By Nunzio Signore (B.A., CPT, NASM, PES, FMS)
I’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.
Our youth business has really skyrocketed this year and although we’re still a fairly new business and haven’t broken any internet records yet, it’s a really cool feeling to see that there’s a large body of people who find what I have to say interesting. So here they are they are, the Top 5. Enjoy!
1. Velocity and the Holy Grail – Part 2
Every pitcher and most dads that come into the gym want to throw faster. Period. There’s a lot more than just pitching lessons or velocity programs that go into that. In this four part series, I tried to describe many of the factors that go into not only throwing smoke, but making sure you can continue to do so for a long time.
2. Three Great Ways to Improve Your Bat Speed
We train a lot of pitchers here at RPP. We talk about transfer of power from the lower half through the core to the upper half. It hit me (no pun intended), that the same power transfer that helps increase arm speed also increases bat speed. I thought it was a great topic for a blog and so did everyone else.
3. Off-season Training… Creating Stability and Power in Hockey Players
With Rockland County being a hotbed for great hockey, we’ve had the privilege of training the Suffern and Pearl River Hockey teams as well as many D1 college level players from UNH and Delaware to name a few. These guys can really take a beating and so do their hips and groins.
4. Success = Genetics X Environment
I think a lot of people liked this one because it deals with heart and hard work vs. genetics. We’ve got a 5’9 pitcher in the gym who works as hard as anyone ever has in here, not to mention he’s an outstanding young dude. Next year he will be playing baseball at St. Lawrence in upstate NY and we couldn’t be more proud of him.
5. RPP Athletes… Why I Love My Job!
This last one happened one summer night when I was reflecting on what I do and how lucky I am to be able to do it. Nothing is more gratifying than watching a kid develop from a young age and blossom into a great athlete. Or, having a child who didn’t make the team last year come running in excited to tell me that he or she made it this year. And then there’s always the teary eyed mom…..