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I think it is important to think about the Marc Pro device or ESTIM use for pitchers in the context of the changes & philosophies that have evolved regarding increasing velocity & pitcher training over the last 30 years.

I pitched in College & MILB ending in the mid 90's. At that point in time I, personally, was not aware of ANYONE actively using: Rubber Tubing, Weighted Balls, Flex Sticks, Box Jumps, Extreme Long Toss, Cleans & Olympic Lifts and or any real significant weight training. (as a training / recovery method for pitchers)

Most all of these methods are fairly mainstream now for a large cross section of elite pitchers.  

What will science, technology and research bring us to the mainstream 30 years from now? Will pitching training and recovery look identical to today? Has everything been discovered and unlocked about velocity and arm care? Um, no!

If you were a Pro Pitching Coach back in the early 90's & suggested the above training methods you would have been unemployed in about 5 minutes. Now, 25 years later, if you do not incorporate many of the above methods you would also be unemployed in about 5 minutes. What does that tell you? It tells you that you must keep an open mind and do as much research as you can on a method, add a major dose of common sense and proceed accordingly. This is a must if you want to try to stay ahead of the curve and gain an edge.

I applied the above method to the Marc Pro issue. I ordered 1 early this week & my 2021 had it strapped on last night doing a global arm flush watching the Celtics beat GS after we threw long in the yard. Am I 100% positive that it will make him a better pitcher? No. Am I going to wait for 10 years of research to sift out a definitive answer? No. Do I think it will do him any harm? Quite the contrary. The increased blood flow and vascular dilation makes perfect sense to me as a layman on the medical aspect.

Don't post a lot any more, though I probably should.

Got on the Marc Pro bandwagon early on.  For my 2017 it did as described, flushed soreness, quicker to recover, and was vital to arm care protocol throughout HS, and summer seasons.  Definitely worthwhile, in my opinion.  Also, while I have not reviewed the other units that are more affordable, mentioned in this thread, my understanding is that Marc Pro uses an electrical wave different from most other units to promote the recovery and healing.  Marketing, or true?...who knows, just know our experience with it, and from what I have heard from others.

Having said the above, a cautionary tale:   The newer philosophies, training methods (Motus Sleeve), and recovery protocols (Marc Pro) are great, and we are learning more and more every day.  They provide added insurance, however it is only "insurance".  I would say that I have spent quite a bit of my life in baseball / learning about baseball, and try to keep up with the technology which of the last 10 years has accelerated more than any time in the past. 

My lefty son recently underwent TJ surgery late this summer.  He is currently living full-time in Seattle training at Driveline Baseball with some of the most progressive minds in baseball, as it relates to training pitchers, and rehab protocols.  Nobody could point to any misstep along the way, that would have predicted a near entire rupture of the UCL...in fact his surgeon indicated he likely unknowingly pitched with it torn for over a year.  I have my "ideas" of how it happened, mainly high stress innings during 3 consecutive years of Texas HS championship runs. 

The surgeon who performed his surgery pretty much echoed most of the medical field, that predicting, and / or preventing injuries is difficult at best.  On the day of his surgery, we sat across from a man that struck up a conversation with us, turned out his is an agent for two current pitchers that will likely be in the HOF....he was there because his son (who pitched this past summer for the winning Florida Gators) was having TJ by the same surgeon right after my son.  He indicated the same thing, his son was always following the latest & greatest training, and recovery programs...never complained before it happened, and had no obvious mechanical flaws that "should" have caused this. 

Yes, Marco Pro is great IMO, but you will find pitchers who throw until their 40's who never took a pitching lesson, or even iced, much less Marc Pro, and you will find pitchers (similar to son) who had TJ at an early age.

 

BishopLeftiesDad posted:

Sorry if this is off topic but I can not resist.

I do not know any 12 U who do not like Icing, But some do prefer frosting.

Pardon me while I run for cover. 

I know. It looks cool - especially at 12u - like you know what you're doing. However, nothing better than that look on people's face the first time they watch you use an e-stim with your arm jerking all over the place. When my kid was a freshman, his HC, who had been there since 1972 said, "I walked in the dugout and thought he was having a heart attack."

roothog66 posted:

Thought I'd add that my son also uses the MarcPro between innings while pitching. It's his experience that it keeps his arm loose and he can step on the mound without really needing more than one or two warm up pitches.

The discussion on the MarcPro is interesting.

Kyle mentioned it for recovery. It sounds like your son is doing it for general looseness?

For pitchers, is MarcPro used on the shoulder? Elsewhere?

2019Dad posted:
roothog66 posted:

Thought I'd add that my son also uses the MarcPro between innings while pitching. It's his experience that it keeps his arm loose and he can step on the mound without really needing more than one or two warm up pitches.

The discussion on the MarcPro is interesting.

Kyle mentioned it for recovery. It sounds like your son is doing it for general looseness?

For pitchers, is MarcPro used on the shoulder? Elsewhere?

Yeah, as a pitcher, he uses it on the shoulder and elbow. For lifting, he uses it everywhere - legs, back. Pretty much anywhere but the chest or head for obvious reasons.

@TPM posted:
Originally Posted by roothog66:
Originally Posted by roothog66:
Originally Posted by TPM:
Originally Posted by CaCO3Girl:
Originally Posted by TPM:
Originally Posted by roothog66:

Here's another option:

http://marcpro.com/



It's not for everybody. For beginners, it's pricey. However, we just started using on for my son and he has been absolutely amazed at the effects. Disclaimer' he REALLY didn't want to use it at first. I mean REALLY didn't want to use it. But, after committing $600 I wasn't taking no for an answer.

Do people really think that things like this make better athletes?

I balked at a glove that cost more than $100, I don't think I am ready to get into gadgets like this yet.

Its an electric stim machine and you can buy one for less than 100 dollars. They use them for therapy upon doctors or trainers orders and yes many do after pitching especially when you throw mid to high 90's and sore afterwards.



But someone came up with the idea to make it look fancier so you would think it does more than just a plain black one!



Your 12 year old doesnt need expensive things make you a better athlete! Don't drink the koolaid!!!






Wrong. You're describing a TENS machine which helps for pain, but does nothing for decreasing the effects of muscle fatigue or creating bloodflow. You probably shouldn'd comment on things you don't know anything about.


In fact, note that it is used by 28 MLB teams and endorsed publicly by many of them. Sorry about the last comment.

Endorsed? Used?  Not! Because they endorse it means you should use it? They endorse lots of products!! They get paid to do that!!!!

Sorry, its a fancy TENS machine!!



Old thread but still relevant as the same discussions continue in baseball.

To clarify, we have never paid a pro team to endorse Marc Pro. Any recommendations from pro teams regarding Marc Pro have spawned naturally from actual usage with players. Since this thread originally posted, every MLB and MiLB now uses Marc Pro with pitchers and position players for injury prevention and arm care. Pro pitchers such as Trevor Bauer have even independently created their own reviews of Marc Pro. watch

The tendency to compare Marc Pro with a common TENS unit is not new or even unexpected. There are several categories of e-stim and they are often conflated. TENS are primarily pain control and Marc Pro is FDA indicated for muscle recovery.

Feel free to reach out with any questions.

I'll add that if anyone thinks the MarcPro (or an e-stim) is just a TENS unit, try both and tell me if you still feel the same.

I bought our MarcPro in 2014. It has been used constantly since, by multiple athletes. It's STILL in service today. The only money beyond pads I've spent is that one lead had to be replaced a couple of years ago.

As a pitching coach I fell in love with the thing and what it could do for recovery in my pitchers. I could barely afford the one I bought, so I searched for cheaper units. I actually found, and bought several e-stim units more reasonably priced ($100-$150). However, they were flimsy, poorly made models, none of which lasted more than a season or two and used up 9v batteries at an extraordinary rate compared to MarcPro's rechargeable battery. Putting aside for the moment the replacement cost, I probably lost any savings simply on batteries.

None of my sons ever iced.  A friend when older sons were 12/10 was the trainer for Chicago White Sox organization said if you ice you ice for life.  They did not recommend so we never iced.  But sons also never hurt after pitching/catching.

Youngest son's trainer does not ice anything.  They use other things remedies but never ice.  I would be more worried that any 10 or 12 or even 14 year olds arm is hurting after pitching or catching than whether to ice or not.

@roothog66, we disagree on that point.  

Mainly, I'm talking about using ice for injuries where swelling causes pain. Long-term, I've used the MarcPro on such injuries for recovering from the injury. However, because that use was limited, I can't swear it speeds up revovery time in the same way I would swear it does for normal muscle recovery, but logic tells me it should.

Old thread but still relevant as the same discussions continue in baseball.

To clarify, we have never paid a pro team to endorse Marc Pro. Any recommendations from pro teams regarding Marc Pro have spawned naturally from actual usage with players. Since this thread originally posted, every MLB and MiLB now uses Marc Pro with pitchers and position players for injury prevention and arm care. Pro pitchers such as Trevor Bauer have even independently created their own reviews of Marc Pro. watch

The tendency to compare Marc Pro with a common TENS unit is not new or even unexpected. There are several categories of e-stim and they are often conflated. TENS are primarily pain control and Marc Pro is FDA indicated for muscle recovery.

Feel free to reach out with any questions.

Ok, you win.  But after 4 years and success, what brings you back to the HSBBW?

Have not been on this site in some time, however I received alerts from my email from this very old thread I participated in, so thought I’d chime in.

Was a day 1 Driveline guy, and Kyle recommended for my son.  Bought a unit likely way before many would even consider buying for personal use.

My take :   It works for recovery and is very different than a TENS unit, and active recovery is much better than ice.  IMO this was way ahead of the game, and not surprised that so many programs use it.  

Son was training at Driveline when Bauer was there one late summer, and Trevor had all kinds of “data” he used on how he used the Marc Pro.

Now is this for young teenagers?….. probably not, but if you can afford it, why not.  

I'll add my praises for the marcpro.  it's pricy, but it's a horse.  we've had one for 5 years or so (I think...I know my son brought and used it when his 12u team went to cooperstown and that we'd had it for about a year prior to that). best "investment" ever, imo.  after reading on all the other available brands at the time, i finally bit the bullet and paid for the marcpro. 

son uses it for recovery after pitching or after a heavy throwing day.  he used this spring when he was recovering from an ACL/MCL sprain and, while i can't prove that it helped, he was back on the field at almost full speed (with the doctor's approval) within a week and a half.  heck...i've used it when injure myself by being 50 (ie getting out of bed and tweaking my back, lol) and it helps for sure.

it's at the point where, if i need to buy a replacement, i'd do it with no hesitation but it's still going strong, fingers crossed. at 5 years old and counting, i'd say i got my full value from my initial investment and anything else is gravy.

Old thread but still relevant as the same discussions continue in baseball.

To clarify, we have never paid a pro team to endorse Marc Pro. Any recommendations from pro teams regarding Marc Pro have spawned naturally from actual usage with players. Since this thread originally posted, every MLB and MiLB now uses Marc Pro with pitchers and position players for injury prevention and arm care. Pro pitchers such as Trevor Bauer have even independently created their own reviews of Marc Pro. watch

The tendency to compare Marc Pro with a common TENS unit is not new or even unexpected. There are several categories of e-stim and they are often conflated. TENS are primarily pain control and Marc Pro is FDA indicated for muscle recovery.

Feel free to reach out with any questions.

I've got one. I looked at your website for research into the device and there's really nothing out there as of yet. Are you guys planning anything concrete in the future?

@roothog66 posted:

I can't imagine what, exactly, you'd be looking for.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with critically appraising studies, I'll try to walk through what is glaring in the study.

I’m going to preface this with: this isn’t going to hurt you, so if you enjoy using it and you think it helps you, there’s no reason NOT to do it. If that’s good enough for you then that’s fine.

Alright, let’s take a look at the study you linked. First thing is Nicholas DiNubile and Kenneth Blum are both paid consultants (as identified on the pilot study) but there’s no conflict of interests reported in this paper.

Gary Reinl was the one who taught all the participants to use the device. He’s not an author on the paper, but a paid consultant as well (as identified on the pilot study).

Method section:

First study: 43 participants (8 male, 35 female) avg age 61.3, of which 22 used marc pro and 21 did not. Unknown what their injury history is, if they are sedentary, if they’re active, if they resistance train currently or have in the past, if they are allowed to do anything else outside this study, so it’s unknown if the groups are equal, and it’s unknown how the randomization occurred (if it occurred). Why would this be an issue? For example, if there are less resistance trained people in the intervention group, they should have larger gains than those who may train already. Then it would have nothing to do with the device and all about how the groups were chosen.

Trained twice weekly in 60 minute sessions for 10 weeks on a nautilus machine. They did 1 set of 8-12 reps per exercise and resistance increased once they hit 12 reps.

Those in the marc pro group were given marc pros and were to self-administer 1 hour to the calf muscles of both legs 4 days a week for 10 weeks.

Assessments were done first week and last week. Calf strength was measured “by the 3 RM weight load, which was the heaviest resistance that could be performed 3 times with correct technique” and calf muscle fatigue on a 1-9 scale.

Main takeaways from the first study:

At the end of 10 weeks, the marc pro group had a between group difference (from the no marc pro group) of 26.6 lbs for the 3RM calf press. That is pretty decent, but yes, there’s a lot of bias that may be in the article. That stems from who is present during the training, what coaching cues are used if any, who is gathering the data (if they know which participants are in the control group or not, they may be biased non-verbally and/or verbally during the 3RM testing), the fact that there’s one group that received something vs. a group that received nothing, instructions given for the marc pro (“this device is used by many pro athletes, it can help in fatigue and maybe even increase muscle strength"). Not saying that is what was said, but if anything like that was said, that may influence results because now participants are thinking “This is going to help me”

For subjective muscle fatigue there is a between group difference of 0. Both groups had muscle fatigue of 1.8 with a standard deviation of .3 at the end of 10 weeks.

It would’ve been nice to have actual objective markers for recovery, like serum creatine-kinase, IL-6 and CRP, since subjective methods don’t tell us anything about actual objective markers.

These are all reasons why we try to limit this stuff during a study, so we can parcel out “Hey, is this actually helpful to the population I’m working with, or is it nothing better than cupping, ktape, IASTM, dry needling, etc…” all of which we know are useless.

And since the study design is with 60 year-olds, you can’t generalize it to the athletic population, since that population is not tested.

If we were to rate this study using the PEDro scale it’d be a 3/10 which is poor.

Eligibility criteria specified: No (although this isn’t counted on the 0-10 score)

Subjects randomly allocated: No

Allocation concealed: No

Groups similar at baseline regarding prognostic indicators: Unknown

There was blinding of all subjects: No

There was blinding of all therapists who administered the therapy: No/Unknown

There was blinding of all assessors who measured at least one key outcome: No/Unknown

Measures of at least one key outcome were obtained from more than 85% of the subjects allocated to groups: Yes

All subjects for whom the outcome measures were available received the treatment or control conditioned as allocated or ITT: Yes

The results of the between-group statistical comparisons are reported for at least one key outcome: No (within group differences, but not between group).

The study provides both point measures and measures of variability for at least one key outcome: Yes



Going back to their method section, remember that those in the marc pro group were given marc pros and were to self-administer 1 hour to the calf muscles of both legs 4 days a week for 10 weeks. Well, here’s a method section on estim from a study done a few years ago:

The subject was seated with hip and knee flexed to 90° and 60°, respectively. A generator (Compex1, Medicompex, Switzerland) provided bi- directional symmetric rectangular impulses directly to the skin through surface electrodes placed on the left thigh. Three independent channels were employed. They were composed of two poles, one of which was connected to a “stimulating” electrode (5x5 cm) and the other to a “dispersive” electrode (9x5 cm). The 3 stimulating electrodes were placed over the motor points of the vastus medialis, vastus lateralis and rectus femoris of the quadriceps. The dispersive electrodes were placed transversally on the proximal portion of the thigh. Pulse width was 0.25 ms and pulse frequency was 5 Hz. Pulse characteristics (shape, width, amplitude and frequency) were checked previously by means of an oscilloscope. The investigators adjusted the current intensity independently on each channel in order to get an homogenous non-tetanic contraction tolerated by the subject. During the ESR (25 minutes), the current intensity was regularly increased to maintain a visible and palpable muscle contraction in order to reproduce the traditional use conditions of such NMES program. At the end of stimulation, the mean (± SD) current intensity was 47 (± 13), 49 (± 15) and 45 (± 14) mA respectively for the vastus medialis, vastus lateralis and rectus femoris. - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3761726/

You will find nothing like that in any of their studies, making it harder to replicate.

What do we know about other modalities that are similar?

No difference between massage, upper body ergometry, estim, or doing nothing for soreness, MVIC, or peak torque - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7827630/

No difference between active recovery cycling, estim, or doing nothing for quadriceps MVIC and soreness - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3761726/

Evidence is not convincing to support estim for recovery after exercise - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24552796/

“There isn't enough good-quality scientific evidence to say for sure whether TENS is a reliable method of pain relief.” https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/...ve-stimulation-tens/

That is what I meant when I asked if there was anything better currently out there, because this doesn’t tell me anything about athletes and it’s not something I would purchase. Conversely, I wouldn’t slap it out of anyone’s hands, either, unless they were doing it over things that were ACTUALLY helpful, if that makes sense?

Like if someone decided to forgo a proper training program with load management and autoregulation, sleep, nutrition, and instead focused on just using the device, that would not be helpful at all. But if they checked all the boxes and wanted to add that in because they like it, I wouldn’t say no to that, either.

Last edited by XFactor

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