It's been a few months in the making, but we just finished up a promo video about how we attack off-season baseball training at Cressey Performance for our professional, collegiate, and high school baseball players.
We'd love to hear what you think - and hopefully you'll like it enough to help spread the word on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks!
A big shoutout goes out to Jamie and Matt at Lasting Memories Videotaping; these guys do an awesome job, and we can't recommend them highly enough!
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November 10 might seem like just any day to most people - and it certainly wouldn't have any significance to the baseball training world to the casual observer. However, it's actually a pretty big day to celebrate here at Cressey Performance.
Today, a bunch of guys in our class of 2011 sign their national letters of intent to play Division 1 baseball - and I wanted to give them a shoutout in this blog to recognize their accomplishments. Looking at this list, we have guys from three separate states - which means that a few of them travel up to two hours just to get to CP (and two hours home). Some have been with us less than a year, and others since they were in eighth grade - but I wanted to recognize them all together nonetheless. Here they are (and the universities/college to which they're headed):
1. Jordan Cote - Coastal Carolina
2. Tyler Beede - Vanderbilt
3. Adam Ravenelle - Vanderbilt
4. Barrett O'Neill - Virginia
5. Matt Luppi - Connecticut
6. Colin Egan - Wake Forest
7. Joe Napolitano - Wake Forest
8. Aaron Fossas - Wake Forest
9. Andrew Chin - Boston College
10. Devin Perry - Boston College
11. John Gorman - Boston College
12. Carl Anderson - Bryant
13. Cam Hatch - Maryland
14. Lorenzo Papa - Rhode Island
15. David St. Lawrence - Brown
16. Matt Mottola - UMASS-Lowell
There are certainly quite a few more to come as a few other guys wrap up the decision making process, but I thought I'd mention all these guys at once on the day that they sign. Congratulations, fellas; it's a party at CP!
I don't know if there is something in the water that the reporters around the country (and particularly the Massachusetts sports scene) have been drinking, but Cressey Performance's Elite Baseball Development Program has gotten a lot of love in the news this weekend.
Last week, CP athlete Tim Collins was part of a blockbuster trade, as he went from the Toronto Blue Jays to the Atlanta Braves. Tim didn't disappoint in his debut, striking out five batters in two innings pitched without allowing a walk, hit, or run. In a recent posting about Collins in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, beat writer David O'Brien wrote the following:
"I asked [Braves Manager] Bobby Cox if he knew anything about him, and Cox started talking about seeing video of him. Said he's extremely athletic, a muscular little guy who's real aggressive. Apparently the video showed him pitching and also working out, because he made quite an impression on Cox and others with the workout portion."
Apparently, Bobby Cox is quite a fan of the EricCressey.com and Cressey Performance YouTube pages. Hello, Bobby!
Saturday night, CP athlete Kevin Youkilis had the game-tying and game winning RBIs for the Red Sox in a come-from-behind win at home against the Rangers.
These features were followed shortly by another one - this time on a talented pitching prospect from Worcester, MA, Louisville pitcher Keith Landers. The Worcester Telegram just did this feature on Keith and the training he started up about eight weeks ago at Cressey Performance as he works his way back from a shoulder surgery.
Finally, here's a blog post from ESPN.com's Brendan Hall that features a boatload of CP studs who have had great summer showings: Tyler Beede, Adam Ravenelle, Carl Anderson, Barrett O'Neill, John Gorman, Jordan Cote, Ben Smith, Matt Luppi, AJ Zarozny, and David St. Lawrence.
Happy New Year, everyone!
I thought I'd use this first post of 2010 as a way of looking forward to what's on tap at EricCressey.com for the year. In true "Random Thoughts" fashion, here we go:
1. Nate Green just interviewed me for what I think will be a great feature at T-Muscle in the next week or two. It will be similar in structure to this piece Nate did with Dave Tate, which definitely turned out to be an entertaining read. Keep an eye out for it!
2. Speaking of interviews, I'll be doing one with Brian Grasso for the IYCA on Tuesday. Brian's a very forward-thinking guy and I'm excited to catch up with him.
3. Speaking of T-Muscle, I'm finishing up my "What I Learned in 2009" article this weekend. It follows the articles I wrote for 2006, 2007, and 2008.
4. Also coming up in the next month or so will be the release of the DVDs of Mike Reinold and my seminar from November: Testing, Treating, and Training the Shoulder: From Rehabilitation to High Performance. It's being edited as I type this.
5. This January 24, Cressey Performance will be hosting Neil Rampe of the Arizona Diamondbacks for his seminar, . You can register HERE, or for more information on Neil's background, click HERE. If you'd like to see a seminar agenda, please just email me at ec@ericcressey.com.
6. I'll be presenting in Tampa, FL (Jan); Winchester, MA (Jan); Las Vegas, NV (March); and Vancouver, BC (March); and Boston, MA (May) in this first part of 2010. Check out my schedule page for more information on these events.
7. I'm very anxious to hear more of the feedback on Assess and Correct, which has already sold in more than two dozen countries. This is a product I truly believe will help a lot of people, and the short-term feedback we've received since its release in October has been tremendous.
8. At Cressey Performance, our staff has started up what (for lack of a more masculine term) we're calling the Staff Book Club. Each staff member will present on what he learns in a different book each week. I think it'll be a great way to cover more material and keep us all accountable to each other on getting our continuing education done.
9.I'm pumped for more content from Matt Blake in 2010. He's been a fantastic resource for all our athletes and I'm excited to share with you all how Matt and I collaborate to make our pitchers better. I think it'll make for some great content.
10. I'd really like to continue to grow both the newsletter and blog. You can sign up for notifications on both fronts to the right of the screen, if you haven't already.
11. I'm really pumped for all our guys who have found great college choices; it's an exciting time for both the 2010 and 2011 guys. Most recently, CP athlete Adam Ravenelle committed to Vanderbilt on a baseball scholarship. Adam's been with us since before his freshman year, and we're all really proud of him. He actually joins another CP pitcher, Tyler Beede, who committed to Vanderbilt just a few weeks ago. Both guys are in the class of 2011, and join Barrett O'Neill (University of Virginia) and Joe Napolitano (Boston College) as our early committees from that class.
There should be plenty more guys with exciting news along these lines in the months to come as well.
12. I'm really excited to watch Cressey Performance grow in the months ahead. While I was certainly thrilled at the growth we saw (15%) in 2009 and I hope it continues, I am most thrilled at how many clients we've seen change their bodies and their lives since they started up, and how many friendships we've seen cultivated inside CP. If you'd have told me a few years ago that we'd have over 25 people in on Thanksgiving morning, for instance, I would have told you that you were crazy!
In addition to our clients' accomplishments, I'm so proud of our staff. I could never do what I do without such great guys working alongside me, and the best part is that they are insatiable in their desire to get better. We're constantly getting better and it makes every new day fun. The best part is that I feel like it's something that's carried over to our interns, too; there are some really talented people with bright futures coming through here.
13. I'm very excited for the new CP website, which should be done in a matter of a few days. Along those same lines, there is a pretty sweet training and testimonial montage being pulled together about our Elite Baseball Development program. I was actually getting pretty fired up just watching some of the footage that had been gathered thus far.
14. I can't wait to attack all the books and journal articles that are in my stack of "Things to Read" right now. There's too much material to cover, but never enough time!
15. Last, but certainly not least, it'll also be a very busy (but exciting) year for me personally in 2010, as my fiancee Anna and I will be getting married this October. And, even before we get to that, we're planning to buy our first home in the next 4-6 months. Obviously, we're already doing a lot of planning!
Needless to say, I'm looking forward to all of this - and probably a few surprises along the way. Best wishes for 2010, and stay tuned!
1. Exciting week around here, as it's getting to be that time of the year when our high school ballplayers - both 2010 and 2011 - finalize some of their plans.
Last weekend, RHP Barrett O'Neill (2011) verbally committed to the University of Virginia on a baseball scholarship, and on Tuesday, RHP Travis Dean (2010) signed his letter of intent to pitch at Kennesaw St. University in Georgia. A few weeks earlier, RHP/3B Joe Napolitano (2011) had verbally committed to Boston College. These three comprise 3/8 of our current 90mph+ high school crew - and I suspect that the other five will be following soon!
Also this week, 2B Erik Watkins (2010) committed to Skidmore and CF Billy Bereszniewicz (2010) committed to Binghampton. Previously, catcher James Alfonso (2010) had accepted a scholarship to play at the University of Hartford. Plenty more to come soon, no doubt...
2. Speaking of Travis, here is something I love about him: he has INTENT on every single medicine ball throw he makes. It isn't just about "tossing" a ball to a wall and rotating your hips. It's about getting your entire body into the effort - to the point that you're trying to break the ball (or wall!) on every single drill.
Once we have taught our guys the technique for the drill, it's about getting after it. If you aren't training rotation aggressively, you might as well not do it at all.
3. I got a lot of great comments from readers on my A Few Days in Arizona on Monday; I'd encourage you to check it out.
4. One of the key points I made was that respiratory function was essential for ideal performance and posture, and I recognize that the concept might be completely foreign for a lot of my readers. To that end, I'd encourage you check out The Anatomy of Breathing.
It's a pretty quick read that gives you good insights into the anatomy of the respiratory system and common dysfunctions that occur. Once you start getting an appreciation for the muscles involved, you can start to see how poor diaphragmatic function can easily lead to overactivity of sternocleidomastoid, scalene, pec minor, intercostals - basically, a lot of muscles commonly implicated in upper extremity dysfunction. You can just stretch and massage those areas, but it's just like putting a bucket on the floor when the roof is leaking; it's better to just fix the roof (aberrant breathing patterns).
5. I also touched on breathing patterns a bit in my seminar this past weekend. Check out a few great reviews of the event:
6. Some interesting findings HERE that shows that there may be a strong link between childhood obesity and the development of multiple sclerosis later on in life. One hypothesis is that it may be linked to the low levels of Vitamin D that one sees in overweight kids, and another that it could be related to the fatty tissue itself. One more reason to take Vitamin D!
7. We're all headed to Providence tonight to watch CP client and pro boxer Danny O'Connor try to run his professional record to 10-0. I think we'll be setting a world record for the number of professional baseball players in attendance at a boxing match. Let's go, Danny!
