Strength Training for Baseball Players with Greg Robbins

[00:00:00] All right everybody welcome back to the Barbell Therapy podcast. I'm your host Dr. Brett Scott.

[00:00:07] Today we're going to be talking all about baseball and strengthening conditioning for baseball with my friend Greg Robbins.

[00:00:13] Greg's got a military background, he's been a collegiate baseball player, he's also been a competitive powerlifter.

[00:00:19] He was a strength coach for Eric Cressy at Therjim for many years and is now owner of the strength house.

[00:00:26] He's coached many many D1 level baseball players as well as multiple pro MLB players as well.

[00:00:34] Me and Greg go back about 10 years now actually going out for ice cream on double dates but we haven't gotten to talk too much shop about training and things that happen.

[00:00:44] So for us as coaches and PT's we see a lot of baseball athletes for training and for rehab.

[00:00:51] And I think Greg is a great resource and so we wanted to sit down and talk with him today about the ins and outs of competitive baseball

[00:01:01] and how to train for it in the weight room and how we can better prevent injuries within the sport and everything there.

[00:01:08] So Greg thanks for taking the time on your day to come on here and he warned us we might get a four year olds appearance from his daughter there.

[00:01:15] So if she comes on that is totally fine with us but yeah again thanks for coming on and anything else there for your intro anything you wanted to add?

[00:01:27] Be covered yeah thanks for having me appreciate the time on the podcast come on here so we're talking about baseball or wherever we end up.

[00:01:38] Yeah so one of the biggest things I've seen now and it's not just baseball it's kind of all sports with the youth athletes but it's becoming more and more of this year round thing where kids are doing fallball spring winter specialty camps

[00:01:56] working with one-on-one coaches for batting pitching catching whatever do you think there's any problem with where the sport is going in that sense?

[00:02:08] Yeah I think it can be yes.

[00:02:13] It's a huge proponent of early specialization in the sense of it depends on how old they are so if we're looking at you know below 16 years old.

[00:02:27] I'm hoping that they're playing multiple sports the level of which they're playing those sports it doesn't really matter so much but getting exposure to a winter sport like basketball or hockey and fall sport like football or soccer.

[00:02:45] I think the proofs in the pudding when you look at some of the best athletes even you know image like baseball a lot of those guys were three sport athletes growing up.

[00:02:58] You know that being said like every athlete's a little bit different so you look at a major league baseball player with three sport athletes in high school is also just a freak generally anyways right so.

[00:03:10] I might not have been a guy that needed as much time on the training and developments where the sport was giving him a lot more where you might have some some kids that are not as gifted as athletes genetically.

[00:03:24] And you know playing maybe playing two sports and having a winter where they're develop and we're focused on training or something like that goes a long way for them so it could definitely be very individual to each kid.

[00:03:39] But you know having been in it for so long probably my biggest gripe the only one that concerns me the most would probably be like the showcases that happen in late September October especially for pictures so I think it's also a big difference we're talking about position players versus pictures.

[00:03:59] You know position players aren't going to be throwing nearly as much at nearly the intensity of starting pictures.

[00:04:08] And so it's kind of like they go through that spring season where that be high school generally will just kind of take that age group to play high school baseball then they're going to play summer baseball because that's become probably like the more important one for them in terms of experience.

[00:04:28] And then in terms of exposure for a college recruiting and you know if they're good they're out there they throw in a lot of ratings and then I think where they I get worried sometimes is the summer baseball kind of schedule ends made maybe late August.

[00:04:48] This sort of month month and a half where they're just kind of chilling or you know not maybe not taking care of themselves are keeping the arm where it needs to be and then they go out and generally that that showcase that's happening in late September October I'm like name names of you know people that are putting these showcases on but they're kind of big you know.

[00:05:16] Air quotes if you're not watching the video like big name showcases so kids go out there and they want to like throw balls hard as they can and that one worries me a little bit.

[00:05:27] But you know I think it's baseball is their thing and it's very skill dependent game I don't necessarily see a problem with you know working with in coaches working with pitching coaches it's like anything it's like a like depends who you work with I guess.

[00:05:44] If they're smart about managing the volumes and how much I'm these things are taken how much they're pitching you know there's ways to work on.

[00:05:54] On your game without pushing the intensity so high that you're just ranking up too much volume so.

[00:06:00] I think you know can be done but I wouldn't advocate against playing multiple sports either.

[00:06:08] And yeah especially pictures is the big one there they're just there's a lot more volume there that they're taking on.

[00:06:15] Is there a period of time though so you're worried about them taking a short period of time off and then go on out and trying to kill it but is there a certain period of time.

[00:06:25] Especially pictures should be taking off from throwing through the air to just kind of recover and get away from it and do something else to develop in other ways.

[00:06:38] Yes and no I think i'm not a huge fan of long shutdowns and pitching like that that was very popular for a while and in some camps that's still popular like doing.

[00:06:53] You know up to like eight weeks of shutdown but I personally when I give out advice to pictures like I've moved away from that so even my even my pro pictures if they're healthy.

[00:07:07] They're going to take after that season maybe maybe two three weeks off of throwing but then they're going to start throwing again but like throwing is this very general term right like are you throwing.

[00:07:22] Max and 10 bullpen's twice a week no are you throwing a ball yeah we keep throwing the ball like i i i've seen more trouble with the long shutdown because the long shutdown is going to require a longer rip up back to that intensity.

[00:07:42] And if that's not done correctly then I think you open yourself up to more injury than if you just continue to to throw.

[00:07:52] You know throughout throughout the whole year but you know just like.

[00:07:57] Just like anything else where you're managing vibes and ten cities like it's a way lifting in your competitive Olympic way lift or power lift and.

[00:08:05] You go through periods where you don't necessarily train with the same intensity or the same specificity but you don't stop training completely you know once in a while you do you take a week off here and there.

[00:08:18] But you don't stop all together and so that's kind of what I had the cave for is something like that.

[00:08:26] Okay probably just means to like bring in the frequency of down the bring the frequency of throwing down or pitching down.

[00:08:34] And so.

[00:08:37] Is there a certain age to kind of going back is there a certain age that parents or kids should look at when an athlete should decide to specifically like specialize in baseball.

[00:08:52] After high school or in high school.

[00:08:56] For me it's like it's when they started so most of the most of the athletes I almost all of them that I deal with they want to play college baseball like that's the first goal right and they might want to play professional baseball too but first they got a.

[00:09:12] The original thing you know check the box play the highest level college baseball that I can.

[00:09:17] And if that's the goal then at some point you got to make the choice to specialize in that because you want to push yourself to get as good as you can to reach that level and that's that's going to take specific work to get that done it's going to take more swings more time working on your mechanics if you're a picture.

[00:09:40] The training side of things that can be going on all the time you know regardless of what you're doing obviously you open up a little bit more time for trading if you're not in a competitive sports season regardless of the sport.

[00:09:55] But that's sort of the first thing I look at because sometimes I'll have kids that are pretty good let's say at two sports maybe even three sports.

[00:10:07] So they're playing high level of club baseball but they are also having this opportunity to play a high level let's say of club hockey anyone that's when I run into sometimes and it's like you know the higher level that you commit yourself to in that club hockey or with that just like when you commit yourself to a high level of club baseball means they're going to have demand more from you there's going to be more practices there's going to be more expected of you.

[00:10:36] And so that's when I have to be like well listen what do you want to play college hockey or do you want to play college baseball and if the answer is college baseball and we're talking about like a winter sport like hockey let's like that hockey season is getting transition right into the baseball season maybe a couple of weeks off in between but you're going to be missing out on some development that you could have been doing for the sport that's ultimately more important because it's not going to be a good thing.

[00:11:06] And so at this point the very rare that kids going D1 to play multiple sports you know it happens here and there but I can't think of the last kid I know that when to play D1 multiple sports.

[00:11:23] If they are going to be a multiple sport on a student college which is super rare to begin with anyways now we're talking like a D3 level which is you know a little bit different the aspirations of playing after college if that's what you're doing aren't as high.

[00:11:39] So it's just having like a real talk with them like what's more important to you like you want to play D1 baseball and say yourself up to possibly take a stab at professional baseball.

[00:11:50] I'm going to play multiple sports in college at the D3 level because you know you love flying sports and that's what you want to do and then after that you know it's on to the real world and do that but that's kind of the different

[00:12:05] training factor for me but you know again I think before talking like the younger groups free high school I keep keep playing the sports that you like.

[00:12:16] I think ultimately too it's like as a parent now kind of thing you know my kids are far away from playing sport like competitive sports but you want them to try a bunch of different stuff and then you end up usually you don't necessarily I guess you end up doing the sport you like but you end up liking that's work

[00:12:34] because you're good at it like and you end up good at that sport because you're generally built for that sport like I was never going to be a basketball player.

[00:12:44] Same like it's just never going to take get me on a college basketball court you were never probably going to get me on a high school basketball.

[00:12:53] I played like wreck basketball you know and I think that was positive because it made me run what you didn't like to do so you know if you play in wreck basketball I'm like cool unless there's some reason that wreck basketball is a bad choice like you got a bunch of you know

[00:13:13] tend to notice this in your knees or something like that in the play basketball and like we can't train because every time you go out and play wreck basketball on Friday night you can't move for four days.

[00:13:24] But so it's like maybe they're specializing early or maybe they're just gravitating towards like what they're going to actually be good at.

[00:13:34] Yeah if you're actually good at it then just do what you're good at like you know mom told you you could be anything you want but that's not true so you're going to be like what you're built for.

[00:13:48] So we're just being yeah a lot of times I see the sport chooses the person A because they're good at and they like it because they're good at just like you said and then there are those other factors too of how tall we are and how fast we are and whatever our given genetic potential is.

[00:14:02] But on to more strengthening addition side.

[00:14:07] You know I think everyone knows at this point like arm cares important and things but I think some people have this idea that's.

[00:14:16] You know strengthening addition for baseball is a couple banded rotator cuff exercises and you know couple runs here and there and that's about it so.

[00:14:26] What are the big things as someone that specialize in baseball what are the major misconceptions you see that people have about it and you know what should things look like versus what people think they look like.

[00:14:41] Yeah I mean that's a big question that could go down a lot of roads so I'll try to I'll try to tackle it and you can redirect me if you want to but if we start from the.

[00:14:54] We start from the arm care side of things.

[00:14:59] You know like you said we have you say arm care and if you expose the baseball at all the first thing that pops into your head is like.

[00:15:10] And then you know that's the most important thing to do is to get an external internal rotation tubing exercises or like eyes wise tease and.

[00:15:23] You know my stance on that is on back and forth over the years.

[00:15:30] Now like the first thing I first thing I tell people is that those are exercises just like everything else that you could possibly do is an exercise like a split squad is an exercise squad is an exercise and prices and exercise in.

[00:15:45] R to your side abducted at 30 degrees extra rotation with a band is an exercise and so like as a strength coach or someone that's.

[00:15:56] And then you know even the therapist give to ask yourself like am I approaching not the same way that I would when I would prescribe any other exercise like this person comes in and does you do you know do some sort of screen and decide whether they're able to squat.

[00:16:16] Okay now I don't think they're able to squat yet.

[00:16:20] So like what is your what is your kind of proxy test decide whether that that you are exercise is the right one right or you're just going to default into saying.

[00:16:32] Oh you're having shoulder pain later coffees week.

[00:16:37] You have to have a stronger road theater or a stronger arm and it's like could we be any more generally what is that what does that mean you know.

[00:16:47] So I look at those isolated exercises you could compare them to isolated exercises that are more traditionally used in a gym like bicep curls or try to extension it was something like that's like.

[00:17:05] None of those exercises you know bicep curls try to say to the quad extensions like they're not good exercises in the sense that they don't really follow the principles of what's actually going to happen when you have to put force into the ground let's say and then transfer force through the entire system to propel yourself forward whether that's throwing a baseball running swinging.

[00:17:31] It doesn't mean that they don't have a time and place but you know generally if you are a strength athlete you might use tries to extensions to get bigger triceps because you want to create service area that muscle so that it can then be used in your sport.

[00:17:53] So we have to ask ourselves with all the arm characteristics is well look at it is the utility in those first and foremost would be can I can I produce a movement that is getting a relative motion between the humorous so the arm big arm bone at the top and the scapula.

[00:18:18] You know like those two things shouldn't be locked together where like i'm just jamming a scap back into retraction while I pull my arm out into external rotation because that's not going to get you the return on that exercise that you want so you so I would have to screen that and say well does this person have relative motion at the shoulder can they get a humorous to rotate a certain amount before it runs into a scale.

[00:18:48] And then it takes a scapula with it or vice versa if it's something that's more on the scapula and things like a like a wire something like that like a why exercise can I get the scap to move without just cranking the arm around with it.

[00:19:06] So I can check that box okay then I can start to introduce something like a band or a small amount of weight which all I'm doing like you do with any other exercises is just testing like you're just seeing does that strategy hold up against a little bit more load a little bit more testing but like it doesn't take a scientist to look at the throwing a baseball and say how much velocity how much force is going on.

[00:19:36] I'm going to move it versus taking a three pound dumbbell and you know rotating it out to the side they're not even close.

[00:19:46] Not even nearly close so you know it's isn't necessary for everyone.

[00:19:56] I don't think so necessarily do I want them to have the ability to demonstrate that movement like I said in show relative movement yeah I'd like them to have that ability.

[00:20:08] But it doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to spend a ton of time making sure that we push up ton of volume on something like that or move move it from a two pound dumbbell to a five pound dumbbell that's what drives me crazy is like they need a stronger shoulder.

[00:20:26] So you're going to do exercise with about three pound dumbbell and you're going to tell me that's that's this that's the strength you're looking for.

[00:20:36] And then the return that's the argument you'll get back sometime is like well it'll go go to sort of like a manual muscle testing side things and be like okay well their shoulder hurts and we manually tested the strength and extra notation on the right arm they're throwing arm and it was this number.

[00:20:55] And we did on the left arm and it was this number and a tire and therefore showing a weakness you know side to side.

[00:21:04] Or they're just in pain.

[00:21:07] Well yeah the pain.

[00:21:09] First of all like can they do the test pain free no okay probably not a good test.

[00:21:14] What's it I can do a test pain free on this week or okay.

[00:21:18] Are you telling me that your your test that you've set up completely controls for the exact same position of the ribcage the scapula and the arm on both sides like are we really doing the same thing probably not so let's just make sure that what we're looking at is not a positional problem that is

[00:21:43] you know putting muscles in at different orientations and then decreasing force output because of that in that specific position versus yeah everything is not going to say that's definitely weak right on the other side.

[00:21:59] Yeah I want to highlight that real quick here and summarize it a little bit I think I think we're thinking the same thing of.

[00:22:06] Yeah if you go to a PT and they're doing you know in your high level athlete whether it's barbells baseball hockey whatever and.

[00:22:15] And they're.

[00:22:17] It's not the best because our body moves in context specific ways and so like I think the big thing even with these the importance of doing those little banded exercises is the way they're executed which can like make or break them too of.

[00:22:44] And then you're scapula in one place and just rotate the humorous or vice versa can you just move your scapula without getting too much from the humorous and so do you have this thing we call joint interdependence where you can independently move age joint through its full range.

[00:23:00] And yeah like the tough part about baseball to test these things clinically is like I don't really ever use strength is a metric there and people you know my company's barbell therapy but.

[00:23:11] We don't actually do a whole lot of strength thing with people it's a lot of repatting things and looking at things from a different lens of like you know like with weightlifters a lot it's like we see ankles causing shoulder issues all the time.

[00:23:25] Because they can't flex or move from that different parts so it's like what parts are going on there what things aren't making sense and is your rehab really being like context specific to you and yeah like your arm by your side is a very different motion then your arm up overhead and what strength you may or may not.

[00:23:44] So I just wanted to kind of highlight what you're saying there.

[00:23:49] Yeah and you made another like a good point not to go down another rabbit hole but like to do it succinctly it's like if you're going to somebody with a shoulder problem in your baseball player and the only thing that they're testing range of motion wise is you're right in your left shoulder.

[00:24:07] There you know that's a mother right off the back because it's like the body is it works in iterations to fractal representation of itself so like.

[00:24:18] If if if you look at a pelvis picture of a pelvis and you look at those two bones on the side the IMS.

[00:24:27] It doesn't you know you don't have to have a huge background this to look at the shape of those bones now go look at shape with two scapulas.

[00:24:35] If you flip a scapula upside down and put it in the middle of it looks like the exact same bone because it is just you don't walk on your hands if you did it would be the same thing as you'd be upside down another way.

[00:24:49] So like even the even the tests that you're doing on the table are they're all dirty are they useful yeah if you know what to look for they're useful if you know how people.

[00:25:01] Like what could happen if something's in a different position and how that could change the measurement it's useful if you don't know that you're just going to get fooled you're going to look at a shoulder.

[00:25:12] Which you know arm is a lot lighter than a hip for example then a leg for example depending on how they're taking those measurements like you be like well this person has internal rotation of their shoulder.

[00:25:28] And the right shoulder did you check the hip the hip doesn't have any internal rotation the hip doesn't have any interpretation I'm a guarantee that the shoulder doesn't actually have any internal rotation.

[00:25:38] Really yeah okay because or it could go the other way around you could look at a shoulder this isn't giving you the internal rotation you go to the leg and because the legs head here like as you go to turn it you're turning the entire you're getting the pelvis.

[00:25:57] To turn on the table and you can't see it but you know that's giving you a false measurement so like you have to have a lot of different screens to really understand what's going on with that person.

[00:26:09] And then you got to look at a big picture and say okay like when I have here is let's say an entire right side it's just oriented out into external rotation.

[00:26:20] And I put them on the table and because of the way they lay on the table and kind of where they rolled or maybe because they still have motion up in neck or something like that go to move the arm and I get the internal rotation.

[00:26:33] But you don't know that that came from the shoulder unless you're checking other stuff to say like okay but it's not at the hip that's interesting because it should be at the hip if it was at the shoulder.

[00:26:46] Okay well we've got a lumbar spine that isn't really moving anymore but a cervical spine that is so I go to test the IR on the shoulder and the cervical spine starts to rotate away from me and not exaggerates the IR number at the shoulder.

[00:27:01] And so then you start making a bunch of presumptions that just aren't correct.

[00:27:06] And so like but then again it's like you know maybe like you have to factor in the like this pain is from throwing.

[00:27:16] Like you said the execution of those exercises everything so like you deal with a lot of lifters I used to deal with a lot of lifters if a lifter came to me with back pain in the deadlift what's the first thing I'm going to do show me how you deadlift.

[00:27:32] Like why wouldn't I start there because what if you're just doing like stupid really stupid deadlift right.

[00:27:42] Oh that your back hurts me in daily okay well I could see why that happens if your arm hurts when you throw it let's see if they have you throwing first.

[00:27:51] Okay I'm not going to just like decide it's just from throwing obviously maybe it was but now we have another issue because of the throwing.

[00:28:01] But I still want to see that because I need to understand the whole picture here of what's going on and it's like okay well you know you don't have the hit motion to acquire the right position when the foot lands on the ground and then the energy wave that should be propagating up to the arm is going to be a little bit more.

[00:28:20] So now you have a flawed pattern with the throw and now you have shoulder pain okay well yeah maybe we do have to do some stuff to get some space back at the shoulder but ultimately if that's all I do it's going to come back like I see that over and over and over again.

[00:28:44] So guys go in got a shoulder problem.

[00:28:47] It's a weak rotate or tough okay we're going to strengthen that thing up and you know do a bazillion strength exercises and you know certainly sometimes they get back on the field when they feel fun but then it's like the end of the season where right back where we started well you didn't address you didn't you didn't address the right thing.

[00:29:12] So it's complex it's not complicated like a lot of variables are going in there the truth is truth is we don't know to be honest like especially for Dylan and Andrew we don't know what we need but we need as a model for movement that is the closest to the truth that we can get so that we make better guesses.

[00:29:37] And then we make the best possible guess that we can and then we start we go to work like you know don't quite like jump in the net will appear okay well I'm going to best guess I'm going to start going to work on this and then as I do more stuff is going to pop up we'll start seeing more stuff and pictures going to get clear and clear.

[00:29:55] Like I started with a thumbnail I'm going to click on it pictures bigger click on it pictures bigger it's like now we're getting back into throwing and it's like so you know you're never 100% right when you first decide to go.

[00:30:13] Yeah it's an educated guess on a piling pieces of evidence that you have to make a case for but you can't ever prove it's this or that or the other for sure what is this whole phenomenon though with like the shoulder and hip IR being like you either have both or you don't I've never heard this before.

[00:30:38] Okay so so if we so I got to create this to my mentor and kind of the guy that is taught me so much is Bill Hartman who's physical therapist.

[00:30:50] So is this some is this some PRI stuff?

[00:30:54] I know I would not call it PR it's not like a PRI is I don't want to speak on the context because I don't do PRI.

[00:31:01] Okay but my perception you know I have and there's some binders up there behind the summer years and years ago I did do two or three PRI courses which you know at first was didn't learn some stuff absolutely like those courses were useful they were probably

[00:31:23] you know some of my first looks into like just understanding biomechanics better and I from again from what I remember so like hopefully I don't want to piss anybody off that's like deep into that.

[00:31:41] Like you know I did I did take a lot away from it I'm only going to speak on my personal experience with it which was that.

[00:31:50] And this could have changed because like I said that was eight nine years ago it was it was a system to me and you know systems fail eventually like they can't work for everybody so it was kind of algorithmic in the sense of like oh you see this presentation.

[00:32:09] Do this now you do this you know like so what was built on.

[00:32:16] What about these.

[00:32:19] So so so bill is has created a model.

[00:32:25] So I think models are more useful than systems because a model is just you know represent like said a representation of like what we think is going on is truthfully as possible and like the model has to be built on principles and then like first principles so you know scientists things like the biomechanics of physics.

[00:32:49] And looking at the model like I said we would see a fractal representation between different iterations in the body so that the the hip the lower extremity and the upper extremity are not that different.

[00:33:10] And the biggest differences that we walk on our feet we do things with our feet not so much with our hands but when we are talking about baseball players.

[00:33:20] We are we are creating a force against an object and so if we if we look at that and saying okay well if we related all back to let's go with like propulsion so if you look at propulsion which would just be like.

[00:33:39] Moving forward against the medium so that could be walking that could be running that could be crawling that could be throwing that could be swinging it's going to go through three phases all the time all of those movements are going to go through three phases so.

[00:33:54] It's going to go through a early phase of propulsion a middle phase of propulsion and a late phase of propulsion so we'll use walking is the example when I walk when I take a step forward we'll say with my right foot.

[00:34:08] As my right foot is about to you know let's say it hasn't hit the ground yet or if it hasn't hit the ground yet then there's no force necessarily going through that the system on that side at that point so everything is an externally rotated representation.

[00:34:27] So depending on kind of your model you might look at external rotation with a lot of different verbiage but to me it's any movement away from midline is an external rotation so we know external rotation that's like traditional like external.

[00:34:44] It's shoulder but so is flexion so is a deduction those are all external rotations so you got a million that's actually rotate you got a femur that is technically.

[00:34:58] It's relatively internally rotated relative to the position of the Ilium then you have a tibia it would be externally rotated relative to the femur and then as the foot hits the ground we're in an energy absorbing position so that is where we are going to start to layer internal rotation on this externally rotated representation so it starts at the foot you know you would need a foot to turn over into traditional like true prototype.

[00:35:28] So if you were to turn around the rotation then you would have a tibia that could internally rotate that way would make its way up to the pelvis where the pelvic the Ilium would internally rotate there would be a moment in time in the middle or in turn rotation and external rotation layer right over each other but if we go up the extremity the exact thing is happening up the extremity too.

[00:35:54] The weight was in external rotation the scapula was in the next one rotated position and as that foot hit the ground we would need a ribcage that could internally rotate we would need a scapula going to internal rotation.

[00:36:09] So as we come out of the middle and we start to propel off of the ground we're in an energy producing position now with the shape is going to ideally return right back to that externally rotated representation because the internal rotation is coming now it came distal approximate now it's going proximal to distal.

[00:36:30] And as the foot eventually leaves the ground there is no internal rotation represented anymore and you're right back to where you started to set up the foot landing in front of you again so from a shape standpoint there's the early and the late on the same which would mean that the joint positions are the same which means that the muscle activity is the same only difference would be the connective tissue behavior it was in a more yielding or energy absorbing.

[00:36:59] Behavior when you hit the ground and as you started to propel off the ground the connective tissue stiffened up into became more of an energy or overcoming producing energy behavior.

[00:37:12] Can you draw this on a whiteboard format?

[00:37:16] I'm kidding I'm kidding.

[00:37:19] But like iteratively if I start to lose internal rotation let's say so again we could go deep down in this based on the archetypes which is cohesively put together in this model and I think you know some people are familiar with this narrow versus wide concept.

[00:37:39] I don't have to go down that road necessarily but let's just say that if I get a pelvis the anteriorly orients or you know more people talk about that as an anterior till I'm going to call an anterior orientation well if that anteriorly orients right it's going to obviously affect everything up top two right so

[00:38:04] the ribcage is also an anteriorly orients and the scapula is going to follow the ribcage so that is going to enter really orient it's all iteration so like I know okay if I have an anteriorly oriented pelvis and you lay on my table for measurements and that pelvis is in the anterior oriented position well

[00:38:30] the muscles involved there now they're a line of full heads changed so your external rotators are now actually in a position of internal rotation so you might lay on the table and show me really big internal rotation numbers and really small external rotation numbers.

[00:38:53] And I could get fooled and be like okay you have great internal rotation it's external rotation you lack we don't really have internal rotation because internal rotation can only live in an external rotation space you would have to have that first like if we look at internal rotation as this force like compression like it has to exist on top of external rotation so if I lose the external rotation sure I can

[00:39:22] want to measure it look like I have it but I don't because if I didn't have an external rotation I can't have an internal rotation so if I go up to the shoulder and now I'm seeing internal rotation and external rotation that's a clue to me they're like okay this is not real external rotation then I'm tuning with it might not be real external rotation we lose internal rotation as our center of gravity gets pushed forward further in space

[00:39:50] so when we start carrying our weight on the front of our feet more and more and more which is going to be a lot of athletes you're going to lose internal rotation because if we think about it like how do we move forward in space

[00:40:06] we would have to have a pelvis that got pushed forward from the back so we would have to have muscle activity on the back or compression on the back just like I came up behind you and just like push both your butt cheeks forward right

[00:40:19] and so I'm pushing the pelvis through the femurs essentially and to do that that means the femurs are going to orient themselves out in the external rotation how many athletes have we come walk in and they're duck-footed with toes pointing out both directions

[00:40:35] and they have in this case maybe no internal rotation when you test them but it looks like a lot of external rotation that's not really external rotation

[00:40:45] these have like hip sockets that are just facing out to that direction so you measure them and it looks big

[00:40:51] but like their available space to move into is no longer in front of them it's out to the side of them now the same is going to be true at the shoulders

[00:41:00] and so like you kind of have to look at that iteratively and sometimes like I said measurements will be dirty and they'll fool you

[00:41:11] and that's why it's like I need to compare the right shoulder to the right hip

[00:41:15] I need to look at the right foot I need to look at everything like because if I got a like you know we see a lot of people with like bowed out legs

[00:41:28] looks like you can toss a beach ball between their knees

[00:41:33] those are bones that are like bending right there's no relative motion left there they're producing force now by just bending bones

[00:41:45] like that's how they're getting some motion okay so that means I got a tibia like a proximal tibia that is just completely externally rotated

[00:41:54] all right so I'm not going to be able to get into an rotation well go check out the arm and the throat and the house that going on

[00:42:01] right like what are you gonna see you see a proximal radius that's generally very externally rotated out relative to the humerus

[00:42:13] so like you know always with how failed but a lot of times you start to look at those iterations and they help you out quite a bit

[00:42:22] good to know I'll definitely be taking that into my clinical considerations

[00:42:29] and then what things are most athletes that are baseball players missing out on in their programming for baseball strength and conditioning

[00:42:48] and well I can give you that it depends answer because I want to hear that but let's look at you

[00:42:59] there's a couple different things I think it's like you know what I see of like what parents almost expect

[00:43:07] it's like my kids got to come to the gym and they need to do their band exercise every time and then to do some like lateral med ball tosses

[00:43:13] and some box jumps and it's like it's like all right like we're in the dead of winter like

[00:43:20] we're gonna have them deadlift every time it's like well why that's not baseball is in a strength sport

[00:43:24] it's like yeah no but like they need to produce force and they also need to be like strong and resilient too

[00:43:33] so yeah what are your thoughts there on yeah we can go down like that road more specifically like not strong

[00:43:40] yeah yeah that's one reason I like baseball I really like training baseball because I really like some of the problems

[00:43:51] and like there is no shortage of problems when it comes to baseball because it's just you know such a crazy

[00:43:58] especially when talking about pictures like such a crazy movement right

[00:44:04] like that we're talking about relative motion or joint independence like that is not going on at a very high degree when you actually throw a baseball

[00:44:12] let's be clear on that it's too high of a force it's too high of velocity

[00:44:18] so essentially we have to look at like this is the easy answer

[00:44:29] how much how much testing and retesting are you doing what are your KPI's so like KPI's keep performance indicators

[00:44:38] that's that's that should be like a standard thing in strength conditioning

[00:44:44] you know so the what makes baseball challenging is that like I'm not an offensive lineman who just has to push a 300 pound dude

[00:44:55] right so a good KPI for an offensive lineman might be how much you know squatting with 500 pounds like bench pressing 365

[00:45:02] like essentially going to have to bench press this dude in front of me but like baseball has a five a little over five ounces

[00:45:09] right and so like and then this is people start getting confused basically

[00:45:15] they're like okay well I see positive stuff going on from getting stronger obviously

[00:45:22] but at the same time I'm going through this crazy shape changes in the throw

[00:45:29] and ultimately I'm throwing something the way it's five ounces so do have to bench press 300 pounds

[00:45:35] well maybe maybe not you don't know unless you have something to test and retest again

[00:45:44] so you're not going to get a lot of good KPI's in gym activities that correlate very well with baseball performance

[00:45:57] you know I have one of my favorite stories is like I have a kid who was drafting the first round

[00:46:06] who you know until like last year of the year before someone broke it he had the highest record basketball in college baseball

[00:46:14] like 101 or something like that he gets draft to go to stage first like meeting with the team

[00:46:25] and it's like the first strength and conditioning meeting thing and they're like well we see correlation between vertical jump

[00:46:32] and the guys that throw the hardest if this guy can't jump or ship they can his vertical jump especially at the time

[00:46:40] it's like you know 19 inches for you throws 100 miles so throw that up like I know

[00:46:48] I know like obviously there's outliers you can look at it like more big picture but like I can speak to that

[00:46:54] like I don't see well I've gone through so many like try to come over the performance assessment for baseball

[00:47:01] like we're going to throw Med balls for the loss then guys that can throw the Medball the hardest Let's see if they threw baseball as the hardest

[00:47:07] nope the guys that jumped high and so I said if they threw the baseball hard does not lift the most weight

[00:47:14] let's see if they threw the baseball hard is you know guys it's all the hardest throw the hardest

[00:47:18] okay yeah you know that like bottom line so that's got to be a KPI but didn't have to use something

[00:47:28] something in the sport, in this case, as AKP on.

[00:47:33] So is it like, okay, is it more of like, all right, let's do

[00:47:37] a three month deadlift block and then see if your velocity

[00:47:40] goes up?

[00:47:41] Yeah.

[00:47:42] It's that easy if you actually like, if you pay attention to it,

[00:47:46] yeah.

[00:47:47] So it's like, you know, the only thing that stands away there is

[00:47:50] even guys might not be trying to throw their hardest all the time.

[00:47:53] So like, you might not get a great reputation of that, but also

[00:47:56] another reason to like, maybe not shut down for a super long time and

[00:47:59] like touch some velocities sometimes.

[00:48:02] But it's like, okay, yeah, okay, let's learn a deadlift block.

[00:48:05] Let's try to get your deadlift up over the next three months.

[00:48:08] All right, fast ball velocity went up two miles an hour.

[00:48:11] Sweet.

[00:48:12] Don't fix what's not broken.

[00:48:13] Do it again.

[00:48:15] Okay, another three month deadlift block, deadlift goes up another

[00:48:18] 50 pounds velocity stays the same.

[00:48:22] Okay.

[00:48:23] That's that is whatever it was before.

[00:48:26] So there's 400 pounds and they made 450.

[00:48:29] 400 pounds is strong enough at this point in time.

[00:48:33] Okay, I'm not saying that's strong enough forever.

[00:48:35] But like at this point in time, 400 pounds is strong enough.

[00:48:38] Didn't do anything for your throwing velocity going to 450.

[00:48:42] So so we got to say, okay, well, we got to look at something else.

[00:48:46] Like maybe that's where you, you know, that we use force plates now

[00:48:50] that they're more accessible and we have some.

[00:48:52] So it's like, okay, like I want to look at your force,

[00:48:54] your force curve a little bit.

[00:48:57] Not again, not necessarily looking at how high you're jumping.

[00:49:01] But but, you know, that's where the force plate can be more useful than just

[00:49:05] like avert mat or something like that.

[00:49:07] Not seeing thevert mat couldn't be useful.

[00:49:09] Like vertical jump is a solid test of power for anybody.

[00:49:14] So if that's all you have, then maybe that is what you say.

[00:49:18] So okay, like you're done 400.

[00:49:20] It's the 450 didn't affect your velocity.

[00:49:23] Your vertical jump 24.

[00:49:25] Let's see if we can get that up.

[00:49:26] Okay, we get that to 26.

[00:49:28] It goes up another mile an hour.

[00:49:30] Cool.

[00:49:30] Do it again.

[00:49:31] It didn't go up.

[00:49:32] Okay.

[00:49:33] Maybe now we revisit the strength of anything or maybe we need even more velocity.

[00:49:38] You know, like again, we're talking about a lot of very completely velocity dependent

[00:49:44] sport.

[00:49:45] So maybe we need something even faster.

[00:49:47] You know, that's an adventure you get to the point where it's like, okay.

[00:49:52] Maybe the gym doesn't have as much to offer you at this moment as it did before.

[00:49:56] Like maybe you need to think about throwing.

[00:49:59] Like maybe you need to throw more.

[00:50:01] Maybe you need to throw harder more.

[00:50:04] Maybe you need to like make throws on the, you know, there's a lot of different

[00:50:10] camps on that.

[00:50:10] But I guess one essentially say is like maybe you need to be as specific as possible.

[00:50:15] A lot of times you do at a certain point when we're talking about throwing a baseball.

[00:50:20] In which case now, you have to manage what they're doing in the gym in the sense of like,

[00:50:24] okay, well, if my throwing is going up this much, I can't necessarily have my

[00:50:28] cake and eat it too.

[00:50:29] I got to bring down the way room.

[00:50:30] I can just a little bit to manage the recovery of all this.

[00:50:36] But you know, that's really the only way to do it.

[00:50:39] That's the only way that you're truly going to know

[00:50:43] what's going on.

[00:50:46] So like if you're not measuring stuff, then you're just throwing darts at the wall.

[00:50:51] Like blindfolded just being like, whoa, let's just get stronger and stronger.

[00:50:56] And like, you know, the other side to that coin is that everything in life,

[00:51:01] nothing in life is good or bad.

[00:51:03] Everything has trade-offs.

[00:51:05] You know, like staying up late to watch two more episodes of your favorite show is good

[00:51:12] at the time.

[00:51:13] But the tradeoff is your balls tired and next morning, and you suck at work.

[00:51:18] And like, is that a trade-off you're willing to make?

[00:51:22] Yes?

[00:51:23] Okay.

[00:51:24] Okay.

[00:51:24] Well, you want to deadlift more?

[00:51:27] Like I can't test to this.

[00:51:30] Like I've deadlifted a lot away.

[00:51:32] And I played baseball.

[00:51:34] I can't throw baseball as hard as I could when I deadlifted a lot less.

[00:51:38] If it was just strength, I'd throw 100 miles an hour.

[00:51:41] Because I'm stronger than, you know, all the baseball players that are trained.

[00:51:46] So it's not that simple.

[00:51:50] Because there's a tradeoff.

[00:51:51] Like do you want to rotate to be a good deadlift here?

[00:51:54] No.

[00:51:55] Do you want to rotate to squat 600 pounds?

[00:51:57] No, if you rotate, nothing good is going to happen during a 600 pound squat.

[00:52:02] You're training yourself to be non-rotated.

[00:52:04] Like so there's a tradeoff.

[00:52:06] It's like, that's where you have to have other KPIs too.

[00:52:11] Like you should have movement-based KPIs as well.

[00:52:17] So the order of operations for me, if a guy is starting his off season, it's like,

[00:52:22] okay, I got five months.

[00:52:25] Let's say he's not injured, pain-free.

[00:52:29] So I'm going to do some movement tests.

[00:52:33] All right.

[00:52:34] It's not injured.

[00:52:35] It's pain-free.

[00:52:36] So the numbers that I'm getting back don't mean that a whole lot to me.

[00:52:42] Because like,

[00:52:45] I'm not going to go off textbook averages and just say like, okay, well, the textbooks in

[00:52:51] is that I hope should have 100 degrees total range of motion, 60 ER, 40.

[00:52:57] Yeah, that's an average.

[00:53:01] And like Louis Simmons said, average people get average results.

[00:53:04] So like, if you want to be average, then get your hip range of motion to 60, 40 or 100 degrees

[00:53:11] of total hip range of motion. But no dude I've ever seen this comes in until it's baseball

[00:53:15] at 95 miles an hour and more has anything close.

[00:53:18] So what I would call textbook average ranges of motion when they're even if they're

[00:53:22] perfectly healthy because they're not average.

[00:53:25] And what they're doing on the mound is not average.

[00:53:28] Therefore, it has a tradeoff.

[00:53:29] It's going to take a toll on them.

[00:53:31] So what I want to do is say, okay, I really need to assess.

[00:53:36] I need to look at it through a different way.

[00:53:39] Instead of looking at it, so many people go into the assessment and they just start

[00:53:44] poking holes and stuff like, and this is bad.

[00:53:47] That foot's down.

[00:53:49] That's bad.

[00:53:50] It's like, this is a professional baseball player state.

[00:53:54] It's top 1% of what he does.

[00:53:56] It's 10 million dollar arm.

[00:53:58] Instead of looking at it saying, this is bad.

[00:54:01] Say, how is this helping?

[00:54:07] How is this weird foot helping him put more force into the ground?

[00:54:13] How are these stiff ass hips helping him generate more velocity?

[00:54:19] So maybe I do want to give them a little bit back because

[00:54:24] I got to go back again.

[00:54:25] I got to go back to principles and like, what do I know?

[00:54:28] Okay, well, I know that if I'm losing a lot of relative motion,

[00:54:36] which is doing my best to test for, then I have positions that are twisted.

[00:54:45] So every joint in your body works on the rotation.

[00:54:48] There's no hinges in your body, but one's don't touch.

[00:54:50] And connective tissue is generally where we're going to see most of the injuries.

[00:54:58] So we're looking at like a UCL or even if you

[00:55:01] tear a rotator cuff, it's going to be up kind of at the tenderness insertion of that.

[00:55:05] Right?

[00:55:07] Well, how do you tend to stay healthy?

[00:55:10] You stay healthy by getting nutrition to them.

[00:55:13] How do they get their nutrition from water or fluid in the body?

[00:55:18] Okay, so how is fluid? How does fluid interact with connective tissue?

[00:55:23] Well, it's like a towel with water.

[00:55:25] So it's not like a muscle where the fluids inside the muscle and like it can't

[00:55:29] necessarily, it doesn't change its shape but not necessarily its volume.

[00:55:34] The water, when the connective tissue stiffens up and twists,

[00:55:38] it's like ringing out a wet towel.

[00:55:40] So the water gets pushed away from the connective tissue.

[00:55:43] And then as it takes on more of its yielding representation again,

[00:55:49] the water is able to seep back in.

[00:55:51] It's a it's a poro-elastic tissue so it acts like silly putty if you've never played with silly putty.

[00:55:58] So it's like it does take silly putty, you're rolling in a ball,

[00:56:02] you throw it against the ground about it's stiff.

[00:56:05] You slowly press into it while it's on a table and it deforms.

[00:56:09] That's how connective tissue canoes work.

[00:56:11] It's very, it's behavior is very dependent on the components of force and how that's being applied to it.

[00:56:17] So if I got a lot of concentric muscle activity in an area and that means I got connective tissue

[00:56:23] that's kind of getting squeezed 24-7,

[00:56:26] since I've got less fluid that's able to get into that connective tissue.

[00:56:31] So over time we're getting a stiffer more plastic representation of that connective tissue.

[00:56:37] Now I go after it's yield in a high velocity situation.

[00:56:42] It's not, I get a tear or something like that to happen.

[00:56:49] So you know I got to look at like okay this is how you present,

[00:56:55] you're not hurt right now with the adaptations that you're kind of showing me like where these

[00:57:01] things are moving towards. They keep going in that direction. What are the possibilities?

[00:57:07] And so it's a management process from there. It's like I don't know, I want to take you all the way back.

[00:57:12] If I take you all the way back, you might suck. If I take you all the way back, you might not be

[00:57:18] you might get hurt in another way right? So I don't want to take you all the way back.

[00:57:23] I just want to give you a little bit back especially in the offseason. I want you to be able to recover

[00:57:27] some of this behavior in these tissues. And so that's the first thing I want to get back.

[00:57:35] And now that becomes my KPI. It's like okay, like I'm cool with this. We got a little bit back.

[00:57:39] This is where our range of motion are. Okay and now we're accepting that okay you want to throw

[00:57:45] harder. Okay so we got to deal a little more aggressive in the weight room. I understand

[00:57:50] that that's going to come with a possible tradeoff of losing relative motion.

[00:57:56] But I have to have some proxy to go back and compare it against to know like

[00:58:01] and we're doing too much right? Right? Is the tradeoff going to not be worth it in the end?

[00:58:08] Like we're going to take away your ability to acquire some of these shapes now you can't get

[00:58:12] into these shapes now you can't use your superpowers anymore as Bill would say like so.

[00:58:20] That it's again it's like it's not a perfect science necessarily but it's it's really getting

[00:58:25] to know the athlete and like trying to manage them. I want to make a point here too based off what

[00:58:30] you said for people, especially any level of baseball really but you have a very well adapted

[00:58:40] pitcher that's pretty high level or batting or anything too and you get injured. I would be very

[00:58:47] careful and I've seen this happen a lot of people go out and it's like oh I feel stiff,

[00:58:51] I feel tight let me go get a massage and then we got this aggressive aggressive massage and like

[00:58:57] all of a sudden they have all they have all this new mobility and then it's like yeah my shoulder

[00:59:04] feels great but I can't throw or my target is off or you know my aim is we have to have this

[00:59:08] with golfers all the time too it's like that's someone the other day actually it's a pretty high level

[00:59:13] golfer and like he's got a super stiff t-spine and it wasn't pain it needed to be manipulated so we

[00:59:19] did but he didn't tell me he was golfing that day and he's like he's got felt so much better but

[00:59:23] he's like I could not hit the ball to save my life and it's like well you're in this whole new world

[00:59:27] of you have new mobility that you haven't trained with that you need to learn and it's like

[00:59:34] especially with pictures and things it's so specific there's so much adaptation that occurs we

[00:59:39] want to make sure we're not just we need to we need to really respect why we have all of that

[00:59:44] and make sure we're making those small changes at a time and finding what's good enough

[00:59:50] not just trying to maximally have someone pulverized the you know posterior aspect of my shoulder

[00:59:56] because it feels tight right you know like to use your example like everyone is doll for baseball

[01:00:03] let's say same dude right and he's got the t-spine stiffness but let's say he's not hurting yet

[01:00:09] what say you caught him last year yeah likely the stiffness would still be there right it just wasn't

[01:00:16] hurting him yet let's say yeah and he plays you know tournament every day so

[01:00:23] and he's really dead so if you look at it to the light it's like okay what's the t-spine

[01:00:30] stiffness doing for him like what what how's it advantageous then you'd say okay like it's not

[01:00:36] hurt feels fine t-spine stiffness is good or maybe it wasn't quite as stiff as it was when you saw

[01:00:42] that my gloves to that yeah well leave it leave it alone or like okay you play every Saturday

[01:00:50] Sunday so when you're finished on Sunday and you come see me on Monday I'm gonna give you back

[01:00:56] some motion in your t-spine so like the kind of training the kind of stuff we're gonna do is going to

[01:01:02] be more geared towards giving you back some motion in your t-spine because that's gonna help

[01:01:06] your recovery right like we're gonna get more stuff more expansion there more stuff being able to

[01:01:12] move in and out of that area um but over the course of the week I didn't know what I want to do

[01:01:19] is return you right back to where I found you on Saturday before you played your first hole

[01:01:26] and then you just recall over that you just repeat that process over and over and over again

[01:01:31] it's like what you're really doing is like okay this was a positive adaptation that he made to

[01:01:36] hit golf balls really far really well and left unattended that as he didn't see you

[01:01:44] that adaptation just kept going in that direction now it hurts but like if you kind of

[01:01:49] so that's where I was saying like catch a guy and he's healthy I'm not gonna just like try to

[01:01:55] re-engineer the whole thing it's like we're just gonna manage it like I'm just basically

[01:01:59] want to teach you strategies to keep you right where you're at but I need to I do want to restore some

[01:02:06] and then maybe you know we'll take more of force stuff more velocity stuff midweek like

[01:02:13] Wednesday Thursday and like let you stiffen up a little bit more again uh then you go out you play

[01:02:18] golf you're great you win your tournament you come back we just do the process again because

[01:02:25] now the adaptation just stays there it doesn't progress to the point of being a maladaptation

[01:02:31] it's a positive adaptation to the demands of your sport um and so that that's kind of the way I look

[01:02:37] at again a thrower that's injured it's like okay well you know again throw it's injured like

[01:02:44] first well how good were you before you got injured like did you suck um okay like maybe we

[01:02:49] re-engineer some more stuff were you really good now you're just now you're just hurt um okay

[01:02:55] so let's get you back but let's not bring you too far back because then we might take away your gifts

[01:03:03] yeah so that that's an interesting concept to especially with baseball of adaptations versus maladaptations

[01:03:10] because you know we should expect to see like you said the shoulder joint of a pitcher should not look

[01:03:19] like any other normal person um no it should be you should have extra external rotation and probably

[01:03:28] limited internal rotation so um yeah there are certain other adaptations that people should know about

[01:03:36] that they shouldn't maybe mess with when like say they go to physical therapists like oh this

[01:03:41] kids all out of whack this and that we need to restore this or that and it's like no no that's baseball we need

[01:03:47] that uh yeah just like well that that's where you need to understand this this sequence of things a

[01:03:55] little bit like this the stuff generally happens in order kind of sort of speak like it's gonna

[01:04:01] it's gonna start more approximately and make its way out more distantly in general i would say so

[01:04:09] um so like the positive adaptation to throwing would be like yeah you so every every humerus again

[01:04:16] you have go look up a picture of the humoral bone humerus bone if you look at how contours

[01:04:23] it comes stock when you buy it off the lot with like an ER and IR twist and it already kind

[01:04:31] and all the muscles they attach on that twist so like again they're not just or they're not

[01:04:35] just sitting on there in like nice straight lines like they're they're all it's all rotations and twist

[01:04:42] and so you start throwing and literally like people don't appreciate the bones move okay like

[01:04:49] yes they are stiff or then everything else but bones are connected to tissue

[01:04:55] and they're just a very stiff connective tissue but they move if they didn't move then let's go

[01:05:01] back to the bowlegged kid like how the hell did that happen right like you didn't it wasn't always

[01:05:08] like that it wasn't bowlegged from day one right like that's how the number of time band that's

[01:05:13] bummin spending right so your humerus will the muscle because of the activity will will

[01:05:20] exaggerate that twist you'll have more ER twisting at the top and then what you'll get is

[01:05:27] relatively more IR at the bottom so again think of it like a towel like if I hold the bottom of a

[01:05:32] towel and I start twisting the top like I can twist it for a little while without my bottom hand

[01:05:39] moving at all so what I'm creating is more ER at the top and relatively more IR at the bottom

[01:05:45] but if you keep twisting that towel it's to the point where there's no like if you keep twisting

[01:05:53] you're gonna get to the point where every little twist you make at the top starts to yank

[01:05:58] the bottom hand with it okay and like that concept in general that's gonna that's gonna lead towards

[01:06:06] like the positive adaptation becoming a maladaptitious so now it's gonna happen is like

[01:06:12] the only way that you can rotate the arm isn't by a relative twist by orienting the whole thing

[01:06:24] out into extra rotation. Actually now that's gonna impact the next thing now you're gonna have

[01:06:30] it's the next thing you've got a radius and an ulna okay well now they are not staying in

[01:06:38] relatively different position than the humorous and they're getting yanked along too so now like

[01:06:46] you go into throw in like everything's going into ER right which at first is fine because

[01:06:53] everything does go into ER as you lay that arm back when it's got to go the other way too right so like

[01:07:01] then what people have to appreciate is that like I know it's hard to think about but like

[01:07:08] technically you can see it nowadays if you look because we have all these like cool slow motion

[01:07:13] camera for throwing where you can literally see you know the ball leaving the hand and the the

[01:07:20] fingers are getting bent back as the ball presses against the fingers that's the same as like your

[01:07:27] toes getting pressed against the ground as you move off the ground so there's there's not that

[01:07:32] internal rotation that force you're applying a force to the baseball ideally we would have had

[01:07:40] this segmental wave just like when we talked about walking how it kind of went from like ER to IR

[01:07:46] but everything you know everything before the wrist is just kind of stuck in extra rotation right so

[01:07:54] instead what we're getting because we had to orient ourselves into extra rotation now we have

[01:07:59] to orient ourselves into the internal rotation so now we see a scap kind of just riding up and over

[01:08:07] in like almost like a shrug kind of we see a head cut whipped to the side and then what you'll see is

[01:08:12] you'll see like a really big twist and bend at the wrist into internal rotation because it's like okay

[01:08:20] I can't internally not getting much internal rotation anywhere else so I'm going to

[01:08:24] just going to manipulate the hell out of this baseball by twisting my wrist into pronating like

[01:08:28] pronating really hard to obviously throw the ball where I need it to go and now you can think about

[01:08:36] how that could eventually become a UCL issue because the healer is just turning into extra rotation

[01:08:43] the radius is turning into extra rotation if you did that with your fingers against a wall because

[01:08:49] it's immobile right you would feel that right in your medial elbow because the medial gap of

[01:08:55] the elbow is just wide open still and never really closed because you're putting all the force

[01:09:00] on the baseball like that's why you see you know could be a reason why you see like a lot of kids

[01:09:07] they start to learn like new pitches like sliders and cutters and they don't really understand

[01:09:13] how they're supposed to throw that so the way they think they're supposed to throw it is like

[01:09:17] really like cut the crap out of the ball and externally rotating around it right so they're

[01:09:23] effectively just sort of leaving everything in an external rotation but they're still applying a

[01:09:28] force to the baseball it's still gotta get that push at the end um and so then you know and then we

[01:09:36] go back to the connected tissue thing right so to get there the arm was all twisted anyways and kind

[01:09:43] of just stuck there in that twist so now you got a UCL that's not getting it's new you know

[01:09:49] not getting its recovery it's nutrition so like over time that thing's becoming

[01:09:54] more of more of a plastic representation and you're asking it to yield more than ever because

[01:10:00] you're not closing the medial gap of the elbow so that's a lot of like deceleration having to happen

[01:10:07] at the medial elbow but it's not prepared for that much force absorption with the you know kind

[01:10:14] of the behavior that it's taken on which is more plastic instead of being able to deform snow

[01:10:22] you know so it's like if you go out and snap your UCL on that one pitch no you know that

[01:10:28] that's like coming you know so like we look at that a lot like in UCL and Tommy John rehab like

[01:10:34] obviously I don't handle it acutely like post surgically but most of the time when I get them

[01:10:41] you know like I'll start working my kids up three four weeks out and at first I can't really

[01:10:46] do anything with the arm still but what I can say is like if I look at that iteratively

[01:10:54] that means you had a huge orientation the extra rotation up top you got it you got it everywhere on

[01:11:00] that side so I'm going to start addressing the hip right like you didn't have a hip that could

[01:11:05] internally rotate so you couldn't close you couldn't close all that big separation that big movement

[01:11:12] that you had to go into the throw like that couldn't close so everything was just held open it's like

[01:11:17] that doesn't get addressed enough in my opinion and Tommy John rehab

[01:11:22] works like well we got to look at the whole representation here and then when I can get my hands on

[01:11:28] the arm that twist is still there usually right like that they're not addressing that twist

[01:11:33] they're just getting your back to full elbow flexion making sure then it's you know ready to go

[01:11:39] but like do I still have a femurist that's oriented out into the arm do I still have a big twist

[01:11:44] there possibly yeah so I got to make sure that I undo that a little bit but again don't want to

[01:11:51] take them back too far it's like don't want to take you back to a normal one like you said like

[01:11:57] I want do you want some orientation and action or attention I just don't want it to have made

[01:12:02] its way all the way out to the elbow and to the wrist and to the hand yeah and um

[01:12:11] there's a lot we could go on on and on with there but um those basically just summarizing all those

[01:12:19] total body mechanics from the ankle all the way up to the fingers is important for what's

[01:12:23] happening at the elbow at the shoulder at the neck but thorax whatever um another thing I was

[01:12:30] thinking of with baseball too that I was curious about baseball is such an interesting sport where

[01:12:36] you know especially like if you're an outfielder right you could be standing there for I don't know

[01:12:43] 15 minutes sometimes a half hour and not really be asked to do much and then that ball gets hit

[01:12:49] to you and you have to sprint as fast as you can and then whip a ball as hard as you can and

[01:12:55] you're pretty much cold at that point especially depending on time of season so other certain things

[01:13:02] you know because it's like okay we want to stay warm in a sense of like we want to like I know with

[01:13:06] me lifting like if I don't hit something for like more than five minutes I feel like trash like

[01:13:11] I need to stay neurologically innervated in a sense but with baseball other aspects of training you

[01:13:18] do to focus on that aspect of the sport because like I know we still see like a significant amount

[01:13:23] of hamstring Achilles strains tears which that might be a big part of it but are there things we

[01:13:29] can do to prevent those things from happening with certain um certain people or positions uh yeah I

[01:13:37] think so um if we're looking at if we're looking at those injuries just strictly through the lens of

[01:13:43] like exposures so let's remove the fact that maybe the strategy for running is off or something

[01:13:51] like that and that predisposes you to the hamstring and check right all everything's good um

[01:13:57] you know what what baseball what baseball I don't think maybe it's a little bit more now but like

[01:14:03] it doesn't utilize that other field sports do would be something like GPS right so like

[01:14:08] um most my understanding most let's say NFL teams see your wide receiver and um you know your max

[01:14:20] your your top end spring speed is this I'll take one of mine like I don't have a lot of other

[01:14:27] based personally based ball but I do a few one like girl who plays across it's really fast

[01:14:33] um you know so her top her top spring speed in a lacrosse game is like just under 30 miles an hour

[01:14:42] um I think it's like 28.8 something like that that she hit maybe not my uh might have been

[01:14:50] not miles I forget Clamers Clamers yeah Clamers but um I'm just thinking of this because yeah she

[01:14:57] like had some showcase thing and they gave her back this it's a report and the kind of show like

[01:15:05] okay this was your max offense me this is how it compares to the US like women's lacrosse team

[01:15:10] and she was like damn close to the to the best on that team and like to her testimony she's like

[01:15:18] oh man she she goes home and looks up like top speeds of like track sprinters and she's like

[01:15:23] I'm not even close to like fastest person in like the fastest girls and I'm like listen you know

[01:15:31] if you were like point seven off of the fastest lacrosse player like don't compare yourself to

[01:15:36] track athlete so look you know chickens call us they'll probably use GPS so that the end of the game

[01:15:42] it will be like okay you hit your top speed like two times during this game like you know you

[01:15:47] made this many full effort sprints during the game um and so you then as a strength coach you

[01:15:53] would calculate and say okay like we got enough exposures to your top speed during this game

[01:16:02] that we don't really need to hit top speeds in practice too often excuse me leading up to the next

[01:16:08] game um but you won't see that on baseball as much because like they said again you go whole

[01:16:16] baseball game and not sprint once technically right like just be a bad day you didn't make any contact

[01:16:23] no balls hit you um so as a strength coach you know that might be a good place where it's like

[01:16:31] end of the game or the next day if you have a day off or even pre-game because not gonna kill

[01:16:37] them if you do the roundout volume it's like hey we need to hit some maxing for sprints here

[01:16:41] because like if you don't get to like if we look at qualities like velocity

[01:16:46] velocity is gonna do if you don't hit the loss if you don't hit a tough near a top velocity every five

[01:16:51] days it starts to deteriorate you know it's it's different than max strength aerobic it's like

[01:16:57] you use it or you lose it so um I think that predisposes guides to hamstring uh and Achilles type stuff

[01:17:06] is like you're just going too long without exposing yourself especially if like you're a fast outfielder

[01:17:12] and you can sprint really fast well if if you're not monitoring that you just didn't sprint really fast

[01:17:18] for four days and then a ball is hit to you and you obviously re-after know you know gonna hit it

[01:17:25] the gas 100% pop of hamstring or like I don't know your O for your last 18 and now you just hit a

[01:17:33] double in the gap and you're going full speed to second base and you pop a hamstring around

[01:17:38] it first it's like all you probably had to do was just hit a couple top end sprints pre-game

[01:17:45] like leading up to that because you didn't hit any during the game I'd have been said if you hit

[01:17:52] two dollars had four balls hit to your and you're just you hit a bunch of max sprints during the game

[01:17:57] like cool call it a day go home like do you normal one up next day go back out there like

[01:18:04] yeah that's I don't have any evidence of that because in the sense of just like I don't work with

[01:18:09] a team necessarily so I'm not monitoring that yeah that is like the advice I give my guys it's like hey

[01:18:16] you don't have GPS but you want thing to do you have in a baseball game is you keep a scorebook

[01:18:21] right so like you know if you did nothing um or like or if I'm talking to another strength coach and

[01:18:27] they want advice it's like okay yeah you don't have GPS but like you have a scorebook

[01:18:31] it showed you like what this guy pretty much did as far as base running um or what balls were hit

[01:18:37] to them or how many balls were hit to them during the game yeah I was just thinking that's where

[01:18:45] I would go with that yeah I was just wondering yeah with like the this all the stop start you know

[01:18:51] it could be there 20 minutes half hour sometimes hours before you really like max sprint again

[01:18:55] but besides like jogging out of the dugout if there's any extra emphasis on like e-centrics

[01:19:01] things like that to keep you know the tendons resilient and everything from tearing um

[01:19:07] that you're doing in training uh I guess not looking at it on that lens necessarily but like

[01:19:17] yes in a sense of so I'll look at e-centric like I'll go back to connective tissue because like

[01:19:24] muscles are not what is transferring energy through the body connective tissues was transferring

[01:19:31] my energy through the body so it's like it's a yielding versus overcoming of the connective tissue

[01:19:37] which is influenced obviously by the muscle activity um but like that's where we can

[01:19:45] we can look at like the guy in front of us we can look at stuff like his force plate data and see

[01:19:51] like okay what does this curve look like from uh in the breaking phase versus the propulsive phase

[01:19:58] like because sometimes it's very obvious like you're great at producing energy you suck not

[01:20:05] storing energy man like I don't need to give you more force production and to give you the ability

[01:20:10] to store some more energy so that that might not look like e-centrics in the traditional sense

[01:20:18] um because we have to understand how connected tissue behaves in that like if I take out

[01:20:28] if I take out 80% of my squat one rat max and I decide I'm gonna do a five second long e-centric

[01:20:34] that's not gonna that's gonna give me some yielding of the connective tissue but not very much

[01:20:38] because as soon as I don't rack 80% I got concentric activity everywhere to hold up that weight against

[01:20:47] from me collapsing which means I got connected tissue that's tuned into an overcoming representation

[01:20:53] so like when a power lift you're squatting 600 pounds he's changing shape

[01:21:00] he's changing joint positions he's not doing that via changes in muscle orientation very much

[01:21:08] all the muscle is pretty much concentrically oriented some is just a little less concentrically

[01:21:14] like motor units are dropping off to helping you know be able to go into a certain direction

[01:21:22] but the connective tissue behavior is overcoming pretty much the entire time so like

[01:21:28] the kind of the question I always pose to like our interns and stuff off the bat is like

[01:21:34] what would get you more yielding connective tissue squatting

[01:21:38] what's you know let's say 80 90% for three reps or doing a depth drop off a box

[01:21:49] with a two second stick like if you're familiar with that like just step off the box land and stick it

[01:21:56] for two seconds and a lot of times they'll they'll say the squat because they see like the bigger

[01:22:02] changes in range of motion so like getting more yielding of the connective tissue in the squat

[01:22:09] now you've getting more yielding the connective tissue in the depth drop because

[01:22:13] quicker the rate of loading is instantaneous in the squat as soon as you unwrapped it from the J

[01:22:19] hooks you were loaded with whatever the load was for that squat 90% everything is about pushing back up

[01:22:28] you're just dropping off enough motor units to make sure you can go down

[01:22:33] but like you don't want to drop off too many of them and you don't want to connective tissue

[01:22:36] to go like two yielding at all but in the depth drop yes that's the rate of loading is still very fast

[01:22:44] but you're weightless you're free falling for a moment and then you are also anticipating

[01:22:50] the landing so like right before you land there's system kind of kicks on you get concentric

[01:22:55] most activity but the connective tissue is a tick behind and so what's going to happen is you get

[01:23:00] stiff rubber representation of the muscle it pulls on the connective tissue which then does

[01:23:05] stiffen up but especially if you're sticking it and not trying to change the direction

[01:23:09] you're gonna give this dissipation of energy and you're gonna get the deformation of connective

[01:23:13] tissue not the deformation of not the changing muscle length because you're holding it up position

[01:23:19] like that that energy has to go somewhere it's gonna disperse out into the connective tissue

[01:23:26] so we might do more work on that end of things with guys that might be predisposed to

[01:23:31] those kind of issues but that makes sense yeah the really big thing I'm looking at with him if I

[01:23:38] got a guy with like recurring hamstring issues is that you've probably got a guy who's trying

[01:23:42] to put force into the ground using external rotation strategies and it doesn't have internal rotation

[01:23:47] strategies so you pull a hamstring all right interesting stuff man I think we can kind of wrap

[01:23:58] up here we went through a lot that's a lot of information for people to take in myself included

[01:24:04] anything else you wanted to add Greg? No no help yourself for like I warned you before that

[01:24:11] just go down like rabbit holes after rabbit holes but you know like caution about just trying to

[01:24:19] get as close to like what's really happening is possible and you know just that's what that's

[01:24:24] what keeps me going and keeps me up at night too so do you yeah I was gonna say it sounds like

[01:24:30] baseball could just be the sport that's like what the fuck I don't know what way is up with any of my

[01:24:36] athletes there's so many different variables you have as a coach to manage as a strength coach to

[01:24:41] and you're not on the field with them per se but it's like it's got to keep you up at night

[01:24:46] because even with my you know with weightlifting it's a pretty easy objective standard of

[01:24:52] you know there's external factors to it too but it's like okay this block that we put more weight

[01:24:56] on our on our max or no and then we can change a couple variables baseball has so much more to it

[01:25:02] than it's like yeah especially when you're dealing with college kids oh yeah well yeah there's a

[01:25:11] lot of life style variables and things to consider too but no no yeah no this true it's like

[01:25:19] you know it's like that's why when you're looking at like performance stuff track and field don't

[01:25:24] is such a great place to go to like they always have such good information because it's like

[01:25:27] just like weightlifting it's it's just so cut and dry right like okay we did this block and I

[01:25:33] ran fast like this makes you run faster you know like if I want to get a kid to run faster I'm

[01:25:38] gonna go looking track in the field that information can be pretty solid look at baseball it's like

[01:25:45] well I think we had the grade off season like we do everything like performance wise physically

[01:25:51] everything's great and it's like it's such a skill-dependent game it's time that you can still go

[01:25:57] out and suck like you could just have a bad year and then you know that can be frustrating when

[01:26:04] you're a strength coach depending on you know how you communicate with your athletes and how

[01:26:08] you help them understand it because like you know I run into a plenty of times for it's like

[01:26:13] how to bad year better to change up everything that I'm doing it's like

[01:26:19] oh like was it the training that made it give you a bad year is the fact that you can't hit or

[01:26:23] like the fact that you can't throw strikes you know I'm not saying that there's not training

[01:26:29] things that maybe you could help you with that but at the same time can't say for sure like such a

[01:26:36] skill-dependent game that's why you also have baseball players in the never sniffed away room

[01:26:41] drinks six beers every night and as Winnestine up so like you know yeah it's interesting yeah

[01:26:51] yeah I was gonna say other kids that you see in the weight room that just are like not good in the

[01:26:59] weight room that are great baseball players yeah yeah yeah I guess I guess I'm how you define

[01:27:06] good in the weight room but like you know let's put this way there's certain body types

[01:27:16] to make blend themselves to throwing baseball really hard that don't need a lot of what you

[01:27:24] traditionally would say is like good in the weight room you know I mean like they don't need

[01:27:27] to move a ton of weight like they just need to move some like some weight you know or like

[01:27:35] you don't even need to move a lot of way have to need to work like it's so depending on impulses

[01:27:40] right like the force with the time consideration is really important in a sport like baseball

[01:27:46] right it's not important well it's more important weight lifting it's not important in power lifting

[01:27:51] let's say for example like doesn't matter how long it takes you to do that lift so you might

[01:27:58] want to think about that when you're trying to turn baseball player into a power lifter that

[01:28:04] that might be a consideration that you need to make and like also like you look at a lot of guys

[01:28:10] throw hard to like six seven super skinny body types they're not going to build a handle weight

[01:28:18] room activities like it do like me who's just you know like a showed of a human and just can

[01:28:24] like that's easy easy to uh I was built to do weight room stuff right and that's

[01:28:31] what I ended up as a catcher in the game of baseball because you know because I just wasn't tall

[01:28:35] enough to play first base and uh and what I didn't catch played third base so it's like not same

[01:28:42] that's that's the only you know it's a comfortable circle that goes back to the whole body type

[01:28:46] thing it's like yep you know your six seven pitcher not gonna be anywhere else on that field except

[01:28:51] right on that mountain like yeah that's what he does yep five you gotta consider that before

[01:28:58] you just say hey this is the pitcher program yeah you got one pitcher that's five nine you got one

[01:29:02] pitcher that's six seven you got one pitcher that needs to go out and throw a hundred pitches

[01:29:06] you got another guy who throws ten pitches at the end of the game as hard as he can't

[01:29:10] you're a train all those guys the same I think that's mistake yeah

[01:29:15] awesome it's a good note to leave it off on so uh Greg where can people find you if they want to

[01:29:20] get a hold of you um like for training stuff I'll just run it all through our gym mostly

[01:29:28] pretty much only Instagram it's just the strength house at the strength house um you'll kind of

[01:29:36] try to put up mostly just sort of like clips of our guys training sometimes some more informative stuff

[01:29:42] have a personal Instagram is Greg underscore Robins underscore TSH but that's mostly pictures

[01:29:49] in my daughters so I don't know how much you'll take home from that but if you want to like

[01:29:54] personally reach out to me you could do it through my uh I check both Instagrams but you could

[01:29:58] do it through my personal Instagram that's fine we have a website the strengthhouse.com um

[01:30:06] and yeah I did that's about me I'm not super active on the uh social media I'm working on that

[01:30:12] we're working on that for a long time so I'm gonna get around to it yeah but maybe I'll get more

[01:30:18] active on there soon. All right man well uh great great having you well this is a nice

[01:30:24] nerdy discussion and I hope we can do it again it's on point soon yeah man I appreciate it thanks

[01:30:28] for having me. Thank you