Front Squat Pitchers

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Probably depends on who you ask.  The trainer at my son's school is well respected in his field.  They front squat (traditional front rack).

I can tell you that my son did both styles of front squats at Clemson but they were trained and managed by the Olympic strength coach which may not be indicative of most programs.

@eazye22 posted:

Should pitchers front squat and if so should it be traditional front rack or crossed arm position?

Should they front squat as opposed to no other other variations? Yeah.

Should they only front squat as opposed to any other variations? No.

As for traditional front rack or crossed arm, they should learn both, and then it's personal preference. What feels most comfortable to them, and allows them to move the most weight as quick as possible.

I'm not a huge expert on that but I read that the classic Weightlifting front squat can tax the inside of the elbow which is not an area pitchers want to tax.

So if you do it maybe use the cross arm variety.

@Dominik85 posted:

I'm not a huge expert on that but I read that the classic Weightlifting front squat can tax the inside of the elbow which is not an area pitchers want to tax.

So if you do it maybe use the cross arm variety.

A great point, but that comes with a caveat. How does your muscles get stronger? You load them with heavy weight and it responds to that stimulus by getting stronger. How do bones get stronger? They need to be exposed to force, enough of a force that requires it to respond and adapt and grow stronger. If you don't do that, if the forces are too low and/or too infrequent, they won't get stronger. Same thing with cartilage, tendons, same thing with your IVDs.

So, one could make a counter point that you would want to stress the elbow so that it can adapt and become more resilient to loads placed on it (this would be the same rationale for.. if a pitcher hasn't thrown in 4 months you don't have them throw 100 game like pitches the first day, you would build them up to it).

But to your point, say there is a pitcher that is doing front squats, and his elbow starts hurting, can he modify that to the crossed arm position and still move the weight? If so, great, until the pain settles down, and then they can go back to doing their preferred method.

That definitely makes sense but isn't one of the issues with the elbow that it is hard to strengthen a tendon compared to a muscle and there aren't big muscles around the elbow?

Basically like anyone started doing bands for the shoulder 15-20 years ago shoulder injuries declined as the shoulder muscles got stronger but UCL injuries got even more common because the body and shoulder would generate more force  but the elbow couldn't be strengthened to accommodate to this.

Or is that wrong?

@Dominik85 posted:

That definitely makes sense but isn't one of the issues with the elbow that it is hard to strengthen a tendon compared to a muscle and there aren't big muscles around the elbow?

Basically like anyone started doing bands for the shoulder 15-20 years ago shoulder injuries declined as the shoulder muscles got stronger but UCL injuries got even more common because the body and shoulder would generate more force  but the elbow couldn't be strengthened to accommodate to this.

Or is that wrong?

Awesome question! With regards to strengthening a muscle, you can achieve that in many different ways, with low load and high load (but it's easier to get with higher loads) when you take it close to fatigue. Meaning you can work at 40% of your 1RM and achieve gains in strength but you need to take that to about failure pretty much (which would be upwards to 30 some reps), whereas if you're doing 80% of your 1RM close to failure (or 1-2 reps left in reserve), you're looking at 6-10 reps.

With a tendon, you can't. Tendons require heavy loads (>70%1RM), and they adapt by stiffening up. That's what connective tissue does to loads placed on it, it stiffens up. This is also why stretching doesn't loosen up tendons or bursa or fascia, because the loads placed on it aren't enough for them to adapt and if they were they'd respond by stiffening up (brief tangent).

So again, it's not so much that tendons are hard to strengthen up, it's just that the load placed through it needs to be >70%1RM. This leads to your next paragraph that bands most likely aren't providing enough of a stimulus for that to be taking place.

Now, the flip side of this can be, with regards to UCL that you mentioned:

1) Does throwing produce enough of a stimulus to the UCL for it to adapt? I would say yes, but for those that take time off and then ramp up, is that dosage appropriate for them?

2) Are they recovering between throwing sessions? Meaning, your body doesn't get stronger because you place a heavy load on it. Your body gets stronger because you place a heavy load on it, then recovers, then the process repeats. If we're not recovering from the stimulus, is that where the UCL breaks down? Could also be someone who continues to throw all off season and doesn't manage that appropriately (meaning sometimes you shouldn't go balls to the wall crazy intense in terms of intensity/effort and volume). Or someone that plays C/P/SS/CF and makes a lot of high intensity throws every practice and every game.

3) Are there other factors involved such as genetics? Sleep and nutrition (because that provides the body the ability to recover)? Strength? Perhaps their velocity has jumped up 5-7 MPH but they don't do any strength training to the area and the tendons are use to taking that load and they can't help as much and the UCL is the breaking point, maybe?

As a general rule, the front squat is easier to train and considered "safer" but it is a very quad dominate exercise.

Wouldn't the back squat be more appropriate for a pitcher because it is more glute and hamstring dominate.  More posterior chain?

Weight training is pretty safe, where you start running into safer vs. less safe would be someone who isn't following a program, someone who isn't auto-regulating and having good load and good fatigue management. There's nothing inherently dangerous with a back squat compared to a front squat. It's just load applied on a living person, and because people are alive, and human, they adapt to those loads as long as they're dosed appropriately.

They're both quad-dominant exercises.

As for glutes, both front and back squats work it to the same degree, as far as research has shown: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26252837/ and https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25630691/ but again, the glutes aren't going to work much until you get to heavy end-loaded positions (meaning at least parallel), even then your adductor magnus also works as a hip extensor in that position - meaning, if you want to work the glutes, yeah you can squat, but you probably want to add in something focused like a hip thrust.

With regards to the hamstrings, they don't contribute a lot, https://www.academia.edu/48842...imulus?auto=download briefly touches on it a bit, as does https://www.researchgate.net/p..._Trained_Individuals so, basically if the hamstrings are the focus you're better off looking at a deadlift, nordic hamstring exercise, prone leg curl.

Point being, if you want to work your hamstrings, leg curl works, deadlifts work, something like a straight knee bridge works. Hip thrusts won't work your hamstrings much, but they will work your glutes. Squats can work the glutes if taken through at least parallel and loaded, but even then the adductor magnus is working as a hip extensor as well in that position (which is fine, but if your goal is "I want to work the glutes" there's other avenues aside from that). And quads work the same in both front and back squat. Your rectus femoris doesn't work much in the squat, so if someone has a rectus femoris strain something like a knee extension exercise would benefit them if you wanted to specifically target that muscle.

i read somewhere that the traditional squatting position is less desirable in baseball bc both legs are moving the same way at the same time and that type of motion isn't replicated during play. split squats, reverse lunges, etc. were considered better for baseball players because they mimic game positions better. 

i wish i remember where i read it but it kinda makes sense to me.

Another great line of thought. That's how specific does something need to be to positively impact production? Does it look similar? Are the muscles being trained the same way? Is the speed of the task the same?  If someone is squatting but they're a pitcher going from one foot to the other, is there any benefit to doing that compared to lateral lunges or other single leg movements?

I think you'd be able to argue yes for the squat, the muscles you're working are also worked during pitching. Are they at the same speed, no (unless you're aiming to do power work like a trap bar jump, that would get you closer), but you are training to produce a lot of force, which is the start of the movement when you're on the mound (going from relatively no movement to the initial push off the rubber). And you're able to train heavier on a squat than on a single leg squat. That's not to say the single leg squat suddenly is worthless, because it absolutely has its place being that you're training on one leg and that is a part of pitching as well. So I would say they both have their place, one might be better than the other for a certain person during a certain time, but then the reverse would be true for different periods of the year.