Common Cues: Stay Grounded
There will be several articles included in this “Common Cues” series. Below are some important notes to consider before we get into the actual article (these will be included at the beginning of each article in the series): Cues are not the same as reality. Cues create reality. Therefore, some of the cues will not…
Arm Action Talk: Hand or Elbow Driven?
The other day I posted a tweet about Garrett Richards and how rotationally efficient he appears to be. Just watching him throw makes my eyes light up. You can literally see the rotational energy sequentially leave his body from his right leg, through his left leg, and then up through his torso, lat, pec, shoulder,…
Inefficient Rotation: Why it’s Killing Your Hitting Performance
Rollover. Rollover. Slice. Slice. “Stay on the baseball”!!! – Coach Obvious In this article, I hope to make the case for something I see a lot of good hitters do really well, and a lot of amateur hitters do poorly: rotate. Specifically, being able to stabilize the lumbar spine, while rotating the thorax. It’s a…
The Power (and timing) of Perpendicular Barrels
Here’s a mental exercise for you: You have a ball on a string. You are trying to whip the ball as far as possible, using the string. There are 3 different types of string you can choose: Option #1 is a piece of yarn. Super flexible, no rigidity. Option #2 is a piece of steel.…
RR#3: Isometrics and Tendon Stiffness
Today’s research review will be coming from the article: “Effects of different duration isometric contractions on tendon elasticity in human quadriceps muscles”. There will be a full citation at the bottom of this article. The purpose of this study was to compare the effect long duration and short duration isometric exercises had on tendon stiffness.…
Research Review #2: Interacting Learning Processes During Skill Acquisition
Todays review will be taken from the article, “Interacting Learning Processes during Skill Acquisition: Learning to control with gradually changing system dynamics”. A full citation can be found at the bottom of this article. The goal of this research article was to determine whether a gradual increase in task difficulty would lead to greater task…
Research Review #1: Interaction of the Player and Coach in a Constraints-Led Approach
This is the first in what I hope will be a long-list of research article reviews we do in the future. My goal with this series is to convert the research into a more digestible format and to provide at least one practical application for coach and player within each review. Enjoy! Todays review will…
Why I Stopped Breathing
This article will be in reference to the book “The Oxygen Advantage” by Patrick McKeown. None of these are my ideas but rather a general summary of the book, followed by some practical applications for you at the end. While visiting Cal Dietz in August of 2018, he briefly mentioned that he would occasionally tape…
WWHS #7: What Does Being “Connected” Mean?
The word “connected” gets thrown around quite a bit in hitting circles. “This guy needs to be more connected”. “See, look at how connected he is”. The problem is, very few people actually know what “being connected” means. What should we look for? How do we tell if we are connected? Enter: Blast Motion Roughly…
WWHS #6: Don’t Step off the Bucket
If you play baseball, or used to play baseball, it’s very likely you’ve heard the phrase “don’t step in the bucket” more than one time in your life. Thankfully, players such as Khris Davis (if you don’t know what I mean, watch him swing one time and you’ll figure it out), have broken the negativity…