Last week, we proposed a question to you: If you had 20 minutes per day to help your players get better, what would you do?
We had two answers that stood out among the rest. The first was from Steve R. He said:
A DayB Day
Walking Lunge Shuffle – Face Wall
A – Skip Side Lunge – Face Racks
A – Skip with a Pause Forward Bear Crawl
A – Skip, 3 Skip Side Bear Crawl – Head Face Racks
Skater – Face Racks Spiderman
Side Shuffle – Face Wall Box Jump to steal
4 Warm-up Exercises
Water Ball: 2 x 5 (Off Large Block)
Water Bag: 2 x 5 (Off Small Block)
Shoulder Tube: Around the world, up and down
PVC Pipe & Jager Bands
If outside: Throwing program and drills.
The second was from Jack R. His answer was below:
Jump throws.
While both answers took a slightly different angle to the problem proposed, I want to dive into Jack’s answer: Jump throws. It might seem simple from the outside, but jump throws check a lot of different boxes.
When you hear about what they can do, you’re probably going to want to add them into your practice plan too...
What Nolan Arenado does on this jump throw gives us information about a critical human movement principle
In Eugene's Bridge the Gap 2020 Presentation, (watch the full presentation for FREE), he shared a story about a specific athlete that came into his shop. After going through his evaluation, he decided to come up with an idea he had never tried before: Every single day, this young man was to only do jump throws. He could not make a single throw with access to the ground.
Eight weeks later, he added six miles per hour to his fastball.
Let’s think about why this worked. If we look at how athletes rotate in the air, we see the body’s most natural strategy to create efficient rotation: Reciprocal movement. Energy isn’t created from the legs and arms. It originates in the middle and works out to the extremities. We rotate from the middle out. Not out in.
The problem becomes when we try to flip this equation. If you’ve ever had a thrower who pushes out of the ground or jumps down the mound, they’re not creating energy from the middle out. They’re trying to create energy out to in. This is the exact opposite of what efficient rotary athletes do. They're also great candidates for jump throws.
When you take away the legs from the throw, you’re forcing your body to produce force rotationally by working reciprocally. This is the magic behind jump throws. We're learning how to move from the middle because the only choice we have is to move from the middle. Once you learn how to do this, moving on the ground becomes that much easier.
How we move without access to the ground is exactly how we should move with access to the ground.
Thank you Steve and Jack for your responses to last week’s question! You’ll receive a separate email with instructions on how to take advantage of your discount.
P.S. Did you hear that Dr. Emily Ferree is going to be joining us again at Bridge the Gap 2021?
Below are two free clips you can check out from Emily's segment on the BTG20 Biomechanics Panel:
