Have you seen this video about the Seattle Mariners’ new approach to strength training? If you haven’t please check this out.
I got a kick out of this man Elliot running around calling everyone a “beautiful rotational athlete.” Interesting guy.
Now, I DO think he knows what he is doing, but he acts like his new program is a whirlwind of modern science – it isn’t. Good trainers have been doing for years what he is now introducing as revolutionary, and the training isn’t nearly as complex as he makes it out to be…case in point: he pulls out a chart of Dustin Ackley’s power curve, then a minute later shows one of their players doing lateral hops. Wow! All that technology boils down to…..lateral hopping. Lateral hopping is a good plyometric for pitchers but lets, please, not act like it’s never been done before. That could have been prescribed without dropping a dime on sophisticated software.
And take a look around this “bare” weight room. Little equipment? Hardly; they just removed the superfluous machines that no good trainer would keep around. The good things (and heavy, at that) are still there – squat racks and a lot of dumbbells. And the pulley systems are pretty expensive, despite being minimalistic, so I don’t like them pretending like it’s the gym Rocky trained in.
But Hooray for the Mariners, they do seem to have found someone who at least knows something, even if he is playing it up a bit too much.
Interesting. I got a kick out of the guy, too.