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How to Build a Baseball Throwing Program

baseball throwing program

Over the past few years, we have had hundreds of baseball players, specifically pitchers come through our facility. While they come in all shapes, sizes and technical ability, they all are looking to do the same thing, how to throw a baseball harder and do so safely working with a baseball throwing program.  So, while this article is about how we build throwing programs, it’s important to highlight that the body has its own language and agenda, and you cannot learn it by only learning 3 or 4 words.  You certainly can’t do it by slapping together some throwing drills with long toss and pull-down days. Continue reading “How to Build a Baseball Throwing Program”

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Creating Lower Half Stability to Create Upper Half Mobility

Last week I posted a “before and after” shot of a proprioceptive drill that I use with our athletes to train anchoring the lower half in order to create a more stable platform at the hip and to actually allow the athlete to “feel” what we are attempting to train during a common throwing drill that we use with most of our throwers. It received such a great response that I decided to explain it in slightly more detail. You can view the post here: Continue reading “Creating Lower Half Stability to Create Upper Half Mobility”

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Speed Training for Baseball Players

Speed Training for Baseball Players

Doesn’t matter the sport, everyone wants to be fast. Unfortunately, not everyone is, but everyone can surely get faster. This comes down to a few key principles, and it’s not just about running a faster baseball 60 yard dash. In this article, we’re going to review speed training for baseball players, position-specific speed and some of the techniques we use here at RPP to get our guys more explosive, so they can run faster on the field.  Here’s a brief outline:

    1. Basic Topics on Speed Training
    2. The Warm-up
    3. Linear Acceleration
    4. Lateral Acceleration
    5. Lateral Change-of-Direction

Let’s get into it…. Continue reading “Speed Training for Baseball Players”

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Pitching Biomechanics: Front Foot Landing Can Make Difference!

A pitcher’s foot position at foot strike can provide a solid foundation to facilitate both knee extension and efficient transfer of energy. Foot strike is the moment a pitcher’s front foot makes contact with the ground and is the starting point of energy transfer up the kinetic chain. This energy is ultimately transferred to the ball at release, with efficient energy transfer being aided by the pitcher releasing over a firm front side. A firm front side provides lower body stability for proper upper body positioning through release. This stability is achieved by extending the front knee from foot strike to release and is why knee extension angular velocity at release is correlated with pitching velocity and an important metric to examine in pitchers.

Continue reading “Pitching Biomechanics: Front Foot Landing Can Make Difference!”

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Putting on the Brakes to Throw Gas… What is Lead Leg Block?

lead leg block

The lead leg block is the act of slowing down your body’s momentum with your lead leg at landing. In biomechanics, deceleration and the lead leg block can be represented by peak changes in angular velocity. Think about your car. The gas pedal represents your drive leg at the start of the pitching delivery (power output) and the brakes represent your lead leg’s role at foot contact (power absorption and transfer of force).  Let’s cover this in three parts:

    • Why is it Important to be Good at Decelerating?
    • What We Look For?
    • How We Address Lead Leg Block Issues?

Continue reading “Putting on the Brakes to Throw Gas… What is Lead Leg Block?”

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How to Increase Athleticism… Develop Efficient Movement

On any given day you can log into your daily feed on Twitter and scroll through a plethora of verbal grudge matches between strength coaches, pitching/hitting coaches and movement gurus arguing.  Yes, arguing and criticizing each other’s ideology about athletic performance and how to improve it. These verbal assaults are usually fueled by the fact that one individual’s concept, theory, protocol or whatever you choose to call it may not line up with another’s. In other words, “it’s different”.  For those of you that have the insight to be able to “discuss” and not argue, this blog is not targeting you, however you may want to come along for the ride. Continue reading “How to Increase Athleticism… Develop Efficient Movement”