg in the matter of four years fall under the third bullet point.
If you take a completely sedentary individual and have them run 2 miles a day, every other day, their one-rep max (1RM) squat will go up. Does this mean running is the best way to increase your squat? No. It means that for individuals who don’t train and who have bodies completely unadapted to stress that anything will work.
While I’m not a fan of cookie-cutter workouts for baseball athletes, if you absolutely must get a program from someone – and you’re an untrained novice – do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore. It’s a must-own for anyone who takes strength training seriously anyway, so you might as well pick it up and follow the program. If you’re a baseball pitcher, I’d advise against overhead pressing and possibly switching the low-bar back squat for front squats or the high-bar back squat, but those are modifications you can make after you read the book and start to understand the basics of exercise science.
Friends don’t let friends do P90x. Just say no, kids.
Video: Should Pitchers Overhead Press?
Another great video by Eric Cressey about pressing for overhead throwing athletes – this time, he focuses on overhead pressing. Short and to the point – definitely check it out.
Video: Fun with a New Training Toy
I’ve wanted a weight sled for some time now, but couldn’t pull the trigger on the expensive ones available on the Internet. The shipping cost is just way too prohibitive. I’ve also wanted some plate holders that snap directly into my power cage, but NY Barbell was sold out of them and would be for months. Total bummer. A friend of mine recommended that I contact some local metal fabrication places to get plate holders done, and I figured “Why not see if someone can clone a weight sled for me?”
I called around, and a week later, I have two plate holders that double as dip bars and a push/pull weight sled to play around with. Here’s my first experience with it – pushing 115 pounds (sled weight: 135 pounds) about 35 yards on wet grass in cross-training shoes.
Really looking forward to making this a permanent fixture in our metabolic conditioning workouts. Now, to manufacture some straps…
Link: Should Pitchers Bench Press?
Another excellent article by Eric Cressey is available here: Should Pitchers Bench Press?
The NFL Combine Bench Press - Oh wait, this is a baseball site...
Most of my clients are interested in throwing hard, hitting a ball farther, and developing as a baseball player. However, most of my clients are also high school or college players who have egos and dreams of being able to bench a 225 lb. bar 24 times like Brady Quinn did in 2008. A bad comparison? Not really – consider that Brady Quinn is a quarterback who hasn’t exactly had a lot of success in Cleveland (and yes, his surrounding team isn’t helping much), and at the end of the day, he is throwing a ball for a living. Sound like a position in baseball to you?
At any rate, I understand the desire to have a big straight-bar bench press. It’s the lift that gets the most attention in the gym by men and women alike, and it’s typically the first question anyone asks you when you say that you work out four times a week. (Incidentally, I ask how much they squat – or if I’m being funny, deadlift - and always get a stammering answer.) It builds big pecs and arms and all those other beach muscles that we’re big fans of. However, all of this musculature has very little (if any) carryover to throwing (or hitting!) a baseball hard. Sorry, guys. Here’s what Eric said in his article:
With dumbbell benching, we recognize that we get better range-of-motion, freer movement of the humerus (instead of being locked into internal rotation), and increased core activation – particularly if we’re doing alternating DB presses or 1-arm db presses. There is even a bit more scapular movement in these variations (even if we don’t actually coach it).
With a barbell bench press, you don’t really get any of these benefits – and it’s somewhat inferior from a range-of-motion standpoint. While it may allow you to jack up the weight and potentially put on muscle mass a bit more easily, the truth is that muscle mass here – particularly if it leads to restrictions in shoulder and scapular movement – won’t carry over to throwing the way the muscle mass in the lower half and upper back will. I’ve seen a ton of guys with loads of external rotation and horizontal abduction range-of-motion throw the crap out of the baseball, but can’t say that I’ve ever seen any correlation – in the research or my anecdotal experience – between a good bench press and throwing velocity.
This is exactly why my pitchers use the dumbbell neutral-grip bench press movement as their primary upper body pressing movement in addition to push-ups that are balanced out by chin-ups and pull-ups (vertical pulling is very helpful for pitchers).
So, to all you pitchers out there: While the squat and the deadlift aren’t as sexy as the bench press, they’re simply more useful for sport-specific and general strength purposes. Unfortunately, my guys still love to straight-bar bench press, so we do it once a week. In return, they promise to do a dumbbell neutral-grip bench press day on their other upper body day as well, and bang out a lot of chin-ups and pull-ups along the way. Some of them bench more than I do (which isn’t saying much). But I’ve still got them all in the squat and deadlift. For now.
Proper Warmups For Weight Training
Our baseball athletes undergo a rigorous offseason workout schedule that incorporates a ton of heavy weight lifting – mostly done with barbells, but we use dumbbells for single-arm exercises (rows) and pressing (bench press with the neutral grip and the occasional push press) as well. Most of the athletes that I get come into the gym ready to go wearing shorts and a cotton t-shirt and ask “What’s first, coach?” Assuming that they’ve already passed their initial assessment that all my clients undergo, we talk to them about proper warmup procedures and ask them what they typically do to get ready for lifting some serious weight.
The responses are varied and interesting. Most include basic static stretching, maybe a little bit of running or elliptical trainer work, a few minutes on the Airdyne, and in some exceptional cases, yoga poses and actual dynamic range of motion work. However, no one has come to me and discussed soft tissue quality and/or foam rolling as part of their warmup techniques!
Soft tissue quality is extremely important when maintaining and gaining flexibility/mobility and plays a huge role in “prehab” and rehab operations equally. This topic is worth studying and dedicating a few posts to later on, but for now I’ll just talk about proper warmups that we use at Driveline Baseball to get ready to move heavy weight (which are similar to the warmups we do before batting practice or throwing a bullpen).
First: Foam Rolling / Self-Myofascial Release (SMR)
To me, foam rolling is a no-brainer. Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson wrote a groundbreaking article titled “Feel Better for 10 Bucks” on T-Nation that changed the way I trained athletes (and myself). Here’s a quick excerpt from said article:
It’s also fairly well accepted that muscles need to not only be strong, but pliable as well. Regardless of whether you’re a bodybuilder, strength athlete, or ordinary weekend warrior, it’s important to have strength and optimal function through a full range of motion. While stretching will improve the length of the muscle, SMR and massage work to adjust the tone of the muscle.
I’m going to plagiarize Eric Cressey again and show you a video that he taped that discusses the foam rolling progressions he has his athletes go through. They are very similar and nearly identical to the foam rolling patterns our athletes go through:
Second: Dynamic Stretching / Mobility Work
For many athletes – and especially baseball players - this involves pounding away at hip mobility. Stronglifts.com has a great article on this topic along with companion videos. Basic stuff like simple leg swings can make a huge difference over the long run:
We also work on ankle mobility and stabilization (a topic I wrote about last month), as this is huge in any squatting pattern. You’ll also find that soccer players and baseball athletes (both pitchers and hitters) will have deficits between their “plant” leg and their free leg. Don’t just work on one ankle – work them both to bring them up equally!
There’s also a bit of static stretching involved prior to our lifts – I know, I know. Static stretching before lifting or power-based movements has gotten a bad reputation. However, like many controversial topics, it has been vastly overblown. Static stretching of the hip flexors prior to squatting or jumping has been shown to improve performance and working the agonist/antagonist relationships (hanging from the chin-up bar prior to bench press, for example) tends to help a lot as well.
One of our favorite static stretches - the "Ichiro" stretch
Third: Band Work
We use resistance bands quite a bit between sets and prior to lifting to get the blood flowing throughout the body and to increase mobility in important areas. We’ll often do some facepulls and general scapular mobility work, X-band walks and other glute activation work, and simple internal/external ROM work for the shoulder.
I hope that this article helps you to think about warming up for weight training – and sports in general – a little differently, and perhaps more seriously. You can pick up resistance bands or mobility/flexibility products from our respective Products pages. Give them a shot – I bet you’ll notice a big difference next time you’re in the gym!
Is Resistance Band Work Overrated?
Resistance band work (also known as “tubing”) seemingly makes up the core component of any pitcher’s exercise routine – from the high school athlete right up to the professional big league hurler. Programs like ASMI’s Thrower’s Ten get tons of praise for preventing and rehabbing throwing-related injuries to the shoulder and elbow. It’s often called a “strengthening” program to help your rotator cuff withstand the high forces involved in throwing a baseball, and more importantly, decelerating the pitching arm muscles in a safe manner.
But is resistance band work overrated? That’s a really scary question to ask, and many people (perhaps including you) will have the same kneejerk response: Heck no! I want to make it clear that I believe that resistance band work makes up a lot of what we do at Driveline Baseball – especially with regards to scapular stabilization and mobilization work. An exercise that every athlete does on my program are band pull-aparts:
Eric Cressey recently posted a very interesting article that served as the catalyst for my post – Clearing up the Rotator Cuff Controversy. In it, he said:
1. The true function of the rotator cuff is to stabilize the humeral head on the glenoid (shoulder socket). While external rotation is important for deceleration of the crazy internal rotation velocity seen with throwing, it’s stabilization that we’re really after. As you can see, the humeral head is too large to allow for great surface area contact with the glenoid.
My feeling is that the bigger muscles – particularly scapular stabilizers, the core, and the lower half - will decelerate the crazy velocities we see as long as mechanics are effective and the deceleration arc is long enough.
2. The shoulder internally rotates at over 7,000°/s during acceleration; that’s the fastest motion in all of sports. There’s no way that the rotator cuff muscles alone with their small cross-sectional area can decelerate it. And, to take it a step further, there isn’t much that some rubber tubing is going to do to help the cause…
(emphasis mine)
I absolutely agree with Eric, especially the bolded parts. The rotator cuff is very important, but it’s only one piece of the puzzle. That’s why it astounds me when my clients come to me saying that they do a lot of light dumbbell work and pull tons of resistance bands every day, but haven’t done a squat or deadlift in their entire life! Pitchers need to build maximum strength in their lower half and their back; while they can skimp out on pressing movements (and likely should avoid straight bar pressing or overhead presses of any kind during the season), they need to prioritize squats, deadlifts, rows, and pulling variants to develop musculature that will help support the deceleration phase of pitching in addition to adding a few miles per hour onto that fastball!
So, in short, yes, I do think that resistance band / rotator cuff work is overrated. While baseball is coming around to the idea that maximum strength training (with appropriate modifications, of course) is useful, youth athletes typically suffer from their high school coaches’ ignorance of the benefits of training for strength and power. Too many HS athletes go into the season with instructions to pull tubes, throw light medicine balls, and run long distances, and when they break down in-season or even get injured, the coaches just say that they didn’t work hard enough on conditioning!
I’ll say it again: Maximum strength training MUST be prioritized in the months leading up to the baseball season, and pitchers should seek to maintain strength levels as best as possible in-season while switching over to a more injury-preventative program to reduce stress and load during competition.
A Few Scapular Exercises and Stretches…
A few people have been asking me for good “scapular” exercises and stretches that will help to increase scapular upwards rotation as well as just strengthening the upper back and muscles that attach to the scapula in general. There’s an excellent paper titled “Differences in Scapular Upwards Rotation Between Baseball Pitchers and Position Players” that is well worth reading. For those who want the short version, here’s what the excerpt says:
Conclusion: Baseball pitchers have less scapular upward rotation than do position players, specifically at humeral elevation angles of 60° and 90°.
Clinical Relevance: This decrease in scapular upward rotation may compromise the integrity of the glenohumeral joint and place pitchers at an increased risk of developing shoulder injuries compared with position players. As such, pitchers may benefit from periscapular stretching and strengthening exercises to assist with increasing scapular upward rotation.
The periscapular muscles are:
- Trapezius
- Serratus Anterior
- Pectoralis Minor
- Levator Scapulae
- Rhomboids (minor/major)
Here are some examples of stretches and band-assisted exercises that we have our clients do to strengthen and increase the flexibility/mobility of the “scapula”:
Band Pull-Aparts (SPRI Xertube Resistance Bands are perfect for these)
Levator Scapulae and Upper Trapezius Stretch
Face Pulls (do these with SPRI resistance bands, too)
Scapula Push-Ups (the Perfect Pushup is useful for this exercise)
Video: Ankle Mobility Work
This video is an excellent example of how to stretch the ankle and improve mobility in that joint. Ankle mobility is extremely important in both baseball position players and pitchers. Since baseball is such a unilateral sport, players will often have deficits in one ankle but not the other – this is even more pronounced in pitchers. Be sure to keep your heel on the ground, and add this stretch into your routine before and after your workouts, games, and practices.
Compound Movements: Use Them!
In your strength training regimen – be it off-season or in-season – you should be prioritizing compound movements. This means full-body exercises that utilize a lot of muscle mass in your prime movers. Good examples include the squat, deadlift, clean, snatch, bench press, press, pull-ups, chin-ups, rows, and many others.
I would like to make it clear that these compound movements should absolutely not be done with machines. By using machines instead of free weights (barbells, dumbbells, plates, kettlebells, etc), you are giving your stabilizer muscles nothing to do; the machine controls the plane of movement rather than your bones, ligaments, tendons, and muscles. Additionally, you get less central nervous system (CNS) response from this type of work. Even worse: These machine-based “exercises” barely transfer over to athletic competition.
Useless.
Staying away from machines is a good first step. However, there are plenty of “bros” in the gym who are doing equally silly things with dumbbells or barbells in order to pump up their “beach” muscles. Exercises like curls, leg extensions, lateral raises, and tricep kickbacks have no place in an athlete’s training program (with few exceptions for intermediate-to-advanced lifters). They simply do not stimulate enough muscle to gain appreciable strength, and the muscles they do work are worked in isolation, rather than an integrated movement.
Does this look like an isolated movement?
Baseball does not use isolated movements in competition. In fact, very few sports do. Effective athletes learn to use their entire body efficiently to produce the most force possible to throw the ball harder, to hit a ball farther, to hit an opposing lineman harder, to jump higher for a rebound, and so forth. Isolating muscle groups has very little carryover to athletic competition – as such, these exercises should be used sparingly or omitted entirely.
Though I said I wouldn’t give out programs or workouts for free, I’ll show you what the offseason training for one of my clients (a HS Varsity infielder) has been over the past few weeks to show you that I practice what I preach:
- Monday: Back squat (3×5), DB Neutral-Grip Bench Press (3×5), Deadlift (1×5), Chin-Ups (3 sets to failure)
- Tuesday: Batting cage session
- Wednesday: DE Box squat (8×3), DB Push Press (3×5), Power Clean (5×3), Push-Ups (3 sets to failure), Light medball work
- Thursday: Volume medball work, Batting cage session
- Friday: Back squat (3×5), DB Neutral-Grip Bench Press (3×5), DB One-Arm Rows (2×10), One-Arm Suitcase Deadlift (2×5), Pull-Ups (3 sets to failure)
- Saturday: Skills day – grounders, flyballs, drills, etc. Agility/sprint training.
- Sunday: Light medball work and light long toss
On Wednesdays we’ll occasionally substitute the snatch for the clean depending on his progression, and we occasionally do full cleans with a jerk or substitute thrusters for more power output. The above program should be seen as a template that is flexible, but the overall message should not be lost – train for strength and power. It’s also worth noting that we do a comprehensive dynamic warmup with foam rolling (self-myofascial release) and mobility exercises before every workout, and some static stretching after it.
As we get closer to tryouts and the season, he’ll cut out Wednesday’s lifting session in favor of more sprint-based training, skills training, and a long run (2+ miles). I’m not a big fan of distance running for baseball players, but long-range cardio fitness has carryover to athletic competition, and his coach does like to make his players run long distances at practice, so he should be prepared for it – however dumb it may be.
-
You are currently browsing the archives for the training category.
Training Schedule
Widgets
