Fall/Off-Season Results

Took me a while but figured it out - BFS means Bigger, Faster, and Stronger!  I pulled up the all acronym dictionary and quickly realized that would not help.  My son's goal was to put himself in a position to take innings on the mound in the spring.   He made the travel squad for Texas trip but between now and the end of Feb anything can happen.   He is where he needed to be so he reached his goal.   Also, his focus was on VAM.  Good luck deciphering that one.

@Gunner Mack Jr. posted:

Took me a while but figured it out - BFS means Bigger, Faster, and Stronger!  I pulled up the all acronym dictionary and quickly realized that would not help.  My son's goal was to put himself in a position to take innings on the mound in the spring.   He made the travel squad for Texas trip but between now and the end of Feb anything can happen.   He is where he needed to be so he reached his goal.   Also, his focus was on VAM.  Good luck deciphering that one.

Velocity, aim, mechanics?

A= accuracy!

@Gunner Mack Jr. posted:

A= accuracy!

So close...

If the other meaning of BFS is what I think it is…. He has those too! All that protein and fiber is providing plenty of free Covid smell tests.

Son's biggest goal was getting the arm back in shape, and it's close to miraculous. Continuing to stretch out, throwing 250 without a crow hop, and nearly 300 with. Says his arm has never felt better. Biggest addition to his routine was adding football throwing as a warmup to long toss. I can't say for certain this was what made the difference, but that (combined with continued strength gains) seems to made a huge difference.

"Voluntary" workouts start today. Last go'round, can't believe it's here.....

Happy to read the success stories, keep grinding boys. It has been a roller coaster fall/winter for my knucklehead. He was supposed to play fall ball to get into a college schedule, but a recurring injury kept him out and he shutdown and skipped fall ball. After the required rest period he joined a new training facility and after 1 week , he did a set of run and guns and injured his elbow and required surgery. It was supposed to be a couple of screws then it expanded into ligament repair. The kid continued to workout lower half and one armed hitting and was doing well until he got COVID, he was asymptomatic and the rest us quarantined and had another sequestered holidays. His training facility then closed until the new year. He ditched his brace last week and is starting to get used to the classic numbness and he has almost full ROM with little or no pain.  He is back in the training facility and has circled the end of this month for his return to throwing and 2 hand hitting protocol. He lost 5 lbs throughout the COVID and holiday breaks, surprised me given how much that kid chowed down during the several weeks of his lockdown and he did some lifting in our home gym.   

Posts like are these awesome, keep em coming.

Son had minor thumb surgery on his catching hand which kept him out of defensive drills for a while; still could hit and train. He was most focused on getting his squat #s up and he was able to increase his max 6-rep set by 20%.

What's fascinating to me is the change in his perspective on nutrition. He's suddenly focused on lean protein and he eats an absolute ton of vegetables. Thank God for his mother. Without her he'd be eating pizza 3 times a week.

Did he hurt his thumb catching? We had a kid on the summer team with a nagging thumb injury all summer. Didn't take much to aggravate it.

I wish I could get mine to eat more veggies. He's eating tons of protein, good carbs, and good fats. What he does eat now I have to sneak into smoothies.

@TerribleBPthrower posted:

Did he hurt his thumb catching? We had a kid on the summer team with a nagging thumb injury all summer. Didn't take much to aggravate it.

I wish I could get mine to eat more veggies. He's eating tons of protein, good carbs, and good fats. What he does eat now I have to sneak into smoothies.

BP, yeah it's a nagging injury he's dealt with for 1.5+ years and the doc finally cleaned it up.

And smoothies absolutely work!

Sons goal was to put on 15lbs during the fall. Poor kid couldn’t stay healthy. He had Covid in late August, then he had bad stomach virus in early November where he couldn’t hold anything down for a few days and then beginning of December he had mono and no appetite. But he pushed on with trying to get it done. He was up 10 lbs when mono struck, lost most of it and has gained it all back.

He has broken all his weight lifting PR. So it seems the added weight has helped there. Also on the field. He got the second highest exit velo (front toss)in their baseball class testing, 96mph. Then he has been doing velo work with his pitching coach. Run and gun with the 2oz ball was 109mph and 4oz ball was 101mph. Both shattered his previous bests. So looking forward how this translates to the mound his spring.

Dang! that is some bad luck with the health. Those are some solid numbers for the baseball class. Did they have the kids doing any plyoball work with the run and guns? I wish we had that in FL.

My son had his wisdom teeth out the Monday of Thanksgiving and ended up with 2 dry sockets. Ended up being 3 weeks of just smoothies and protein drinks. I think he lost 7 lbs during that time.

Son (2022) has been lifting all fall while working on speed and trying to eat enough to gain weight. He is a still a boy in but slowly turning into a man. 6'4" and 200 lbs. He will be a beast in another year.

Finally was able to start hitting again in early December. Hamate debacle basically ruined his junior year. Was able to get ~ 55 ab's last summer in pain without any BP (too much pain pre/post surgery). Took the entire fall off of hitting to get pain free. Did a mid December hitting "metrics" camp at University of Minnesota. After a bunch of warming up swings he had 11 swings recorded by TrackMan off a machine pitching too slow (that is what all the kids were saying post). Of the 11 balls hit, max exit velocity was 97.8 and max distance was 382 feet. Average distance on 7 line drives and fly ball was 331.5 feet. Not too bad 10 days after not swinging a bat for 3 months. I am so thankful that he can hit again because it brings him so much joy.

Also excited that he now is getting the first specific catching coaching he has ever had. Trains with a great group of kids on Sundays. His partner for drills last week catches at ASU (his younger brother committed to catch at Georgia Tech 2 weeks ago).

Has some opportunities for next year but trying to figure out what the right path is for him...its gonna be an interesting 6 months...the only certainty is the kid freaking loves baseball and I am thankful for that!

Eat, school, eat, lift, eat, train, eat, sleep, repeat...