Desporto: To Carry Away. When the terrorist attacks of 9-11 occurred, why did the Yankees play only days later? To whisk away the troubles of a very shaken, desperate city. Why do we flip on the television to watch the game after a stressful day of work? To get lost in in the amazing physical feats of another, drowning out the tedium and nagging repetition of daily life. Sports have been and will be around forever because they always allow us to escape the reality that life is often harsh, difficult and undeterred.

I just got off the phone with my student Chris, one of the finest young men I know. He had texted me and my good friend Daryn letting us know that he was dropping out of our throwing and hitting academies, respectively. This young man’s girlfriend had just suffered a huge family shakeup and he felt that he had a duty to be a man and take care of her. In her time of extreme need, he explained, he couldn’t justify playing a foolish game. Very few males at his age would show this kind of character – he’s a man at age 16 if there ever was one. 

But, I assured him, he needed this more than ever. 5 months of hard work was coming down to one last month, and when life rears it’s ugliest head, it’s those times more than any other where we need to turn to those activities that can carry us away. He wanted to be there for her to help ease her pain, and he has and will continue to be. But, both of them need the ability to flip that switch – to be absorbed by activities that take the thought away from the crushing sadness and the harsh reality that life is fragile. We need to sometimes bathe ourselves in the childish, innocent, most joyful of activities just to keep ourselves optimistic, young and happy.

Sports provide us much more than we think they do. They give us a reason to get up in the morning, whether it’s pursuing a personal dream or sharing in a collective one. Every September we get riddled with Monday Night Football Commercials that remind us – 4 more weeks; 3 more weeks; 2 more weeks. It’s true. Sports put a hop in one’s step, even if they aren’t out on the field diving for a baseball or kicking a soccer ball. They give us reason to be passionate, to be opinionated, to follow something rich with tradition and excellence. The give us insight into the best of what a human being can physically be and give our youth something to work toward.

I had the privilege of being asked to attend the Letter of Intent signing at one of my most enthusiastic student’s high school. His sister asked his Mom what the big deal was, and her Mom replied, “Because when Eric was little, he wrote down in school one day that when he grew up, he wanted to be a baseball player.” How many of us now work a 9-5, yet wrote that same optimistic answer on a sheet of wide-ruled paper as an 8-year old. I did.

When we are happy and enthusiastic, we don’t need as much of what sports provide for us. When life is great and provides new bounty every day, who needs to be carried away from that? It’s the times of great need where we turn our attention and allow ourselves to be excited about something that maybe doesn’t have a really useful function. A doctor performing surgery is an important event. A soldier fighting for our freedom deserves our respect. Hitting a leather ball with a wooden bat? Where’s the urgency? Who will die if no connection is made? Who gets hurt if the ball doesn’t find the back of the net? If you forget about what they mean to us all on an emotional level, sports appear petty and trivial.

But when you step back and realize the joy, the carefree passion, the optimism and enthusiasm that sports provide all of us, you start to realize how true the etymology of the word is, and how much all of us need to be carried away from the heartbreak that life will inevitably hand us.

I hate to end this very heartfelt article with a commercial, but the Monday Night Football guys really understand – the game takes us away. After all, comedy does the same thing for our soul that sports do.

1. Early results from the first 30 Warbird Throwers. A rough look at my data suggests that my group has gained on average 3 miles per hour and as high as 7. I’m pretty excited, and have new technology (Thanks Mike!) to share throwing data on my site. Check out the Player Velocities Page under the Warbird parent tab. If you’re not local you won’t know the names, but you can check the progress some of my hard workers have made. Nick Hieb, a Junior, just threw in front of a few college coaches and sat 3-4mph higher than he had previously peaked as of last year (his peak is about +5-6). Pretty excited about him – he’s earned it.

2. My Trip to LA for Alan Jaeger’s Pro Camp was awesome. I have lots to share but as of now too little time to share it. Soon – it was well worth the trip.

3. I’m going to share via video some of what I’ve learned about velocity this winter, and I’ve learned a whole, whole lot. The radar gun is the greatest pitchers’ training tool ever created, in my opinion. You’d be amazed how much pitch-by-pitch feedback can do for a thrower and a coach who wants his kids to throw harder. I’m not going to give away my proprietary program, but I will give you insight into what you can do at home today to throw harder immediately.

Thanks! Stay Tuned….

It’s always great to see my young athlete succeed. Conner plans on having a productive two years at Parkland and then transferring to a Top Division I University. Continued hard work will get him there.

We throw the 2oz JUGS lite flights to give us an idea of theoretical near-maximum arm twitch speed, the theoretical near-max of how fast your arm can go. A true theoretical max would use no weight at all, but 2oz comes reasonably close. This is measured on flat ground with no competitive adrenaline, so theoretical max would be higher than this as well when factoring in a mound and competitive, in-game atmosphere, which to me personally adds 4-6mph based on years of radar gunning.

Measurements were taken with a new Stalker Sport 2 radar gun set to Tenths. The goal of testing theoretical max arm speed, as we do in all of my Warbird Throwing Academy groups, is to see what we could potentially achieve if we strengthened the arm enough. Can I strengthen enough to throw actual 5oz baseballs as hard as these lite flights? We will see. Once we have measurements of the theoretical max, then we work to bring the actual baseball max up to the level of the theoretical max. We also use these to increase the arm’s speed – throwing heavier balls never allows it to run at it’s full clip, so to speak. In the same way plyometrics allow strong but slow athletes to convert their strength into explosiveness, so does throwing lighter balls for baseball and softball players.

No Jesse Heatons were seriously injured in the filming of this exercise (though he did have a nice bruise). This was not particularly safe done without a helmet, so don’t try this on your own. Jesse’s a college player at Saint Scholastica, and one of my toughest strength trainees.

It must be pretty amazing to throw a real baseball 97 MPH; it must provide a feeling of invincibility. My hat’s off to the few who actually can.

Interested in some DBSP SWAG? 

A complex is a workout composed of many exercises that flow together performed one right after another. In the complex shown below, we are using the following exercises with 50lb dumbbells in each hand:

1. Shrug
2. Romanian Deadlift (RDL)
3. Bent Over Row
4. Arc Pull
5. Hang Clean
6. Front Squat
7. Push Press
8. Push Up
9. Renegade Row

On this workout one cycle was comprised of 5 reps of the above, top to bottom. So, we go from 1-9 and repeat until 5 repetitions is complete, then we break. Our rest interval was 2:00 and we completed 5 cycles before all running to the little boys’ room. It was hard, and not nearly as fun as eating Oreos on the couch.

Go out and try this. You’ll probably find that grip strength is as much a factor as anything toward the end, but that’s part of the fun (misery). Chalk is a must.

If you’re a New Years’ Resolutioner, this is a great workout to try once and then give up on completely; I highly recommend it for quitters.

Oh – and if you’re a baseball player and are thinking “But Dan, don’t you contraindicate overhead pressing for throwing athletes?” Great question, Skippy. Yes – this is true – we almost never perform overhead pressing because of the impingement and deltoid recruitment it causes in the shoulder. But, if you perform 25 reps of a push press, effectively making a 50lb dumbbell half its weight, with a neutral grip every once in a while, no one is going to get injured and no one’s arm is going to be negatively affected. Just like eating an entire pumpkin pie is OK once every November, a little contraindicated exercise every now and again isn’t really a big deal. If I was pressing up 100s with an externally rotated grip, then that would be much less OK. Good question, though, Skippy.

Lastly, if you’re interested in more of these complexes, check out the “Strength Training For Fat Loss” DVD.

This was in Spain last Christmas, which isn’t technically 2011, but it was within 4 days or so and is worth sharing. This was the best breakfast ever, and was provided every morning in our hotel. Fruit, meat and yogurt. Pretty simple, but healthy and delicious. Jamon Serrano is the ham shown, which is cured for 400 days and sliced paper thin; it’s incredible and unlike anything made in America. Depending on the pig’s diet, the fat can even melt at room temperature.

But for as well as Spaniards do breakfast, they don’t seem to have a clue about what is, and what is not CREEPY. Christmas just passed, and I guarantee one-surgically-removed-one-button-eyed-denim-Santa did not come down anyone’s chimney, at least not without a greeting by a shotgun. Seriously – these things (there’s another one in a top hat next to it) were creepy as hell, and did NOT want to make me buy whatever crap they were peddling.  

This dual power rack, made by Rogers, was purchased by me for $700…it retails for $7000. I’m a small business owner, and am proud that I have about $40,000 worth of equipment in my facility that has cost me and my associate around $7000 all told. If you read my “26 Things” article, I alluded to the luck that has helped me get my business afloat. Well, my purchasing has been one of those things. I got lucky piecing my gym together over the last year, and it’s now VERY well equipped and twice the size of whats shown in this picture from last February.

I’d love to act like the high-powered trainer who throws down thousands of dollars on the world’s best equipment, but I’m also proud to have built something from very humble beginnings…we started with only dumbbells, a cable machine and 1000 square feet. No plates, no bars, no racks, nothing. Me and my first trainees here made the best of what we had and things have been growing ever since. Very few trainers start their careers in their own facility. I’ve never worked in a commercial gym, so starting small was the only way. I’m pretty thankful for that; everyone is new at some point.

This picture is a non-sequitur, if pictures can be non-sequiturs. I took this in Meijer because I started laughing out loud at the irony. I got weird looks, but it’s hilarious. An eye patch that’s half off. Get it?

This is another picture of a major gym purchase…8000 pounds of weight plates from Indiana State Surplus. I like these plates because they have seen some things, been abused, and are still here to tell the tale. Where’d they come from? An Indiana prison. I threw away about 500 pounds of plates with cracked hubs, sold about 3000 pounds of them (subsidizing my cost down to a laughable amount), and wire brushed and repainted the remained 4500 pounds. We use these weights everyday despite some hairline spiral cracks in many of them, presumably from Olympic lifts out on the concrete. Austin and myself had to farmer’s walk all of these in from the truck, which took about 90 minutes and absolutely fried our forearms. I hated life buffing the rust off and repainting these, which took a whole week, the last week I was in town before I left for pro ball. I bought the huge quantity betting on the fact that I would get to expand my gym when I got back in the fall; when we did, it saved me about $5000 in weights that would have been necessary to make the bigger space useful.

This is Morgan Depew circa January 2010 as a Junior. Morgan is the man. The following photo is morgan 11 months later…up 20 pounds.

I got to play baseball in Maui…for 13 days. And they paid me. Ridiculous.

Flew on a prop plane up to Edmonton. First time ever on the runway, on a tiny little plane.

…it was worth it. Edmonton was a cool city, and Telus Field gorgeous. Dude hit a bomb off me that was 40 feet in the air over the 420ft sign. I looked back at it, off the bat, to check if it was going to stay in the ballpark. Then, as I picked up what looked like a golf ball in the sky, I scolded myself for looking “Are you kidding? That thing’s so far out of here you should be embarrassed to even look back at it.” The guy played in the Majors for a while, and he hit it oppo…yeah.

This is the coolest photo I’ve ever taken, and the fact that my phone was maxed out on zoom, making it look pointilistic makes it even more authentic. We were at a restaurant in Edmonton and across the bar was this old guy who was dressed in a well-tailored black suit, who was clean cut and looked like he had no family in the world. He was so drunk that he was basically staring at the bar, unmoving, and he looked to me like a career hitman who was coming to terms with a lifetime of regret and solitude. I’m not joking. He looked like he was straight out of a movie; depressed doesn’t even come close to describing his profound sorrow.

This was my locker in Lake County…we didn’t get lockers. So, I made one using athletic tape, a magic marker and some 3-D perspective. I was pretty proud of it. I was #9, and my nickname is “Blew” or “Blue” depending on how you want to spell it; I chose the latter. Reliever Greg Lane helped me design it, so you may make out “BlueLane MFG” above the locker tag. Best locker I ever had.

The collapse of the Lake County Fielders was the most stressful week of my baseball career. I went from having a self-made locker to having my locker and all my gear arranged for me on every roadtrip, jerseys with my name on the back (first time since I was 14), and the overall comfort of an organization that treated all it’s players with tremendous respect. A big Thank You goes out to the Fargo-Moorhead Redhawks, who run a first-class ballclub.

Haymarket Park, home of U Nebraska and the Lincoln Saltdogs, is the most pristine field I’ll likely ever play on. It’s unreal. I pitched well there, which broke a streak of some very subpar performances; must have been the emerald-green, perfectly laid grass.

In August the deal went down from 600 miles away, and my gym expanded to 2400 square feet. I immediately bought new turf to maximize use of the space.

The new, permanent layout for the gym. Turf down, chock full of awesome equipment and good people.

Old, cheaply made sled. Who’s laughing now, chinese manufacturing?

New, Bad Rogue Dog Sled. I think this has 850 pounds on it…I moved it 5 feet. Mom! Look at me! Mom! MOM! You’re not watching!

This picture is of “The BA”. He’s a super-strong 14 year old, a self-proclaimed BAMF, and one known for interesting behavior. I think he just got done a sled drag…

…which he loaded in a very phallic, very moronic way. I literally slapped my forehead when I saw this. I love my job.

This is a composite photo of the external rotation of one of my high schoolers. He has a different weighted ball in each hand…but you wouldn’t know it based on his external rotation. I’m looking into a lot of different variables in throwing velocity. Conclusions are on the horizon.

This is my new (AWESOME) logo for my Warbird Throwing Academy, designed by my college teammate Ryan Morse, which was born on a bus in between Nebraska and Wichita. Warbird has been growing quickly and is my big project in churning out high-velocity throwers AND highly-repeatable pitchers.

What makes me most happy going in to work each day is the relationships I have with my people. This year for my birthday present a bunch of my older guys and gals chipped in to get me a tattoo. If you dont know, my logo is an abstract “db” (my initials in lowercase). But, the tattoo really represents all the hardworking young athletes who entrust their futures to me, and the major impact they all have on my life. And no, I don’t care even a little bit how it will look when I’m old, thank you, and neither will my future badass of a wife.

2011 was great, no matter what 2012 holds. Jan 1, I welcome thee.

1. You Never Feel Old

I still feel like I did in college – not old. Though I’m apparently “the oldest mid-twenties guy I’ve ever met” (Daryn), I still feel young and like I fit in BSing with all the younger kids I train. I’d put youngness factor at 19.

2. Bad Times Come and Go

I’m not going to knock on wood because I don’t believe in superstition. 2008-2009 was easily the worst year of my life, and 2010-2011 easily the best. Life goes up and down; get through it and keep marching.

3. People Are As Good To You As You Allow Them To Be

I have such good clients it blows my mind sometimes. No bad apples, just genuinely awesome people who work hard for me. I try to treat them like family and make sure they feel connected to me; maybe it’s why we get along so well.

4. The Opposite Sex Goes in Cycles

I get bored being single every once in a while and start to look around. Sometimes I find nothing and it frustrates me, sometimes I get bombarded; sometimes it’s dry but when it rains it pours. People feel hopeless about finding a good partner, but it’s not that big a deal – be open to others, let things come and they will.

5. Thermals Are Awesome

I’ve started wearing thermal shirts a lot. They are just right for my gym – it’s nippy in there all fall and winter. I can move in them, look like a respectable person and less of a gym rat, and they’re comfy.

6. Deadlifts Are Also Awesome…But They Don’t Work For Everyone

I tell people, if you had one exercise to do for the rest of your life, it should be the deadlift. But, for about 15% of people I’d say they really just don’t agree with their body. Backs hurt on deadlifts for some people, and rather than beat a square peg into a round hole, I take it off of their to-do list. Some people just aren’t built for certain lifts; its OK. There’s many more exercises out there that can get the job done.

7. Bodies Are Enigmas Sometimes

My arm has bothered me for the past two years in a mysterious, enigmatic way. I get really deep aches that make it difficult to bounce back between starts. This past season in August, it went away, for no reason at all save a tiny tweak in my mechanics. All that pain over a year and a half and it just packed up and went away. Weird.

8. Pursuing Some College Degrees Are A Terrible Financial Decision

Getting more degrees doesn’t necessarily make you more qualified. So, is the 60 grand you’re going to spend to get another really going to translate into more money? Today, maybe not. Law degrees and medical degrees in students who aren’t in the top 10% of their class are proving a terrible investment, landing people low-paying jobs that don’t justify the high loan costs. I’m not going back to school to get another degree in exercise, nutrition or any of it – I could continue learning in many other ways and extra letters next to my name won’t get me more clients. Not one person has ever asked for my credentials thus far; they just listen and judge for themselves if I know what I’m talking about. I do, so they listen and pay me, and I get results; that’s the biggest thing that matters.

9. Everything Is Arbitrary

That beautiful car? Some designer decided he liked the way it looked. Was there a reason he didn’t add one more curve or bend or line? If there was, it was simply because he didn’t want to. As much as things are based on research, they’re more often based on our judgment of “good enough.” Why did a painter decide his painting was complete instead of adding one more brush stroke? Because that’s what he felt was best. Much more in life falls under this category than you realize. Look around at all of your possessions, buildings, cars – they were all made by people who chose their shape, look and design.

10. If Everything Is Arbitrary, You Can Build Your Own Empire

If ultimately everything was built by someone who simply decided they would, and decided simply that they designed as best they saw fit..why don’t you? There’s no formula, just build it the way you think it should be built.

11. We Will All Die

…But who cares? While we are still here we should do something we’re passionate about, even it’s ultimately for nothing. I don’t believe in an afterlife, but I believe in doing something important my with life simply because it’s the only one I get.

12. Hungry People Don’t Stay Hungry For Long

They get what they want or they die trying.

13. You Probably Know What You Need To Be Doing

Go Do It. When you feel that tug of guilt, that you’re not living up to expectations or a promise to yourself, get up and go. It has to be today; tomorrow never comes.

14. You Can’t Blame People For Being Happy

Well, you can if being happy requires something sinister like smashing puppies with hammers. People are ultimately going to choose the path that they feel will lead them to happiness. Girlfriend broke up with you and was Facebook official with another dude 4 hours later? Well, she probably needs that. Don’t be bitter; let her go.

15. They Can’t Take Away Your Experiences

Some crazy things happened last year, things that I’ll always remember. I won’t be sharing all of them on this forum, but I smile when I recall them every now and again. I’ll have them, rich, poor, or sick.

16. Good Friends Don’t Fade (As Fast)

It sucks being away from my friends back home, and unfortunately I have to choose who I make time for on my brief visits home. Good friends have longer staying power in a long-distance relationship, but ultimately they’ll all go away if you don’t tend to them.

17. Sometimes Your Body Is Stupid

I hurt my neck yesterday doing chin ups…with nothing around my neck. I have that nerve pain that makes it hard to move my head side to side. Nothing touched my head or neck when it happened – I was pulling up on a bar with a belt and a kettlebell attached to my waist. Inexplicable. It’ll go away, but it’s annoying. Sometimes your body hurts for no reason at all.

18. Being Cold Sucks

I asked for slippers for Christmas…another sign that I’m becoming old, frail and boring. But, my apartment is cold all the time (by choice) and I find myself seeking warmth like a cold-blooded creature. The winter sucks. Hard.

19. Trivial Interactions Don’t Add Much

Good friends last; trivial interactions don’t. Once I got rid of facebook and all that nonsense, I didn’t miss it at all. I didn’t wake up wondering what that guy from my college psych class was eating for breakfast. My life really hasn’t changed at all. If all the social networking is the way of the future, then why is it so easy to live without now that the habit is broken?

20. Guys Need To Shave

I don’t razor shave, but I keep my facial hair down to a shadow at most times. I go through phases where I want to grow a beard, but usually after 2 weeks I have to meet with a new client, parent, coach or whoever, and I’m very aware of how a scraggly beard looks to people – sloppy. People make snap judgments on appearance; having dirty-looking facial hair is going to detract from your image and credibility. Most chicks don’t really dig it, either.

21. Italian Beef is My Lord and Savior

Easily the best thing about the midwest. The only food I will buy for lunch is Italian Beef or McAllister’s Deli.

22. Don’t Dress Like A Slob (I’m Talking to YOU, College Kids)

I’m old enough to look down upon college students now, and boy do I ever – I hate the guys and girls walking around town in sweatshirts and pajama pants en route to class. News flash – you look like crap. What if you’re a single person and your ideal man or woman walks by you on the street? You’re screwed, that’s what. Dress like you want to make a positive impression on whoever you might meet. And, being a former college student, I remember being impressed with the occasional girl who would come to class every single day looking cute. I wear workout clothes to work, but when I go grocery shopping or errand running, I put on jeans and try to look like a respectable man. If I run across a Victoria’s Secret model at the Post Office, I’ll be ready.

23. Don’t Give Self Esteem Out For Free

My youngest guys have increased their swagger tenfold. I refer to them regularly as badasses, but only because they’ve earned that distinction. When they are late to training, aren’t focused, or just aren’t giving me the effort I expect, I let them know; I use the phrase “that was terrible” as much as any other in my gym. I’m not going to sugarcoat anything, no matter what age, but they get equal doses of positive reinforcement when they do get things right and go the extra mile.

If people get praise both good and bad outcomes, they don’t earn the right to feel like they have conquered their inadequecies. My guys and girls know that when I praise their work, they really deserved it and because of that they feel accomplished. When I chew them out or get in their ass about a poor job, they don’t turn down their lips and cry – they correct it because they know they aren’t meeting the high standard I hold for them. When people operate on that system of checks and balances, they learn that negative feedback and failure doesn’t have to affect their ability to succeed in the future and continue to feel positive about their work.

24. 9-5 Jobs Suck (So I hear)

My sister has one. She doesn’t love it. I have never had one, and I consider myself lucky, based on what I’ve heard. Avoid at all costs so say all.

25. Amalgamation Is A Cool Word

I need to use this word in a sentence before the year ends – it’s been on my desktop sticky note for 3 months now. My unique training style is an amalgamation of the methods of great strength coaches from whom I have learned – Fred Cantor, Nick Tumminello, Jeff Friday. I’ll cross that off my list.

26. I’ve Got A Pretty Good Life Through 26.

I consider myself lucky. Though I’ve worked for what I have, none of what I do would be possible without the invariable serendipity, luck, and support from friends, family and colleagues. I’ve had some big obstacles that would have ruined me if not for the right person at the right time giving me an extra little boost. We can’t control everything in life; hard, though, we may try.

That’s all, folks. Til next year…