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.

When body tissues are cooled, nerve cells in the chilled area initially force adjacent blood vessels to constrict, leading to a marked reduction in blood flow to that part of the body. However, if the temperature of the affected area continues to drop, nerve activity is depressed and the blood vessels begin to open up, flooding the injured tissues with blood, even though cold is still being applied. This flood-of-blood (Hunting effect) is the human body’s reflex reaction to thwart severe cold injury in a body part subjected to chilling stress.

Dr. Meeusen’s studies showed that icing initially stops the swelling and blood flow of the damaged blood vessels into the local muscle tissue but after a period of 10 minutes it can begin to have an opposite effect to the area. His documentation continues to state this damage continues on to another important system of healing.

Lymphatic Vessels: Prolonged ice application can cause lymphatic vessels (which ordinarily help carry excess tissue fluids back into the cardiovascular system) to increase in permeability. This causes large amounts of fluid to pour from the lymphatics “the wrong way” into the injured area, increasing local swelling and pressure, potentially contributing to greater pain. If icing goes on too long, the lymphatic vessels can actually be nearly obliterated, losing all of their fluid to surrounding tissues.

The lesson here is NOT that icing is bad. What we have learned is that icing is effective initially but begins to cause problems after about 10 minutes. Read the description below for the proper way to ice the arm after a game to help aid the healing process.

Ice the elbow or shoulder region for 10 minutes immediately after pitching (DO NOT PUT ICE ON ULNAR NEVER), remove the ice for about 30 minutes, and then reapply it for 10 additional minutes. Repeat this cycle of about two 10-minute icings per hour as often as desired, based on how many pitches thrown, during the first 24 to 48 hours after pitching.

I also recommend that you use a heavy bag of icing. A little bag of ice will not cool off the area enough. You can put a towel on your arm to prevent freezer burn but try to use a bag of ice that almost hurts it is so cold. I also recommend taking a cold shower instead of a warm or hot shower post game for the same healing benefits of icing.

His father Chris works for Boeing, which is why he produced a son with such a perfect understanding of physics driven mechanics. Tom Verducci has written the article of all articles when it comes to the revolution of the pitching delivery. Verducci writes for Sports Illustrated. In this article he expresses a better understanding of physics driven pitching mechanics than some of the best Coaches in the game. It goes to show how baseball’s ego has prevented its own evolution. MLB has been drafting young, tall and lanky pitchers for years because these pitchers can get away with more and therefore they need less coaching. The problem is their longevity is suspect. This is why Lincecum is seen as a Freak or an outsider. He doesn’t fit the mold of the MLB. The times maybe changing.

Here is a few examples from Verducci’s article illustrating the ignorance of Major League Baseball organizations along with some of Lincecum’s astounding accomplishments in the past few years.

Baltimore general manager Jim Duquette
“There was a feeling that [Lincecum] was short, not a real physical kid, and mechanically he was going to break down, that there was enough stress on his arm, elbow and shoulder. Our scouting department kind of pushed him down because of the medical aspect.”

The quickness of Lincecum’s small body is what scared off most scouts

The Giants took Lincecum at No. 10. He pitched only 13 times in the minors, allowing seven earned runs and whiffing 104 batters in 62 2/3 innings, before it became obvious to San Francisco that it had a prodigy who was wasting his time down there.

In 40 starts through Sunday, he was 16-6 with a 3.30 ERA and 264 strikeouts in 256 innings.

Lincecum’s reliability at the start of his career is historically remarkable. He is one of only seven pitchers since 1956 to throw 30 quality starts in his first 40 games.

Coach Dave Righetti, Lincecum’s current pitching coach for the Giants.
“I treat Timmy differently from most pitchers: I leave him alone.”

The article has quotes from Lincecum and his father talking about his mechanics. His quotes are almost directly out of AcePitcher.com’s 5 Components of Pitching.

“My dad and I aren’t very large guys, so it’s about efficiency and getting the most out of my body that I can,”

“Don’t open up too soon because then you lose leverage,” Tim says. “If you twist a rubber band against itself, the recoil is bigger. The more torque I can come up with, the better.”

“My dad always told me to sit down on my back leg as long as I could and push off as much as I could. I’m trying to get as much out of my body as possible. I’ve got to use my ankles, my legs, my hips, my back. . . . That’s why I’m so contorted and it looks like I’m giving it full effort when it’s not exactly full effort.”

The normal stride length for a pitcher is 77% to 87% of his height. Lincecum’s stride is 129%, or roughly 7 1/2 feet.

As for the “step-over” move near the end of his stride, Lincecum explains, “That’s from my hips. I’m getting everything toward the target, and my hips want to go. My hips can’t just go and open up. I’m trying to create torque. That’s when everything kind of explodes. My body comes, and [my arm] is just kind of along for the ride.”

One secret, he explains, is what he calls his “ankle kick,” a snapping of his right ankle as his right foot, the back foot, leaves the rubber. Lincecum comes off the rubber with such snap that, upon the ball’s release, his right foot is more than a foot in front of the rubber, shrinking the distance — and thus stealing precious time — between him and the batter.

When Lincecum speaks of “sitting down on my back leg” and his “ankle kick” he is speaking of AcePitcher.com 2 Component Triple extension. He calls this his little secret. How many coaches out there curse pushing off the rubber. Lincecum credits this to the reason for his success.

“My dad never taught me to lunge at the plate,” Tim says. “It kind of came naturally. That ankle kick that I get and the drive that I get from my back leg will make a big difference in how I get to the plate and how I pitch that day.”

Verducci paints the perfect picture of AcePitcher.com 3 Component Separation, which he calls the Loading position, when speaking of Lincecum’s success.

Here Lincecum again separates himself from most pitchers with his athleticism and timing. As he reaches the loaded position, Lincecum’s hips have just opened so that his belt buckle is facing the batter. His torso, however, has not yet begun to rotate toward the plate. The GIANTS on his home jersey is facing third base and his left shoulder remains pointed directly at the target. Only then, with his body essentially twisted against itself, does the torso fire, creating more rotational power as, at last, after this symphonic whipsaw action of his body, his arm simply “comes along for the ride.”

Most importantly Verducci mentions Lincecum’s athletic ability.

Many pitchers are poor athletes who happen to be blessed with one very specific skill. Lincecum has the body of a gymnast and can rip off a backflip or walk on his hands to prove it.

This proves my philosophy of great athletes make great pitchers. Many Coaches would also argue this with me. This is why the uneducated call Lincecum a freak instead of an elite athlete like Tiger woods and Michael Jordan.

This article made me smile so big I about split my face in half. Everything Lincecum, his father and Tom Verducci documented in this article I learned the hard way. It gives me closure in my own career when I learn that I may not have made it to the majors but I did overcome a serious rotator cuff injury to discover mechanics that would soon revolutionize the pitcher. I am glad such a good person like Tim Lincecum is caring this torch and bringing the light to Major League Baseball.

Read Tom Verducci’s article here.

View Tim Lincecum’s delivery in Slow Motion