Dick Mills Quote:

You see what happens when ice is initially administered is it brings blood to the site where it is applied, for the pitcher to the shoulder or elbow. And blood is good because it provides healing. However, as the ice stays on the blood can no longer get into the area so after a few minutes of icing the area is prevented from beginning the natural healing process. Icing stops an immune response which is healing.

This is a perfect example why you should NOT get all your information from one source. Dick Mills has definitely let his ego get the best of him here. All you have to do is search the web for medical websites documenting studies and articles on icing for injury or cryotherapy. In my career, I heard it through the grapevine that icing may not be good for pitchers but out of all the Doctors and Physical therapists I went through, during my five years of hell after rotator cuff surgery, I never once received any information that could back this up.

After reading Dick Mill’s article on icing, I then took some time to research the web and I found several websites reference the work of Dr. Meeusen from Antwerp, where I played some professional baseball. He based his life study around icing as a means to help heal a damaged muscle. His documentation describes how ice can be effective and where it can cause problems.

When body tissues are cooled, nerve cells in the chilled area initially force adjacent blood vessels to constrict, leading to a marked reduction in blood flow to that part of the body. However, if the temperature of the affected area continues to drop, nerve activity is depressed and the blood vessels begin to open up, flooding the injured tissues with blood, even though cold is still being applied. This flood-of-blood (Hunting effect) is the human body’s reflex reaction to thwart severe cold injury in a body part subjected to chilling stress.

Dr. Meeusen’s studies showed that icing initially stops the swelling and blood flow of the damaged blood vessels into the local muscle tissue but after a period of 10 minutes it can begin to have an opposite effect to the area. His documentation continues to state this damage continues on to another important system of healing.

Lymphatic Vessels: Prolonged ice application can cause lymphatic vessels (which ordinarily help carry excess tissue fluids back into the cardiovascular system) to increase in permeability. This causes large amounts of fluid to pour from the lymphatics “the wrong way” into the injured area, increasing local swelling and pressure, potentially contributing to greater pain. If icing goes on too long, the lymphatic vessels can actually be nearly obliterated, losing all of their fluid to surrounding tissues.

The lesson here is NOT that icing is bad. What we have learned is that icing is effective initially but begins to cause problems after about 10 minutes. Read the description below for the proper way to ice the arm after a game to help aid the healing process.

Ice the elbow or shoulder region for 10 minutes immediately after pitching (DO NOT PUT ICE ON ULNAR NEVER), remove the ice for about 30 minutes, and then reapply it for 10 additional minutes. Repeat this cycle of about two 10-minute icings per hour as often as desired, based on how many pitches thrown, during the first 24 to 48 hours after pitching.

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This is where I critique Pitching Coaches that have made their name online. They make their money critiquing you so let’s turn it on them for a change.

I have parents calling me all the time and expressing their frustrations with weeding through all of the pitching propaganda online. They want to know what the best instruction for their son is. I usually say “I hate to tell you this but I can only give you my bias opinion.” So I have decided to do better and put together this article of critiquing these Coaches online. Just remember this is TopVelocity.net so I will only be discussing Velocity Science and Training issues.

Paul Reddick www.paulreddickbaseball.com
on “Weight lifting for pitching”

Please watch his video before reading my points below.

First point

Mr. Reddick isn’t a Doctor, Physical Therapist or a certified training. So for him to educate us on tendons, ligaments and injury he better back it up with some professional medical documentation. I would take this advice with all Coach’s. This is why we have sports doctors, therapists and trainers.

Second Point

He is correct about over training the push muscles to pull muscles but this for any sport would be a bad idea. This is why a good trainer will make sure you are building joint integrity. Which means training both push and pull muscles equally.

Third Point

I am not a Doctor but my experience has shown me that little muscles do not make stronger tendons and ligaments like he is referring to. I guess he doesn’t know who Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, Eric Gagne, Mark McGuire, Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, and Jason Giambi is.

What I learned through experience is that strong muscles make strong tendons and ligaments. The most effective way I have developed muscle strength, preferably fast twitch muscle strength, is from Olympic lifting and plyometric training but I am not the only one saying this. D1 Training facilities make a fortune on this philosophy for all sports. They are backed by top athletes in sports like baseball, football and basketball.

Last Point

Mr. Riddick says that long term lifting for a pitcher can lead to injury and first poor performance. The older Nolan Ryan got the more he incorporated a lifting routine. He credited his longevity to his strength training in the weight room.

I am not saying that any strength training routine will help a pitcher. I strongly believe in Olympic lifting and Plyometric training for pitchers. I personally gained six mph in one year post surgery from this type of training and I wasn’t the only one.

I would say that Mr. Riddick’s advice hear would be good advice for someone who is already throwing in the upper eighties and is over 18 years of age. This type of advice for someone throwing in the low eighties or less and who is 18 years or older, you need to get Bigger, Stronger, Faster, if you are going to make it at the next level! There is no better way for an athlete to make this happen than through Olympic lifting and plyometric training.

Dr. Mike Marshall www.drmikemarshall.com

When I first found Dr. Marshall I watched his videos and about half way through them I thought it was a joke. I actually started laughing. It is obvious he developed these theories after his many years of pitching. This is a red flag. I would never take advice from a Coach who never practiced what he preached. If Dr. Marshall would have tried his techniques he would have found that his theories are useless.

All of his videos are about preventing elbow injury. He is saying through his many years of scientific study, he found that during pitching, these small muscles around the elbow are being over developed and causing restricted range of motion. So his techniques are based on changing the pitching delivery to prevent this over development of these small muscles.

This is absurd! This would be like advising a Nascar driver to drive on only two wheels at a time to prevent wearing his tires out.

Where Dr. Marshall missed the boat was the revolution of baseball through Strength Training. He never mentions this new world of sport specific training because more than likely he doesn’t even know it exists.

What we have learned through strength training is that we can rebuild joint integrity in the weight room. We can prevent over development in the small throwing arm muscle with a good joint integrity program. This way we do not need to degrade our performance as an athlete/pitcher to prevent injury.

It is unfortunate that someone like Dr. Marshall believes in these absurd theories because he has brought a lot of good information to the pitching world.

Alan Jeager www.jaegersports.com

Alan Jeager has no professional pitching experience. His Pitching Instruction involves Long Toss and Yoga. Watching this video I heard nothing about mechanics and actual scientific data. All I heard was him talking about Freedom and looseness in the arm. What does that mean? Pitching is as technical as shooting a high powered rifle. This video sounds like a ballet dance.

His long toss routine is as Old School as it gets. This is the same old stuff they told us pitchers back in the day. You hear nothing about the actually physics of the drill or delivery and all of this fluff about Freedom and Looseness and the calm before the storm.

So why is this long toss routine worthless? Because it is based on the philosophy that the arm throws the pitch and NOT on the philosophy that we throw a pitch with the entire body as a single unit. Therefore it is unnecessary to put this kind of wear and tear on the arm outside of competitive play.

The arm can only handle so much. The body can handle so much more. So spend more time on learning how to get more out of your body than more out of your arm. This is the key to your success as a pitcher.

Alan Jeager has a good band program and Yoga program for mental training but nothing he teaches actually helps the pitcher move up levels of the game as an athlete.

His long toss program should be avoided completely. A lot of bad mechanics will develop from long tossing along with soreness and injury. You should never exceed more than 90 feet when tossing. This is the same for running. You should never run more than the distance of the bases. This means we are training outside of the realm of the game. This will not help us improve as athletes, baseball players and pitchers.

Dick Mills www.pitching.com

Finally, someone who gets it! When I was a young pitcher I used the Dick Mills program and it was fairly old school. He would have me do drills in the mirror like breaking my arms from the glove, getting into the T-position, it was basically choreography. I also did his weighted ball drills for velocity training, which beat my arm to death. The entire time I would follow his son who was the same age as me. He was a top round pick from Arizona and then all of a sudden he had arm problems. I immediately threw the Dick Mills program out the window because at this same time I started having arm problems. I do not credit Dick Mills to my arm problems but all I knew was that it wasn’t helping. Then a few years later I am having arm surgery and Dick Mills is changing his entire program.

After listening to this video I see now that Dick Mills has seen the light but what bothers me is it is all in theory for him. What I mean is he had a long professional career and never pitched with this new scientific information. I find it hard to listen to a Coach or Teacher who is not teaching from firsthand experience. Don’t get me wrong, we need Coaches like Dick Mills to save pitchers from the likes of Alan Jaeger’s long toss program or Dr. Marshall’s pronation nightmare. It is just hard to find a pitching Coach online today who teaches physics driven mechanics with firsthand experience. Yes, I am bragging now because I learned this scientific understanding of pitching and then used it to overcome my almost career ending shoulder surgery. I went from 86 to 94 mph and played minor league ball after doctors told me I would never play again.

If you watch my instructional videos you will see a better understanding of what Dick Mills is teaching. He misses the point on a lot of issues because he has never applied it to his own pitching delivery. This is why I continue to pitch in amateur leagues. I feel that once I stop pitching, I must stop coaching because I will lose touch of this complex understanding of the dynamic pitching delivery.

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