Posts Tagged ‘Dan Blewett’
May 12, 2012 | 
Author Back in 2009 I started this website, before I started what has become a fast-growing strength training and velocity development business. My friend and mentor Nick Tumminello suggested I start a blog. I did, but for months I was embarrassed by it, feeling as though I had no business having a web presence. Who was I?
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:
- My own experience as a player who has tried most everything to improve.
- Experiences being injured and performing rehab from some of the world’s best doctors and PTs.
- Experiences learning hands on from Tim O’Brien, Fred Cantor, Nick T, Jeff Friday, Alan Jaeger, and more.
- 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. Read the rest of this entry »
More questions….”What should I do after I pitch?” Here are my suggestions, in order: Read the rest of this entry »
This line has become my unofficial mantra of late. What does it mean, you ask? Read the rest of this entry »
A question I am often asked is, “Should I ice my arm after I throw?” Well, it depends. Here’s the thought behind it… Read the rest of this entry »
Making it to the Major Leagues? It’s an impossible journey. 1=1000
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.
Here’s a nice little article courtesy of the Wall Street Journal about Long Toss, a topic which I am passionate about. Upon reading it, I peeked at the one comment…it was by pitching “guru” and long-toss critic Dick Mills. Dick knows a lot about pitching mechanics, but believes long toss has no value…and he likes to make the world knows it.
Check out the article, then read the comments; it becomes a substantial debate on long toss between myself and Mr. Mills.
Good mechanics are the precursor, but how do we actually throw strikes? One of the many things taught in Warbird Throwing Academy.
One of my students, Freshman lefthander Ryan Basden, threw a perfect game last week. His mother was kind enough to send me over the clipping, as I wasn’t able to make the game. I had seen him K eight batters over 5 innings in a previous start this season, so I can’t say I’m surprised that he has continued to dominate. Ryan has a hammer from hell and a sinking changeup to go along with his 6’2″, 220lb frame. He’s got some physicality and some talent, to say the least. Ryan has been taking lessons from me for over a year and was in my Warbird Throwing Academy this offseason.
It’s always great to see my students taking a winter of hard work out onto the mound. Couldn’t be prouder…
Poster, for you less-than-hip kids, is my fictional holiday celebrating the day after Easter, a glorious Monday in which all Easter candy goes on sale for at least 50% off. Post-Easter. Poster. When thinking of names 4 years ago my final two were Poster and Pfeaster, and I went with the former. I think the Pfeaster is a bit more clever, but it’s too late – I’m sticking with what I’ve got. Read the full origins of Poster in 2011′s write up.…it’s chock full of movie references plus real and confectionary carnage.
On Poster, if you’re not physically ill from sugar consumption literally the entire day, you didn’t celebrate properly. It’s basically St.Patty’s day for children and sweet-toothed morons like myself.
At 9:30 this morning I started with what I call a “Poster Oreo”: A Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg, Followed by an Almond Joy Egg, washed down with another Reese’s Egg. (Almond Joys are white in the middle, thus the “creme” of the Oreo) I felt terrible immediately thereafter…and so it began.
You need to adopt a wave approach: eat candy until you feel like death. Rest for about 45 minutes, then eat more candy. It will take less and less candy each wave to make you ill and thus craving something healthy…push through that nonsense and keep going; this only comes around once a year.
Not pictured below is a chocolate bunny that I was planning on beheading, stuffing full with peeps, reheading with some sort of chocolate soldering iron, then consuming like a starving wolf. I’ll have to regroup and extend Poster through Tuesday to get this done. Pictures to follow.
In 2010 I lost 2 weeks of season and 2 starts due to a dime-sized blister. It was a very humid day, and I had been using a lot of rosin. If you’re not a rosin user, it tends to make your hands very tacky after a handful of innings. The moisture plus increased grip left me with lots of friction on much-softened fingertips.
In the 6th or 7th inning I got in a bases loaded jam, at the height of which the entire tip of my middle finger tore off. I still regret that I don’t have a picture of it, because it was almost my entire fingerpad and quite gross. I threw my last 6 pitches of the inning without an outer layer of skin.
At the end of 2011 I felt the blister coming back, and it really made me nervous…maybe I just have bad skin. So, being a pseudo rock climbing fanatic, I looked into a way to harden my fingertips. I stumbled upon a creme called Antihydral, which many climbers swear by to help harden their hands and fingertips. It’s supposed to stop skin from sweating, dry it out and cause calluses. I bought some.
The old solution in baseball to blistering, soft hands is to urinate on them – made popular by Moises Alou (and the alleged orgin of “the pound” – players didn’t want to shake his hand). However, urine contains urea, which actually breaks down dead skin; synthetic urea it’s a common additive in skin cremes. Don’t pee on your hands if you want them harder. Softer, yellowed and smelly? Sure.
The following picture is of the tube itself and the application – a thin layer allowed to dry and remain on the fingers for a few hours. I dab it on before I go to sleep and it’s usually there to greet me in the morning.
skin hardener
So I’ve been using the stuff for about a week now, and it really truly does what it’s supposed to – kill skin. The following is a picture of me immediately out of the shower. Notice the difference between my throwing fingers and the rest of my hand. It’s pretty obvious by the dead skin which ones are getting the Antihydral treatment.
The post-shower picture is pretty valuable because it’s hard to show a callus via photo. I have huge ones where my palms meet my fingers, yet you’d never know by the photo.
The Verdict:
My fingers are pretty plastic-y and have a nice layer of callus. I feel pretty confident that if I continue to use Antihydral, it will keep my skin where I need it – tough, not soft. If it gets too dry, they say to apply “lotion with fat” to alleviate the dryness, and applying the stuff to skin creases is a big No-No; creases are designed to flex and will crack and bleed if dried out.
I found Antihydral here. It cost me $30 with shipping, which is expensive but I consider my blister problem a high priority to solve. The tube will likely last me at least two seasons. If you have a tough time with skin tears, it may be worth a try.
This time of year, with more than half of my athletes out playing, my stress level mostly abates. I’m left with more free time to see my summer ahead of me, right as the sun starts poking its head around. I find my thoughts happily wandering so much that I’m often left unable to put word to page. The one thing that really melds the pleasant warmth of sunbeams into a holistically “summer” feeling, is music.
It’s officially spring. It’s time to feel good – here’s a few songs that are flat-out awesome and I believe can be enjoyed by the young, hip kid and older fuddy-duddy type alike. There’s a lot of rap using classical beats and I personally dig the combination. These songs are all, to my knowledge, lyrically pretty “clean” and appropriate. Radio-approved music is getting worse and worse (Rack City is the worst song ever), but this stuff is too cool to hit the radio anyway. I wore #13 last year in Fargo, so I’m gonna give you 13 of my favorite songs that are a bit off the beaten path.
I’m gonna start you off with a song that I guarantee almost no one has heard. If you have heard Nujabes before, please leave a comment and let me know. The dude is apparently dead and you can’t find his album, but I caught some of his stuff a few years ago from a friend. Some of his stuff is elevator music, but the following song is really good… Read the rest of this entry »
Six weeks ago I was in Southern California at Alan Jaeger’s mental training camp. I was among 15 or so fellow professionals, most of whom were younger than I, higher up in baseball than I, and maybe hadn’t experienced as much failure as I have along the way.
I reached out to Alan and read his book as a result of the worst half-season in my life. I pitched with a double-digit ERA for about 3 weeks; it was terrible. Rather than continue to rehash how poorly I threw while in Fargo last season (profoundly poor), I’m going to elaborate on what I’m doing about it. My failure was clearly mental – I started doubting the ability that had brought me to that point – a Low-90s fastball, a curve and changeup that are both plus pitches when on, and mechanics that are repeatable. I have the physical, but lacked the mental. I found myself remitting to the fact that I was going to walk a hitter, that I was unlikely to locate my pitches, and generally felt out of control on the mound.
Alan’s book, Getting Focused Staying Focused provided me with most of the knowledge, but not the push to get it done. I read the book, put it on the shelf, and didn’t take care of business. I didn’t get better. Chances are, you’re going to click the “read more” link below, but you’re not going to finish this article. You’ll see a mountain of text and get bored. If you’re a ballplayer or coach one, YOU NEED TO READ THIS. I’m a strength coach by trade, and I’m telling you that there’s much more than just the physical; that should tell you something. Read the rest of this entry »