But, I found that people started reading and they, thankfully, told me that they both enjoyed and were helped by what I wrote. I kept going. That said, much of what I write about is a blend of:

1. My own experience as a player who has tried most everything to improve.
2. Experiences being injured and performing rehab from some of the world’s best doctors and PTs.
3. Experiences learning hands on from Tim O’Brien, Fred Cantor, Nick T, Jeff Friday, Alan Jaeger, and more.
4. Reading, watching videos and attending seminars when possible.

The point of all this is that I’m always learning, taking in information from people who have been around longer, are in different fields, or have done more research than I. I’m an intelligent guy, but I don’t necessarily want to do some of the research and reading that PTs and doctors have. But, I’m willing to listen when they tell me what’s the latest. 

My Goal

Is to receive all of the information from the doctors, coaches, PTs, players, etc. and smooth it out into an easily digestible format. Often, when I visit the websites of people such as Mike Reinold or Eric Cressey, I leave feeling stupid and defeated, that I couldn’t possibly contribute anything to the conversation amongst people as researched and read as they. But, I have a niche, and here’s what I believe it is:

1. Separating Theoretical from Practical. There’s tons of good exercises, stretches and drills for your ballplayer, and a reason to do all of them. But, which ones should you do if you only have 75, 60, 30, or 10 minutes? I can help.
2. What does the technical mumbo-jumbo mean? I can translate. These 40 pages of research says to do….this.
3. Some pitching coaches make you more confused than you arrived. About once a month I wonder if I’m a bad coach because my views, drills and explanations are so simple. Am I missing something, not talking about all the complex stuff that others are? I honestly think half the pitching mechanics drills and terms are unnecessary. Again – what drills and practices yield the most benefit?
4. New thought from the road. I’m the only strength coach/pitching coach/current player that I know of. I’m sure there are others, but I don’t know them as of today. Some of the baseball minds out there only played, never played, or are only one of the above three. I’m all three, at least I am for now. I test lots of things out on myself and continue to refine old techniques.
5. Separating fact from fiction. Baseball is filled with old-school myths – weightlifting is bad for baseball players, you should drag your foot on changeups, weighted balls are dangerous, etc. Many coaches have views that vary from mine, often unjustifiably.

That said, there’s a lot of other coaches out there who have knowledge that will benefit you, if at least in part; you should listen and piece through it like you do on my site. I firmly believe that I’m factually correct on 99% of the things I say on my site, because I’ve read them firsthand from people on this list or experienced them myself. Yet, not everything I suggest will work for you, nor will everything said by any of these other minds. I have a strong dislike for some of Dick Mills’ philosophies, but I’ve still learned things from his articles and videos. While we disagree on some ideas (long toss, role of muscles in pitching), he still has things to offer. Paul Reddick has said in his videos that weightlifting has no benefit for pitchers, while Eric Cressey has his guys lifting heavy weights just like I do. Yet, all three of us all have successful baseball player clients.

My Message

Read what I write. Think about it, see if it makes sense for you. Then, read others. Read some more. Try 5 different changeups. Try long tossing; try not long-tossing. See what works and what doesn’t. Find a coach you trust, and ask him for people he trusts. There’s no one answer for everyone, and if someone says there is…run away.

My List

1. Eric Cressey. Strength coach who trains TONS of pro baseball players. Very smart.

2. Nick Tumminello. Strength coach who attends every physical therapy convention he can. Trickles down cutting edge research/methodology into the practical training world.

3. Mike Reinold. Physical Therapist specializing in the shoulder, among other things.

4. Alan Jaeger. One of my newest mentors, the long-toss and mental training guru.

5. Paul Reddick. Pitching coach. Link is to his YouTube channel, because his site has no free info.

6. Kevin Wilk. Physical Therapist at the cutting edge of baseball injuries.

7. Dick Mills. Pitching coach who has been around. Knows mechanics, but is controversial.

8. Dr. Mike Marshall. Probably the most controversial coach around. Teaches mechanics that you will, unfortunately for him, never see in a real game, as they will never be accepted by MLB teams. A great discussion topic, however.

9. Joe DeFranco. One of the country’s best strength coaches. Hardcore training. You’ll see many things we do in his videos, only he has NFL guys using a lot more weight.

10. Louie Simmons. The world’s strongest powerlifters train in his gym. Some don’t like his methods, but he is a classic example of a guy who has figured out, by trial and error, what makes people stronger. Dozens of 1000lb squatters. Search them on YouTube as well.

11. Jason Ferruggia. Doesn’t belong last on this list; he is very smart and is another cutting edge trainer. Deals with both regular folks and athletes.

Who didn’t make this list? Lots of folks, including some of my greatest influences – my coaches from college, summer and pro baseball who simply don’t have a web presence. Thanks to Fred Cantor, John Duffy, Bobby St.Pierre, Tim O’Brien, Dr. Morgan, PT Phil Donley, and others.

The Baseball Gods Reward the Pious. Dan Blewett

1. Immediately Get Some Quality Nutrition.

People who know nutrition for athletes know that the post-workout window is the most important meal of the day. Proper supplementation after strength training and/or competition gives the body the building blocks to stimulate a positive hormonal response and jumpstart reparative processes. In simpler terms, getting good nutrition after competition allows the body to better heal itself and grow stronger for the next game or practice.

Here’s what you should take:

Something with at least 20 grams of protein and 60 grams of carbohydrate, in a form that you can quickly consume immediately following your departure from the game, not necessarily the game itself.

A 3:1 to 4:1 ratio of carbs-to-protein has been found in research to be the most effective at triggering a positive hormonal response, including a spike in insulin which helps restore depleted muscle glycogen (stored energy) and provide the amino acids necessary to rebuild the traumatized muscles and connective tissues.

This can be a supplement, such as Accelerade, Endurox R4, Biotest Surge; a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a glass of chocolate milk; a whey protein shake and a 32oz gatorade. It could be anything – just look at the nutrition labels and make sure you piece together the 3-4:1 ratio of carbs to protein.

2. Arm Exercises.

This is the best time to get your work in for two reasons:

1. You have the maximum rest before your next outing, so no worry about not being fresh for next game
2. The bloodflow stimulated by arm exercises will send blood and nutrients to the exact areas that were just stressed and traumatized, stimulating a healing response.

Do you need more reasons than that? 2 sets of 12 reps at a medium intensity for your anterior shoulder, scap stabilizers, rotator cuff and forearm is what I recommend. Check my pitchers’ homework category for some of these exercises.

3. Stretch.

The best time to stretch? Again – after your outing. The best time after your outing? After you’ve done your exercises, which has filled your muscles and joints with blood, nutrients and warmth. Sleeper stretch, forearm stretches, and other shoulder stretches are examples of some for the upper body, and the hips, quads and hamstrings are the next priority. Hit everything you used in the game (basically your whole body).

4. Condition.

This could be running, jump rope, AirDyne bike, biking, whatever. It’s good to get increased bloodflow to your whole body after pitching; again, because increasing bloodflow is going to help your body repair itself faster. I say shoot for 10-15 minutes.

Sure, you could do more, but I’d prefer you hit it hard interval-style rather than spend 30-40 minutes spinning continuously. Also, pitching makes you tired, buses leave, parents want you to go home, etc. It’s often not feasible to suggest more than 15 minutes when the rest of the exercises and stretching will take 20-30 of their own. Yeah, Nolan Ryan spent 45 minutes on the bike after his starts, but Nolan Ryan also had a big league clubhouse and no one requiring him to be home at a certain hour.

Lactic Acid removal is NOT on the list of things helped by conditioning after a game – lactic acid is a metabolic waste that is almost immediately removed from the body, and lactic acid is not produced in any significant quantity during pitching, which is a very short anaerobic activity. Have you ever “felt the burn” while sprinting 200 meters or more? Of course you have. Have you ever felt the burn during pitching? No. You haven’t – the movement just isn’t long enough in duration to produce any significant lactic acid. And secondly, even if it did, the body removes it within a few seconds of the exercise ceasing. Soreness in pitching is produced by many factors…lactic acid isn’t one of them.

5. Ice, If Desired.

Does icing your arm make you feel better? Then do it. Does not icing make you feel better? Then don’t do it…unless your orthopedic says you should. This is a bigger topic of debate, which I’ve expounded on in This Post.

The Baseball Gods Reward the Pious.  Dan Blewett

I was first introduced to the Baseball Gods by my good friend and ex-coach of T-Bolt Nation, John Duffy. The Duff-Man explained away many Karmatic occurrences as the work of the Baseball Gods, the deities who keep the game in check. Here’s an example:

-Umpire blows a call for Team A. Team A is mad and was clearly wronged.

-Batter on Team A subsequently hits a 19-hopper that hits the base and shoots over the fielder’s head. Team A got retribution for the out they lost…because the Baseball Gods like equity.

It’s Just That You Can’t Keep Good People Down

In reality, Karma doesn’t exist; it just doesn’t. People talk about life events where they get wronged by a person, and years down the road “Karma catches up with them” and that person gets wronged. Well, something bad (or good) is bound to happen to everyone at some point, and we tend to forget all of the good and bad incidents between the big, salient ones on which we base Karmatic compensation. Here’s an example:

Sally: “Did you hear about Brent?”

Mildred: “You mean your sister’s ex-boyfriend?”

Sally: “Yeah, he broke her heart 2 years ago. He was such as jerk. But, he just lost his job…Karma caught up with him!”

Mildred: “Is that the same Brent who inherited an island off of Nantucket last year?”

Sally: “Yeah, it is, but you just can’t run from your past!”

Point of this story is that we can selectively highlight good and bad incidents to make Karma seem real. But, to really investigate it, we’d have to consider every life event in between the two events in question.

But, my life and those of other resolute people seem laden with good Karma. In reality, it’s just the world we produce. Bad things happen to me, but I respond to them positively so that it never looks or feels like I’m getting a bad deal. Negative things turn into positives, and this phrase about the Baseball Gods encapsulates it.

It’s not about Karma, it’s about the fact that good things always tend to happen to people who put their all into their endeavors. In this case, we’re talking about baseball.

Coaches love hard-working, gritty, appreciative players. These are the David Ecksteins, the Jon Lesters, the Ryan Vogelsongs. These guys appreciate playing the game; they play it with enthusiasm and heart and their road hasn’t been easy. It seems that good breaks always go their way, and one could say that the Baseball Gods are rewarding their devotion.

Pious is one of my favorite words, though I’m areligious. Pious means devoutly religious. Many are religious, few are truly pious. One of the great philosophy dialogues, Euthyphro, introduced me to the word. It’s said a staggering amount of times, making it impossible to forget.

Being pious to the Baseball Gods, to me, means the following:

- Working hard to get better, day in and day out

- Playing the game hard.

- Competing at your best regardless of the score or inning

- Respecting your coaches, your opponents, yourself

- Being a student of the game

- Enjoying the privilege of playing, knowing that others cannot or have failed yet wish they could

- Remembering that you didn’t earn your genetics

- Reacting to negatives with the understanding that the game is often unfair and unforgiving

So be pious to the Baseball Gods. Play hard, work hard, and appreciate being on the field. If you do that every day, your career will go farther than it otherwise would. The longer you hang around the game, the more you see the impious weeded out. Maybe it’s divine retribution for not running out ground balls, or for dogging it during pitchers’ conditioning. Or maybe life just continues to reward those that give it their all, regardless of who’s watching.

The Baseball Gods Reward The Pious.  Dan Blewett

What Ice Does

Slows bloodflow to an area, thereby reducing local swelling and inflammation. This is a good thing for acute injuries.

However, continuously reduced bloodflow can also reduce healing time, as bloodflow is required to shuttle reparative processes to distressed tissue. This is why you only ice for about 15-20 minutes at a time, after which you must allow the tissue to return to normal temperature before icing again.

If you’ve ever had an injury and put your hand on it, you’ve probably noticed that it’s hot relative to other areas of the body. A great example of this is sunburn. Why is sunburned skin red? Because the body is actively sending more blood to the sun-damaged skin to help repair it. More blood = reddish color. It’s another reason that sunburned skin is hot to the touch…blood is hot.

Not all of us love ice.

If I encounter sharp pain in my arm, I’ll often feel the skin to see if the painful part is warm relative to the rest of my arm. If it is, it’s an indicator to me that I should probably start some precautions including rest, therapy, ice, etc; it’s an indicator that my body is aware of a problem. If it’s not hot, and I have pain, it doesn’t mean I’m not injured, it just indicates to me that there may not be as big a problem. Do NOT use this as a test, however, to gauge whether or not you should see a doctor in the midst of pain. Always consult a doctor and don’t self diagnose. 

Anyway, ice slows bloodflow. Bloodflow is good for healing. So what do we do about ice, which seems like it can be both helpful and unhelpful? Here’s my thought process:

Reasons To Ice

I believe ice is necessary when you have:

1. Pain. If it hurts, ice it.Pain is pain, sore is sore, so make sure it’s pain.
2. A road to recovery. If you were in pain, due to some injury no matter how small, you should ice until you’re completely healthy and cleared by a doctor. Reducing inflammation to injured tissues is important.
3. A doctor’s recommendation to ice. This is similar to #2. Regardless of your personal philosophy, if a doctor that you saw for an arm injury or surgery says to ice…ICE.
4. It makes you feel better than when you don’t ice.

Reasons Not To Ice

1. You’re healthy and have no pain.
2. No doctor has required you to ice due to reason #1.
3. It makes you feel better than when you do ice.

Which To Choose?

If you’re hurting, you should probably ice. If your doctor says to ice, you should DEFINITELY. Ice. If you’re healthy but your coach says to ice….well, why?

After all, pitching/throwing is just one physical activity, albeit a stressful one. Runners don’t ice their quads after running, weightlifters don’t ice their biceps after lifting; to do so would slow their recovery. High bloodflow is a good thing to promote bodily growth and repair. While argument by analogy is faulty, I still think it’s worth noting that baseball is the only sport where ice is a cultural thing more than a medical thing. You simply don’t see healthy athletes in other sports icing parts of their bodies that aren’t injured.

Research Says…

I’m not aware of any research that has shown a link between injuries in pitchers who ice versus those who don’t.

The arguments for and against it that I’ve presented are basically the what’s what in the debate. If your coach tells you that by not icing your arm you are going to be injured…ask him where he got that idea? His answer is likely to be “because otherwise you’ll hurt your arm.” And ’round and ’round we go.

But, remember – if you’re healthy and pain-free, then the choice is yours. You can ice, or not, depending on your personal preference. You should do whatever makes you feel best.

If You Do Ice, Do it Right

You should only ice immediately after you leave the game. Or, if you perform arm exercises/conditioning after leaving the game, you should ice immediately after that. By “leave the game” I mean when your feet cross the chalk line. Icing to reduce acute inflammation works best if it’s within 30 minutes of the trauma. After that 30-minute window, the body needs to start repairing it by way of bloodflow. To leave the game, wait until it ends, drive home and then ice at the dinner table will yield less of a result; the window of inflammation-reduction, which is one thing ice is proven to do, is gone.

So, if you do ice, do it immediately after you are removed from the game. If you do arm exercises like I recommend, don’t do them with a cold, just-iced arm, either; exercising cold muscles is not good. Ice for 15 minutes, then let the bodypart return to normal temperature; this usually takes 45-60 minutes. If you want to ice again, you can only do so after you’ve let the bodypart return to normal temperature.

My Preference

I still pitch; I personally only ice when I have pain. If I don’t have pain, I don’t ice. When my doctor said I needed to ice my arm following injuries and surgery, I put my personal views aside and followed his orders.

I follow a post-game ritual of arm exercises, followed by stretching, followed by conditioning, possibly followed by more stretching, in that order. This is the topic of my post on Wednesday. Stay Tuned.

This is all information I’ve gathered from my favorite PTs over the years. If I’ve made an error, or if you’re in the physical therapy realm and would care to comment, please do – there’s a lot of misinformation out there regarding this topic.

Best of Both Worlds?

Is a regimen of arm exercises/conditioning after pitching, followed immediately by icing the best of both high-bloodflow and inflammation reduction? Maybe. Something to think about.

The Baseball Gods Reward The Pious.  Dan Blewett

Throwing a complete game? That’s an awful lot of flawless pitching. 1=1000

Writing a book? I don’t even know where to start. 1=1000

Losing 50 pounds? That’d take too much work. 1=1000

Running A Marathon? I think I’d die. 1=1000

Adding 10 miles per hour to my fastball? That’s a big jump. 1=1000

A Journey of A 1000 Miles Starts With One Step.

Life seems unmanageable when you consider the magnitude of any worthwhile undertakings. I want to be a big leaguer. I have to dominate this and every season for the rest of my life to accomplish that goal. That means throwing lots of zeros, giving up few hits, striking out lots of batters, etc. I’d have to outcompete some very talented pitchers. It’s all too much to imagine me, a 26-year old small righthander, being able to machete my way through all of that.

But, as for any athlete, none of that stuff can be accomplished all at once. The impressive body of work is accomplished one microevent (is that a word?) at a time. I can’t accomplish all of those things at once, or even part of it at once. It’s too much pressure to think about throwing up all zeros every time out.

Break It Up. What Can Be Accomplished?

My meditations of late have been focused on my only job, and it’s utterly simple. I can give myself a chance to accomplish all of the above if I take a 1=1000 approach. Specifically, for my sport, the “1″ is each pitch. If I make one pitch effectively, then I’ve done 100% of that which is within my power to accomplishing all of my goals.

My career, at this moment, is comprised solely of this pitch. I cannot change the past or affect the future; I can only make this pitch to the best of my ability.

Understanding this has taken the weight of the world off of me. I don’t have to throw 9 scoreless to keep my ERA desirable to scouts. I don’t have to go 12-0 this season. I don’t have to strike out 12 batters per nine innings. I don’t have to compete with the 21 other pitchers in training camp. I just have to make one pitch.

Rinse and repeat. Don’t look to the future; forget the past – both derail you. All you need is to concentrate yourself 100% on the task at hand, because this task is the only task keeping you from your goals.

Any athlete’s career is comprised of single plays. Make the best of each one, and they add up into great weeks, months, seasons, and careers. The more an athlete can do to segment his or her career into mentally-manageable chunks, the more focused, capable and in control they will feel. 1=1000.

Check out the article, then read the comments; it becomes a substantial debate on long toss between myself and Mr. Mills.

Wall Street Journal Article: Throwing Long to Throw Short

This is a snapshot from a research packet showing the muscular activity of throwing a baseball as a percent of MVC, or Max Voluntary Contraction. MVC is a lab measure of conscious force exertion, and these numbers give us an idea of how active our muscles are relative to our conscious maximal force production. As you can see, the subscapularis fires at 115%…a tremendous amount of force for a single muscle.