Posts Tagged ‘Dan Blewett’
November 16, 2011 | 
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Interested in getting your arm in shape and throwing harder this offseason? Sign up now at Extra Innings/DBSP. Second session starts Nov.29th.
If you haven’t heard of the Lake County Fielders, let me fill you in.
They were an independent professional baseball team. They were the best team in a newly formed league. They played a crazy schedule, flying to every city like big-league clubs do, visiting teams spanning from Canada to Hawaii. They were in first place when transgressions against them were brought to a head, causing the original team of players to disband. They were treated like kings by the coaching staff and fans; much less by the management. I am proud to say I was one of them, and I want to share some of our good times, not harp on the bad like the newspapers have.
This situation, of which I was a part, got national news when our team finally refused to play, when our broadcaster quit on the air, and when Jose Canseco and other position players took the mound to pitch in a game of reversed-positions. The whole summer was a fiasco; not what professional baseball should be, but absolutely what baseball should be – ridiculously fun. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve recently found myself in social situations in which I have to describe my life and interests to people. As it turns out, all I bring to light is how little I have.
Since I’m a transplant to a new city, I have no family within 8 hours driving distance. I have few friends in town. I have only enough possessions to fill the trunk and back seats of my average-sized car. I have no furniture in my room aside from a bed and unused shelf; no curtains, no posters, no photos. I’m almost never home, anyway.
I no longer have Facebook – deleted it over a month ago. I watch almost no TV whatsoever, save one or two programs per week. Movies rarely capture my attention. I watch sports only when I’m in a public place that displays them; no football, baseball (I’ve watched a combined 10 innings or so of the entire playoffs), or any other sports. I don’t scour YouTube for videos or any of that worthless shit on the internet, either.
I don’t go out that much and don’t have hobbies. I really liked rockclimbing, which I did for about a year and a half, but I had to give that up because it bothered my pitching arm; I’m a little bitter about that breakup. I don’t have pets (if you knew my ex’s dog you’d understand why), don’t call my family enough, go downtown only occasionally, and rarely take trips. I don’t have any debt, I own my car and all of the equipment I bought for my gym. I make ample money and put nearly all of it back into my business. I also don’t have a girlfriend or anyone to occupy significant amounts of my time.
A reasonably accurate depiction of my room and myself.
And yet, my immediate goal in becoming better as a ballplayer and more productive as a person is to do even less. By this, I mean that I have to remove myself even further from my distractions and sit and be quiet. I have to learn to set aside time to meditate, and do so more often and for longer durations. Despite how little I have, need and want, it’s difficult.
Meditation is going to sharpen my mind and allow me to focus more intently on my work, be it on the mound or at my gym. I’ve started recently after reading Alan Jaeger’s book, Getting Focused, Staying Focused.
I had problems with negativity creeping into my mind and undermining my abilities this summer. On the mound, I found myself doubting my ability to command pitches and get outs. I couldn’t turn my mind off, and I couldn’t silence the negativity; it affected my physical performance. Being a Philosophy and Psychology major and a very intellectual, analytical person, I’ve always thrived on mental activity. Pondering things over and over in my mind was natural exercise for me. Having to suddenly find a way to ignore the very thing that has made me successful in life has proved, well, impossible. While impossible overnight, I’m on a mission to develop this ability, the ability to ignore my mind when I need to. The first step in this is learning how to sit still, let my mind wander and pay it no heed. It can chatter at me all it wants; I’ll be focusing my attention elsewhere.
So, I’ll be finding ways to take time away from whatever it is that distracts me and sit and do even less. A rollercoaster descent into monkdom.
Also – don’t pity me. I’m happy, have great family & friends, time to do the things that I value, ample quiet time when I’m not training, and few things to tie and slow me down. Despite having virtually none of the hobbies and “things,”on which most people give life a materialistic valuation, I’m living my personal dream – doing whatever I want, whenever I want. I run my business how I see fit and train in pursuit of my dreams and the dreams of my clients. Television programs, Facebook statuses and wine-tastings wouldn’t add to that.
A big shout out to the Black Keys, two nerdy white dudes who rock it out – Thanks for producing some great bluesy rock’n'roll!
At my gym we are the proud owners of not one, but TWO landmine devices. These snazzy little CV joints bolt to our Rogue Fitness Westside racks, and they provide us with smooth motions for our angled barbell training.
What is Angled Barbell training, you ask? Well, you can do it two ways: jam a barbell into the corner of a wall, or place it into a landmine attachment. Then, the barbell pivots on the axis and allows you to perform movements with less than the full gravity of the barbell and an arced range of motion.
We use these a lot, and they simply provide us with an extra stimulus in the gym. Angled barbell movements are unique. The following is a video featuring one of my young badasses, Ethan Newby.
One of my favorite mostly-lateral-sort-of-rotary core exercises is the landmine twist. We do ton of these and as my buddy Daryn says, “you just feel powerful doing them.” It’s really true – you get your hips and core into it and sling that weight like you own it.
If you’re interested in performing angled barbell training in your own gym or training facility, a good place to turn is my friend and trainer Nick Tumminello. He is releasing his new instructional DVD on October 8th. The DVD will be offered at a special reduced price with Free shipping, and include bonus videos for the first week of its release. I interned with Nick for almost two years; if you turn to me for training advice, you’re going to really like his exercises – his knack for thinking up creative training solutions is part of what makes him a special guy in the industry. Click the above link or the picture below to go to his site.
I train a few female volleyball players and I’ve been out to a few matches recently to watch them play. I finally brought along my 210 fps High-Speed camera and grabbed some videos. We had been talking a lot about vertical jumping and its (obvious) implications in their sport, and I was also curious about the biomechanics of the jump and arm swing on a spike. I found some good slow motion videos of professionals to complement my amateur videos. This is worth a look before we move forward and discuss it.
I’m a baseball player, and as such have a tendency to assume other overhead motions are mechanically the same. Throwing a baseball or softball requires lots of external and internal rotation Range of Motion, strength and speed. Those without these qualities simply don’t throw as hard as those who do. The volleyball strike, however, is mechanically different, though a lot of those qualities in hard throwers likely apply to hard hitters. While there are similarities, the two are pretty different at the moment of impact. I’m not going to compare the two side-by-side – that’s not the point of this article. Rather, I want to talk about the spike beginning with the liftoff from the legs, the arm’s path as it goes through the volleyball, and implications that path will have on the training and injury risks of the volleyball athlete. Read the rest of this entry »
Grip strength is probably the most underrated athletic attribute. Soccer and other sports in which the hands aren’t used ,and faking injuries is a major part of their competition, probably don’t need a whole lot of gripping power. But, athletes of combat and implemental sports (those in which an implement, like a baseball bat or tennis racquet is used) can benefit a great deal by having stronger hands.
We have tons of innovative grip tools in my gym. Anything that is either heavy, oddly shaped or thick can be used as an effective grip strengthening tool. While there are many great options out there, here are my Top 5… Read the rest of this entry »
***This is the first part of a three-part article series: “Dan Blewett is a Pansy,” Andrew Sacks Is a Bigger Pansy,” and “Train For Sport, For Health, or For Humiliation” are parts I, II, and III, respectively. Enjoy.****
I have known Dan Blewett for longer than I care to remember, and I absolutely cannot believe that people actually listen to that hypocrite when he preaches to them about how to condition themselves to become finely tuned athletes. As I see it, Dan is the last person from whom to seek advice when trying to learn how to become a better athlete. Being a good athlete typically requires one to possess speed, strength, agility, power, and/or endurance. These are considered the four basic criteria of athleticism, and Dan possesses exactly zero of them. Simply put, he’s the most unathletic professional “athlete” I’ve ever seen in my life. And I’m counting golfers, NASCAR drivers, croquet players, and competitive eaters among those ranks.
John Daly runs a faster 40 than Dan Blewett. Backwards. And he’s more attractive to women. Read the rest of this entry »
Don’t Know Who Andrew Sacks Is?
There’s a reason for this – he’s a nobody.
Sure, he is my best friend. Sure, he is a good strength trainer. Sure, he is likely a good brother, son, and future father to a gay son. But, he’s the store-brand version of Dan Blewett, and we all know how shitty generic macaroni and cheese tastes. You want me, Dan Blewett, in your life just like you want Kraft Scooby Doo Macaroni and cheese. Accept no Andrew Sackses.
To prove to you that I’m the better athlete, I need only one argument – what I call…
The Gravy Defense… Read the rest of this entry »
Currently, myself and a handful of my athletes are involved in the “Fall Eating Challenge.” What is the fall eating challenge? Well, it’s a challenge that I made up. I make up lots of stuff – I’m my own boss and I do what I want.
Basically, the problem that we are addressing with this challenge is “little person syndrome,” otherwise known as “Hey, put on some damn weight.” I have some very strong kids working out with me, but they just aren’t going to apply the force they need to the baseball, softball or volleyball without some added muscle mass. There’s a lot to be said for being strong, but when it comes down to it, Force = Mass x Velocity. You can tell me that Tim Lincecum throws gas all you want, but 99% of guys his size simply will never be able to produce the power that he does from his little frame. Most big leaguers…BIG.
It’s that time of year when many of my trainees and I are settling in to a season without competition. Competitive season puts such a strain on the body that it’s difficult to work out as regularly, and it can be hard to keep a strict, healthy diet. When I come home from my 100 game pro season, I’m as weak as I am all year, and usually about 5 lbs fatter to boot. My goal for myself and my athletes in our first month back in the gym is to shed the newly gained fat, regain muscle size that we’ve lost, and regain a high capacity for work. This method is also great for anyone trying to put on muscle as fast as possible.
Easing into things is overrated – I prefer a 1 to 2 day max break-in period, after which we are hitting it 100% in an effort to regain general strength as quickly as possible. The way we do this is by challenging ourselves in a mix of exercises that I categorize as:
- Low-external weight, high-rep
- Conditioning circuits and complexes
- High-Intensity, high-yield Read the rest of this entry »
5 Things Really Good Hitters Do….it’s my newest article for Cornbeltbaseball.com!
Anyone who has been around the game has heard managers, pitching coaches, fans and players all gripe about a common enemy: the walk. I wholeheartedly agree that walks are destructive to a team’s chance at winning, but I question the old adage that “walks almost always score.” I question this not because I want to convince pitchers that walking hitters is OK – it isn’t – but rather because it doesn’t make sense to me that simply because a batter reached base via four balls, he becomes more of a threat to come in to score. There have to be other reasons that allow walked runners to score at a higher frequency, if in fact they truly do score more often. Let’s reason our way through this in conjunction with a few common stats to see what conclusion we can come up with. Read the rest of this entry »