What it takes to gain velocity.

June 17, 2009

plategroupIf you haven’t figured it out yet, velocity doesn’t come in a pill. Sorry to bust your bubble but it takes a lot of hard and smart work to develop it. If you are looking to gain 4-5 mph on your fastball then you must work to improve in all facets of pitching. These facets include: Read more

Popularity: 23%

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Separation and Triple Extension

June 6, 2009

This videos covers the importance of “Separation” which builds core torque, increases velocity and takes stress off of the arm. Brent Pourciau also talks about how “Triple Extension” and the “Load” position is the key to generating optimal “Separation. Read more

Popularity: 14%

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The Pitching Windup or Stretch

March 8, 2009

dizzy_dean.gifThe windup is almost scared to the game of baseball. It really has no purpose besides a kind of placebo effect on the mental state of the pitcher. The windup represents the old style of pitching. Back in the day when the pitchers would use the windup to get their arms moving faster. Now that we have learned that doing this is destructive to pitching velocity the windup has become just an extra step to throwing in the stretch. A little more time to focus on the target. Read more

Popularity: 60%

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Coach Hatch Instructional Videos

February 5, 2009

View Coach Hatch’s Instructional Videos of the Olympic Lifts.

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Coach Gayle Hatch

February 1, 2009

coach_on_platformThe USA men’s weightlifting head coach at the 2004 Olympic Games, Hatch was inducted into the USA Strength and Conditioning Coaches Hall of Fame’s inaugural 14-member class in August 2003, along with Baton Rouge’s Alvin Roy; and the USA Olympic Weightlifting Federation Hall of Fame in April 2002. He received the NFL Strength & Conditioning Coaches Society “President’s Award” for his role in developing the profession at the 2005 NFL Combine. Hatch served as meet director of the 2000 USA Olympic Trials. In 2007-08, Hatch worked at LSU as basketball strength and conditioning coach after his program helped the 2006 Tigers reach the Final Four. Read more

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The Major Misconception of Pitching

January 30, 2009

pitching_typesPitching is a very complex sequence of movements that involve building torque and force to generate velocity. So many things happening during a blink of the eye within the pitching delivery. What is even harder than pitching, is explaining this stuff. This is why every coach has his own interpretation. This is also why science wins over conventional wisdom. If you can prove it scientifically then conventional wisdom is forced to listen. If you eliminated ever coach in baseball who could not explain pitching scientifically you would have about 2% of them left to coach the position. This is why so many misconceptions plague baseball today, especially pitching. Read more

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Pitcher’s it is time to Start Juicing!

January 20, 2009

After my almost career ending rotator cuff injury, I decided to devote myself to understanding the body so I could somehow find a way back to the game I love. What I learned was I had bad mechanics as a young pitcher. I also learned that I did not train enough or when I trained it was completely wrong. I also learned that my diet was that of a dog and not a diet of a high performance athlete. It is important, as athletes, that we eat the balanced diet we have been told about all of our lives. We avoid listening to these words of wisdom because we eat what we want to eat. The reality is most young athletes have not faced a career ending injury. If someone was to tell you that you could avoid any serious injury in sports and prolong your career as an athlete, if you eat 5-6 servings of vegetables a day, would you do it? Read more

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The biggest mistakes young pitchers make?

December 10, 2008

I hate to be so pessimistic but the reality is the younger generations are lazy and not held up to the standards of the past generations. Our society today is a lot more open to excepting mediocrecy than hard work and achievement. The only reason competition continues to improve is because of the global infiltration of baseball. The game is now full of Latino’s, Asians and Europeans. I am writing this article to hopefully motivate the younger generations of America to wake up and get moving. Here is one of my favorite quotes. You should read this every morning. Read more

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Baseball Pitching Workout – Beginner

December 9, 2008

This is an excellent beginner workout. It focuses on training the body as a single unit. All these lifts support the development of Fast Twitch Muscle Fibers which will make you more explosive as an athlete. This workout was developed for pitchers but recommend for all positions. When starting this beginner program for the first time, make sure you keep your lifting weight down. Use the bar to start and once you gain confidence in your lifts, you can begin to add weight and use the percentages listed. Select the images below the workout of the lifts to view the instructional video. You can also view the Coach Gayle Hatch instructional videos here: Coach Hatch Videos to learn the lifts. Coach Gayle Hatch is a legend in the sports training world. He is most know as the 2004 USA Olympic Lifting Coach and was just named the World Coach for 2009. Some of the lifts do not have instructional videos. Search the web for exercises that would fill the role. Read more

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Pitching Velocity keys found in a car crash!

December 7, 2008

I am sure you are asking, “What does a car crash teach us about pitching velocity?” It actually teaches us pitchers everything we need to know, to truly understand, how pitchers generate top velocity. The reason for the correlation of the pitching delivery to the car crash, is the car crash analogy really helps us visualize the complex dynamics of momentum transfer. The reason for the complexity is because of the speed of the event. The moment in the delivery when momentum transfers into the ball to start its propulsion to the target, is as long as a split second. The problem is analyzing this event for educational purposes takes a lot longer. So this is where the car crash analogy will help us. Read more

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