FULLREPS IN SEASON TRAINING PROGRAM: The Importance Of In-Season Training!
The best results come from athletes who train over longer periods of time and accept nonlinearities in their training development. In-Season maintenance is one of the most important components of training when it comes to staying healthy and maintaining off-season gains. I might get some jaw dropping looks but I'm going to go ahead and make the arguement that IN-SEASON TRAINING might be more beneficial than OFF-SEASON TRAINING (that is if you had to pick one over the other). Yet so many athletes neglect their in-season training and wonder why they are having pain or trouble sustaining their off-season gains, movements, velocities, etc. Don't let this be your excuse!! FullReps has a road map for achieving your goals. You just need to stay on course, trust the process and follow the map!
A DEEPER LOOK INTO WHAT HAPPENS TO THE BODY WHEN YOU DO NOT MAINTAIN IT DURING THE SEASON!
For the purpose of this argument, let’s just take a look the Anterior/Posterior view of the Shoulder! Throughout the length of a season, throwers tend to lose the ability to internally rotate their shoulder while increasing their ability to externally rotate their shoulder. We also tend to see mobility constraints in the anterior/posterior shoulder & tight Pec Minors. One recent ASMI study took 45 D1 pitchers and put them through a simulated 7 inning game. They tested their ROM before and after they pitched. Up to 3 days later all of the pitchers they tested lost between 8-15 degrees of internal ROM. Now, you might be saying to yourself…”So what? Why does this matter!?” Here’s why it matters and here is why our staff stresses the importance of In-Season training & Recovery!
Please understand that in order to adequately counter the stress that is induced by the arm when reaching extreme External & Internal Rotation throughout the season, throwers must optimize their delivery, assess any possibly disconnections between the trunk & t-spine, detect any constraints and train specifically to prep the surrounding soft tissue in order to promote a sustainable, durable & healthy arm!
According to a 1999 study in the Journal of Biomechanics, internally rotating the shoulder and pronating the forearm at release lowers the amount of torque on the UCL. Failing to internally rotate the shoulder at launch and/or supinating the forearm by as little as 25 degrees is enough to take the UCL beyond its yield capacity (Putnam CA. Sequential motions of body segments in striking and throwing skill. J Biomech 1993; 26: 125-35)
The loss of IR in this case is just one of the many underlying causes of poor “deceleration patterns” resulting in poor movement patterns, sequencing, disconnections in the delivery & eventually the phrase we all fear…. “ARM PAIN”. The loss of IR often times enables the arm to naturally pronate and when this happens, you’ll start to see that the arm tends to “straighten out” after release resulting in an initial whack of the posterior shoulder and more torque & stress added on the medial elbow. Over time, this can lead to inflammation, impingement & eventual injury. Use your brake pads on your car for example….Those with a heavy foot are constantly slamming on their brakes and will wear out their breaks faster than someone who has a lighter foot and allows their car to decelerate over a greater distance. The goal as a thrower is to stay connected, add energy and develop & maintain proper movement/deceleration patterns that work for their body to reduce the risk of injury and throw gas. However, these movements start to break down and disconnections become more prevalent in throwers who play ball all summer long or take off all winter long and do not properly train to re-organize connective tissue through active recovery. Have you ever heard a dad scream from the stands “You’ll be fine Johnny, just keep doing what your pitching coach told you!?” Yea, well guess what Johnny’s dad, the shoulder internally rotates at 7,000 degrees/sec in a 90+mph delivery & changing movement patterns throughout the course of a season can't happen by the philosophy of "See this" & "Do that". Shit just doesn’t work like that and the human body doesn’t care what Johnny’s pitching coach tells him..
Yes, every athlete has different degrees of freedoms, constraints & foundations of strength, but all athletes will eventually break down if they do not properly take care of their bodies (especially in-season when their bodies are being pushed to their end limits in competition and are under the most stress). A combination of deep analysis and proprioceptive reprogramming is 100% necessary in order to recover faster, recover fully, maximize off season training results, prevent injury & improve conditioning & performance. If you neglect your in-season work you're absolutely insane & Just asking to get injured!
“For all of its travails, all the heartache it can cause, all the frustrations left in its wake, the arm is capable of wondrous things”
This summer, we will be taking our training to the next level by providing an all-inclusive In-Season Training Program designed to prepare our athletes for the vigorous stress the body endures when competing at higher levels. The programs focus will be on proper core temp, arm care recovery, corrective exercise, regeneration & in-season strength in order to help our athletes move better,feel better and achieve their desired goals on the field.
Prescription without proper assessment is malpractice which is why the program will also include a full FMS with PT, Bob Gorinski & full Mechanical Efficiency Screening & Analysis using the Rapsodo with our FullReps Arm Care Staff. We will design a progressive and incremental program that reinforces the hands-on work and gets you functioning back to where you were during game day, and then some!
Our athletes will be provided with workout supplements and be able to get their recovery in with the Marc Pro Stim (the leader in rapid recovery) & other recovery aids intended for muscle conditioning & reorganization of connective tissue.
More importantly the program and our coaches engage in deep interaction with our athletes weekly through mindset discussions & motor learning activities preparing them not only for their season but for life in the real world! The program is about Effort > Talent and building character & we promote individuality by understanding that every organism is different and by focusing on teaching our athletes to be adaptable. The program is rooted in differential learning to maximize motor learning capabilities.
Our training program goes above and beyond the traditional “arm strengthening” exercises & focuses more on motor control since most traditional arm strengthening programs strengthen the muscles concentrically, but in a baseball throw most of the deceleration muscles operate eccentrically. Hmmm .....So what does this truly mean? It means exactly what it means. To be functional & specific to the throwing movement, muscles should be worked "eccentrically" allowing muscles to elongate in a response to a greater opposing force. Most of the time it's not a "strength" problem it's a motor control problem!
Trust me, the Arm Care fairy didn't just one day magically appear in our facility over night! It has taken us years of programming, moments of success and everyday failures to bring to you a world class training program. Today, we are considered the Northeast’s top facility for reducing injury risk & gaining velocity.
CONCLUSION
In closing, I truly believe that anyone can make it as far as they want in this game and that includes you! No B.S. It’s simply what I believe! Without that belief as the foundation of our FR process, the success of our athletes would be impossible. Napolean Hill once said “the starting point for all achievement is desire” if you truly want to gain velocity, improve your command and reach optimal levels of performance, I believe you can do it. A good buddy of mine and owner of the Florida Baseball Ranch, Randy Sullivan, PT. Says it best. “If you want it, it can happen but to get there you need 4 things and they all start with D. Desire, Decision, Direction, Discipline”. Do you want it? Take Action. Get the right plan. Execute it every second of every day!
Joining our Program does not mean that you’ll throw harder, stay healthy or get better but following our program & process does! Our In-Season Training Program simply provides you with the right map to help you unleash your inner strength and find the buried treasure. If you decide to go off course and follow a different map there isn’t much we can do for you! I use this example by Stephen Covey almost every day "Picture yourself trying to find a deli on a map in the city of NY. What if someone gave you the wrong map?? No matter how hard you try, no matter how good your attitude & efforts are, your map will only lead to you to the wrong place faster!! But when you follow the right map, diligence becomes important and when you face obstacles along the way then “attitude” can make a real difference" and we all know It’s going to take Desire, Decision, Direction & Discipline to achieve this!
FullReps is dedicated to providing that MAP in an effort to provide the best resources to guide our players development.
If you can’t join us this summer, I have listed 4 suggested mobility stretches at the bottom of the page to help get you get on the right road towards staying healthy throughout your season.
Thanks again for your support! We look forward to serving you this summer and helping you achieve your goals In your pursuit of excellence!
-Coach Swanny
4 Suggested Mobility Stretches:
1.) Chicken Wing Stretch- Increase Mobility in anterior shoulder
2.) Pec Minor Release- when your shoulder tilts anteriorly your pec minor is usually really tight! Grab yourself a lax ball and dig in there to increase internal ROM!
3.) Lat Stretch to increase mobility in Posterior Shoulder. Grab a band and get stretching until you start feeling a good Stretch in your Teres Minor & Major.
4.) Scap Push-Ups! 15-20 reps. Repeat 2 x a day throughout your season!
