Every coach knows that speed is the most dominate factor in sport. Coaches recruit fast athletes and design their offenses and defenses with that speed in mind. If these afore mentioned assumptions are correct, then, why are strength coaches training these same athletes to become slow and un-explosive.Training an athlete to become faster is not relegated to speed work on the field. You don’t take a highly recruited, gifted and genetically superior athlete into the weight room and do nothing to improve his speed and
explosive capabilities. Whether it is intentional or unintentional, strength coaches around the country are training their athletes in the weight room to become slower.

This is not an attack on training philosophy. It is an attack on the lack of common sense in the strength field. No matter what your training philosophy – Power lifting, Body-building, Olympic lifting or High intensity training, you can improve your program with a little common sense.

CST (Common Sense Training)

Rule #1
Train for strength not endurance. Remember your training for strength not a triathlon. Don’t spend an extreme amount of time in a hypertrophy phase or endurance training. Train at five reps and
below at eighty percent and above. Do this as soon as possible in your training cycle. You have to be strong to run fast, so why train above six reps? Your goal is to get strong – to run fast, not to lift long – to run slow and long.

Rule #2
Train explosively. Olympic lifts train the athlete to explode and use maximum possible force. Athletes will develop a high rate of force, a key point in sports training. Athletes who implement these lifts in their lifting program will train fast twitch muscle fibers, the fibers employed to give you speed, explosiveness and power. In essence performing an Olympic lift is performing a fast, explosive weighted jump. Sprinting in essence is a series of fast, explosive bounds. These lifts will directly help an athlete run faster Implement lifts such as: power clean, hang clean, power snatch, hang snatch, split jerk and jerk from the rack. The amount of weight does not matter as much as bar speed.

Rule #3
Train your VMO. Training the vastus medialis will help decrease ground contact time which is crucial to increase speed. Incorporate exercises such as: chain back squat, chain front squat, walking lunge and split squat into your program.

Rule #4
You need hamstring and low back strength. Because the back squat is one of the test for lower body strength in most programs, strength coaches sometimes over look the hamstrings and lower back. The hamstrings are connected to the glutes and back extensors. This is through the sarco-tuberal and dorso-sacral ligaments All lower body workouts should involve exercises for both the hip extension function and the knee flexor function Knee flexion exercises: leg curls and glute/ham raise. Hip extension exercises: Romanian deadlift, goodmorning reverse hyper and back extensions.

There are coaches with superior educations and impressive resumes who either over think while writing their cycle or under think while writing their cycle. When all else fails just use some common sense..

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• How to increase pitching velocity?

It is a major challenge to take the scientific definition of velocity and put it into motion within the pitching delivery. The only way I made this happen was through constant trial and error.

Before I give you the secrets to top velocity you must first understand how important it is to train the body for this ability. Your training program should be made of lifts and drills that are training fast twitch muscle fibers. I am sure you have heard me say this a million times but there is no better training than the Olympic Lifts. This involves all types of Cleans, along with Squats and some Split Jerks. These lifts force you to move a good amount of weight very quickly, therefore making you a more explosive athlete. Once you have maxed your explosive potential as an athlete you are then ready to find your top velocity as a pitcher. Purchase the AcePitcher Handbook for all these explosive training routines and much more.

In layman’s terms,Velocity as defined by Newton, is force divided by mass. So for you to develop more velocity you either need to increase the force applied to the ball or the application time with the same amount of force. I recommend we do both as pitchers but here I will break them down separately in two questions.

How do we increase force to the ball?

This may seem complicated but in theory it is very simple, so stay with me. To increase force to the ball we must add momentum to our delivery and then stablize that momentum for transfer to ball. Now, this is where we as pitchers go wrong. Most young pitchers when wanting to add force to the ball only add the momentum to the arm. Momentum must be added to the lower half of the body for it to be efficient and effective when delivering the pitch. Let’s use a Javelin thrower to understand this lower half momentum. What a Javelin thrower does is he can run as quick as he possibly can to a point where he must plant his leg and stabilize the momentum to transfer it to the Javelin. Watch the video!

A Pitcher is not allowed to run to develop the momentum so we must do what ever we can to develop the momentum on the mound. This is where you should watch AcePitcher.com’s 5 Components to Pitching. This video will show you how to develop momentum as a pitcher by using the lift leg, triple extension in the back leg and most important, stabilizing that momentum and allowing it to transfer to the ball.

How do we increase application time?

The answer to this questions will give you the final big picture to understanding top velocity. Application time means the amount of time a pitcher holds on to the ball through his full range of motion.

If a pitcher applied 6.5 pounds of pressure to the ball for .20 seconds as the arm is moving towards the target this would have more velocity than a pitcher applying 6.5 pounds of pressure to the ball for .15 seconds.

The question now is how do we hold on to the ball longer while keeping the same force applied. This is called separation. This is the 3rd Component in AcePitcher.com’s 5 Components to Pitching. Separation, which is occurring in the picture here, is separation of the back throwing shoulder to the back hip. If you notice the back hip is almost pointing to the plate and the back shoulder is almost pointing to second base. This is important because it is building the majority of the torque developed from the lower half momentum in the core or stomach. Now when the shoulders commit to the catcher and the chest hits the wall like the picture below, the arm will have full range of motion. Notice Nolan Ryan’s arm 180 degrees behind his head. This is the increase of application time with the same force applied.

By building more torque in the core, instead of the shoulder, this is not only increasing velocity but saving the arm from serious wear and tear. Please watch AcePitcher.com’s 5 Components to Pitching to learn this in detail.

In conclusion, developing top velocity is every pitcher’s right but not every pitcher has the natural understanding of this skill. With this article, AcePitcher.com’s 5 Components to Pitching, and some hard work it is possible for any pitcher to throw 90 plus mph.

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