Posts Tagged eric cressey
Optimal Shoulder Performance
Two days ago, I ordered my copy of Optimal Shoulder Performance by Eric Cressey and Mike Reinold. I’m very excited to review the product and implement the training protocols with my clients.
Optimal Shoulder Performance
I have Eric’s Magnificent Mobility and it has been instrumental in improving functional mobility in my baseball and football clients, helping to prevent and rehab injury as well as gain performance in some critical lifts (improving ankle mobility for better squats, for example).
Sorry for the lack of updates, but it’s been pretty busy in the cages and the gym with the in-season training protocols starting. There’s a lot of great news coming that I can’t reveal, and a few more projects by yours truly that I’m excited to launch over the next few months.
Link: College Pitching Injuries
Kevin Agee of The Standard at Missouri State University asks the question: “How would you handle the responsibility of owning what could be a multimillion-dollar investment in the future?”
Kevin interviewed Eric Cressey, the MSU coaches, the MSU pitchers, and me about college pitch counts and training collegiate pitchers in general. What follows is a well-written article that addresses some of the concerns of high-level amateur pitchers who may have professional aspirations. I was very pleased to read that the MSU coaches share many of the same views I have on training pitchers with regards to a strength and conditioning focus.
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.
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.
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.
Our Influences – Pitching
Lots of people email me and ask me what “camp” I belong to for pitching or hitting or strength and conditioning. I respond that I don’t belong to any “camp” as that would imply that I subscribe to 100% of the views of those “camps.” However, I love to do research and learn from people who have done their own research and experimentation, and so I’ve absolutely been influenced by the work of others. I’ll list a few instructors, coaches, and organizations that I think are credible whose material has made its way into my pitching-specific programming and recommendations in many ways:
Pitching
The National Pitching Association
National Pitching Association
The National Pitching Association (NPA) is a group dedicated to the education of baseball pitchers, their parents, and their coaches, so that they can pitch more effectively, stay healthier, develop a positive mental attitude, and a greater love of the game. The NPA was formed by leading coaches, athletes, and management teams to help pitchers of all ages safely develop to their fullest potential.
I have taken and passed the online pitching mechanics course offered by the NPA, and I own many of their books, including The Art and Science of Pitching.
The Art and Science of Pitching
The NPA is a great place to start your pitching-specific education and includes highly-regarded instructors like Tom House.
Dr. Mike Marshall
Mike Marshall with the Dodgers
Controversial? You bet. Dr. Marshall has reinvented the pitching motion and has been teaching it for years in his Zephyrhills, Florida complex (recently closed). Their pitchers stand facing the batter, step directly straight forward, and utilize a unique arm action that focuses on getting the arm up early and forcefully pronating through release. His training methods include heavy wrist weights, lead balls, and plastic javelins to train his concept of a straight driveline towards the target.
While many will disagree with his methods and his dogmatic ways (and I count myself in this group), to reject all of his ideas because of his personality is a big mistake. Driveline Baseball uses many of the conditioning implements that Dr. Marshall advocates, such as wrist weights, and we believe that some of his theories on pitching mechanics have solid merit.
Eric Cressey
Eric Cressey
Eric Cressey – owner of Cressey Performance – runs an excellent blog available at EricCressey.com that all pitchers and parents of pitchers should follow. He is a former powerlifter, holds an MS in Exercise Science, and wrote the excellent book titled Maximum Strength.
Maximum Strength
Eric’s work in the exercise science field is unparalleled. He has written on topics ranging from Self-Myofascial Release (SMR) to deadlifting to band work for pitchers. His pitchers consistently see major strength and velocity gains, and Eric’s reputation for his tireless work and research is well-deserved.
Those are our “influences” when it comes to pitching-related philosophies and work. We don’t take an equal amount from each, and we certainly read and consider more sources (ASMI is a big one, but we felt it wasn’t applicable as an “influence”) when we develop our programming and concepts for our pitchers.
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