Posts Tagged ‘running’
October 7, 2009 | 
Author I don’t know where the idea that pitchers need to be world-class distance runners came from, but it is complete and utter nonsense. Some cardiovascular conditioning for pitchers is beneficial, but not at the expense of power. According to research cited in the NSCA book, Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning, excessive aerobic conditioning has an adverse effect on power and strength. This means that every time a coach makes his pitchers run long distances, it is essentially subtracting MPHs from their fastballs and making them less effective.
Think this guy has a decent fastball? I doubt it.
Many coaches subscribe to the notion that “good” workouts end with their pitchers exhausted and on the verge of vomiting. Again, this is pure, unadulterated crap. The only thing these types of workouts are good for is breaking down the muscles in a pitcher’s legs and making them weaker. Good trainers and coaches will prescribe exercises that challenge the athlete but never make them ill. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been familiar with foam rolling and myofascial release for a few years now, starting when I was told I had a lot of inflexibility that needed to go away. If you’re unfamiliar with myofascial release, check out this article. It’s from wikipedia, but it gives a pretty thorough overview. Basically, though, you maneuver yourself over a foam roller, which compresses the tissues beneath, allowing for connective tissue (fascia) restrictions to loosen. This includes trigger points, which gives a lot of people chronic pain.
I hadn’t done much of it recently, but felt motivated to get back into it. And having experienced good things with it in the past, I made some time after a workout.
Pitchers and baseball players in general have an interesting sport to prepare for. Team sports like soccer, lacrosse (if you consider it a real sport), hockey, basketball all require a good amount of stamina, as they require nearly constant motion. The needs in those sports is somewhere in between anaerobic and aerobic. Baseball and football are different from the others, and similar to each other as both are played in short, high-intensity bursts followed by rest intervals between plays.
Interesting thing is, though, that pitchers have historically been part-time distance runners, doing tremendous amounts of sustained running between outings. The validation for this practice was that pitchers needed strong and enduring legs to go deep into games.
While it’s true that during a 7-inning outing a pitcher will be pitching over the better portion of two hours, he isn’t doing it in one sustained effort.
Rather, any pitching performance is broken down into half-inning intervals of pitching and rest, which is further broken down into shorter intervals between each batter, and then even shorter intervals between each pitch.
Training is supposed to make the athlete better prepared for game situations. If we want a pitcher to best prepare himself for his act of pitching, then it doesn’t make sense to perform sustained cardio work between starts. Rather, pitchers should be condition like they play: by working in intervals. Read the rest of this entry »