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Brain Maps

The brain is responsible for every motion, breath, thought, and feeling that we make. It is therefore vitally important to understand the brain to truly be able to train yourself and others. Plasticity The first thing that needs to be understood about the brain is that it is constantly changing. Our bodies are always adaptingContinue reading “Brain Maps”

Does Traditional Lifting Even Matter?

Conventional baseball strength and conditioning is rooted in the fact that baseball athletes need to be stronger. This thought process is actually making athletes worse. The time constraint during performance makes it impossible to showcase the strength that coaches work on everywhere. Elastic strength combined with stiffness is much more important for high speed thanContinue reading “Does Traditional Lifting Even Matter?”

Moving From The Middle

In motion, moving through the middle a constant. In locomotion the legs are coordinated by the pelvis, and the arms are controlled by the torso. Additionally, walking is a motion that is naturally controlled by the spinal cord and brain. Cells in the spinal cord receive sensory information from the body and then pass itContinue reading “Moving From The Middle”

My Current Understanding of the Back Ankle and Foot

The back leg in pitching is pretty straight forward. The back leg provides tension, a stable femur to counter-rotate the pelvis around, and range of motion during the linear move. Recently, I had an epiphany about the back foot which I am now sharing with all of you. To truly understand what I am aboutContinue reading “My Current Understanding of the Back Ankle and Foot”

Motor Learning

Motor learning is one of the most basic topics that needs to be understood by coaches and athletes everywhere. Coaches need to understand the implications of motor learning to improve their athletes faster. Players need to have a rudimentary understanding of motor learning so they can become more receptive to information and make more effectiveContinue reading “Motor Learning”

Importance of Variability

Creating mechanical changes is the name of the game in velocity training for baseball. Movement efficiency rules all, efficient mechanics have a significant impact on throwing velocity. Becoming an efficient mover is therefore paramount during velocity training. However, this process takes years, but recently I have been playing around with a few concepts to helpContinue reading “Importance of Variability”

The Forgotten Aspect of Programming

Systematically, strength and conditioning for athletes is looked at through a short term lens. In the numerous assessments I’ve been a part of, I’ve seen a large emphasis on mobility, power, speed, and throwing velocity. These are great tools to assess athletes with, but simply attacking only these aspects in an athlete’s program is foolish.Continue reading “The Forgotten Aspect of Programming”

Understanding Fascia

At its core, fascia is a body-wide interconnected tensional network of tissue. A large misconception is the fascia only connects and covers tissue in the body; however, muscles can transmit up to 40% of their contraction force via facial connection. Additionally, fascia connects muscles to their surrounding tissues which can even include atagonist muscles. FasciaContinue reading “Understanding Fascia”

What is acceleration?

At it’s core, acceleration is the rate at which a body changes velocity. In the body, acceleration is the rate that a muscle contraction occurs. In pitching, rapid acceleration occurs almost everywhere. The term “relaxing into rotation,” often used to describe the action of the pelvis and the back leg, should actually coined “relaxing intoContinue reading “What is acceleration?”

What Exactly is a Lead Leg Block?

There is a very common misconception around the lead leg block in the pitching world, and it starts with the idea that a good lead leg block starts with knee extension. That concept leads to a delivery that over emphasizes linear momentum and really does not address the entire picture. To correctly address what isContinue reading “What Exactly is a Lead Leg Block?”