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For High School Pitchers, No Grace PeriodWritten on April 13, 2009 at 4:11 am, by Eric Cressey Hey Gang, It’s a busy day around here as I try to catch up from the holiday weekend and finalize tax stuff, but luckily, I have a little content for you. This article from Brendan Hall in the Boston Globe features several Cressey Performance Athletes; check it out! For High School Pitchers, No Grace Period
I’ll be back soon with more blog content. Additionally, you might want to check out something new Joel Marion has up his sleeve. Joel’s methods are definitely non-traditional, but it is hard to argue with results, and he has gotten them consistently for years with loads of clients. Check it out HERE. I hope everyone had a great weekend! EC Random Friday Thoughts: 4/10/09Written on April 10, 2009 at 5:02 am, by Eric Cressey 1. On Monday, pretty much every baseball game in the state of Massachusetts was rained out. To our delight, we had three of our high school baseball player show up at 2:30PM (they had the last period of school free) race in to get in training sessions before they headed to their 4:30PM indoor practice (in lieu of the game). These guys actually thought that the game was going to be played the next day, so they were planning on having lighter days in the gym. When I informed them that the game had actually been pushed back to May, one of them looked up at me and said, “So that means I can just go crazy today?” That, folks, is how you make a strength coach smile. And, it’s also how you inspire a Random Friday Thoughts blog on “Things You Can Say to Make a Strength Coach Smile.” a. “I think cottage cheese tastes like poo, but I’m going to eat it anyway, because it’ll make me diesel.” b. “I know that distance running is destroying my body, so I’m going to stop for real this time – unlike the last three times I promised to give it up forever.” (cough, Steph, cough) c. “Can you tell Tony to turn this techno crap off?” 2. John Berardi just ran a feature on Howie Clark, from the Toronto Blue Jays system. I just started to work with Howie about two months ago on his in-season training program, and this interview talks a lot about the interaction of his training and nutrition. Check it out HERE. 3. On a related note, here’s a cool local article where I got a shout-out recently: Pitch Count an Inexact Science 4. It wouldn’t be baseball season in Boston without a drunk dude busting a move in the stands at Fenway. My girlfriend and I watched it live on Wednesday night and knew it was sure-fire blog material: 5. Here’s a little compilation of where Cressey Performance pro baseball guys are starting out this season. If you live in the neighborhood of their ballparks, go check out our guys!
We’ve got a few more guys in extended spring training and independent ball who should find out their destinations shortly. If you know one of the guys above, though, get out and show ‘em some love! Random Monday Thoughts: 3/2/09Written on March 2, 2009 at 6:15 am, by Eric Cressey 1. There were no Random Friday Thoughts last week, as my girlfriend and I were in Fort Lauderdale for a quick 3-day “the guys are off to spring training, so Eric is going to regain his sanity” vacation. As you read this, I’ll have just returned to Boston (Sunday night), refreshed and ready to go for the last three weeks before the high school baseball season starts. 2. With almost all the guys done for the off-season, I figured that this was as good a time as any to send out some spring training well wishes to all the Cressey Performance pro baseball guys:
Good luck this season, fellas. Thanks for all your hard work. 3. I often get asked what we do with folks who can’t go right to foam rolling with the Foam Roller Plus (a more diesel version that is just foam on top of PVC).
In these folks, we usually start them with a foam-only roller – and ideally one that has been “broken in.”
Another option that Cressey Performance has pioneered is suited up in catcher’s gear before rolling. Safety first, folks.
4. Just wanted to give you a quick heads-up on an upcoming seminar (4/17-4/19) in Central Virginia with an outstanding line-up of speakers. I’m bummed that I can’t make it, but you should definitely check this out if you’re in the area: Central Virginia Performance Seminar They have limited the event to 75 attendees, so be sure to register sooner than later. 5. My girlfriend had the Oscars on last weekend, and I couldn’t help but wonder who the heck this guy is and what he did to Ferris Bueller!
Have a great weekend! Medicine Ball MadnessWritten on February 17, 2009 at 11:09 am, by Eric Cressey EricCressey.com Subscriber-Only Q&A Q: My question pertains to medicine ball workouts for pitchers. Are they only off-season training drills, or can I do them with my pitchers between starts? And, are there good ones for pitchers arms, in particular? I know you mentioned doing some one-arm drills with your pitchers. A: It’s safe to say that we probably do more medicine ball work than anyone on the planet. In fact, we’ve broken 17 medicine balls (16 featured in this photo) thus far this off-season.
Our destruction of medicine balls has been so epic that our equipment supplier actually asked us if we were throwing them against a wall with “jagged edges,” as nobody had ever had similar problems, much less with as much regularity. So, suffice it to say that we hammer on medicine ball work a ton in the off-season, and the useful life of a ball around here is 4-6 weeks. But, I don’t want to digress… After the season ends, pitchers usually get a two-week break from anything that involves overhead throwing or rapid elbow extension after they are done throwing before we integrate any of this. Position players start right up with it. I think it’s crucial to start up right away so that you can teach proper scap and hip loading so that guys will get the most out of it when the time comes to throw with more volume and complex exercises that help to maintain pitching-specific mobility, as Stanford-bound Sahil Bloom shows: We typically go 3x/week medicine ball work with anywhere from 80 to 120 throws (never more than eight per set) per session from October through December (the last month overlaps with throwing programs where these guys are just tossing – nothing too challenging). This continues right up through spring training for all our position players. For pitchers, though, as January rolls around, we add in more bullpens and aggressive long tossing (and weighted balls, for some guys), and the medicine ball work drops off to two times a week with less volume and a more conservative exercise selection. This twice a week set-up goes right through Spring Training. We always pair our medicine ball work with various mobilizations so that guys are addressing flexibility deficits instead of just standing around. It might be thoracic spine and hip mobility drills from Assess and Correct. Combining these mobilizations with all our medicine ball work, warm-ups, foam rolling/massage, and the static stretching programs guys are on, we have no concerns about pitchers “tightening up” with lifting. Blue Jays prospect Tim Collins doesn’t seem to be all “muscle-bound” here, for instance: I don’t do a ton of medicine ball work in-season with my higher level guys; it’s usually once every five days. A lot of the focus is on the non-dominant side. So, a right-handed pitcher would do more rotational stuff from the left side to keep as much symmetry as possible. With high school athletes, on the other hand, I see no reason why you can’t use a slightly higher volume of medicine ball drills in-season. Kids are resilient and in many cases, undertrained, so there is always a big window of adaptation ahead of them. With respect to the one-arm smaller medicine ball work, we use those two variations around this time of year. It’s usually just two sets of eight reps right after throwing sessions twice a week. I like the idea of consolidating the stress with throwing outings. That said, there are some people that do them as warm-ups prior to throwing. Here, Atlanta Braves prospect Chad Rodgers demonstrates a few with a 1kg (2.2lb) ball. As a random aside, off to the side in this video, you’ll see how we tend to pair mobility/activation movements with power training, as Royals catching prospect Matt Morizio goes back and forth from clap push-ups to scapular wall slides. This is really just the tip of the iceberg, so for more information, I would encourage you to check out our resource, Functional Stability Training; it is incredibly thorough, including plenty of options for both off- and in-season medicine ball work. Enter your email below to subscribe to our FREE newsletter: |
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Post-Throwing Stretches
Learn the Exact Flexibility Exercises Used by Cressey Performance Pitchers after they Throw. 
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