Posts Tagged strength training
3 Must Own Pieces of Training Equipment if You Want to Throw 90 MPH
Assuming that you’re not a genetically gifted freak and can throw 90 MPH as a 14 year old like all those people on YouTube seem to be able to, here are three pieces of equipment you must own (and use, no cheating!) to throw 90 MPH:
Squat Rack / Power Cage
Any serious athlete starts with owning or having ready access to a power cage. Period.
Power Cage (ah, I miss the old place)
In a power cage, you can safely fail your back/front squats, do inverted rows, work with your TRX suspension trainer, easily hook up your resistance bands for mobility/flexibility work, do chin-ups/pull-ups, and a host of other things. Sure, some of this can be done with a simple pair of squat stands, but not all of it.
So get a power cage (and a quality barbell while you’re at it; we like Jesup Gym’s equipment) or get access to a gym that has one. You can’t effectively build bilateral lower half strength without it, and without that, you’re not going to throw gas (or hit bombs over the fence, which is what all the chicks dig anyway).
Medicine Balls
Throwing a baseball is a ballistic activity that requires tons of rotational power and speed-strength. You have to work explosively in the frontal plane and translate momentum in an appropriate sequence through the legs, core, and finally the arms to throw 90 MPH. But you can’t pitch every day or throw 400 baseballs per day without risking some injuries to your soft tissue, and varying the stimulus is important for optimum muscle tissue growth and neurological development. So how do you balance it all out?
Whoops.
Medicine balls, of course. (The above image is what will happen if you throw them enough. We’ve ruptured a 10 lb, 4 kg, and 4 lb ball so far.)
I recommend picking up a 4 lb, 6 lb, and 10 lb medicine ball (buy them from Amazon where they ship for free) for various movements: Side scoop tosses, rotational elbow extension movements, overhead slams – the works! You can find all types of varieties of medicine ball training on our YouTube channel, so go check that out and search for “medicine ball” stuff.
You simply can’t beat the speed-strength training stimulus you get from medicine balls, and not many gyms have them. So you probably gotta shell out some bucks for them.
Underweight/Overweight Baseballs
We’ve come a long way at Driveline Baseball by integrating under/overload training principles with weighted baseballs in our Elite Baseball Training program. First we introduced them as a supplementary exercise with long toss, flat ground work, and throwing off a mound, but after the results we’ve seen by combining their use with a solid strength-based training protocol, we’re totally sold.
Weighted Baseballs
We outlined a free weighted baseball training protocol on our site back in 2010, and while we’ve developed on that plan, it’s still one of the most popular articles on the site. Many people have written in to say that they’ve added velocity and that their arm has never felt better after implementing our free program, and our athletes in our Elite Baseball Training program are definitely reaping the rewards as well.
So, if you don’t own those pieces of equipment – or at least have ready access to them – go get them! The off-season is right around the corner which is the time to build velocity and skill, so don’t slack on it. Spring baseball will be here before you know it: Will you be ready for tryouts?
A Salute to Two Trainees: Jack and Eli
About two years ago, I started training these two guys in the garage of my townhome in North Seattle. All we had were some crappy Costco-style barbells, Weider plates, and an unused power cage that I bought off bodybuilding.com. The place couldn’t have been more than 14 feet wide, 35 feet long, and 8 feet tall, leaving no room for overhead pressing unless you took the barbell outside (which we often did).
The humble beginnings
Yet we got a lot of our best work done there. Both Jack and Eli were rank novices, and I was restarting a real strength program, so we all made pretty good linear progress doing some basic compound lifting. I had been training Eli for years prior to that point as his pitching coach, and he brought along Jack for the ride.
Occasionally, we’d get outside and play with some new toys. I contracted with a welder on Craigslist and had our weight sled custom-built for us. I bought a pair of EliteFTS Blast Straps, and we used them to pull the sled across the wet grass at the local park. We paired sled push/pull circuits with plate carries to simulate farmer’s walks (I wouldn’t get a pair of real farmer’s walks until over a year later), two-handed swings with plates on an adjustable dumbbell to simulate kettlebells (a recent addition to our facility), and other creative fitness / metabolic conditioning movements.
Strength Development
At the time, I was developing some pretty good strength levels, albeit at a pretty high bodyweight (260 lbs, 6’1″). I was able to deadlift 505 and back squat 455. I had to make a choice: Continue to play baseball, or think about training as a powerlifter/strongman. I eventually decided to drop some weight, maintain as much strength as possible, and play baseball.
Prior to my back and leg injury a few months ago (unrelated to weight lifting; it’s healing up pretty well and is a topic for another blog post), I was 220 pounds with a back squat of at least 405 pounds (it was pretty easy, I would estimate my 1RM at the time to be ~420 lbs), deadlift of 465 pounds, power clean of 225 pounds, and a bench press of 250 pounds. Overall, I was pretty happy with those numbers, even if those bench press and power clean numbers aren’t very good. (I never did like benching.)
Meanwhile, Jack and Eli, despite setbacks (Jack tore his hip flexor running the 60 yard dash during baseball tryouts as a sophomore, Eli would have to cut weight and miss a lot of training days as a wrestler – and he would later suffer a bad concussion, sidelining him for months), continued to build their strength, just like novices do. They put in a lot of hard work, and managed to put up some respectable numbers while working around their issues and athletic seasons. Eli has posted a personal best in the deadlift (his favorite lift) of 425 pounds at a ridiculous bodyweight of 169.5 pounds, while Jack has posted a back squat of 405 pounds, bench press of 255 pounds (likely to be higher now), power clean of 255 pounds, and a power snatch of around 200 pounds at a bodyweight hovering between 230-240 pounds.
Athletic Carryover
Along the way, Eli got his fastball velocity consistently over 80 MPH through weighted ball training (and other velocity development concepts) while simultaneously developing very good bat speed (finishing in the top three in batting average on his varsity baseball team against tough competition), and Jack qualified for KingCo competition in just his first year of throwing the shot and discus with a shot put throw of 43′ 1.25″ and a 116′ 1″ discus throw. He did this despite his high school having no scheduled throwing ring time at the only close facility near us, and I expect him to post some vast improvements on those numbers in 2012.
Jack and Eli were trainees #2 and #1, respectively, and they helped me build the facility we have today in Seattle. We’ve got a long way to go, but without their support and devotion to hard training – which wasn’t always fun – I wouldn’t have been able to sublease my own place and create an affordable and solid place for committed athletes to train.
Jack and Eli (with his customary half gallon of whole milk)
Thanks, guys.
3 Great Ways to Increase Shoulder Strength and Flexibility
Shoulder integrity is vitally important for baseball pitchers and batters alike. Sadly, as Eric Cressey pointed out, there’s plenty of athletes out there doing some terrible stretches for their shoulders with the idea that the looser their arms get, the better.
Forced ER Stretch
We would never advocate the above stretch unless there was a very specific reason to do so. Oddly enough, we have such a case at our facility – a former professional pitcher who pitched on an Olympic national team with multiple shoulder surgeries has very limited throwing shoulder ER as a result of those surgeries and a very long layoff from throwing. We’ll use this stretch for him, gradually increasing the intensity, but we won’t use it habitually like many pro guys will. Eric described pro guys getting their shoulders cranked back – imitating that peel-back mechanism – twice per day, every day! This is madness.
Enough digression, though. Let’s go to the list…
#1 – Getting on a good resistance band cycle
Plenty of examples of great resistance band exercises can be found on our YouTube channel, including this tethered resistance band cycle:
It’s important that you use the resistance band cycle appropriately – scale it back during the season, as you don’t want to have a ton of direct rotator cuff work during a competition season. You’re already likely throwing a ton of bullpens, long toss, and pitching in games, so use it sparingly. Getting a light resistance band and using it to warm up and do some scapular pull-aparts is a perfect addition to a pre-game routine.
Light SPRI Band
#2 – Adding Suspension Training for the posterior shoulder
The TRX Suspension Trainer is a great way to add some multiplanar pulling exercises to increase shoulder integrity, strength, and stability. Here’s a sample video of what we often do with it – the reverse fly to pull-apart:
If the TRX is a bit pricey, you can pick up the Jungle Gym suspension trainer and use it much in the same way we do.
#3 – Using Medicine Balls for ballistic training
Any reader of this blog knows that we love medball training at our Seattle-based facility, both in the Elite Baseball Training program and for our sport-agnostic clients through Driveline Athletics. There’s a ton of rotational work that you can do that helps build up ballistic strength in the shoulders without imposing rapid elbow extension forces on your body, such as a simple side scoop toss:
You can also do overhead slams, jumping slams, overspeed variants – tons of great circuits you can do with them at varying weights, speeds, and intensities. Check out our YouTube channel for plenty of examples of medball training, and pick up an 8 pound medball as a great all-purpose training tool:
Valeo 8 lb. Medball
Easy, Simple, and Effective
Those training tips above show some basic exercises you can immediately implement to help increase the strength, flexibility, and integrity of your shoulders. These are some of the same exercises we use in our Elite Baseball Training program, so get started today and I’m sure you’ll see the benefits!
Doug Fister, Velocity, Strikeouts, and Hard Work
Seattle Mariners’ starting pitcher Doug Fister is well-known for being a soft-tossing righty who gets guys out as a control/command pitcher. Except, in 2011, that’s not necessarily true. Fister’s average fastball velocity is up over 1 MPH in 2011 when compared to 2009 and 2010, and this doesn’t even control for the fact that pitchers as a whole have slower fastball velocities in the early months of the season. (Nor does it control for weather, which plays a role – and we’ve had inclement weather this year.)
Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times interviewed Doug Fister briefly, where Fister said:
“I have been putting in a lot of work in the weight room,” Fister said. “I’ve spent a lot of time lifting, conditioning and throwing. So, yeah, I feel a lot stronger this year. I’m in good shape. We’ll see where it takes us.”
On Monday’s start, Doug Fister’s four-seam fastball was around 91-93 MPH and not 88-90 MPH. What’s the difference between those two numbers? A huge jump. Fastball velocity does not follow a linear curve; the difference between an 88 MPH fastball and a 93 MPH fastball is not the difference between an 80 MPH fastball and a 85 MPH fastball. It’s a much larger – and more effective – improvement. Fastball velocity is positively correlated with strikeout rate at the major league level, and so every tick a pitcher can pick up makes a huge difference. It might mean the difference between staying in the big leagues and being demoted to the minors, never to return.
While we don’t know exactly what Doug Fister was doing for his strength, conditioning, and throwing program, we know he’s been doing more of it. And we also know that the Seattle Mariners use Dr. Marcus Elliot’s programs for many of their athletes, which revolves around free weights, medicine balls, and integrating biomechanical analysis concepts into their training methodologies.
Train Hard, Throw Hard
Pretty simple conclusion – if you train hard, you’ll throw hard. Consider that Doug Fister is an elite baseball athlete already flirting with 90 MPH and yet he was able to add velocity by simple training harder. What kind of improvements can the average prep/college pitcher make if he got on a smart training program and worked his butt off?
Find Us on the Web!
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Kyle’s Hardball Times Articles- Fastball mechanics: The hardest and softest throwers October 7, 2011
- Jason Vargas, the twist, and the intent to throw hard September 13, 2011
- How baseball failed Steve Delabar September 12, 2011
- A pitcher breaking the mold August 13, 2011
- The science of scouting: A biomechanical look at Gerrit Cole August 11, 2011
