Seams and grips matter, so let’s put that to rest. But how is the baseball spin axis generated? Before we begin, let’s cover a relevant but important topic. As it relates to ball movement, there are two different topics that sometimes get thrown in together as simply “movement”. They are… Continue reading “Understanding How the Baseball Spin Axis is Generated”
The first trip to the disabled list can leave a young athlete searching for answers. Any athlete worth his weight loves to compete, so when that part of your life gets affected in a negative way, it’s important to get your head together and keep marching. Unfortunately, the “you should just stay out of the weight room for a while” slogan that some (not all!) doctors deliver doesn’t give the athlete much incentive to keep the rest of his body in shape while the injury is healing. After all, we can still make significant improvements in strength without moving the injured limb. Continue reading “TJ, Taking a Negative Situation and Running with IT”
The following is a series of videos we posted not long ago on social media. They are excerpts out of a presentation I gave on how we train pitchers with an eye towards their Long-Term Athletic Development. I think you will enjoy them… Continue reading “Long Term Athletic Development for Pitchers”
Tomorrow’s elite pitchers have to learn and take advantage of the implications of data analysis. Advancements in technology have brought data to the doorsteps of commercial baseball facilities and the future will be never be the same.
When pitchers are moving at rapidly increasing speeds, observing and evaluating a pitcher’s movements with high speed data capture can be truly eye opening. The amount information can be overwhelming at first, but as you begin to grasp it, the aha! moments begin to accumulate. We are discovering things about pitchers that were unfathomable just a year ago without this technology. Pitch Design is here and it will change how tomorrow’s pitchers will be trained… [click here]
Continue reading “Pitch Development and Design… Pitch-by-Pitch”
When you get past the on-ramp stage of a combined baseball strength training and throwing program and get into the more high intensity throwing portion, you need to keep a few things in mind. For the few guys that still need to gain muscle/weight, we’ll handle them a bit differently in the weight room but that’s for another blog. For most of our guys that have packed on muscle, this means that weight room work from a volume and intensity perspective can and should be scaled down. Continue reading “Baseball Strength Training When Throwing Ramps Up…”
It gives me great pleasure to highlight the success of our athletes from this past spring. Their success is not a surprise, nor is it accident. These athletes put in an enormous number of hours over many months training at our facility this past off-season. Before I present the complete list, I would like to highlight the following players that trained at RPP and have been recognized at the top of their game by local media: Continue reading “Sports Recognition Awards — Spring 2018”
During the past year, we have spent endless hours crunching pitching data and there are some unbelievable and amazing conclusions which we would like to share with you. This report is a summary of approximately 10,000 pitches thrown by 50 high school-level pitchers, randomly selected from our various winter, spring and summer programs. The new Rapsodo pitching camera system exposes a great deal and explains why “the eyes lie”. We are willing to bet that our findings are not unique but rather common place in youth pitchers everywhere. Continue reading “Rapsodo Pitching Data, a Comprehensive Report”
Whenever I watch local high school games and I work with younger pitchers it always takes me back to when I played at all these levels. One of the biggest things that I notice at the high school level, after watching nearly 1000 professional games over 7 years with the Indians, is a point my pitching coach made when I was in AA-ball. He said, “don’t try to control the un-controllables, just control what you can!”. The mental game of baseball is about focusing on the controllables. Let me explain…
Continue reading “The Mental Game of Baseball, Control What You Can”
As strength coaches, our goal is to not only improve an athlete’s performance but also keeping our athletes healthy during the season. This is not unlike a race car that comes out of the gate blazing and after 100 laps requires a “pit stop” to try to address wear and tear. Continue reading “Command and Control — Case Study: Butler’s Josh Loeschorn”
Today I am going to address 5 “do’s and don’ts” for those players choosing to play summer ball. These are generally players that are “on the cusp” (1-2 mph) of where they want to be velo-wise and could and should find a local league / team that will allow them to only pitch 3-5 innings per week and play first base on an additional day. Continue reading “5 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Summer Season”
