Evan Marcinko is a 16-year-old rising junior from Sykesville, MD who began training with us at Tyler Anzmann Performance in November of 2018. During our initial conversations, Evan stated that his training goal was to improve pitching velocity in order to play college baseball and beyond.
Fast forward about 7 months and he’s gained 10 mph, and gone from 77 mph to 87 mph! Let’s talk about how he got there.
We began the training process with a full mobility and movement assessment, a mechanical analysis, and collected strength and power numbers.
It was clear from the assessment that Evan had some mobility restrictions and movement deficiencies that needed to be corrected. So, we designed a mobility and corrective exercise plan that allowed him to attack these deficiencies.
Mobility
For Evan the glaring areas of need were shoulder external rotation and scapular upward rotation. Evan was well below the usual high velocity range for external rotation of nearly 180 degrees (Matsuo, 2001). Additionally, due to his lat dominance, his upward rotation needed some work.
Mechanical Changes
Evan’s big rocks were cleaning up some arm action inefficiencies, such as hooking his wrist after hand break, and improving the movement of his upper and lower halves.
Hooking the wrist can decrease layback and reduce velocity by throwing off sequencing. And hip and shoulder separation is important so that energy can be efficiently transferred through the kinetic chain via the summation of speed principle. Basically, if the hips and shoulders are rotating at the same time, as Evan’s were, less elastic energy is able to be stored in the upper body and velocity is lower than it could be.
After moving through a productive on-ramp period, during which we focused on some specific patterning changes, we began some higher intensity throwing. We first used running throws, but after the first pulldown session it was clear these weren’t our best option based on Evan’s movement. So, we used a modified rocker instead and Evan’s velocity began to steadily rise.
Check out some of the results:
Evan’s first time hitting 85 mph on the mound
Improving Strength and Body Composition
Along with the mobility and mechanical changes, Evan needed to get stronger. When Evan came in for his assessment, he joked about being weak, but through his hard work and intense focus over the last few months, that has changed dramatically.
Check out his strength improvements:
| November 2019 | June 2019 | |
| Front Squat | 155 x 3 | 245 x 3 |
| Trap Bar Deadlift | 315 x 3 | 385 x 3 |
| DB Bench Press | 50s x 3 | 80s x 3 |
Along with these improvements Evan significantly improved his body composition by dropping some body fat and gaining a solid amount of lean mass. Relative strength is extremely important to throwing velocity as it allows you to move fast and athletically through the extreme positions required to throw hard. By dropping body fat and improving his absolute strength, Evan significantly improved his relative strength.
I’m extremely proud of Evan and all of the hard work he’s put in. He’s still got a lot left in the tank and I’m excited to see how much better he can get! If you’re willing to work hard and stick to an individualized program for the long haul you can make big improvements!
Interested in remote or in-person training? Contact me here.