nycdad posted:roothog66 posted:LHP's Roady posted:
I wonder if the run and gun ball weight may be a typo? My son is working with a group now (Optimum Athletes-Sacramento) returning to competition this fall (from TJ surgery). Max ball weight for run and gun is 6-7 oz. Plyos go heavier. I played catch with him the last couple weeks and noticed a shorter arm action, more consistency, and easier velocity. I didn't put a gun on him because he is not up to full effort yet,
My son studies pitching and his impression is that he is learning to reduce the peak stress points in the chain, which allows him to use more of everything else. I doubt you could describe everything going on verbally, at least not to a kid. The weighted balls are what we call a no-teach in my line of coaching; the balls do the teaching.A very important point is the increase in shoulder injuries caused by the increased external rotation (and weak rotator cuffs). A nice thick layer of corded steel around the rotator cuff is necessary, and that takes years of training.
Nope. Definitely NOT a typo. Here's a link to the whole paper:
https://journals.sagepub.com/e...3sHNAEU8dYKawIJ/full
I've also had contact with Reinold concerning this and he claims it's a standard program. Note that they also threw this 3x per week. The program I use and most of the others will have ONE velocity throwing day like this a week.
Now, I'll admit that I had a lot of bad things to say about Mike two or three years ago when this study first came out and may have even attacked him personally concerning his years with the Red Sox and the problems there. It took him awhile to find someone to publish it - it was turned down by his first choices, mainly due to its severe limitations. However, outside of this, Reinold has a lot to offer and I've come to appreciate his contributions more than I did during my somewhat well-known feud with Brent Pourciau, who hyped this study to the hilt.
He hyped this study because right before this study came out Reinold had him at his conference up in MA to present. At that conference Reinold talked about the study, but also did say he didn't think weighted balls were bad, they were just another tool. No one had seen the study at that point.
The weighted ball program my son has used had nowhere close to that volume. It has the 1 velo day like you describe, and the majority of the program is dedicated to recovery.
His study had some validity as to many of the measurements he recorded. However, trying to stretch that into applying to anything useful in the area of injuries was useless. He originally submitted it to a prestigious journal that eventually wouldn't publish because of the limits of his study. If someone really wanted to do such a study they should include a vast array of different wb programs and study it with a large sample size. Here, he had, I think 38 subjects in a particular program. I believe the most he could legitimately claim was that this particular program which included no ramp up and velocity throwing with balls up to 2lb 3x per week carries a large injury risk, to which I would say "duh."