RPP Philosophy on Training and Developing Young Elite Athletes

By Nunzio Signore (BA, CPT, NASM, PES, FMS)

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I often get asked about our philosophy on training young athletes.  Needless to say, with the drastic fluctuations in structural, hormonal, and neurological development from one athlete to the next, teaching young athletes how to perform exercises with proper technique is a challenge, even for the most experienced coaches. Continue reading “RPP Philosophy on Training and Developing Young Elite Athletes”

RPP – “The Best of 2014”

By Nunzio Signore (B.A., CPT, NASM, PES, FMS)

88095590MW101_NBA_Finals_GaI’m currently gearing up for the “feast of the fish” that many of us Italians submit ourselves to so, I’ll be spending a lot of time sitting in my mother’s den listening to screaming and smelling like fish for 3 days. With some well needed “time to myself”, I researched which blogs people found the most interesting this year. So today, I wanted to post up the top 5 articles of 2014 in terms of receiving the most views. Continue reading “RPP — “The Best of 2014””

Healthy Shoulders and Arms (Part 3)… Training the Shoulder

By Nunzio Signore (B.A., CPT, NASM, PES, FMS)

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In today’s post we are covering Part 3 of Healthy Shoulders and Arms.  In case you missed Part 2 please click here.

The shoulder requires a tremendous amount of strength and mobility to function, making it inherently unstable and prone to injuries.  Rotator cuff surgeries are performed on in excess of 75,000 patients per year in the US.  Improving stability in this region is paramount for overhead athletes and especially pitchers given the undue amount of stress placed on the shoulder.  Although the lower body (especially lead leg Internal rotation) can play a huge role in shoulder mobility and health, for this continuing article we will be dealing with the upper body only.
Continue reading “Healthy Shoulders and Arms (Part 3)… Training the Shoulder”

Nutrition – You Are What You Eat!

You Are What You Eat Image 1By Doug Corbett (NASM, PES, FMS, CET)

Beginning this week we will be starting to feature blogs on nutrition from time to time by RPP coach Doug Corbett.  Doug has been working at RPP since September of 2011 and has played a big role in speaking not only with athletes about their nutrition, but our adult clientele as well.

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From working with hundreds of athletes over the years, I can tell you that almost all of them have one thing in common when it comes to the way they eat.  Mostly they eat garbage.

Breakfast is usually skipped or it is carb and sugar loaded such as cereal or a bagel with cream cheese.  Lunch might be a sandwich with pretzels or cookies.  And dinner is pasta, pizza, fast food, and maybe a few meals throughout the week that are perfect for an athlete.  The problem is a few meals throughout the week are not good enough.

Let’s do some quick math. Continue reading “Nutrition — You Are What You Eat!”

Healthy Shoulders and Arms (Part 2)… Training the Shoulder

By Nunzio Signore (B.A., CPT, NASM, PES, FMS)

Shoulders and Arms - Image 1In today’s post we are covering Part 2 of Healthy Shoulders and Arms.  In case you missed Part 1 please click here.

If you want to throw 90+ MPH, there is no magic pill.  It takes hard work and training to:

1) Increase your overall strength (head to toe),

2) Improve your mobility and stability in the hip, spine, arms, shoulders and legs, and

3) Take #’s 1 and 2 above and add great pitching mechanics to achieve maximum thrust on the baseball.

In case you missed it, #’s 1 and 2 are what we do at RPP.

In this second part of “Healthy Shoulders and Arms” article, we’ll cover some of the variables (as they specifically relate to #2 above) in a comprehensive shoulder program.  For the scope of this article we will assume an assessment (please click here for more on this topic) has been performed and the results exhibited a generally healthy shoulder without any pain.

First, I’ll break down what I feel are a few of the biggest components of a great shoulder care program.  Continue reading “Healthy Shoulders and Arms (Part 2)… Training the Shoulder”

Healthy Shoulders and Arms (Part 1)… Armed and Ready

By Nunzio Signore (B.A. CPT, NASM, FMS, PES)

Rotator CuffThis is the first installment of a series on the arms and shoulders that I will be doing over the next several weeks. Please be patient with some of the content in this first blog as it involves some brief anatomy that will make the next few installments much easier to grasp. I will make it as “user friendly” as possible without sacrificing the integrity of the blog. For those of you interested in learning about the terms you always heard and never understood this is a good read. Continue reading “Healthy Shoulders and Arms (Part 1)… Armed and Ready”

Baseball Band Warm-ups, Make Sure You Are Doing Them Correctly

CC SabathiaWe often get asked about pre-game routine or baseball band warm-ups and too often I observe many pitchers doing them incorrectly.  Working on mobility and stabilization drills before pitching can definitely help shoulders keep up with the volume.   And band work is one of the great ways to do this, especially for pitchers.   Continue reading “Baseball Band Warm-ups, Make Sure You Are Doing Them Correctly”