An Email Question About Baseball Pitching Training Aids
Here's an email question I got recently from a website owner who sells baseball pitching training aids and videos on baseball pitching that make typical unfounded claims of boosting performance:
"If you are against all the new baseball training techniques for lack of evidence or scientific proof that they work, what proof do you have that your "just throw" method works? Don't you have to compare it to something to get your own proof that it's better? "
First of all I have never suggested that in order to improve baseball pitching performance that a pitcher should just go out and throw…no more than I would suggest a golfer just go out and hit balls at a driving range to improve.
Baseball pitching requires the constant improvement of pitching mechanics based on a model of biomechanics that has been proven to work. It requires that a pitcher continues to try to improve and eliminate faults that cause problems with velocity or control or lead to injury. This means that every throw a pitcher makes in an effort to improve should be done with the goal of not making errors…otherwise that pitcher is not getting better. If a pitcher were to throw a 40 pitch bullpen and was making a constant mechanical error on each throw…he will continue to get worse not better.
Therefor making throws with the intension of eliminating mistakes is what leads to better overall performance…not just throwing. So pitchers must understand that every throw they make is important. Few go about their practice sessions with that in mind mainly because they do not understand what good mechanics consist of by using a good mechanical model.
What about "all the new baseball training techniques" that have no evidence of woriking? I am not sure exactly which ones he is referring to but let me list some as they relate to baseball pitching.
- weighted baseballs for more velocity
- weight room training to get bigger and stronger to throw harder and reduce risk of injury
- long toss for arm strengthening and more velocity
- hundreds of throwing drills…such as the towell drill
- weighted vests for improved posture
- throwing from balance beams for better balance and posture
- flat ground throwing for less arm stress
- …and I am sure there are many, many more
The large majority of these training ideas were not around prior to 1990…as far as I can tell. This means that for the first 125 or so years of baseball, throwing was the major form of training. This means that pitchers, many in the Hall of Fame were able to perform at an extremely high level without any of these aids. There were many, many pitchers who threw at above average velocity 30 years ago. There is no proof that there are more hard throwers today than there were then. If there are it may be the result of more education in biomechanics than in any single area of training. Certainly not weight training.
Now that is proof that just throwing more often works and the other proof that these new training techniques should not work comes from sports science and the Principle of Specificity which in simplified terms says that if you want to improve performance the absolute best thing you can do is the activity itself. Whenever you are doing activities that are not specific to the activity you are trying to improve upon…you will not improve that activity.
For example, throwing a flat ground bullpen in between starts for a pitcher will not help him improve for that next game because mechanically flat ground throwing is totally different to throwing from the mound since weight shift is adversely effected, stride lenght is shorter and the arm does not get into the same position because of the shorter stride. The body understands flat ground throwing as a completely different activity than throwing from a mound.
Or throwing bullpens at less than game intensity in order to preserve energy or reduce stress. Again, the body will understand less than game intensity throwing as a completely different activity since muscle contraction rates will be far different when throwing at less than game intensity. This will not make a pitcher better for the next game.
Activities that prominse improved performance such as strapping on a weighted vest for better posture must be proven to work. Saying that all pitchers will improve their posture by using them is ludicrous and irresponsible when it is just anecdotal. That is "belief" not proof. Why would they work? Where is the scientific proof that they have worked for this purpose in any other sport? There is no proof. And doing activities that have not really been proven to work means that pitchers will waste their time doing something that thousands of successful pitchers have never had to do.
How will throwing from a balance beam uphill help a pitcher perform better? Balance is a very specific activity in sports and if you have good balance in basketball or soccer it does not mean that you will automatically have good balance as a pitcher. Again, it follows the principle of specificity. If you train on a balance beam your balance will become better when you throw from a balance beam but will not necessarily improve when you throw from the mound.
Working on a balance beam can be used to help a pitcher understand what his body must do in order to stay balanced. I have suggested it for that reason. However, a pitcher's time working on balance should be done while throwing on a normal surface where he will be pitching. Once a pitcher understands what good balance is…even if he gets it from working from a balance beam, his time should be spent doing it while pitching not continuously from that balance beam. There is no benefit of drilling from a balance beam.
There are already hundreds of studies that have proven that gaining strength in the weight room will not help an athlete improve in an activity such as pitching where the speed of movement element is dominant. This also applies to weighted ball training since the Principle of Overload does not apply because even the weighted balls are much too light to have any physiological effect on the pitcher's shoulder or elbow muscles.
For a sports performance activity to be proven to work it must work in the context of sports science principles which are laws that have been proven just like Newton's Laws or the Law of Gravity. You can't just pull something out of a hat and sell it as a new way of doing something unless there is real proof. This is like selling snake oil.
That is why every parent and player should question any program, book, video, DVD, baseball school or clinic that makes unproven claims about why a certain training techanique is going to work. 99% of them have not been proven to. Pitchers then waste valuable time and parents waste money looking for magical ways to boost their child's performance.
There is real money to be made selling training aids or training ideas that promise quick boosts in velocity or reaching a higher pitching level faster. As an advocate against these training aids or new training ideas…you might ask if they worked why would I as the owner of www.pitching.nexcess.net …the most visited website on baseball pitching since 1996…not be selling them? After all I could easily go out and produce a DVD on throwing weighted baseballs or using weighted vests to improve performance and more than likely get a good response from our existing 15,000 plus clients who have already purchased our instructional materials.
If only 20% of our customers purchased a $97 product promising 5-12 mph in velocity that would come to a cool $300,000. Would a sane business person leave that kind of money on the table?
We only sell what has proven to work over time. We don't make things up. We consult with sports scientist for varification of training principles that we can use to help our clients improve. We do not consult with baseball people who we have found use mostly "belief based" instruction rather than "evidence based."
So make them prove it. Don't accept anecdote for their training system as evidence. Just ask what sports science principle makes it so?
If you have questions on any phase of pitching—mechanics, strength and conditioning, mental training, strategy send those questions to dickmills@gmail.com and I will answer them here.
If you want an explosive body and explosive mechanics you need to get my Free Report at www.pitching.nexcess.net. We won't waste your time. We show you what works and what has been proven to work. I show you a comparison between two high school pitchers and a major league pitcher who throws mid to upper nineties. Find out why you do not have powerful mechanics.
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