PLYO & WEIGHTED BALLS
Weighted baseballs are simply baseballs that weigh more than a standard 5.5 oz baseball.​
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Plyo balls are rubber-coated weighted balls that are filled with a sand-like material. They are typically thrown into a concrete wall or a reinforced wood wall/structure.
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For the sake of this explanation, we'll call them both overload implements.
Overload implement throwing is typically combined with constraint training. Constraint training is when a specific part of the athlete's body is constrained by putting them into a specific position to help promote reorganization of mechanical patterns in the throwing motion.
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The most efficient way to remap parts of the pitching delivery is to combine overloaded implements with constraint training to provide better kinesthetic awareness throughout the throwing motion.
There are two primary benefits of using constraint training with overload implements:
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Developing sport-specific speed-strength by having physiological stimuli drive adaptations.
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Reorganizing mechanical patterns through self-discovery with modification.
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By constantly testing and retesting the most efficient throwing patterns with overload implements, Driveline Baseball provides a list of extremely effective drills that give positive-mechanical feedback to the pitcher, as well as maximize the ability to produce and accept force.
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Driveline's constraint drills are categorized into standard and specialized drills.
Standard constraint drills are designed to cover the majority of common throwing-pattern deficiencies that we see in athletes.
Specialized constraint drills are designed to correct more specific throwing-pattern deficiencies that standard constraint drills may not target enough.
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Throwing a standard 5.5 oz baseball hard puts a lot of stress on the throwing arm. To adequately counter the stress, pitchers need to assess their mechanics, optimize their delivery, and train sport-specifically to help strengthen the surrounding tissue. Using overload implements forces throwers into more efficient movement patterns and increases arm strength and fitness levels.
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Here's a video explaining exactly how much stress is placed on the throwing arm...
Wouldn't throwing an overload implement put more stress on the throwing arm?
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The short answer... no.
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The long answer...
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Overload training causes the arm to move at a slower speed but with greater muscle force. Both ASMI and Driveline Baseball studies have shown that heavier balls produce less torque on both the elbow and shoulder than a standard 5.5 oz baseball.
In general, as ball mass increases, elbow and shoulder joint torque and force decrease for both mound and crow hop throws. Heavier balls reduce the arm's acceleration in a way that results in lower stress numbers.
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Summary...
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The most efficient way to remap and optimize the pitching delivery is to combine overloaded implements with constraint training.
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An optimized and efficient pitching delivery will minimize arm stress.
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Throwing overload implements improves sport-specific speed-strength... and potentially velo.
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Studies show that when ball mass increases, elbow and shoulder joint torque decrease.
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Sources...
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FOAM & LAX BALL ROLLING
Muscles are covered in a film called fascia, which is made up of tightly packed collagen and elastin fibers. Fascial tissue contains proprioceptors that give it the ability to sense movement and change of direction, so keeping it healthy is critical for proper function of the body.
The Golgi tendon organ (GTO) is located where a muscle meets a tendon, and it is responsible for reporting the tension level of that muscle-tendon pairing.
The GTO autoregulates tension to limit injury to the surrounding muscles and connective tissue. So by rolling across the tissue with a foam roller or LAX ball, you can potentially stimulate the GTO to help your muscles relax through a process called autogenic inhibition.
We recommend foam rolling at least once a day, however that is most easily accomplished. For example, we have observed that most athletes tend to perform it more consistently as part of their warm-ups. However, the best use of this technique may be foam rolling only areas of tension during the warm-up coupled with a more comprehensive session after completing the post-throwing routine.
J-BANDS
Resistance Bands (aka surgical tubing) are used to warm up and target specific movements in the throwing motion. In the warm-up portion of the routine, it’s primarily centered around activating the external rotators and biceps.
We highly recommend the Jaeger Sports J-Bands, as they come with wrist cuffs to allow less restricting movement by preventing the need to grasp at handles. Additionally, the carabiner allows for easy hookup to any fence without needing to loop the band into the fence, thus extending the life of the resistance bands.
DYNAMIC WARM-UP
A dynamic warm-up routine is the first crucial piece of the warm-up process. There are several goals of a good warm-up routine. The first is to get the athlete’s body temperature up to the point where he has a light sweat by the time he finishes. This is important for several reasons: the first being primarily performance since the muscle will contract and relax at faster speeds due to increased rate of nerve transmission and temperature. The strength of contraction is also increased for similar reasons while the risk of injury is reduced, despite the increase in contraction speed and strength from an increase in blood flow and oxygen to the muscle fibers. What we don’t want is to overwork them. A light sweat is not a heavy sweat, and the athlete should not feel fatigued after warming up.
The second thing a warm-up needs to do is to prepare the athlete for the task at hand. This means that the movements we want to work on should be addressed in the warm-up. For example, it’s very difficult to teach an athlete how to properly load his back hip during a high speed activity such as pitching. However, we can begin to pattern and address this movement deficiency in the warm-up process by executing a lateral lunge and thus improving the neural control of this movement before we work on it at higher speeds.
WRIST WEIGHTS
Wrist weights work well at generating a physiological response and also at teaching the body to move more efficiently through an overloaded range of motion. The drills are designed to train optimal unwinding of the arm from the Driveline Phase.
SHOULDER TUBE
By training the shoulder-scapula complex with the shoulder tube (aka wiggle stick), the entire area must respond to rapid positional changes. By increasing the blood flow to the shoulder-scapula complex and stimulating proprioceptors, the body becomes more prepared for physical activity, making it an excellent warm-up tool.
LONG TOSS
Long toss has seen an eruption of popularity in the last decade, with MLB organizations jumping on board to allow their athletes to throw near-unlimited distances with no restriction on time or frequency. The long-toss variant we use is the extension-compression model, made famous by Alan Jaeger and Jaeger Sports.
Long toss has two phases: extension and compression. The extension phase starts at a close distance where two athletes play very light catch. With each throw, or number of throws, the athletes gradually increase the distance between them, continuing until they reach their maximum tolerance distances for the day. During this phase, there is a gradual increase in the ball flight’s arc as the distance increases. The important thing here is that each throw in the extension phase is done with a loose arm with the purpose of building freedom in the delivery, not constricting ranges of motion.
Once the athletes have reached their maximum tolerance distance for the day, the next step is to begin the compression phase. Each throw is now meant to be “pulled down” with at least the same intent as the furthest throw during the extension phase. The goal is to keep the trajectory low, gradually closing the distance after each throw is completed. The idea is to compress a maximum-distance throw into a 70-90 foot throw to build arm speed-strength.
STRENGTH TRAINING
What's the best strength program for baseball players?
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Great question! The answer is... It depends. There isn't a "best" one-size-fits-all program... but baseball players need one that's functional (aka baseball-specific) and individualized to address their unique needs.
RAPID Sports Performance administers Mobility & Strength Assessments to our athletes, develops individualized baseball-specific functional strength and mobility programs for our athletes, and trains our athletes at their pro-level performance training facility located in Woodstock, GA.
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RAPID also helps our athletes put together attainable bodyweight, speed, and power goals... and tracks our athletes' progress in the gym to make sure they’re moving in the right direction.
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We work hand-in-hand with RAPID to make sure that our athletes' training economy is being spent where it should be based on their individual unique needs. As athletes progress and the time of year changes, development phases will shift, and all athletes will need to have volume and intensity adjusted accordingly in the gym and on the field.
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RAPID continually trains, on average, over 30 professional baseball players each year. The majority of them have been with RAPID for more than five years and in some cases, over a decade.
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REBOUNDERS
Catching PlyoCare balls that have been thrown against a mini-trampoline helps develop force acceptance at the elbow and shoulder, theoretically allowing those areas to absorb more stress during the pitching delivery by building a bigger deceleration engine. This is also a low-stress method to train the unwinding transition from supination to pronation and for athletes to feel how the ball is released from an ultimately neutral hand position.
BAND PULL-APARTS
The purpose of the band pull-apart drills is to strengthen and restore motion to the scapula after throwing. By performing these drills post throwing, we not only avoid unnecessarily fatiguing the rotator cuff before throwing, but we can counteract some of the compensation patterns that occur from throwing. All exercises are performed with a J-Band or Super Band. We use 3 band pull-apart drill variations... Reverse Scap Pullaparts, Anterior Band Pullaparts, and No Money Pullaparts.
UPWARD TOSSES
Upward Tosses help train both external-rotation strength and internal-rotation deceleration by externally rotating to throw the ball upwards into the air and internally rotating to catch the ball as it makes its way down to the ground. This also gives the athlete good kinesthetic feedback on how the shoulder should operate during the arm-cocking phase of the delivery—with minimal elbow movement during external rotation and loading.