Lets Talk Pitching - Ask/Discussion about pitching from professional instructor

 

I'm old enough to realize that your "program" isn't worth a penny of ANYONE'S money. You can continue to do whatever you'd like, but what you're doing is wrong. I don't need your help.

 

If anyone wants real advice from someone that's actually researched this topic, feel free to PM me and I will either help you myself (free of charge) or refer you to real experts in the field. I'm done wasting my time with close-minded people who don't listen.

 

STOP running distance. Everyone. It's pointless and it doesn't work. 

 

 

 

Here's a question: What exactly are you flushing when you are flushing the body? Please provide exact terms so I can research your claims (i.e if soreness, what exactly are the things in your body that it is flushing to reduce soreness). Thanks.

 

JH without knowing it, did stop my son from doing distance running. Well worth the price of admission here

Lets good some good pitching questions going.  

FWIW, I've gotten 3 PM's since my last post. So, there are people listening. This makes me happy. Thank you.

 

If you can't answer a basic question on why you do something, why should anyone ask for advice on anything else?

 

What exactly are you flushing when you are flushing the body? Please provide exact terms so I can research your claims (i.e if soreness, what exactly are the things in your body that it is flushing to reduce soreness). Thanks.

keep pitchers in distance running 

Lets get some good pitching questions going.  

Are you ignoring me? Why is my good pitching question getting ignored?

 

 Unbelievable. Every word here was disproven by more than a dozen examples of evidence previously cited right here in this thread. This is all 100% incorrect. It's astonishing that you aren't even willing to consider anyone else's thoughts on a topic, and then expect people to go to your website and pay for yours.

 

 

If Lactic acid is bad and running flushes it, shouldn't you always be running? There is always lactic acid in your body.

 

"The reason trained athletes can perform so hard and so long is because their intense training causes their muscles to adapt so they more readily and efficiently absorb lactic acid."

 

Lactic acid isn't a bad thing any more than water is bad thing. Maybe you should tell your athletes not to drink any water.

 

 

Wow! A quote from a link I cited yesterday, explaining all of this! Evidence, amazing!

 

 

Baseballinstuct:

 

Is it possible that you were successful IN SPITE of your training methods? 

 

Do you think P3 sports has their baseball athletes running distance?

 

http://www.p3.md/

 

Take a look at these guys, do you think that maybe if you trained with them you would have had more than a cup of coffee in the bigs?

 

Look at the stuff Kyle is doing at drivelinebaseball.

 

http://www.drivelinebaseball.com/author/Kyle/

 

If I recall correctly Kyle did not play baseball in HS. 

 

Sometimes it is not what you have done but what you are doing that is more important.

 

Something to think about.....

 

 

 

Predictable responses. 

 

I'm not sure why your still wasting your time here.  Would love to hear your credentials other than reading "scientific facts".

 

I get it.  You don't like to run.  

 

I have an idea - Start a new thread all about not running in baseball, post all your links.  Talk each other into it more and more.  I will answer questions that parents and players have about pitching here on this thread.  

 

 

 

 

OK, fine. It can be personal. I really wanted to avoid this, but your obliviousness is truly remarkable. ________ - I've looked into a lot of your material you have on the Internet. You're absolutely clueless about how to teach pitching, and NO ONE should listen to anything you have to say. 

 

I vote to have this thread closed. If close-minded, ignorant, condescending, obnoxious people like ________ want to present themselves as "experts" on topics they literally know NOTHING about, let them do it somewhere else. No need to waste more bandwidth here.

 

Have a nice day. Let us know when you decide to actually research and learn how to do your job. Until you do, stop wasting people's time and posing like you know what you're talking about. Your talent took you far further than most people could have imagined in this game, and you're very fortunate for that. Your knowledge of the craft in which you excelled so much is shockingly neanderthalic. That makes you a terrible teacher. It's OK, not everyone that played can teach. But don't act like you can if you can't.

 

And for the record, my "credentials" (which are utterly meaningless, by the way), are plenty good. Even by your ridiculous standards. The "reading scientific facts" credential is more than you have, anyway.

 

 

Your answers can't be taken seriously at all, since you've proven that you can't answer basic questions about what you do and why you do it with any scientific reason, logic or anything other than an appeal to an authority you don't have. You clearly don't know about the human body and what makes it work and you clearly don't know what people should do to be a better pitcher.

 

No one on this board or anywhere should pay attention to what you have to say on how to make someone a better pitcher and no one should give you any money or treat any of your responses as anything more than toilet paper.

 

This is really getting to me. If they are facts, then you are 100% wrong. Using quotation marks is you saying that all of these scientists and well meaning individuals are lying and duping people. Your accusations, sir, are highly offensive and you should reflect on what you actually just wrote and will no doubt write in the future.

Not much to add to JH and Oldschool they pretty much summed it up for me,

 

Cheers I am done with this one. Caveat emptor

I'm evoking a personal ban on responding for the remainder of this thread. Nothing good will come out of an emotional response from me, and I don't wish to be tempted to continue in such a way. Thanks to all that have been following and I apologize to those that didn't enjoy following. PMs are still welcomed, as I mentioned above.

 

The computer armchair pitching coaches have spoken

Sorry if you thought I was getting personal.  Really wasn't trying to and tried several times to move along the conversation to other pitching topics.  I was curious about your credentials on the matter.  That is all.

 

Like I said, I will keep helping pitchers develop.

 

Thank you.

The ole non apology apology! Haven't seen that in a few weeks. I don't really buy that you weren't trying to get personal when that entire response was nothing but personal and an appeal to authority plus a slam on science, scientists and intelligence.

What other pitching topics do u want to give advice on?

Pitchers taking care of their health is #1 in my book. The fact that you are dispensing "old"  no longer factual  ideas is of concern to me. What else could you be getting wrong?  How can I trust that your  workout schedule is best for my son.

the lactic acid comment has been disproved by science IMO, and running long distances next day  has no value. I believe studies that say soreness is caused by sm micro tears in muscles. I too read  many Cressy articles/blogs. Seems to know his stuff. Never bought anything from him, wish he was closer so I could visit facility to see what they have to offer. 

Glad you wanted to post to help, but I'll take my ? Elsewhere sorry

I HATE posting on these types of threads but I just can't keep from it any longer.

I believe there is a lot of misinformation and opinions on subjective research being throw out as fact. I also believe some misunderstanding of definitions is causing disagreements where there should be none. I'm going to try and cover as much on these topics as I can. I'm sure I'm missing a few and this is not in response to anyone in particular.

I'll start with my definition and the general definition of a few things.

Distance training: 5 to 15 miles or more. Not a 1 mile rune.
Anerobic sprints: over 100 yards. 10 yard sprints are not anerobic

Aerobic: the production of energy with sufficent levels of oxygen
Anerobic: the production of energy without sufficent levels of oxygen.

Ok with those stated.
-Running a mile or two will not hurt your anerobic system. Running 20 miles will. 
-running 10 or 20 yard sprints will not incerase your Vo2 uptake nor raise your metabolic threshold. The sprints needed are long sprints preferably for 20 to 30 seconds.
-if done correctly any athlete can get in good shape with either mile or two running or long sprints. I peronaly would rather untrained coaches use a mile run because it requires less knowledge of what they are doing. I also have my clients and my son run sprints because of the secondary benifits to them.
-lactic acid does cause soreness. Pitching does build up lactic acid. The study everyone wants to keep throwing out to dispute this is flawed in its assumptive conclusions.
-the theory is that easy jogging and increasing blood flow will help the body reabsorbe (not flush) lactic acid. Don't have an opinion on this one. I haven't seen a study to convince me of it either way. Though the theory makes some sence.
-pitching is not anerobic nor aerobic. No energy is proudced while throwing a ball. The energy produced between throws would be aerobic.
-best way for general public to understand aerobic and anerobic is if your not out of breath your in the aerobic system. If your out of breath your in the anerobic one.
-aerobic and anerobic exercises do not mean they exclusivley train those systems. In fact some of the crap out there over the years primarily trained the opposite of what it was trying to do. Both systems are used in all training and those particular terms are mostly sales trigger words. Remember it's a billion dollar industry.

Now the one comment to a specific poster. JH although I had already read most of your links I went back and reread all of them again. There is a great deal of opinions of research there but not that much scientific study. Not going to argue if any of it is right or wrong but just going to say be careful when arguing someone's else's opinion as fact. Althought I do agree 100% with Eric's #9 lol.

With that said please remember research is subjective and will be interpreted differently by different people. It is not facts. Also a great deal of research is designed to prove a point not find an answer.

To that end the lactic acid production while pitching research. It's hard to explain in laymens terms why I find the study faulty but there is one part that I don't understand why everyone doesn't have a problem with it.

Resting lactic acid 1.0 mM
After squats  8-10mM a 80 to 100% increase
After pitching 5.3-5.8 mM a 53 to 58% increase

How they conclude and 80% increase caused by a major muscle system is a significant increase but a 50% increase by one arm isn't baffles me.

Now for the OP. My son is 13. He has pretty good mechanics (or so I've been told) but has started having a problem with dropping his arm slot. He already throws low 3/4 but will let it drop down a few more inches and lets his hand get under the ball instead of behind it.

Is there anything we can do for this or is it just a matter of him focusing on not letting it happen?

Lactic acid does not cause soreness 

its out of body 60 min after  exercise

soreness shows up 12-24 hrs later in muscles. 

Its tares in fibers/muscles

if l acid is culpret then a little running is all pitchers need and they would never have soreness. Boy sign me up.

       
       


Agree the majority of soreness comes from tares. Not sure about the lactic acid being gone in 60 minutes. I've read theory's for and against that. Compaired to say heart disease, there's  actually very limited research on these subjects and rightfully so they are not life threatining. I just don't see why people are so absolute in their opinions on training. It's worse than politics and religion haha. If lactic acid caused the soreness then a light jog might help. If micro tares cause it a light jog might still help. If a light jog does nothing then what? Someone wasted a whole 7-8 minutes of their life. I don't know the answers. I'm not a pitcher. I just know there is a lot of fallacial arguments being thrown around on both sides baised on opinions and being stated as fact.

If someone says they are having the pitchers throw 1,000 pitches a day. Go nuts on them but someone saying they have a kid do a little running and treat them like they are a cancer. Really?

If I recall correctly Kyle did not play baseball in HS. 

That hurts, BOF. I was merely very bad.

 

As for distance running, the argument isn't as simple as "it's good" or "it's bad." It is closer to useless than it is useful, that is for sure. But the argument is actually fairly complicated. I recommend reading Mark Twight (Gym Jones) and Lyle McDonald (Body Recomposition) on the subject, as they are experts in the fields of anaerobic/anerobic training.

 

And as for the OP... JH and I both currently work in professional baseball, and I consult for some of the best colleges in the nation as well. (Including the 2014 CWS champions.)

 

I promise I'm not handing out long distance running packets to my players. (And neither is Brent Strom, a good friend of mine.)

 

EDIT: I will say the idea of "flushing" the body by running is particularly funny. Perhaps you can describe the physiological processes that occur when things are "flushed." Or did you mean your bathroom toilet?

baseball instructor a closed minded person will never advance his knowledge.

You guys are a bunch of bullies. Your not disagreeing, your being a..h..les

Please don't throw around silly statements like we r treating someone like a cancer. I've lost many relatives to cancer and that statement is overreacting.

 I personally have not called anyone a name, just trying to clear up myths still out there after all these yrs about what is happening to our bodies. 

We need to educate ourselves by rdg the many research studies out there.

 Yrs ago my grandma was taught to put butter on a burn, and we know now that was wrong. New info will come out in a few yrs to correct more wrong things we r doing presently. 

People can believe or disbelieve what they choose. 

Really.  I guess things may have changed. 

http://authoritynutrition.com/...ter-is-good-for-you/

 

i would suggest nothing is certain.  "Scientific studies" are bound to change.

       
       


Same thing happened with eggs not long ago, didn't it?

no we're not, we are having a contradiction....

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y

 

Sorry Kyle, I remember reading something about your background and could not remember exactly. 

 

To bbman's point I both Tom House and Ron Wolforth have admitted that things they taught in the past were not necessarily accurate and current knowledge has changed their approach. 

 

 

I would also like to point out that being an aerobically fit athlete is a good thing. You just don't necessarily want to get it from distance running, there are all kinds ways to get that aspect of your training done. 

I don't have enough scientific knowledge to make a firm statement one way or another on this yet, but Scotty83 had some very interesting points. I'm curious about what JH, BOF and Oldskool2 have to say about his post. Particularly about the running up to 5 miles not being a problem. And really about running 1-2 miles being beneficial. I'm not sure many baseball programs are having their players running more than 2 miles at a time.

Running 2 miles every so often isn't going to be the death of you. In fact, it might be beneficial. And probably better than doing nothing.

 

But "better than nothing" is not the standard I hold my players and coaches to. Neither should you. Your coaches should know the tenets of training pitchers and at least have a cursory understanding of the basic research done out there.

 

I know that's asking a lot (a whole 20-40 hours of independent research instead of relying on what you were told), but if we're into developing pitchers, we owe it to them to learn as much as possible.

 

Again, if anyone wants to learn on their own instead of wait for an answer - usually the best policy - google what Mark Twight and Lyle McDonald have to say on the subject. It won't be easy to learn right off the bat, but that shouldn't deter you from learning. 

hmm... my Grandma put several sticks of butter on a severe burn and I have no scars or marks afterwards.

Nicholas Namias, chief of trauma and acute care surgery at University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, said reaching for a stick of butter seems "intuitively obvious" because "it comes out of the refrigerator cold, so it certainly feels good."
"Anything that can cool a burn before the tissue has had a chance to 'cook' should lessen the severity of the burn," he said. "I advocate cooling small burns if it can be done immediately; I’ve seen burns that should have been worse do well seemingly because they were immediately cooled."

You young whippersnappers don't know near as much as my Grandma.

I have no interest getting involved in this debate.  It's interesting that a few recent posts Involve what I believe.  I wouldn't doubt if those posts came from some older guys like myself.

 

When you look back over a long period of time you remember those things you were taught and believed to be 100% accurate.  Only to then find out they were 100% wrong!

 

Here is what I "think" is a true statement.  We keep learning, much of what was considered right years ago has been proven wrong.  So it is reasonable to think that much of what is considered right today will be proven wrong at some point. Someone will be there to prove it!

 

No one can stop this action!  The things we know today are going to change.  We will know much more in the decades to come.  That includes training, the medical field, baseball and everything else.

 

That said, we only have what is known today to go by. 

 

Not to change the subject, but it would by an interesting study to take the most successful pitchers that ever lived and see what they had in common from training to performing.  

 

I'm not sure there will be a lot of similarities other than they all had talent and potential.  I don't think you can take any kid and turn him into a successful pitcher.  If that kid doesn't have the potential, it ain't happening IMO!  Good instructors can make anyone better.  But no instructor can make every kid good enough.  

 

A long time ago I was considered a running expert.  Every single kid I ever worked with would improve their running ability.  It was fun working with talented athletes.  It was frustrating working with kids that had no talent.  Sure the 8.5 60 kids would improve to 8 flat.  They improved greatly, but they were still too slow to play.

 

While talking about instruction... And this has nothing to do with anyone in this thread... People need to understand there is some very BAD instructors out there making money off of unsuspecting people.  Often the biggest target is the kid that has already proven to have a lot of talent.  After all, if that instructor gets involved with someone that makes it big, business gets better.  

 

A couple years ago we saw a sophomore in high school that we thought had early round potential in two years.   He was throwing upper 80s but with the quickest smoothest arm action.  He was already 6'4" with great natural mechanics.  He said no one had ever worked with him, he just kind of taught him self how to pitch.  In other words he had natural ability!

 

One year later we saw this kid again at the same event.  I was really looking forward to see how much progress he made.  What happened was so very disappointing.  He still threw pretty much the same velocity, but now he looked stiff as a robot.  His mechanics and arm action went from fast and loose to tight and mechanical.  Had this been the first time we ever saw him, he wouldn't have been impressive at all.

 

I knew the answer, but asked him anyway.  Have you been working with an instructor?  He said yes after he attended last year an instructor contacted his dad offering his services.  Told his dad that he had watched the video and saw some things that the kid needed to work on and he could take the kid to another level.  Well, he did take the kid to another level, in fact several levels, DOWN! I told the dad the truth, the instructor was not helping a bit.

 

I did get the instructors name, just in case someone ever asked about him.  People will actually pay for bad advice!