The last few weeks have been very productive, but have taken away from my ability to get a post out about my training. So this one will cover the last two weeks.
Throwing
As I said in my previous post I’ve taken a few steps back to focus on specific elements of my throwing pattern in order to set myself up for high velocity down the road. My last two and a half weeks have focused on building velocity and comfort with the patterns of two drills to help isolate my arm path and upper body patterning.
One of my issues has been a lack of hip/shoulder separation and that’s been the result of mobility restrictions in my hips and thoracic spine as well as patterning issues. I’ve been working on improving my mobility and that has been very helpful in trying to improve the ability to counter rotate against my hips and create more tension. The wide stance ten toe drill I’ve been using has allowed me to isolate the counter rotation pattern while keeping my hips fixed.
I’ve also been working on “pulling” my arm rather than “pushing” it. This just means using the larger muscles involved in accelerating the arm, like the lat and pec, rather than just extending my elbow. I’ll have a video about the drills I’ve been using coming out soon so you guys can give them a try as well.
The goal is to build the velocity in this drill up to 77 mph by the end of this week (I’ve been up to 76 so far) and then begin adding in pieces of my lower body next week. I’ll start slowly by adding in a one step roll-in and building velocity in that, then trying to piece more of my delivery together and getting to my full delivery from the mound.
General Fitness Qualities
My soft tissue work could use some improvement, but this is more the fact that I’m trying to do it all on my own than anything else. There is no substitute for good manual therapy and I have not had that in a while, so that will be a goal going forward-consistently making appointments to get my problem areas worked on. For me these are my traps, my pec minor, my forearm (flexors), and my lats. Trying to work on these myself is definitely helping, but manual therapy would be ideal.
In addition to improving my soft tissue work, I need to manage the fatigue of my dry patterning work better. The lateral part of my left knee has been bugging me some, but I think this is just a matter of going a bit overboard on some of the patterning work I’ve been doing. It’s a new stimulus and I’ve put a lot of reps into it, and some of the reps have been imperfect while I try to find the feel for it.
The weight room has been good, but it’s still taking a back seat. The main goals are still improving power, especially in the frontal plane, maintaining strength, and managing fatigue so that I can put in a lot of quality work on the sport specific side of my program.
Anyway, thank you for following me on my journey to the show! Check back later this week for more content, and be on the lookout for my arm action video coming out soon!