I recently saw a former MLB pitcher talking about when he was young He said that as a high schooler he gained 16 mph in just 16 months, rocketing him from 78 mph to 94 mph He noted that in this time frame he didn’t have a growth spurt, rather he “simply threw” and it “just happened” He went on to have an MLB career, and averaged 93.8 mph, just shy of the MLB average What was uncanny to me is that when he described his throwing, it was almost IDENTICAL to what I did in high sc

The Tommy John epidemic in baseball has skyrocketed from 1 in 7 pitchers 15 years ago, to now 1 in 3 Many things have been blamed: the overall emphasis on velocity; greater horizontal ball movement (sweeper/splinker popularity); even the pitch clock While some of those may have validity, the research pins two major catalysts: ➡️ Pitching more than 100 innings in a year increases injury risk 3x ➡️ Pitching more than 8 months out of the year increases injury risk 5x The key wor

The 3 Keys to Getting Faster: ✅ Apply more mass specific force into the ground The ground is a force plate: the more you put in, the more you get back out. This is why getting stronger has such a profound effect on increasing speed, specifically relative strength: you must become very pound for pound strong-not just stronger overall-in order to sprint fast. Fat doesn’t fly, and neither does weak ✅ Improve Technique Speed is a skill; it can be trained. Learning the proper bio

When I was in high school I would get a mailing (this is before the days of social media), from the pre-eminent pitching guru of the day He preached “don’t get too big” and “work on your flexibility”; and then for a large fee, he would unveil all the secret pitching mechanic drills I didn’t know, that would take me where I wanted to go. His message resonated with me though because I was very small, and very weak, and to me, the weight room was a scary place where all the big

5’9” and THUMPING: from stuck 79-82 for 3 YEARS before starting, to now touching mid 90’s ⛽️⛽️⛽️15 months later!! The 3 things that exploded his velo: 1️⃣ He gained weight and strength Many pitchers simply don’t know how to go about a nutrition plan or training that WORKS. Fixing his diet and raising his strength allowed him to gain 30lbs of lean muscle in 15 months: F= MxA, and a bigger version of YOU will throw 5oz harder than YOU used to throw it! 2️⃣ His mindset shifted W

If any of us were going to make it out of D2 and do something it was Andy Andy was already 22 years old our freshman year from coming off doing a 4 year stretch But despite being completely out of baseball for four years, 6 months into our Fr year he was sitting 92-94mph (on the old juggs gun, so 96-98 now) Looking back I don’t know how organizations would’ve viewed a guy that’d done a 4 year stretch But sadly we never got to find out Because weenie hut Jr Baseball cultu

A 10 yr longitudinal study (Reinold, Wilk 2009) looking at over 1400 MLB pitchers found that on average GH total ROM exceeded 190 +/- 5 degrees; Bigliani et al found that most MLB pitchers have a positive sulcus sign in their shoulder, and 89% also had it in their NON dominant shoulder (so the traits weren’t “acquired”, they were hereditary). These are just some of the genetic factors that cause velo to “just happen”-for the talent. For that reason guys with the REAL talent c

A kid this past week was talking about his friend that washed out of baseball “He liked to pitch, but I don’t think he really liked everything else” You could write that on 99% of failed players gravestones Of course they like playing That’s what they enjoyed about baseball in the first place But what so many lack is having the will to prepare They fail to do what they need to OUTSIDE of games- an effective throwing program, consistent work on their swing, baseball specific d

Talent has 2 main components: 1️⃣ Usually bigger (anthropomorphically) and taller than the average 2️⃣ Genetic traits that allow for greater success than the average For pitchers this is Glenohumeral joint (shoulder) total ROM especially the amount of external rotation; a positive sulcus sign; and high on the Beighton scale For hitters it’s greater concentration of myelin coating in the brain, allowing for much better ability to pattern objects in flight All of this is geneti