[excerpt from original podcast]…
Nunzio Signore – Can you talk about three of main issues you find when working with a pitcher who may be struggling to hit his marks?
Alex Kubera – Yes, definitely!
First big thing is making sure they’re warming up properly. If the body is not prepared to throw that day, your chances of success and being able to control and command the zone will just keep going down.
Second, if they’re just weak physically, it’s very hard to control your body and throw strikes consistently. Getting in the weight room getting stronger helps with the command side of control.
And finally, is managing your intent and workload. This is often an overlooked topic and it’s important on your start days, your medium intent days and your recovery days. A lot of guys, especially the younger ones, don’t know how to manage their intent and overall workload, and that’s been a big thing.
Nunzio Signore – This is a common problem. When you’re talking about high-level high school athletes, they often have one kind of one speed. They’re not really great at adjusting the tempo of their training. So, this is not an uncommon problem that we see with guys who don’t know how to control their tempo and control the intensity of their recovery. This is often a big problem.
Alex Kubera – For example, let’s talk about the young man we spoke of earlier. We had a bullpen day not long ago, and he throws every single ball at 100%. That’s just not the proper way to warm-up for the task, for like a bullpen day or start day, you shouldn’t be throwing as many balls as hard as you can. You should use those throws as more of your warm-up to prepare your body for when you’re off the mound. And that’s where your goal is to throw your hardest pitches.
A lot of guys just don’t understand that concept until you really go through it with them and run them through it. So, one day recently he warmed up so much, he threw so many balls at a really high intent. And his command suffered during the session.
Nunzio Signore – I think you’ve started putting a Pulse on him?!!
Alex Kubera – Yes, we put a Pulse on him that day. And his workload was up to like a 20, or like, 15, before he even touched the baseball.
Nunzio Signore – It’s really important to stress the fact that his intent is being monitored with a device. Because like I said, if you ask a kid to throw it 50%, he’s going to throw the same intent, as he’s going to throw it 80%. It’s just going to start at 50% and within five minutes, it’s going to be at 80%. So having some sort of a monitoring device to measure torque and to measure intensity can be huge.
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