Efficient and effective pitching mechanics.

Total body weight training along with speed and agility training.

Proper nutritional diet and supplementation.

Balanced training regime to allow for proper muscular  and mental recovery.

I understand this news can be overwhelming and a buzz killer but if gaining velocity was easy and could come in a pill form, everyone would be doing it and then 90 plus mph would become average. If you want to be extraordinary then you must live to be extraordinary. Listed below are some links to get you on the right track, to developing that velocity, that you are so determined to obtain in such a short period of time.

Velocity enhancement links:

10 Legitimate Tips to Pitching Velocity

Triple Extension – 3X Pitching

Ace Pitcher Handbook :: Fusion System and the 6 Components to Pitching Velocity

Baseball Video Store :: Ace Pitcher Power Pitching video

Beginner Total Body training program

Velocity Drill :: The Sled

More to come…..

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• Pitching Velocity Drills – The Sled

I am not talking about hormone levels like body builders talk about hormone levels. I am speaking for athletes who are always looking to grow more athletic. Your hormone levels are a major component to your athletic ability, so it is essential that you learn about your Endocrine System. The chart below comes from the National Strength and Conditioning Association. This chart describes how to manipulate your hormone levels naturally to gain athletic benefits.

What this chart teaches us athletes is that performing lifts that recruit major muscle groups and as many muscle fibers as possible, will cause more muscle fiber damage overall. In return the body is forced to heal this massive  event of controlled muscle damage as quickly as possible, to prevent damage from continuing. The body then sends out and army of natural occurring anabolic hormones to heal up the damaged muscle fibers.To make sure this event doesn’t continue, the body builds more muscle fibers for future events.

The difference in training muscles without recruiting as many groups of muscle fibers per repetition, like with aerobic conditioning or light weight training, is the body dumps only a small about of testosterone and GH to heal the small amount of damage. This is why body builders are bigger and more powerful than long distance runners.

To take advantage of this new information, it is important that you train smart. Training smart is not going one extreme to the other. So DO NOT take off with this new information and start throwing on weight that you can’t handle and perform 1-2 reps a set. That is unsafe. Just like pitching everything must be controlled and you must make small adjustments for a healthy career. This information should motivate you to start working for quality lifts instead of quantity. Another important piece of advice is not to take this mentality of bigger, stronger, faster into the weight room while in season. This is an off season mentality only.

Related articles:

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• Bad Mechanics is a sign of Muscular Weakness

Having pain in the biceps and triceps when pitching is a sign of overuse or weak muscle development. This can come from a poor strength and conditioning program and or poor mechanics.

I am not a Doctor but I have dealt with pitching injuries my entire career and have studied strength and conditioning science for years. I recommend that when pitching with an annoying pain in the biceps and triceps you should first, take a few weeks off from pitching and then follow a strict diet of good whole food nutrition, along with icing the arm to help  stimulate the healing process.

Ice the arm on top of the bicep muscles for 10 minutes and then remove the ice for 30 minutes and then ice the top of the triceps muscles for 10 minutes. DO NOT ice the ulnar nerve. This is the “funny bone” nerve just under the elbow. Make sure the ice is to the left or right side of the ulnar nerve when icing. Ice once or twice a day for a week and then start to strengthen the arm again initially with light arm curls and extensions. As you grow stronger, try to increase the weight while lowering the repetitions. Within a couple of weeks, work to push the muscles to fatigue within 5 reps of 3 sets. This will force the muscle to grow bigger and stronger.

This pain has more than likely occurred because the biceps and triceps muscles are not big enough or strong enough to handle the resistance of weight generated from the pitch. This also can be a sign of bad mechanics. If you are throwing with more arm than body, then the arm is forced to handle more stress or weight resistance. To prevent this pain from being a constant occurrence in your career, you must follow a core based strength and conditioning program that also builds integrity in the shoulder and elbow joints. Most importantly you must work to correct your bad mechanics of pitching with mainly your arm. There are many articles on this site that can help you with all of these adjustments. It is great that you are listening to your body and searching for answers to this problem but now it is extremely important that you make the proper adjustments so this does not plague your season or career.

If the pain you are experiencing is more than an annoyance, it is more like knives going into your arm, then you could have a tear in the muscle, or ligament. If this is the case, I recommend you see your doctor about this pain.

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The reason we need 5-6 servings of vegetables a day is because the natural whole food vitamins and minerals are essential to all of our muscular functions as an athlete. It is also essential to muscle recovery. Read my article on Pitching Nutrition and Supplements to learn more on this topic.

Here is a product that offers you 5-6 servings of vegetables in a pill form.

www.StartJuicingNow.com

www.StartJuicingNow.com

If you would like more information on a nutrition product please post your request in the comments below and I will do some research for you.

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• Pitching Nutrition and Supplements
• What it takes to gain velocity.
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Nutrition and supplementation for athletes should be based on whole foods.

“If you put into your body what you where made to eat, then you will get out of your body what you where made to do.”

If you are someone who has no clue about nutrition, you eat fast food all day long and you are considering an illegal supplement, this is crazy. You are playing Russian roulette with your life. If you have the desire to be a high performance Athlete/Pitcher, you need to learn as much as you can about nutrition and your body. This article should help get you started.

After I tore my rotator cuff and Doctors told me I didn’t have enough eligibility in college to recover from this injury, I read something that lifted my spirits. Ever six months your body replenishes itself, just like the rings on a tree your muscles are replenishing themselves from the inside out. The same with your skin. This doesn’t mean that your body will reconnect a tear from bone to muscle but a Doctor can. Basically what this means is you always have the opportunity to get on the path to good health. The edge you are looking for is between your ears. Educate yourself on your body and nutrition and you will put yourself in an elite group of athletes.

Good nutrition starts with an alkaline based diet. It is simple; your body’s health rides on its PH levels. If your PH levels are balanced, your blood is feeding oxygen to its cells. If your body’s PH levels are too acidic, then your body isn’t feeding its cells. We must nurture our body’s on the cellular level. This is the building blocks of our health and career. Most pitchers have no idea how to nurture the body on the cellular level. This is where you can get an edge.

To prevent your body from becoming too acidic you must understand what causes this acidity. It is mainly food and stress. Here is a chart that lists the alkaline and acidic foods. Learn this chart and start eating more foods on the alkaline side. This diet doesn’t mean you should avoid foods on the acid side, it only means you should eat more alkaline foods to prevent your body from becoming acidic. So for every acid food you eat, add 3 alkaline foods. Keep your meals simple and raw if possible. Raw green vegetables are a good foundation to building an alkaline dominate diet.

Ok, so you would like to know why you should eat these green vegetables! This is the deal. Keeping your body more alkaline allows for quicker recovery. Pitching is very stressful to the body. It uses a lot of energy and develops a lot of waste from that energy. The waste is mainly acid. It begins to eat at your muscles, tendons and the rest of your body. If the acid is not flushed out, it is stored in your tissue to continue causing problems. This is why pitchers experience serious soreness after a long game of pitching. The only way of flushing the acidity is by restoring your body’s PH levels to a more neutral balance. This means eating alkaline foods. The quicker you can restore your PH levels after a performance, the quicker you recover. This will increase pitching velocity, because the faster your body rebuilds, the faster your body grows. This is why steroids are so effective. The hormone testosterone heals the body. More of it heals the body faster. When the body heals faster, it has the potential to grow quicker. The problem with testosterone coming from outside of your body is your body will become dependent on the source. This means when you stop giving it steroids, your body could also stop producing testosterone. So let’s do this the natural way with an alkaline diet.

Supplements

There are only four supplements that I recommend for Athletes/Pitchers. This is mainly because all the others are a waste of money. Believe me I have tried most of them. The most important supplement that Athletes/Pitchers cannot do without is a multivitamin. I recommend a whole foods multivitamin. Synthetic vitamins are weak. Whole food vitamins found at health food stores are what you need.

Juice Plus

My next recommendation is purchasing Juice Plus. This is the picture above. This product is for those of you who are having a hard time eating the alkaline foods. Juice Plus is all of these alkaline fruits and vegetables freeze dried into a capsule. I don’t mean you should eat fast food, then take your Juice Plus and you are following your alkaline diet. This supplement only works if you eat two vegetables or more during your meal, instead of six or eight. The Juice Plus will help fill in those missing alkaline foods. This is a great supplement to have when you are on the road. When the Coach is dropping you off at a fast food restaurant. You could get a salad, a chicken sandwich without the bun and then take your Juice Plus to make it a descent meal. To purchase your Juice Plus select the image or this link www.StartJuicingNow.com. If you have any questions about the whole foods product then search their site or contact me.

The next supplement I would recommend is protein based. You can get protein from many sources. The best is white meat. If you feel you are not getting enough protein from your diet then I would recommend an amino acid supplement as well. You need at least 1 gram of protein for every pound of body weight. All you need to do is buy an amino acid supplement and take the recommended dosage. Make sure you cycle it on and off. This means, take the recommended dosage for a month or two then take a few weeks off from it. Brewers yeast is also a good amino acid supplement. This is a whole foods product full of vitamins, minerals and all the essential amino acids.

The last supplement I recommend is Omega-3. Our body’s can not produce Omega in our system. A balance of Omega-3 and Omega-6 is critical for brain function and reducing inflammation. Inflammation is a problem for most athletes. To prevent anti-inflammatory abuse with drugs like advil, aleve and others, you must have a balanced diet of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fatty acids. The average diet has a lot more Omega-6 than Omega-3. Omega-6 comes from animal fats and it promotes inflammation in the body. Omega-3 is found in fish oils, some nuts and vegatables. The easiest way to get this into your system is with a Omega-3 supplement. You can find this in most grocery stores or drug stores. Make sure it is cholesterol free and mercury free.  Take it everyday.

In conclusion, it is important that you learn about what you are putting in your mouth and feeding your body with. Read labels on products and stay away from processed foods. Eat everything that comes from the ground and your body will stay on the path to good health and recovery. If you just learn a basic understand of a good diet and follow it, you will be shock how your athletic performance improves.

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ALKALINE / ACIDIC FOOD CHARTS

The charts below are provided for those trying to “adjust” their body pH through their diet. The pH scale is from 0 to 14, with numbers below 7 acidic (low on oxygen) and numbers above 7 alkaline. These charts are intended only as a general guide to alkalizing and acidifying foods. Note that there may be some discrepancies between foods included on these charts.*

To learn why this diet is important for athletes and pitchers read this article Pitching Nutrition and Supplements.

For more info visit http://www.essense-of-life.com/moreinfo/foodcharts.htm

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• Pitching Nutrition and Supplements
• What it takes to gain velocity.
• 10 Legitimate tips to Pitching Velocity

The question is how do we develop velocity legitmately?

There are hundreds of articles on the web titled something similar to this article, but most of them are worthless, because they focus mainly on upper body mechanics as the only means to developing velocity. Any hard thrower will tell you, there is a lot more to velocity than just your arm. If you want to see significant gains in velocity read this entire article and the articles linked to it. The only way you are going to see improvements, is if you develop a good understanding of how velocity is generated.

Remember you are bound by nothing. You have the ability to throw 90+ mph. Doctors told me I would not be able to and I proved them wrong. These tips will help you do the same.

1. Change speeds.

This should always be your first step in developing velocity because it has no risk involved. This creates an illusion of velocity. By changing the speed of your pitches, this will throw the hitter’s timing off and can make a 70 mph fastball look like a 90 mph fastball. Pitchers like Trevor Hoffman have made long major league careers off of this one tip. He is a master of the fastball, change up combination. Use this tip for immediate effect while you work on the other velocity tips.

2. Pitch from the ground up.

We all make the mistake at a very young age, that to throw a baseball only takes the arm to perform the task. Then as we grow bigger and move up levels in the game, we find ourselves continuing to only use our shoulders and arms to throw the ball. This is a major problem. This is why we still have an incredible amount of shoulder injuries in the game. You must change your perspective. You must teach your body to recruit bigger muscle groups when you demand more velocity from your delivery. This begins in learning to pitch from the ground up. Velocity comes from forces added to the ball. These forces come from momentum in your lift leg and your push off the ground. You then must learn to transfer these forces into the ball. This can be learned through the Ace Pitcher 6 Components of Pitching. View the Handbook with these components at the bottom.

This video talks more about the throwing mistakes we make at a young age.

3. Loading your weight back until launch.

Timing and efficiency of weight transfer, during delivery, is the essence of velocity. This is where velocity lives. Most young pitchers do not load at all. Once they lift their leg they fall towards the target. This causes poor velocity and arm injury. Read my article “Lift for Show, Load for Doe” to understand “The Load” position.

4. Building Core Torque.

The most important component of velocity, is building majority torque in the core. The core is the area from just above the knees to just below the chest. This area contains the strongest muscles in your body. So it makes sense that you should use this part of the body to generate velocity. If the core is not mainly used to build torque, then the shoulder and elbow will be forced to hold the torque needed to generate velocity. To learn more about “Separation” or the importance of building core torque, read the article “Pitching Torque and the 3 pivots” and also watch this video.

5. Create more Elastic Energy.

Once you have built core torque and your weight is still back, rotate and thrust your chest forward while your arm externally rotates behind your head. This stretching of the stomach and shoulder is creating elastic energy in your body. The more relaxed you are, the more elastic energy can be created. To learn more about this read the article, “Pitch Velocity = Elastic energy.”

6. Momentum transfer.

What is the benefit of creating momentum when you can not control or transfer the momentum to the ball? The problem with coaching someone on how to generate more momentum when pitching is that they have no idea how to control it and they get worse before they get better. This is why proper momentum transfer is essential for good velocity. If you leave any momentum in your body, then you have left some velocity behind. The Ace Pitcher component of “Stabilization” describes how this momentum transfer must occur.

7. Early elbow extension and Internal Rotation.

Most throwers believe that if they pull their arms down at release then this will generate more velocity. The opposite is true. High velocity pitchers release the ball earlier than low velocity pitchers. This happens after momentum transfer when their chest is out over their toes. This means after your body has done its job you must release the ball as quickly as possible by allowing your elbow to extend up and away from your head. You must also begin internally rotating your arm as soon as your elbow extends so you can release the pitch with your fingers on top of the ball. Read the article “Pulling down is slowing down” to learn more.

8. Refuel your ATP.

ATP is the main source of energy for all muscle contraction. There are several chemical reactions that take place to produce ATP. When a muscle is used, a chemical reaction breaks down ATP to produce energy. There is only enough ATP stored in the muscle cell for two or three slow twitch contractions, or one burst of power from a fast twitch contraction. More ATP must be created.

To understand rest between throwing a pitch, first you must understand what happens during the delivery of the pitch. Initially your muscles use ATP to power the contractions but the levels of ATP available are limited. The cells have a very limited ability to replenish ATP during the activity before having to switch to other methods to fuel the activity.

Fortunately, your body can replenish ATP when you are resting. About 50% or half of the depleted ATP is replaced after one minute of total rest. Almost all of the ATP that the body can replenish (just over 95%) is restored after about three minutes of rest. I know pitchers can not wait that long between pitches, but the longer you can wait, the better opportunity to develope more velocity.

9. Fast Twitch Muscle Fiber.

A proper strength and conditioning regime like the Ace Pitcher Handbook, is based around developing fast twitch muscle fiber. This is important for velocity, because when adding a little more velocity to a pitch, you must recruit more muscle fiber within your muscular system to make this happen. We have already talked about where that muscle fiber should come from, now you need to learn how to develop more muscle fiber in the correct places of your system. Spending most of your time in the weight room sitting on cushioned machines, isn’t the answer. Start with the “Beginner Pitching Workout” and then you can move to the “Fusion System” in the Ace Pitcher Handbook at the bottom.

10. Speed your recovery.

By speeding your recovery time between starts or appearances you are making sure you never enter a game at less than 100% recovery. If your system is completely rebuilt and replenished, this is a better chance you will have the ability to generate top velocity. This is why it is important to keep a strict routine of a good strength training and conditioning program, along with a balanced alkaline based diet. You need to learn about alkaline based foods. These are green vegetables and more, which help restore the PH levels in your system. When your system becomes very acidic, you do not recovery as quickly. Diet is extremely important to recovery. Read this article on “Pitching Nutrition and Supplements” and start eating more alkaline foods from this chart.

Bonus tip: Lay off your arm.

Stop wearing your arm out. It takes enough abuse on the mound. You need to make sure your strength training program isolates the core and legs more than the shoulders and arms. If your arm is constantly sore and tired, it is because you use it to much. Try changing habits, like brushing your teeth with your non-pitching arm and do not arm wrestle your roommates with your pitching arm. Take care of yourself and it will take care of you.

I understand each one of these pitching velocity tips did not go into much detail. The purpose of this article was to give you some guidance for developing efficient and effective velocity, without sacrificing the body in return. If you would like more detail on any one of these tips, then sign up for the FREE newsletter up top and start reading the articles. If you are really serious about pitching then purchase the Ace Pitcher Handbook to take control of your career. Best of luck!

Some other MUST READ articles on velocity:

Triple Extension – 3X Pitching

The Phenomenon of Speed Mechanics!

The Pitching Key to Torque is in the “Tilt”

The Secrets behind throwing hard!

Comparison of High Velocity and Low Velocity Pitch Deliveries

Preview the Handbook:

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What should you be doing now and into the Christmas break? You should be doing everything in your power to make yourself Bigger, Stronger, Faster. I am not talking body building here. I am talking athletic performance. As much as some pitchers and critics do not want to believe, pitchers are athletes. The best pitchers in the game, are some of the best athletes in the game.

So how do you get Bigger, Stronger, Faster? With a smart program and a hard working attitude! Remember these three words come together in a package deal. They do not role separately. I didn’t say, Bigger, Stronger or just Bigger. I said Bigger, Stronger, Faster. So every workout, every sprint, every lift should be performed within a routine that is built around these three words. I recommend the Ace Pitcher Handbook, which has the Fusion system, for a great training program that focuses on these three words. I would not use the Ace Pitcher Handbook if you are looking for a quick fix before the season. This Handbook is serious stuff. For you to see the results that I had using this program, you must follow it exactly. This is because if you want to throw 90mph or speed your recovery time or overcome an injury, this will not happen overnight or by just picking up a few tips. It will only happen, if you devote yourself to this life changing event of defeating mediocrecy and embracing an extraordinary career. Look at it like you are 600 pounds and you know you need to go on a diet to lose the weight. You will not lose the weight if you decide to just eat rice cakes instead of bunny bread. You will only lose the weight, if you make a complete transformation.

I know I sound like Dr. Phil and this all sounds very dramatic but what it comes down to is the perspective of the baseball pyramid of success. Your career is based on this pyramid. If you are in high school or college, you are about in the middle of the pyramid. So if this pyramid had five floors within it, like the picture abpve, you would be on the second or third floor. Every time you make it to the next floor or next level, there is less room. This means, there is less opportunity. So if you see your career in this perspective, everything I am saying here doesn’t seem so dramatic as much as it seems like a good kick in the ass.

So ask yourself, “Have I been doing what it takes to grow Bigger, Stronger, Faster?” and if not, “What must I do with these last few months to improve my athletic performance before I start the season?” Because once the season starts, your body will not have the opportunity to grow. It will only have the ability to maintain. This is why pitchers have different training programs in-season as opposed to the off-season.

Take it from someone who has been in your position many times. If you haven’t started yet, find yourself a trainer or program that can get you what you need to improve your athletic performance in these last few months. Because when the games begin, you do not want to find yourself wishing you would have worked harder and smarter, this off-season.

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