Every coach knows that speed is the most dominate factor in sport. Coaches recruit fast athletes and design their offenses and defenses with that speed in mind. If these afore mentioned assumptions are correct, then, why are strength coaches training these same athletes to become slow and un-explosive.Training an athlete to become faster is not relegated to speed work on the field. You don’t take a highly recruited, gifted and genetically superior athlete into the weight room and do nothing to improve his speed and
explosive capabilities. Whether it is intentional or unintentional, strength coaches around the country are training their athletes in the weight room to become slower.

This is not an attack on training philosophy. It is an attack on the lack of common sense in the strength field. No matter what your training philosophy – Power lifting, Body-building, Olympic lifting or High intensity training, you can improve your program with a little common sense.

CST (Common Sense Training)

Rule #1
Train for strength not endurance. Remember your training for strength not a triathlon. Don’t spend an extreme amount of time in a hypertrophy phase or endurance training. Train at five reps and
below at eighty percent and above. Do this as soon as possible in your training cycle. You have to be strong to run fast, so why train above six reps? Your goal is to get strong – to run fast, not to lift long – to run slow and long.

Rule #2
Train explosively. Olympic lifts train the athlete to explode and use maximum possible force. Athletes will develop a high rate of force, a key point in sports training. Athletes who implement these lifts in their lifting program will train fast twitch muscle fibers, the fibers employed to give you speed, explosiveness and power. In essence performing an Olympic lift is performing a fast, explosive weighted jump. Sprinting in essence is a series of fast, explosive bounds. These lifts will directly help an athlete run faster Implement lifts such as: power clean, hang clean, power snatch, hang snatch, split jerk and jerk from the rack. The amount of weight does not matter as much as bar speed.

Rule #3
Train your VMO. Training the vastus medialis will help decrease ground contact time which is crucial to increase speed. Incorporate exercises such as: chain back squat, chain front squat, walking lunge and split squat into your program.

Rule #4
You need hamstring and low back strength. Because the back squat is one of the test for lower body strength in most programs, strength coaches sometimes over look the hamstrings and lower back. The hamstrings are connected to the glutes and back extensors. This is through the sarco-tuberal and dorso-sacral ligaments All lower body workouts should involve exercises for both the hip extension function and the knee flexor function Knee flexion exercises: leg curls and glute/ham raise. Hip extension exercises: Romanian deadlift, goodmorning reverse hyper and back extensions.

There are coaches with superior educations and impressive resumes who either over think while writing their cycle or under think while writing their cycle. When all else fails just use some common sense..

Definition of throwing:

Definition of pulling: the act of pulling; applying force to move something toward or with you; “the pull up the hill had him breathing harder”

What definition best describes what a Major League Pitcher does on the mound?

Yes, it is correct to state that the definition of throwing is the more conventional answer but as someone who played professional baseball, when I was pitching my hardest, it felt more like a pull. The definition of pulling uses the word force and the illustration of breathing harder. This is my experience of power pitching. These two definitions best describe the difference between average velocity and top velocity. Look at one of my favorite pitchers Felix Hernandez and you will see it looks more like he is pulling than throwing as the definition states as throwing with the arm and wrist.

The key point of the “Pull Perspective” is the amount of weight you are pulling. The more the better. If you are pulling a lot of weight you will not be doing this with just the arm. Your body will need to recruit the core and legs to handle the bulk of the work load. Therefore your hips will need to drive towards the plate first, while holding the throwing arm back with the shoulder, until your core and legs have given you all they got. Then the back shoulder will fire through and release the ball. This picture of Greg Maddux illustrates holding the shoulder back while the hips drive to the target. This component is called “Separation.”

The best way to implement this “Pull Perspective” into your own delivery is by visualizing that you are not holding onto the ball but instead a towel or resistance tubing. You could actually do this. I have a few drills in the AcePitcher Handbook that perform this action. The towel or tubing is connected to a sled or a person standing towards second base. You can also visualize a harness around your hips with tubing secured towards second base. Now, perform your delivery following each of the AcePitcher Components.

In the picture of Felix Hernandez above and Tim Lincecum below this is where you want to finish the drill. This position is the point of the drill. By visualizing the pull you should find this position more naturally than if you where just throwing the ball like usual. If you notice his arm is way behind his head, back arched and hips under his belly with landing leg supporting all the weight. The upper body is flexed and ready to release the energy or power into the ball.

The reason for implementing the “Pull Perspective” is to prevent the arm from leading the body. If you find that your arm is drifting in front of your chest before your shoulders have committed to the plate then you are not recruiting your core and legs to handle the work load and generate Top Velocity. This is common in young pitchers. This is what most coaches call throwing with all your arm.

The “Pull Perspective” is actually what it states, it is only a perspective. A way of looking at the act of pitching differently. It is important that you look at pitching differently because conventional thinking continues to fail us as pitchers. This is why a microscopic amount of pitchers make it to Major League Baseball. So this perspective is my little gift to you.