Photo by Dani Christensen

In the case of all power pitchers or athletes, to prevent wasting precious time when learning a power movement like pitching at high velocities, it is important to understand that strength or power development must come before the power motor skills of the power pitching mechanics. Attempting to train the power motor skills before the pitcher has the strength or power to move through them efficiently and effectively, is not just a total waste of time but it also can end ones pitching career.

The Detrimental Effects of Motor Skill Training Over Power Training in Pitching

There are many coaches, parents and athletes in the pitching world that believe pitching mechanics are more important than strength and power development. The truth of the matter is that this perspective may work for the elite athlete but NOT for the young pitcher. If a young pitcher is coached with this perspective, it could possible end his career. The reason for this claim can best be supported with the analogy of the crawling baby.

Why the Baby Crawls Before it Walks

The baby must first learn to crawl before it walks because it does not have the core and leg strength to push off of the ground when standing upright so it can practice the motor coordination of walking. Until it develops this core and leg strength all it is capable of doing is moving itself over the floor by pushing and pulling at the ground with what strength it has in its core, legs and arms. An act of moving on one’s hands and knees or dragging one’s body along the ground is defined as the Crawl. Even if the baby was able to understand and train the movements of walking upright on two feet, it still could not perform the skill because it lacks the core and leg strength to hold itself up during the movement. Crawling or standing up right overtime develops the babies core and leg strength which gives it the strength to train the motor coordination around the skill of walking.

This analogy is the reason behind the old expression, “Crawl before you walk!” The problem is most young pitchers want to “Run before they Walk” and some even want to “Sprint before they Crawl.” The reason this could end a pitchers career is because trying to walk before you crawl could frustrate the young pitcher to the point of giving up. Think of the baby taking his first steps without any help. The baby starts by using the furniture to pick itself up and then attempts take its first steps alone. This is the day that the baby will learn about real pain. Not only the pain of their face hitting the floor but the emotional pain of not accomplishing the goal of walking. If the baby continued to try and walk this way, without any support, the consistent beating of their face on the floor and the consistent emotional feeling of failure could force them to regress back to the crawl. This regression is the human spirit giving up in the face of failure and in the case of the pitcher this could be enough to change ones career.

If the coach, parent or pitcher could understand that it is easier and even possible to develop the motor coordination around power pitching mechanics, like the 3X Pitching mechanics, if strength and power development comes first then the game of baseball today would have less injury, more competition and better pitching education in all levels of the game. The problem is until this understanding of “Crawl before you Walk,” when it comes to developing the power pitcher, makes its way into the conventional wisdom of the game, there is going to be a lot of young pitchers, those even on this site, who are going to continue to beat their heads against the floor.

How to find the perfect workout for the pitcher?

If you could grab a handful of these workouts or programs that you find interesting on the web or TV and put them into an excel spreadsheet so we could filter out what we want and don’t want in them, then the filtering would go something like this.

Criteria for Filtering Through Workouts for Pitchers to Find the Best Program.

1. Filter out all workouts that are not specific to baseball.
2. Filter out all workouts that only train one muscle group.
3. Filter out all workouts that do not train the total body
4. Filter out all workouts that do not use heavy load training to model more fast twitch muscle fibers.
5. Filter out all workouts that do not implement joint integrity training.
6. Filter out all workouts that do not implement anaerobic training.
7. Filter out all workouts that do not include a nutrition plan.
8. Filter out all workouts that do not include pitching mechanics drills.
9. Filter out all workouts that do not come with a proper warm-up routine.
10. Filter out all workouts that do not offer instructional videos.
11. Filter out all workouts that do not offer one on one coaching or training.
12. Filter out all workouts that do not use a training cycle.
13. Filter out all workouts that do not use goal training percentage.

You can see that once you start searching for that workout, which was developed for a pitcher and trains all facets of the pitcher, then what you will notice is there really isn’t much high quality workouts out their for the pitcher. This is why I developed the 3X Pitching Velocity Program. In my career I was in the same position you are in today, looking for that perfect workout which was going to take me to the promise land. I would buy these gimmicks and try these programs and they all only touched the surface of only a few facets of the complete pitcher. I never discovered a workout or a coach that could show me how to become an elite, explosive pitcher. I knew that only throwing weighted balls around or just doing long toss or using this stupid looking device to help me drive off the mound was not the key to my success. I knew it would come in a workout that challenged me in all areas of my athletic ability. I knew this workout would make me want to quit, because I knew that to get to the promise land or professional baseball wasn’t going to be an easy road. Once I decided to listen to my own intuition, I then decided to grow a pair and get to work. This is when I met some amazing coaches and developed a revolutionary program that helped me reach my promise land and play professional baseball, after doctors told me I would never play again. So stop wasting your time brushing the surface for a workout for pitchers and start doing your homework and filtering through this mess. I leave you with my favorite quote by Nolan Ryan.

“Pitching in the big leagues is a dream. Preparing to pitch in the big leagues is a nightmare.” – Nolan Ryan

If you are sick of having average bat speed, average arm speed and average leg speed then you are not training effectively. You need a program built for the baseball player that enhances your bodies ability to generate power in a short period of time. The key is total body explosive lifts like the Olympic lifts. Dr Garhammar has studied the Olympic lifts for years and he proved that the second clean or hang clean, is by far the greatest lift in the weight room for training power production in the athlete. The problem with the O-lifts is that these lifts are as intricate as the mechanics of hitter and throwing a baseball. This means you will need a training program that comes with an Olympic Lifting specialist to teach you how to perform the lifts correctly, so you are benefiting from the training and not setting yourself up for disaster. If the training program does not comes with a specialist then you need a training program that comes with instructional videos of a specialist to teach you the proper technique.

Here at TopVelocity.net we are developing some of the top baseball strength training programs in the country. Our most popular program is the Baseball Training Manual using the famous Fusion System. This program was influenced by Kurt Hester who built the training programs for LSU in the 1990′s when they won 5 National Championships and were called “Gorilla Ball.” They earned this name because they were the most developed ball players in the league and broke the single season home run record. Here is an interview with Kurt talking about his success with LSU and how he built his fame as one of the top strength trainers in all of sports.

Top Velocity Baseball Strength Training Program

I highly recommend this program to those baseball players who want to get Bigger, Stronger, Faster. This program was developed to build the elite ball player. It will increase bat speed, arm speed and running speed within the first 8 weeks of the 8 week cycle or your money back. Yes, it comes with a 60 day money back guarantee. It also comes with a free stream to the instructional videos. The Strength and Conditioning Specialist in the videos is none other than Chad Englehart. This program was developed by the best, to train you to become the best. Purchase it TODAY!

It is important to also make sure that you are educated in the mechanics of the lifts. The Olympic lifts are some of the most powerful lifts in the weight room to training the athlete to grow Bigger, Stronger, Faster. These lifts though are as intricate as learn proper throwing or hitting mechanics. You must spend as much time learning these lifting mechanics as you spend learning your throwing or hitting mechanics. This would mean you need a program that comes with a trainer who is educated enough to coach these lifts or a training video that will replace the trainer. You will find some great training videos below along with the baseball training programs.

What to look for in a effective baseball workout?

1. Olympic Lifts
2. Plyometric training
3. Medicine Ball training
4. Joint Integrity training
5. Anaerobic training
6. 8 Week Cycle which includes a: base week, volumn week, recovery week and performance week.
7. Repititions based on one rep max percentages per lift.
8. Days off per week for full recovery.

If you like what you are reading here then I highly recommend that you purchase the Baseball Training Manual below. It is made up of the popular Fusion System. This is a Bigger, Stronger, Faster approach to training the baseball player. This program is ideal for all position players including pitchers. If you are a pitcher, I highly recommend that you purchase the 3X Pitching Velocity Program because this includes everything you will need to implement the benefits of this superior training program into your pitching mechanics.

If you would like a taste of what this type of training is all about before you purchase the Baseball Workout then check out the Beginner Baseball Workout.

If you are ready for the real deal then step up to the plate and take your game to a whole new level with the Baseball Training Manual.

In my last interview with the legendary guru of Speed and Strength Training, from D1 Sports in Tennessee, Kurt Hester, stated that Major League Baseball is using glorified physical therapy instead of strength and conditioning. This was a shot at the lame approach to training and rehabilitating athletes in the MLB organizations. This is coming from a guy who trains some of NFL’s most explosive athletes and who was label as Gorilla Ball, when he was training the LSU tigers in the 90′s.

Kurt says that fear is a major problem with baseball players. They train the way they do because of the fear that comes from the higher levels of the game. He also says that if young baseball players trained like Major League ball players, they would never get better. The fear is that weight training, especially heavy weight training, will make you bulky and will cause injury. Kurt says the MLB’s athletic trainers are running glorified physical therapy programs and not actually training their athletes to become bigger, stronger and faster.  This is why I believe top draft picks and big salary pitcher’s like Mark Prior leave the league with a career ending injury, after only 3 years in the show, and never make it back.

This is the reason players like Barry Bonds carried his own trainers and doctors almost everywhere he went. Kurt said what makes athletes better is increasing force production. If you can train to move more explosively in a vertical or linear direction, then you are a better athlete because of it. This force production translates into running speed, bat speed and throwing velocity. This is the same approach he used when he trained the LSU Baseball team to 5 National Championships in the 90′s and 2000. He enhanced the force production of every athlete on the team and yes, even the pitchers benefited from it. They all became so developed that they were calling the LSU style of play, Gorilla Ball. This style of training, developed by Kurt Hester, was not only revolutionizing LSU baseball but the entire game. Kurt was receiving calls from Major League Managers who wanted to know why they were hitting so many runs, stealing so many bases, and their pitchers collecting so many K’s. When he would tell them that he was focusing on force production, through heavy load and triple extension training, these Major League Coach’s wanted to use his program but everyone of them shied away from the program because of the worries that they would be scrutinized for using this type of heavy load training in the MLB. Kurt says baseball is behind Golf when it comes to strength and conditioning.

Learn More about Kurt Hester

Kurt Hester is the National Director of Training for D1 Sports Training. He is known nationally for his energetic approach to training top-tier athletes.

Kurt is D1′s primary authority on sports training and is responsible for instilling the D1 training philosophy and making sure all D1 coaches properly implement and teach training programs and techniques. In addition, Kurt oversees D1′s NFL Combine Training Program.

Prior to D1, Kurt ran and owned HS2 Athletic Performance in New Orleans for nine years, where he turned out more than 400 collegiate scholarship athletes and trained more than 50 NFL draft picks. He also trained numerous MLB draft picks, high school All-Americans, state championship teams and collegiate National Track & Field finalists. Prior to HS2, Kurt was a strength & speed coach at LSU, Tulane and Southeastern Louisiana University. In addition, Kurt is still an active strength and speed consultant at Florida State, Tennessee, Illinois, Ole Miss, Alabama, Nichols State, Grambling State and the Unviersity of Miami.

Kurt, a graduate of Tulane Unviersity, was inducted into the Strength Coach Hall of Fame and holds various certifications through the National Strength and Conditioning Association, United States Weightlifting and the Speed, Agility and Conditioning Association. Kurt learned under USA Weightlifting coach, Gayle Hatch and speed coach, Tom Shaw.

If you would like to watch the interview with the legendary Kurt Hester, it is hosted on TopVelocity.net and is also a part of the 3X Pitching Velocity Program.

Check out all of Kurt’s instructional videos on ESPN!

View videos here

Coach Kurt Hester BIO

National Director of Training at D1 Sports Training
www.d1sportstraining.com

Kurt Hester, known nationally for his energetic approach to training top-tier athletes, serves as D1’s Director of Training.

Kurt is D1′s primary authority on sports training and is responsible for instilling the D1 training philosophy and making sure all D1 coaches properly implement and teach training programs and techniques. In addition, Kurt oversees D1′s NFL Combine Training Program.

Prior to D1, Kurt ran and owned HS2 Athletic Performance in New Orleans for nine years, where he turned out more than 400 collegiate scholarship athletes and trained more than 50 NFL draft picks. He also trained numerous MLB draft picks, high school All-Americans, state championship teams and collegiate National Track & Field finalists. Prior to HS2, Kurt was a strength & speed coach at LSU, Tulane and Southeastern Louisiana University. In addition, Kurt is still an active strength and speed consultant at Florida State, Tennessee, Illinois, Ole Miss, Alabama, Nichols State, Grambling State and the Unviersity of Miami.

Kurt, a graduate of Tulane Unviersity, was inducted into the Strength Coach Hall of Fame and holds various certifications through the National Strength and Conditioning Association, United States Weightlifting and the Speed, Agility and Conditioning Association. Kurt learned under USA Weightlifting coach, Gayle Hatch and speed coach, Tom Shaw.

Coach Gayle Hatch is one of the founding fathers of strength and conditioning. He is the protege of the legendary Alvin Roy, who was the first strength and conditioning Coach to be hired by a professional sport. Both Alvin Roy and Gayle Hatch are to credit for the strength and speed of today’ s athletes. I was lucky enough to get a phone interview with the world renowned Coach Gayle Hatch. Most of the interview is covering the accomplishments of him and his athletes. He created the Hatch System of training, which is used in many top NCAA Div 1 programs and professional sports all across this country. It has been an honor to know him for the past 7 years and he is a pillar of the community here in Louisiana. Here is his bio and the 48 minute interview:

Gayle Hatch’s contributions to Olympic-style weightlifting and strength training are quite considerable. He has been active as a weightlifting and strength & conditioning coach for more than thirty-five years. Among Hatch’s many accomplishments are memberships in both the USA Weightlifting and USA Strength and Conditioning Coaches Halls of Fame and he served as Head Coach of the men’s 2004 USA Olympic Weightlifting Team that competed in Athens, Greece, the home of the modern Olympics.  His club, the Gayle Hatch Weightlifting Team, has a tradition rich program that has won forty-eight USA Weightlifting National Championships. Coach Hatch has also had athletes make three United States Olympic Teams, and 12 World Teams. He has had more than 50  athletes selected to other U.S. international teams. Some of the outstanding lifters coming out of the Gayle Hatch program include Olympians and World Team Members, Bret Brian and Tommy Calandro, and Olympic Squad and World Team Members, Blair Lobrano and Matt Bruce, as well as World Masters Champions, Walt Imahara and Chuck Meole. Hatch has also had 20 athletes selected to Junior World Teams including junior American record holders, Buster Bourgois and Brandon Baker. Read more

It better be important because if you look up another word for speed in a Thesaurus you will get Velocity. Now let me ask that question again with the other word.

How important is Velocity to you on the mound?

Now, I hope I got your attention. If you are confused then I suggest you read my article called The Phenomenon of Speed Mechanics!

Seriously, read the article!

Welcome back! Now that you understand the importance of body speed in pitching I can introduce to you Alex Maroko. He is a speed and agility trainer and he is one of the best. He has a program called the “Truth About Quickness” and instead of stealing it from him and putting it into the Ace Pitcher Handbook, I decided to just tell you about his program and then let you decide. His program focuses on pure speed for the athlete. He is a speed freak and he knows his stuff. His program will not only teach you how to model more fast twitch muscle fiber but also how to maintain it during season. His program is full of valuable information on building the elite explosive athlete.

Alex’s program fits perfectly with the Ace Pitcher Handbook and the Fusion system. I recommend that you substitute his program for the anaerobic training portion of the Fusion System. It will take the anaerobic training portion of the Fusion System to a whole new level. This will help you move a lot faster towards your velocity goals. To get a better understanding of his program here is a video library of some of his speed drills.

If you feel the same way I do about Alex’s program and you want to jump on the incredible offer he is selling this program for I suggest you select this link that he sent me to his best offer. I do not know how long this link will put out his lowest offer so I would act now! Best of luck!

Click here to check out Truth about Quickness!

Pitching in today’s game is a game of power and deception. Back in the day, pitchers could fool hitters without high velocity but in today’s game this isn’t the case. Pitchers are in serious need for velocity and the best place you can find it is in the weight room. The problem is it isn’t that simple. The weight room can be your best friend or your worst nightmare. It is a nightmare for those who do not have the education or the guidance to survive it. The reality is the weight room is a concentration camp, for the lack of a better word. It is a place you go to destroy your body to a point just before injury. The reason for this behavior is to force your body to breakdown and rebuild bigger, stronger and faster. The issue is this takes a lot of trial and error before you get it right because every one’s body is different.

The point I am trying to make is that injury is going to happen but serious injury can and must be avoided without abandoning your best friend, the weight room. This is why I put together this article on the most important things to look out for in the weight room when training in or out of season.

10 ways pitchers can injure themselves in a Weight Room

1. Over Training – This is when you stop listening to your body because your ego is getting in the way. Weight training for speed/velocity is a science and not a competition. The most important component of this science is the recovery part. So when your body is saying, “I am not recovered yet,” then you better listen to it or be forced to face the consequences. This is when you stop and take a day off. Taking a few days off after a hard week of training actually makes you stronger.
2. Sacrifice Strength Gains For Joint Integrity – Joint Integrity is balance in a joint. Our entire body is put together and functions around all of our joint systems. If we have poor integrity in these joint system then we have a poor performing machine. Do not push for strength gains when these gains are jeopardizing your joint integrity. A great example is bench press. Guys love to grow big pecs and talk about how much they can bench, which is fine, unless your back is now weaker than your chest. This will cause poor joint integrity in your shoulders because the chest and back muscles are apart of the shoulder joint systems. Remember, to keep integrity you must pull whatever you can push in the weight room.
3. Training Outside of Your Sport – This is why the label sport specific training is so popular today. This label isn’t for marketing purposes. It is defining the evolution of strength and conditioning. Athletes have learned that less injures occur when you are not training outside of the muscular demands of your sport. A good example would be with base running. If you train for more speed in the off season but your workload was only in a straight line then the day you showed up to spring training to show off your new explosive speed it could have gone down like this. Let’s say you got your first hit and when making it to first base the ball went past the first baseman to the back stop and at this point you quickly make a cut to second base. This cut will put serious amounts of pressure on your groin muscles as your body quickly changes direction. Because of your off season linear sprint training program you did not develop these muscles like you developed the quads and hamstrings. This makes you very vulnerable to pulling or tearing these groin muscles in this game situation.
4. Lifting With Your Friends – I never once had a great workout in the weight room with a friend. The problem is we all are such competitors that we will turn the lift into a competition instead of a training regimen. We will ignore the process to go for the most weight or most reps to show off to the friend. There is nothing wrong with this behavior in sports but in the weight room it is the number one ingredient for injury.
5. Bad Mechanics – I am  not talking pitching mechanics because this would not fit in this article. I am talking about training mechanics, especially with lifts like the Olympic lifts. The better lifts are usually the more risky lifts. These lifts are considered better because they are the lifts that have a more positive effect on the athletes performance. These are functional lifts like the Olympic lifts. They train the body as a single unit as opposed to isolating a single muscle.  They are risky because the movement to perform the lift is more complicated than a single movement isolating a single muscle. Therefore bad mechanics with the functional lifts can easily cause injury. This is why when starting off with these functional lifts you must have an experience trainer guide you through the workout.
6. Adding More Weight to Bad Mechanics – What is more risky than training with bad mechanics is adding more weight to those bad mechanics. If you do not feel comfortable with a lift or you do not feel that your mechanics are efficient then DO NOT ADD MORE WEIGHT! This is like pouring gasoline on a fire. Adding more weight when you are not ready can easily cause an injury.
7. Poor Training Program – There are a lot of workouts out there today. I was lucky to have been trained by the best because that was all I had to chose from. I can’t imagine what you guys are experiencing today with the web and the hundreds of training programs and gimmicks you come across but remember that a training program can make or break a season. Do not find yourself using a training program that was designed for Navy Seals or Hollywood Models. It is very important that you are using a training program that is either developed for the baseball player or the pitcher. If you ignore this piece of advice you could find yourself with an injury or very poor results.
8. Too Much Time in Weight Room – The weight room is a positive place until you have overstayed your welcome. I believe that where you spend most of your time has more of a dominate effect on your body. If you bench press all day every day then you will be pretty much a bench pressing machine and it will be very difficult to be as effective with any other skill. This means get in the weight room and do not screw around. Get your workout done and get back on the ball field.
9. Poor Nutrition – Most ball players pay little to no attention to diet until pro ball. This is a mistake. If recovery is such an important part of training and diet is such an important part of recovery then nutrition should be a top priority. You have a small window after you workout of about one hour when your body needs optimal nutrition before it goes into starving mode. This mode has an effect on your body chemistry and development and can throw everything out of whack. Miss a good meal after a good workout and you will probably not sleep well that night and you will wake up in the morning feeling like a truck hit you. Overtime this cycle will cause your body to breakdown more than build up. This breakdown is the beginning of injury.
10. Illegal Supplements – This is a no brainier. Illegal substances like steroids, amphetamines and HGH is not for the uneducated. Unless you are a medical Doctor then stay away from these supplements. Oh yeah, did I say that they are ILLEGAL. This means don’t mess with them. They make this stuff illegal for a reason and it usually has to do with your health. I trained with many ball players on these substances and I could still lift with them. I was blown away by their new found strength but it was always short term. They would either plateau or stop taking the drug and the effects would wear off quickly. Also the majority of the people I know who used these illegal substances wound up with an injury during the time period. Mainly because they over trained due to the quick strength gains.

If you feel more confident about the weight room then I would highly recommend that you start with the Ace Pitcher Handbook. It was developed by a pitcher to train a pitching machine.

Last week the Assistant GM for the New Orleans Hornets called me about implementing a core strength and flexibility program for the team. My reply was not taken well by him because I laughed. After I regained my composure I explained that if you have a well thought out strength and conditioning program, core strength and flexibility components are built in and done on a daily basis. I felt it was a waste of the teams time for me to go in once a week for thirty minutes to train explicitly on core and flexibility work. Needless to say; he was not very happy with my reply.

This conversation did trigger a host of thoughts about past training concepts, present training concepts and future training concepts. I remember the days when strength coaches had a background in either power lifting, olympic lifting or bodybuilding. Then high intensity training became the fad of the day. That was followed by sport specific training. Sport specific training gave way to core and stabilization training, which gave way to functional training. What do all these training methods have in common? A lot of books and videos have been sold. Yes, I am jaded and sarcastic by nature. I just want to know; what ever happened to a basic well thought out training cycle? I think coaches and athletes are so impressed by the latest line of training equipment and the latest training fad that they forget about the basics of performance: power, strength and speed. This is not an indictment of training philosophy, but an article to provoke thought.

I incorporate some faction of every training philosophy in my training cycles. I pride myself on being able to steal from the best and worst programs. If I can find one thing to make my training cycles better than my athletes are getting better. When it comes to training I do not dismiss anyone or any system. I will learn from anybody, anywhere, anytime.

Now if you employ this technique when writing a training cycle things still have to mesh and it has to be logical. I have seen training cycles thrown together that made absolutely know sense. There are facets of training programs that you can use to enhance your training cycles. For example:

Bodybuilding – a ridicules repertoire of exercises
that can be performed.

Power lifting – absolute strength lifts, max effort
lifts and dynamic effort lifts.

Olympic lifting – explosive power and speed lifts.

HIT – lifting for muscle hypertrophy, endurance
and volume.

Core/Stability – building your athletic foundation.

Functional Training – isolateral and balance training.

Rehab -joint stability work.

Sport Specific Training – there are few exercises that truly mimmick sport. This has always been a catch phrase that I have true distain for. If you’re an athlete who is getting stronger, more powerful and faster then your getting better athletically.

You can take bits and pieces of different training philosophies and mold them into a coherent and concise program. Do not pigeon whole your athletes into one training system. Let your guard down and absorb knowledge form non traditional sport training areas. Don’t be swayed by entire training systems that come around every two to three years. Stick to your basic philosophy and enhance it with sound practices of other philosophies.