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Baseball Warm-up When You Only Have 5 Minutes

baseball warm-up

I was having a conversation about big league ball with RPP pitching coach Robbie Aviles a while back and he mentioned that many times as a relief pitcher with the Cleveland Indians, he barely got a chance to warm-up before throwing. As a matter of fact, he sometimes got just about enough time to take off his jacket and throw a few pitches.  This made me think back on an article I remember reading by Mike Reinold where he talked about a baseball warm-up protocol that includes exercises to increase shoulder ROM, Mobility, Activation, and Dynamic Movement all done in a circuit that takes less than 5 minutes to perform!! Continue reading “Baseball Warm-up When You Only Have 5 Minutes”

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Testing and Training the Complete Pitcher… Power / Elasticity – Part 2

With the season beginning to get underway, I thought it would be a great time to emphasize that while practice is great for your “technical” work, improving your throwing velocity, exit velocity and first step quickness all start by improving and maintaining power and elasticity. These are developed in the gym and are the topics in Part 2 of this 3 Part series on training the complete pitcher (click here to read Part 1). Continue reading “Testing and Training the Complete Pitcher… Power / Elasticity — Part 2”

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Baseball Spin Rate Basics and Pitch Movement

baseball spin rate

Tomorrow’s elite pitchers have to learn and take advantage of the implications of data analysis.  Advancements in technology have brought newly available data on baseball spin rate and pitch movement and other valuable information to the doorsteps of commercial baseball facilities and the future will be never be the same (what!?).

Image above by: http://www.lokeshdhakar.com/

Continue reading “Baseball Spin Rate Basics and Pitch Movement”

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Testing and Training the Complete Pitcher… Where do You Fall? Part1

Different types of race cars produce speed in different ways. They also switch gears in different ways to reach top speed.  Well, so do pitchers. In this 3 Part series, we’ll take a look at some of what I believe to be six of the biggest topics when determining and/or training a pitcher’s athleticism. Continue reading “Testing and Training the Complete Pitcher… Where do You Fall? Part1”

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Baseball’s Total Spin Rate vs. True Spin Rate (simplified)

Today, we’re going to cover the topic of a baseball’s Total Spin rate vs. True Spin rate.  We’ve previously reviewed how all spin is not alike, as some spin works for you to create movement and some spin doesn’t do anything at all.  At any given moment, a baseball is likely spinning along all 3 axes at the same time.  We’re talking a little bit of:

    1. Left or right,
    2. Backspin or topspin, and
    3. Spinning around in one, or the other, direction (like a football spiral spin also referred to as gyro spin).

Continue reading “Baseball’s Total Spin Rate vs. True Spin Rate (simplified)”

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Single Most “Over-Looked” Factor to Increase Performance

Let’s face it, baseball is all about being explosive. To excel in this sport, remain healthy and stay at the top of your game, you must be able to move explosively through space. To do that requires an optimal level of power (a solid amount of muscle) and a minimal level of dead weight (fat). This muscle to fat ratio is known as Lean Body Mass (LBM) and it is today’s topic. Continue reading “Single Most “Over-Looked” Factor to Increase Performance”

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How to Build a More Powerful Delivery through a Stronger Core

Anterior core strength deeply affects lumbar extension, which in turn affects the position of the trunk/ thorax (rib cage), which is the “center of the universe” for a pitcher. This serves as a stable platform for the shoulder blades, ultimately affecting the position of the scapula, ensuring great “ball and socket” congruency and a better arm position at ball release when moving toward the plate. Continue reading “How to Build a More Powerful Delivery through a Stronger Core”

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Baseball Spin Rate and Related Topics

In Part 1 of this series, we wrote about how data and analytics provided by new equipment is changing the way pitchers are getting evaluated and trained.  Today, we’re going to dig a little deeper into the baseball spin rate and review several related topics:

    • What it (spin) all means,
    • How movement is generated,
    • Different types of spin and related info,
    • Advantages of having access to the data,
    • Why it’s important to understand the ramifications, and
    • How we can use it to our benefit.

Continue reading “Baseball Spin Rate and Related Topics”

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Analytics is Changing Pitcher Evaluations… You Better Get Ready

As much as some people don’t want to admit it, baseball is turning even more into a numbers game run by machines such as Statcast, Rapsodo and Trackman, to name a few.  The ordinary fan watching a game on TV is getting a glimpse of this when they see Aaron Judge’s exit velo, launch angle, projected distance and exit velocity pop on the screen, or, when they’re watching Aroldis Chapman and instantly see his velo, extension, spin rate, and horizontal and vertical movement.  Whether we like or not, data is changing the landscape for baseball players.  And I can speak to this first hand, from my own experience with the Indians over the past 7 years. Continue reading “Analytics is Changing Pitcher Evaluations… You Better Get Ready”