Latest / The Layback Podcast / Joe Neal, Founder & CEO of 2sp Sports

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Joe Neal, Founder & CEO of 2sp Sports · The Layback Podcast

• 0:00
  What's up everyone, Welcome back to the Lay Back Podcast.
• 0:03
  Joining us today is Joe Neal, the CEO and founder of Two SP
• 0:08
  Sports. Joe and I originally crossed
• 0:11
  paths, I want to say it was back in the fall of 2022.
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  He and his crew started experimenting a little bit with
• 0:18
  Flex Pro Grip messed around I think had a pretty fun offseason
• 0:23
  and after I think both parties probably forgot one another
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  existed, maybe for for a year or so.
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  Joe and I rekindled our relationship between Flex pro
• 0:35
  and two SP this past offseason. Joe was instrumental in
• 0:39
  implementing it with a couple of their athletes who it seemed
• 0:43
  like really had some pretty solid offseasons and have
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  parlayed that into some decent starts to the year.
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  Joe's call and how much he wants to divulge on names and
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  everything like that. But I just figured I'd share how
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  Joe and I have kind of crossed paths in the past and then
• 0:57
  rekindled a little bit of a working relationship here.
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  But one thing I've been really impressed with in your career,
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  Joe, is really your touch on so many different sports in the
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  development of athletics and sports performance in what's
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  kind of an untapped gold mine and youth athletics in Southeast
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  Michigan. And that that'll probably tease
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  a little bit of some of what we're going to talk about today.
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  But Joe, thanks so much for joining us.
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  And with that, I'll kick it over to you for the bio.
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  Yeah, I know. I appreciate you having me for
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  sure. Like you said, Joanie, I'm CEO
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  and founder of two SB Sports here in Southeast Michigan kind
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  of a very non glorified career path came very untraditional
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  through the channels of SNCI was a washed up Division 2 baseball
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  player Southeast Michigan. We have a considerable amount of
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  youth athletics here that that spans 3 large, four large
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  counties in our area. And back in 2000, our coach at I
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  went to Wayne State University here in Detroit.
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  He's like, hey, you want to start working with some youth
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  athletes and stuff? And so actually never went
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  through the process of S&C through anesiology and or like
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  exercise science. And I just started training
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  athletes because it was really big part of my, I would consider
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  the little bit of success that I had being relatively undersized,
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  being somebody that wasn't traditionally very powerful,
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  things like that. That really got me some extra
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  years of, of playing sports in college and things like that.
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  And even after that, I, I played some, some professional baseball
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  as an on draft, a free agent, nothing to write home about.
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  Let me tell you, it was more in the realm of just enough to be
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  there, not not a good enough to even close to get considered
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  moving on. But I learned a lot about myself
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  and like, if I would have had somebody and at that time, we
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  didn't have a lot of people that were in this realm of helping
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  improve performance. And so that, that I started
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  working with kids and, and my history was basically learning
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  on the fly and, and putting together, putting in other
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  programs that people didn't have access to at that time.
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  And that's, that, that is literally my history of, of
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  training. And, you know, 1718 years later,
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  we, we have facilities and we operate a conservative amount of
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  square footage in the, in the metro Detroit area, you know,
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  working with thousands of kids a year throughout, throughout
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  this, this, this great state that we're in through mostly
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  baseball and hockey, that that's been our primary, our primary
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  demographic. However, that doesn't mean we
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  don't, we don't work with other sports.
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  I think we just had the background in those, those
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  particular 2. And that's, you know, that's
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  kind of held over over almost 20 years of experience.
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  So, you know, that's, that's basically the history.
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  I've, I've collected some different certifications.
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  I, I do a lot of consulting these days for athletes.
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  I've probably for 15 years, I've worked with MLB and also NHL
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  athletes every single year, probably manage $300 million
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  worth of athletes each year between the two sports and from
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  their off offseason perspective. But over the years I've done a
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  lot of in season work. And then I would, I would do
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  quite a bit of speaking now through the NSCA and, and being
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  a CSCS and things like that within, within their
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  organization. So it's been something that I've
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  been ramping up over the last couple years and trying to get
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  out on the circuit and things like that.
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  So that's what I'm currently working on myself, other than
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  many people doing doing their job great and we got a great
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  staff so. Right away I was going to ask
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  you, having gone the non traditional route, if you've
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  gone back for any continuing education or certifications or
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  anything like that. So are there specific
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  certifications now that you mention them or additional
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  educational pursuits that you've undertaken that you have found
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  super valuable? Or is it really just checking
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  the box so you can be a name in the space?
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  Yeah, it's, it's, it's funny you ask that because I have this
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  like really bad imposter syndrome when I go to like
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  places with like Eric Cressy and like all these all these guys
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  that have big, big name backgrounds and things like
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  that. And I just, I get really like,
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  you know, trying to fit in, right.
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  And, and the problem that I have is like, I almost created a
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  business before I had an education, which was a real big
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  problem for me as I considered going back to school really
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  early in my career. Nobody would allow me to
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  internship at my own space because I heard that the people
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  that were there training with us and, and, and really now we run
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  internship programs and, and the people that we have running our
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  internship programs are super high educated and super well,
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  you know, well off in the category and they're providing
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  our educational system and things like that.
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  You know, I had chosen a, a really even more on traditional
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  route I had gone to early in my career as, as opposed to
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  collecting certifications. I went right to the source.
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  I was, I had flown to several Premier League teams and looked
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  at what they were doing with their, with their youth
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  development programs and their first teams.
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  I had some access to some really unique people early in my career
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  that I was training that allowed me to go to these places and see
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  what's happening on the ground floor.
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  And I, I had been to pretty much every top level facility in the
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  United States and probably in Europe to see what these things,
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  you know, what was happening in the, in the environment. 2011,
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  12131415 I spent probably seven years just spending a week on
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  end here and there and, and you know, places like Southampton
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  and, and Arsenal and Manchester City, Manchester United, those
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  type of places that I was going to that was spending weeks on
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  time at just looking at what they were doing for the youth
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  development at the time. Premier League soccer was really
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  in its own category as far as like how they were developing
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  athletes and recovery systems and and things of that nature
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  far more in advance than than any 1012 years ago than any
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  Major League Baseball team or any any large scale sport that
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  was in the United States. So I felt that that was a good
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  opportunity for me. And then, you know, we were I
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  was exploring a lot of places domestically also that were far
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  and ahead above where I thought I was at that point.
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  That's really how I got my education really, really fast
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  because I always felt like because I didn't have that
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  kinesiology degree and things like that.
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  I need to do expedite that process for me as fast as
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  possible, which made I think me a really unique person in in the
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  environment because I was always really on the outside looking in
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  trying to find any way I could to help athletes.
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  And that's, that's what maybe we made all this, you know,
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  opportunity possible over time, so.
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  Well, before we get into specifics on maybe what you
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  pulled from some of those places because I am very interested in
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  what you've pulled and been able to apply from high level soccer
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  camps into the baseball and hockey world.
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  I can begin to make some connects, but of course I need
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  to hear from the horse's mouth. However, before we get into
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  that, there is something that I want to address and people
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  always say it's not what you know, it's who you know.
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  I tend to think in a place where constant learning is so
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  important, I would flip that on its head a little bit.
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  I think who you know lets you know what you need to know.
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  And it sounds like you were kind of able to leverage these
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  relationships so you could find out or get boots on the ground
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  and figure out what you actually need to know or at least look
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  under the hood and make some connections for yourself.
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  So how were you able to find these connections, leverage
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  these connections because I assume to an extent this is a
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  closed mouths don't get fed situation.
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  Like you kind of needed to put yourself out there and say, hey,
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  can I come by? I can't imagine you just stole
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  someone's badge, snuck on to a practice facility and and just
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  started watching. But I I also don't think all of
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  those things are open. So can you just divulge a little
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  bit more on that? Yeah, I mean, it was kind of
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  interesting because I had been known in the area for my
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  background in baseball and and somebody that had done fairly
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  well from a playing perspective and got involved with a hockey
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  team that ironically had Kirk Gibson's son on it.
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  Cam Gibson, although he wasn't the end up being a driver, by
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  the way, he was an elite hockey player also as well as he was at
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  at baseball. But the the the coach of that
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  team was Igor, Igor Larianov, his son was on that team.
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  And so Igor, obviously being part of the Russian Five with
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  the Red Wings was really a person that inspired me to
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  really start looking deeper into athletic development as he, as
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  he kind of, we'll call it, liked my, we'll call methods of
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  training at that point. And they were, they were things
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  that started out as what that worked for me as somebody who
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  is, you know, maybe undersized, underpowered, pretty much every
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  infrastructure quality that needed to happen, I needed as a,
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  as a player. And so he really inspired me to
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  kind of look a little bit deeper and, and look for the whys and
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  the what's and the hows of what people were doing.
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  He was well known in Russia and Europe and, and things like
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  that. Made a couple calls and he, he
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  got me a couple opportunities to travel and, and at the time he
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  was an agent for hockey. And so he had a lot of upcoming
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  Russian talent that he would bring over from Russia to the
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  United States Train. And then I started getting we,
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  we ended up, I end up training the one, one overall pick for
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  the 2012 draft was his name was Nail Yalkov for a couple years.
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  And he had said at that time every basically VO2 record and
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  every category could in the draft.
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  And he'd spent a considerable amount of time under, I guess my
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  tutelage at the time as far as as training and preparing for
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  that particular draft. And so Igor had taken a good
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  liking to that and, and made some more opportunities
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  available to start traveling to these different places in the
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  world. We've gone through Moscow, we've
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  gone through a couple other areas in there and, and really
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  looked at, you know, some of these, I guess, historical
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  inputs, you know, from perspective of plyometrics and
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  eccentric training and Olympic lifting and, and all these
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  different methodologies that everybody seems to find new
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  these days. But they're not they've been
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  there for a very long time. And you know, this is 1520 years
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  ago now. And that that's really what what
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  kind of catapulted some of the opportunities.
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  Then the lockout came in the NHL draft and, and it was kind of
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  like this baseball hockey timeline that I had.
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  And then blackout came and then I started getting a lot of
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  baseball guys after that got back into professional sports
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  with not back into, but then started getting into
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  professionals, the MLB side of, of, of baseball and started to
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  be able to apply both what we've learned from a hockey
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  perspective and not what I already knew from some of the
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  baseball to, you know, then bringing, bringing in new
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  methodology and things like that for baseball.
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  And then the this tech boom has happened around that, around
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  that period of time for baseball.
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  And we started really adopting a lot of these different things
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  that became available because I mean, I pre existed a lot of the
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  tech that was there, I was training without force plates, I
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  was training without dynamometers, I was training
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  without force frames and, and all these different things that
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  we now have available to us and we were making a difference
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  then. So I think we've had that
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  conversation before where it was like we were having good success
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  without any of this technology. What now?
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  Everybody relies on it, which I think is a really interesting
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  thing for sports moving forward. But there are a lot of things
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  that we input now that I'm like, man, without being able to
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  objectively measure these things, it would be really hard
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  to to to push some of it forward.
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  So. Yeah, I even remembered that
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  conversation specifically back from the fall of 2022 when you
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  said I've been doing this thing for a long time, man.
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  I've trained a lot of athletes. I've tried basically every
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  single thing under the sun. What makes Flex Pro any
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  different? And thankfully you saw the light
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  that that we tried to produce and it it made me very happy.
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  Obviously you've had some success with it, not trying to
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  go that route with. Yeah, yeah, no, I, I, but we,
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  you know, because, because I've been an outsider, you know, I
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  I've been willing to try to adapt to like some things that
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  we've seen and people I I come, I get inundated with technology
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  on a reggae and just everyday like there's something new that
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  people tell me they can measure, you know, And so the interesting
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  part of the flex pro scenario for us was like, everybody has
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  their grip strength models and and what they're doing for the
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  lower arm or forearm improvement.
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  And I was just never a true buyer on being a being an ex
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  player going OK, farmers walks are the everything that's going
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  or pinch grip, you know, type stuff is everything that's going
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  to improve my throwing ability. And, and we needed something
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  that was a more more direct correlation between what what we
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  were implementing in the weight room and and what the true
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  outcome we wanted to have for it for that particular player,
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  we'll call it. So we'll do that for any, you
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  know, whether that's baseball. And you know, obviously Flex Pro
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  is a little bit more specifically designed for
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  baseball, but I mean it has integration models for other
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  sports too, I think as as we look at the other ones that I
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  accommodate on a regular basis too, so.
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  We're starting to get into that here and there there.
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  We've got a hockey coach over in Switzerland.
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  Thankfully he was exposed to it because his son is a baseball
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  player over in Switzerland. Just became obsessed with
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  getting better at pitching. And because this guy's a hockey
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  coach and knows what it takes. And you know just as well as
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  anyone the development system in hockey, you have to you
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  constantly have to be making cut after cut after cut as you age
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  up in the sport. So he wants his son to be as
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  prepared as possible in baseball.
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  Although he might be able to quickly rise in the ranks in
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  Switzerland, he might not be able to quickly rise in the
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  ranks in the United States. Thus, the dad is trying to bring
• 15:01
  everything he can in developmentally.
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  And now the dad is thinking like, huh, this is probably
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  pretty neat. I wonder if there's some
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  correlations here between rate of force development and the
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  fingers in the guys ability to, I don't know, handle a puck or
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  have certain stick skills. I mean, this goes well beyond
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  me. My hockey experience sticks to
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  rollerblades in the driveway and just ripping tennis balls at my
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  garage door. That that was my hockey
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  experience. And then I found out I was going
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  to need to quit basketball if I wanted to play hockey.
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  And I just decided to stick with basketball.
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  Maybe that wasn't the best call as a 5 foot 11 kid, but my dad
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  played collegiately. So I don't know.
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  I thought maybe there was maybe there was a path there to be A2
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  sport athlete with baseball and basketball.
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  Lo and behold, there wasn't. But that's a story for another
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  day. But no, you're, you're 100%
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  right. Like we, we got our start in
• 15:50
  baseball. There's no question it's built
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  out specifically for throwers at this time, whether it's
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  baseball, softball, even javelin.
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  But I mean, we, we are starting to explore the other realms.
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  We, we have a handful of quarterbacks that have used it.
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  And some of that comes from the research and the feedback that
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  we get from people like you who are looking to use a tool
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  creatively across all the athletes that come in.
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  And before we get too far away from I think Part 2 of the
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  question that I was trying to get to earlier, you mentioned
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  going to all these soccer complexes or these soccer
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  facilities. So what what was it that you
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  were able to pull from, or maybe I should say football because
• 16:35
  you went across the pond to go look at all this stuff.
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  But when you were going to look at these high class soccer
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  football clubs, what was it that you were able to pull and bring
• 16:47
  back for baseball and hockey athletes in the United States?
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  Well, for, for us, I, you know, we tend to do a lot of throwing
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  development now within my everyday scope through pitchers
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  and things like that. And in our area we do have some
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  very talented arms. But at the time, earlier in my
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  career we were working with a lot of position players.
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  So one of the one of the my biggest chases was develop
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  developing linear speed quality and what they were doing from
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  perspective of speed improvement, which over time I
• 17:22
  have really kind of looked at as a quality that kind of dictates
• 17:26
  a little bit of overall ability to throw harder to.
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  I tend to see guys that run faster are able to throw harder,
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  which is really interesting thing.
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  And I only have things that are more in the anecdotal range
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  where it's like, OK, well, that is what I've seen over my scope
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  of 20 years or 18 years of training athletes that if you
• 17:45
  move faster, you might be able to throw harder.
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  So my chase in short was more linear speed development and
• 17:51
  what they were doing and how they were developing the lower
• 17:54
  body, which interestingly enough within the scope of baseball
• 17:58
  over here, there's so much applied to the shoulder, to the
• 18:02
  hand as opposed to maybe the torso down.
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  And that's something that we really brought back.
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  And, and people don't define soccer or football in this case
• 18:12
  as as a rotational sport, but the amount of rotational work
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  that needs to be done for soccer athletes is something that I've
• 18:18
  really applied to baseball. And then really hockey also,
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  because everything is happening rotationally with these
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  athletes. They're kicking and that's a
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  rotational, like a kicker for football is as rotational as a
• 18:30
  baseball player because of how their hips have to work and, and
• 18:33
  how their torso has to stabilize and things like that.
• 18:36
  Those are the things that we severely brought back and
• 18:39
  applied to baseball on a regular basis.
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  Their recovery modalities that they were doing the -3 -, 2 -, 1
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  + a zero day plus 1 + 2 + 3 on recovery is something that I
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  implement with with our starting pitchers regularly.
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  Now more on the -2 minus one 0 + 1 + 2.
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  So game day for guys that are on five day rotation.
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  So those recovery procedures and things are because they were at
• 19:04
  the time were very advanced and, and honestly, they probably
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  still are ahead of the curve in professional sports, but how
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  they're doing game day to game day, those are things that we're
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  applying to our athletes on a regular basis.
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  So hugely beneficial to just see that scope, see it from a
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  different lens and then try to come back and go, OK, how can
• 19:21
  that benefit our players here? I know you said it's mostly
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  anecdotal at this point. If I had to hypothesize, I would
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  guess you're seeing a lot of intrapersonal improvements.
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  So if you take you as a thrower, we get you to run faster, you
• 19:41
  likely can express greater force thus throw harder.
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  As opposed to just looking across the board at all these
• 19:47
  athletes Sprint speeds and just be able to toss a simple 1 to 1
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  correlation of like oh this guy runs the fastest so he'll throw
• 19:56
  the hardest. I assume a lot of it's if you
• 19:58
  can get an individual to express force better in whichever
• 20:02
  capacity that is, whether it is lower body, it's jumping,
• 20:06
  sprinting. Acceleration, stopping force,
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  breaking force. I assume it's just because their
• 20:11
  ability to express force improved.
• 20:15
  They likely can express that force better through the hand
• 20:18
  and out through the ball. Yeah, Yeah.
• 20:20
  So the globally they're moving, they're moving faster and, and
• 20:23
  whether a guy runs AA5540 and, and he improves like that speed
• 20:29
  expression is going to likely improve their ability to throw
• 20:33
  the ball faster, which is now, I'm not saying that we're
• 20:38
  sprinting guys every day, but I do think that sprinting is
• 20:42
  something that should be in a, in a quality program.
• 20:44
  And we use those type of things for, for our throwing athletes
• 20:48
  on a regular basis. And again, something that I
• 20:51
  think isn't, isn't all that magnified by all the, let's say
• 20:55
  what's called velocity programs that are out there.
• 20:58
  I don't think if I can say it like tread and driveline are
• 21:01
  known for their sprinting programs that they have.
• 21:04
  But for for me and how I've developed programming for my
• 21:09
  throwing athletes, it is always some sort of Sprint mechanism
• 21:14
  that's that's worked into the to the programming model for sure.
• 21:18
  As long as they can, as long as they're healthy enough to to
• 21:20
  Sprint, they are definitely sprinting.
• 21:22
  And the models that I'm creating currently.
• 21:25
  I think that is something that I'm thankful to have now seen
• 21:30
  kind of across the board in the industry, going back to treating
• 21:34
  baseball players and throwers specifically as more generalized
• 21:38
  athletes, treating them as individuals who need to be able
• 21:42
  to express force in a lot of ways.
• 21:44
  And if we can build the most robust athlete possible who can
• 21:49
  Sprint and can jump and can rotate and can throw, they are
• 21:52
  ultimately going to be able to see better outputs in their
• 21:57
  specific skill when it comes time to express that skill.
• 22:01
  Whereas five years ago maybe was the peak of we need to
• 22:08
  individualize and specialize in every single thing we do, which
• 22:13
  was we had, we need to express force at the shoulder and we
• 22:17
  need to be able to rotate really freaking hard.
• 22:20
  So everything we were seeing was radar gunning Med balls
• 22:24
  constantly, which I still think is a valuable exercise.
• 22:28
  I'm not saying it isn't. But five, maybe 10 years ago is
• 22:32
  when we were seeing like, Oh, well, the way we can make this
• 22:35
  exercise better is by putting a glove on this player's hand
• 22:39
  while they're performing the exercise.
• 22:41
  It's it being it being in this industry as long as I've have
• 22:45
  I've, I mean, I remember going back to like when, you know,
• 22:49
  athletes were too lordotic and we had to Add all the corrective
• 22:53
  modeling for anterior core strength because guys were
• 22:56
  having too much. The interior pelvic tilt.
• 23:00
  Yeah, there, there was too much of that.
• 23:02
  And, and so then it, it became like all corrective exercise and
• 23:05
  then it was then it was all lateral stability.
• 23:08
  And that, you know, we, we, we seem to find in our, in, in this
• 23:11
  industry, we seem to find all these like we, we skew the
• 23:15
  models one way and then we find out you're going to come back
• 23:17
  and we always end up in the middle in some capacity.
• 23:20
  Or mentality for sure. Yeah, and, and I just now I'm,
• 23:24
  you know, you say like Med balls and was like how much high speed
• 23:28
  velocity can you can you create during your rotation modelling
• 23:32
  now or your programming? And now I think there there's
• 23:35
  going to be a combination of, of how much you can rotate and, and
• 23:39
  how fast you should rotate. And really are we delaying
• 23:42
  rotation as much as we can and then and then bringing it all at
• 23:45
  once. And, and these guys now with
• 23:48
  with that is you're seeing this, this drop in Dr. modeling and,
• 23:51
  and more hinging. And now we're finding for us,
• 23:54
  we're finding that there's, there's kind of two different
• 23:56
  types of, of throwers, a guy that's got a hip hinge a little
• 23:59
  bit. And then there's these guys that
• 24:00
  have to go up and create momentum down and they follow
• 24:03
  the slope of the mound. And, and we, we have to develop
• 24:06
  our programming based on the athlete that is in front of us.
• 24:09
  And I think that's there's too much of this profile and these
• 24:12
  young kids are all trying to follow one different scope of
• 24:15
  like what they see successfully done.
• 24:17
  Paul Skeens does this or school does this and, and we got to do
• 24:21
  that and, and really maybe that doesn't work for how they move.
• 24:26
  We have, we've had a considerable lot of, of pitchers
• 24:29
  that are now these momentum pitchers that are kind of up to
• 24:31
  down and they work very differently than some of these
• 24:35
  hip hinge style pitching that that I think everybody is
• 24:38
  chasing. And I got to coil my hip just
• 24:41
  enough. And you know, honestly, like I'm
• 24:43
  so over all these different models.
• 24:46
  I I really what I want to see is I want to see people start from
• 24:49
  the ground up and work more foundationally.
• 24:52
  Everybody I got 12 year olds throwing weighted balls and
• 24:55
  they're they're patterning, they're throwing and they don't
• 24:58
  do enough that you want to get off on a tangent.
• 25:01
  These young athletes might my sons play 1011 and 12 years old
• 25:05
  and they don't play enough catch.
• 25:07
  Just get out there and play catch and when develop an arm
• 25:09
  path and we're trying to push these like arm modeling systems
• 25:14
  early and, and their coaches are out there with 7-8 oz baseball.
• 25:18
  So that are thrown into the wall and I just, I, I don't see it's
• 25:21
  the the best players that I deal with.
• 25:23
  They're like, man, what happened to playing catch like and, and,
• 25:27
  and young development and things They didn't, they didn't go
• 25:30
  through these these programs. I remember Verlander because
• 25:32
  obviously he's a, he's a Tiger and he's a Tiger for life, by
• 25:35
  the way. He doesn't matter who else he
• 25:38
  plays for, Tiger for. Life yeah, he's always going to
• 25:40
  be a Tiger here. And and he was back and he was
• 25:42
  doing an interview a couple like a couple months ago and he was
• 25:44
  just like I, I, I played catch early in my career and I didn't
• 25:48
  throw 95 when I was a sophomore in high school.
• 25:51
  He didn't because we're the same age and we actually went to the
• 25:53
  same showcase early. I was a terrible baseball
• 25:57
  player. He wasn't, but I, you know, he
• 26:01
  did not throw that when he was when he was that young.
• 26:05
  And then it kind of developed over time.
• 26:07
  And those are the things that I feel like get off tangent
• 26:10
  because you see it on on TV and these guys are such data points
• 26:15
  and like they're, they're modeling early in in their
• 26:18
  career wasn't what you see today.
• 26:20
  And it's this build up over time.
• 26:22
  And even the best players that we have in our stable now, or
• 26:25
  it's the same way they've gotten better as Major League Baseball
• 26:28
  players, they didn't start like that.
• 26:29
  So that's it's a very big thing for me as the foundational stuff
• 26:34
  I think is really skipped over. That's what we're trying to
• 26:38
  implement early. I think foundational is really
• 26:41
  the perfect word to describe it. Earlier you said start from the
• 26:45
  ground up and I, I think although that is specific for
• 26:49
  the way to look at throwing or help an athlete developer,
• 26:52
  that's probably how you use it there.
• 26:54
  I really think that that goes across the industry when it
• 26:58
  comes to athletic development and my my take when it comes to
• 27:03
  developing throwers, however you think the right way to do it,
• 27:08
  fine by me, sure. But what you cannot convince me
• 27:12
  of, no matter what, is that the way you throw a baseball when
• 27:15
  you're 10 is going to be the same way you throw it when
• 27:17
  you're 12, and that's going to be the same you throw it when
• 27:19
  you're 15182432 if you're so fortunate to play that long.
• 27:25
  And if that's the case, why are we trying to ingrain a specific
• 27:30
  pattern at such a young age when, let's face it, that is not
• 27:35
  how, that is not how athleticism is expressed, ever.
• 27:41
  It changes on every single thrower in every single action.
• 27:45
  So why not create, again, the word I used earlier, the most
• 27:48
  robust system possible for an athlete.
• 27:51
  And whether that's the most robust training or the most
• 27:54
  robust throwing program, I don't care how it gets written, but
• 27:58
  I'm a huge proponent that we need to expose athletes to as
• 28:01
  many different things as possible.
• 28:03
  And what's kind of funny is a great way to do that is through
• 28:06
  the simplicity of catch or going.
• 28:09
  And I mean, we called it butts up.
• 28:11
  I mean, basically wall ball. We we did it for 35 minutes
• 28:15
  during a recess session. We would just go grab a tennis
• 28:17
  ball and Chuck it at the wall as hard as we could and try to hit
• 28:20
  our friends in the back as they ran at the wall.
• 28:22
  And then if they got out enough times, we threw it at their
• 28:25
  asses. Hence what's up.
• 28:27
  But what that forced is throwing side arm and throwing on the run
• 28:30
  and jump throwing and doing all the things which thankfully
• 28:34
  you're starting to trickle their way back in.
• 28:36
  But because of the specificity that we talked about earlier,
• 28:40
  everything in our industry became so focused on patterning
• 28:44
  and perfection rather than exposure.
• 28:48
  And I really think sometimes perfection can be the enemy of
• 28:52
  exposure because we're chasing one desired result that frankly
• 28:56
  is never going to come. And it sounds like that is a
• 28:59
  battle that you are fighting daily.
• 29:02
  Yeah, I mean, even where we're at the competition to move into
• 29:05
  high level collegiate play is is, I mean it, it's like
• 29:09
  everywhere else. Everybody wants to make it to
• 29:11
  Division One school and things like that.
• 29:13
  And you know, a lot of these players now that are, are maybe
• 29:16
  not getting in the, OR getting the accolades of those, those
• 29:20
  higher level power for teams are actually the ones that sometimes
• 29:23
  make it the farthest because they have to reinvent
• 29:25
  themselves. And they didn't throw as hard
• 29:28
  early, but they figured out, they stayed in the game long
• 29:30
  enough that they were able to adjust their modeling and adjust
• 29:33
  their, their throwing potential over time and, and improve.
• 29:37
  And they continue to my, my collegiate coach from, from
• 29:42
  Wayne, he was like, you just got to continue to kind of improve
• 29:45
  over time. And instead of having these huge
• 29:48
  spikes where there didn't seemingly be a space to move to,
• 29:52
  if you have this big spike and these younger kids, these 12
• 29:55
  year olds and 13 year olds, and they're so enamored by trying to
• 29:57
  throw 80 or 82 or 83 and get on pace to throw 95 when they're a
• 30:02
  senior in in the high school. And it just doesn't seem like
• 30:06
  they have the, the bandwidth and and really durability to sustain
• 30:10
  these things over time. My big focus has been to provide
• 30:15
  the foundation that seems to get passed over early in that early,
• 30:21
  those early years, trying to improved that so fast.
• 30:25
  If we can create the foundation, they're going to have that
• 30:27
  better peak and they're going to be able to improve over a longer
• 30:30
  period of time. And if they get there too early,
• 30:33
  but I mean, the blowout scenario is huge and, and the injury set
• 30:36
  back scenario is huge, especially around us in the in
• 30:39
  this area, because they're trying to trying to exceed that
• 30:43
  ability too quickly and they're not ready for it.
• 30:45
  They're, they're overpowered under infrastructure, you know,
• 30:48
  as, as we'll say a lot in this area.
• 30:51
  And, and that could be full body, that could be a partial
• 30:54
  piece of their body that's not ready to, to get to that point.
• 30:57
  But I to me, if we can build an athlete that is globally strong,
• 31:01
  somebody that can be durable and somebody that can accept forces,
• 31:06
  then they have a better chance to throw harder and, and, and go
• 31:09
  further in their careers. So that's our focus, especially
• 31:12
  because we mostly our business deals with those developmental
• 31:17
  ages, you know, 12 to 18 years old.
• 31:19
  And a lot of reasons why I think we have such a a very good
• 31:23
  population around us as a lot of these these athletes are home
• 31:26
  grown. It's not like people that were
• 31:28
  in Florida move up to Michigan. I mean, we have a large
• 31:31
  population because we have a lot of good places like, like ours,
• 31:35
  not just us, but we have a lot of good places up here that are,
• 31:38
  that are exposing these athletes to the right stuff and, and
• 31:41
  creating a long career paths for these athletes who end up living
• 31:45
  here and, and creating families and, and staying up here and,
• 31:48
  and it creates that culture around us.
• 31:50
  So I think it's a lot a big part of the development of our area.
• 31:55
  Even though you said in your local area you're you're dealing
• 31:59
  with athletes trying to set a proper infrastructure or
• 32:03
  construct the proper infrastructure for 12 to 18 year
• 32:07
  olds. It's not just limited to those
• 32:09
  ages. I know of at least two injuries
• 32:12
  that I've had conversations either with their camps or with
• 32:16
  these individuals from the MLB or high level professional
• 32:21
  baseball this offseason that quite frankly, they likely got
• 32:26
  hurt because they gained 4 mph in the offseason.
• 32:31
  And we all want to throw harder because throwing harder is
• 32:36
  ultimately the gateway or the amazing glass door sliding door
• 32:41
  that will open up these new opportunities for us in the
• 32:44
  sport. I am not naive to that, trust
• 32:46
  me, I get it. The harder you throw, the more
• 32:48
  opportunities that you have as an individual in this game.
• 32:53
  However, the harder you throw, the more inherent risk you have
• 32:57
  because your body now has new torques and new forces that it
• 33:01
  has to deal with. So every incremental gain that
• 33:05
  you make, you also need to be able to handle it.
• 33:09
  And it sounds like it has really come through.
• 33:11
  And what you've tried to express is that to an extent we don't
• 33:15
  want to delay development, but if we can constantly, I guess,
• 33:21
  scale at a safe pace, we are going to be better off in the
• 33:26
  long run. I mean what, what is the what is
• 33:29
  the average mile per hour gone up in the major leagues over the
• 33:32
  last couple of years? Was it like 93.3 a couple years
• 33:35
  ago? Now it's like 95 one or
• 33:37
  something. Yeah, the the most insane stat
• 33:39
  imaginable is the average right-handed starter in 2026 is
• 33:44
  throwing a 95.2 mile an hour fastball.
• 33:48
  I just talked about this on a podcast maybe two or three weeks
• 33:51
  ago. That means the single most stock
• 33:56
  pitcher you could ever imagine is throwing 95.2 mph.
• 34:01
  If you threw 95.2 mph. I graduated high school in 2012.
• 34:06
  I graduated College in 2016. Even if we go to 2016, so my
• 34:11
  last possible draft year, if you SAT the average 95.2 mph,
• 34:17
  without a doubt you were the consensus number one overall
• 34:20
  pick. You are getting millions tossed
• 34:22
  at you and you are a no doubt break the bank on it.
• 34:27
  Surefire number one overall selection being touted as a
• 34:31
  future Hall of Famer and now you were the single most stock
• 34:34
  pitcher imaginable. It is really interesting because
• 34:37
  we've had last year we had a couple, we had a couple pictures
• 34:39
  that improved. I think we went up .7 in average
• 34:46
  Velo over over the the four scene fastball.
• 34:50
  I was getting calls on a regular basis asking us what we did for
• 34:54
  our Velo program. And to me like we don't
• 34:58
  particularly run any Velo particular programs per SE where
• 35:02
  we're doing weighted Vol or implementation things like that.
• 35:06
  You know, I am a strength coach at its core, at its core and
• 35:09
  we're just trying to improve how the body moves and in the
• 35:13
  moments in which it it, it kind of moves through.
• 35:16
  So I only come at it from that perspective.
• 35:19
  And one of our guys average fastballs was went from 9, 95,
• 35:25
  eight to like 96 four or something like that on the year.
• 35:29
  And was that point point .6 plus.
• 35:32
  And when we're getting those, we're getting those type of
• 35:34
  calls and, and, and these people that are exceeding 234 miles an
• 35:38
  hour and then all of a sudden they're so susceptible to blow
• 35:41
  out at that point, right? And you look at and you go, OK,
• 35:44
  what is a responsible improvement over a season?
• 35:47
  And, and the number of throws that they're going to make, if
• 35:50
  you're a starter and you're doing 3030 plus starts, I mean,
• 35:54
  you could have 2500 pitches in a year.
• 35:58
  And so to have a four plus mile per hour improvement over 2500
• 36:04
  or 26 or 2700 pitches in the seat, not to mention the number
• 36:08
  of throws that are support throws for that, right?
• 36:10
  So at the point at which you're warming up and you're going
• 36:13
  through your bullpens, if you do a bullpen between starts and
• 36:16
  things like that, I mean, the number of throws could be, it
• 36:18
  could exceed 45000IN a season. You don't understand how those
• 36:22
  just add up. You're just counting the number
• 36:23
  that are in particular between the lines during an officiated
• 36:28
  event, right? And then if you're if you're
• 36:31
  trying to add throws to that or if you're adding, if you're
• 36:34
  burning bullets to achieve that 4 miles an hour, that's a
• 36:37
  question in itself. So if I'm doing weighted ball
• 36:40
  programs, things like that and them sound like super anti
• 36:43
  weighted balls, which I'm not, I just think they have to be used
• 36:45
  at the appropriate time for the appropriate reason at the
• 36:48
  appropriate moment. That's a that's a whole other
• 36:51
  thing. You know, those are those are
• 36:53
  throws that are getting burned. The arm can only do so much.
• 36:57
  And so I remember going back to guy Justin Ornduff, who I've
• 37:01
  talked to a number of years since the beginning of his
• 37:04
  career. And we were talking about the
• 37:05
  number of throws or number of innings to, you know, that are
• 37:09
  recorded before average blowout, right.
• 37:11
  And like at the time it was like 16-17 hundred innings.
• 37:14
  You know, now guys aren't lasting there.
• 37:17
  There's there's data that's going out there.
• 37:18
  That's, you know, if if you get past 350 innings in the major
• 37:22
  leagues, you will likely last a certain period of time after
• 37:25
  that. But if you don't last 350
• 37:27
  innings before you have some sort of set back, then your
• 37:31
  career might not exceed a certain number of years.
• 37:34
  So we have to consider how many throws we got to make to
• 37:37
  actually achieve that mile per hour and if it's worth is, is
• 37:40
  the juice worth the squeeze at that point to escalate 2-3 miles
• 37:45
  an hour for a shorter career? Yeah.
• 37:48
  You know, these guys are data points in their selves too,
• 37:50
  right? Like guys are thrown above 95.
• 37:53
  I don't think people are considering how many people that
• 37:55
  maybe be able to throw that but actually stay with it for a
• 37:58
  certain period of time. You know, going back to my
• 38:02
  Verlander, I mean, how many, how many years he threw 15 years or
• 38:05
  17 years before he actually ended up damaging himself?
• 38:09
  Is that just him being him? Yeah.
• 38:12
  You know, it's it's it's like he was just resilient to being able
• 38:16
  to throw that long that hard. I don't know if there's a
• 38:20
  program that we could ever design that would be able to
• 38:24
  mimic that longevity at that Velo so.
• 38:27
  You bring up such an interesting case and I wish there was a way
• 38:31
  to retroactively go back and study every single thing these
• 38:36
  guys have ever done. The ones like Justin Verlander
• 38:40
  who really have had clean careers versus another guy, you
• 38:46
  Darvish, who has been, I don't want to say injury plagued, but
• 38:51
  he's dealt with a fair share of things.
• 38:53
  And you can look at the way he throws and there's probably a
• 38:55
  handful of people that would say he looks impeccable.
• 39:00
  Like I would never ever even consider changing a thing.
• 39:04
  And you can look at the way he takes care of his body very
• 39:08
  similarly, like who's going to make an adjustment of what he
• 39:11
  does, the way he the way he can move, how pliable he is, how he
• 39:16
  can control force in different ranges.
• 39:18
  But he's a guy that has had multiple elbow surgeries.
• 39:21
  He's missed a ton of time. Justin Verlander, I know his
• 39:24
  shoulder has barked on him once, maybe twice, but later in his
• 39:29
  career, I don't know, like who's to say one of them did it right
• 39:33
  and one of them did it wrong? Like these are these are guys
• 39:36
  that are Uber talented, that can express force with the best of
• 39:40
  them. I wish, I wish there was a way
• 39:42
  that we could go back and just try to go through with a fine
• 39:47
  tooth comb. I'm just not convinced anybody
• 39:49
  has figured out that piece of the that piece of the puzzle
• 39:53
  somebody throws hard that can withstand the longevity of of a
• 39:57
  career. It is.
• 39:58
  It is a extremely hard to be a MLB pitcher.
• 40:03
  It doesn't Even if you throw 95. These guys are so good at
• 40:07
  adapting to that Velo, right? Several of the pitchers that I
• 40:11
  have dealt with in the big leagues who were had early
• 40:13
  success have significantly changed their pitch arsenal to
• 40:17
  adjust and accommodate the hitters responding to that
• 40:22
  original pitch arsenal that was. Successful.
• 40:25
  So even if their resilience has been good, their forces are
• 40:30
  going to have to change depending on how they grip the
• 40:32
  ball and, and what they're trying to do and what their
• 40:35
  usage is over time. And they're changing their usage
• 40:39
  based on their pitch choice and, and those change stresses.
• 40:42
  And so I feel like we're always accommodating what the previous
• 40:46
  year held for that particular athlete.
• 40:49
  So you can package up as many jobs, drills and, and pitchers
• 40:53
  10s you want to put together. But there is not a method that
• 40:56
  has been proven that is going to carry these guys that magically
• 41:01
  find 4 miles an hour for 10 years.
• 41:04
  There just isn't. And I think for guys like me in
• 41:06
  the, in the private sector, we're, we're kind of looking at
• 41:10
  a lot of the options that they have and, and trying to really
• 41:13
  diagnose what their season provide, the stress that their
• 41:18
  season provides and then reacting to it over time.
• 41:20
  And that's where it found tools like I'm not trying to pump the,
• 41:23
  the whole Flex pro tool itself, but like there are tools that
• 41:28
  we've implemented and I think have started to help accommodate
• 41:32
  some of some of these type of things.
• 41:33
  So I, I'm, I'm personally biased to Hawking dynamic with with
• 41:37
  their usage, right? And and we're using their true
• 41:40
  strength devices for something that I found really useful for
• 41:44
  our pitchers that I think have seen a lot of success,
• 41:48
  particularly in lower bodies. We, we use a lot of lower body
• 41:51
  AD and AB duction type type test to, to let us know whether or
• 41:56
  not we feel like the lower body is adequately contributing to
• 42:00
  their ability to throw hard, which is something that I don't,
• 42:03
  I don't feel like people are, are looking at their like, OK,
• 42:05
  what's their, what's their range of motion?
• 42:07
  How much IRER do they have in a particular motion?
• 42:10
  Things like that or strength in, in, in let's say supine 9090.
• 42:17
  I feel like these pictures are getting into such retraction
• 42:19
  next to a rotation that that might not even be a a super
• 42:22
  useful metric anymore because I you see them get so deep into
• 42:27
  retraction and then they get so, so deep into lay back.
• 42:32
  Maybe we're not even looking at the right location of the the
• 42:36
  test in that particular scenario.
• 42:40
  I guess I'm explaining that kind of weird, but they're, they're
• 42:43
  getting in this inside of the game.
• 42:45
  They're getting into such bigger degrees of bigger angles that
• 42:51
  they're not the same as the testing that we're providing or
• 42:54
  in, in that objective tests that we're we're doing in, you know,
• 42:59
  what's called physical therapy or, you know, not even physical
• 43:02
  therapy, basic assessment. So it's like, and then they get
• 43:08
  hurt and then they get hurt and you wonder why it's like, are
• 43:11
  they strong in the in, in the angle that they actually
• 43:13
  achieve? Because they are now fully
• 43:16
  torqued within, within their delivery and they're in some
• 43:20
  sort of rotation and external rotation, lay back at the same
• 43:23
  time. And then they try to bring it
• 43:25
  all forward. And to be honest with you, I
• 43:27
  don't think that these pitchers, they train heavy enough either.
• 43:30
  That's it. That's a whole another thing
• 43:31
  over time because they always want to feel good, you know,
• 43:34
  with throwing motions. So then does that force, kind of
• 43:38
  the force that they're able to achieve or, or need to be able
• 43:41
  to, to throw that hard over time really degrade once they get
• 43:45
  fatigued because they don't have enough strength to carry them
• 43:48
  over, say, 80 to 110 pitches in a game?
• 43:52
  And do you think that specific take training hard enough?
• 43:56
  Do you think that is year round offseason in season?
• 44:01
  I'm very curious. Yeah, because.
• 44:05
  And then I I want to get into some monitoring stuff because
• 44:08
  you provided the perfect segue for the next topic that I really
• 44:11
  wanted to get into. So yeah, do you do you think
• 44:14
  guys are going hard enough year round or is it a seasonal thing
• 44:17
  that they kind of get scared of I.
• 44:19
  I think that, you know, with this is gonna this is gonna
• 44:23
  sound like a I'm anti league, but depending on depending on
• 44:30
  the the rotation right near 5 days.
• 44:33
  Are there going to be a six day in there occasionally?
• 44:35
  You know, I think all that's going to going to play week to
• 44:37
  week, right? So if you if you're coming back
• 44:39
  on four days, that's going to be a thing.
• 44:41
  Four day rest, five day rest. I think that the build up during
• 44:44
  pre season needs to be a little bit more personally. 25 pitches
• 44:48
  in the first outing, 35 pitches in the second outing.
• 44:51
  They get to 65 in the last outing and maybe they're on a
• 44:55
  backfield and that's that's not enough stimulus from an an
• 44:59
  intense standpoint. So I'm talking more skill
• 45:01
  specific at that point. But then they go into season and
• 45:04
  all of a sudden they hit 80 to 100 pitches and and that's not
• 45:07
  enough. Rant on ramp.
• 45:09
  I think they should they should be giving them a little bit more
• 45:12
  on ramp as far as numbers of pitches, but at the same time,
• 45:15
  how do you how do you mix in the strength and intensity within
• 45:19
  that? I think that needs to be ramped
• 45:21
  up also earlier in the in the preseason.
• 45:23
  They're not offseason is, is is an interesting thing because if,
• 45:27
  if an athlete's trying to make it and stay there, their, their
• 45:30
  mindset is a lot different than somebody that's there and being
• 45:33
  paid. Those guys that tend to be
• 45:36
  younger, tend to be stronger and, and more antique resilient,
• 45:40
  whereas guys that are in the league are, are probably wanting
• 45:44
  to feel a little bit better and, and they they don't maybe do as
• 45:48
  much once they make it. And so to me, this, this idea of
• 45:51
  like micro dosing within the season is becomes more of a
• 45:54
  thing. I'm not trying to do as much in
• 45:55
  a particular day, but I'm doing things more regularly.
• 45:59
  And I think a lot of pitchers are moving towards that modeling
• 46:03
  as opposed to taking one day and having like a super high
• 46:05
  intensity day during the season and then they're sore for a
• 46:08
  couple days after. We it seems like the the
• 46:11
  modeling for the pitcher now is a lot more.
• 46:14
  I don't want to be sore right anytime.
• 46:17
  And so as I look at in season program, I'm trying to find ways
• 46:21
  to not create much soreness and still have good strength
• 46:25
  feedback. So we're doing high intensity
• 46:27
  days, pretty low volume, let's say.
• 46:30
  And so are the pitchers that I've been working with and and
• 46:32
  overtime we've been going more towards that.
• 46:35
  But I, I want them doing more longer deeper into the season
• 46:39
  because as the back half of the season comes, they tend to start
• 46:43
  to see some V low dips and some my arms a little bit sore.
• 46:46
  And, and, and something that hit me early in my career is, is
• 46:50
  pain sometimes can be a result of strength loss, right?
• 46:55
  So like my question would become is, is, is there does injury
• 47:00
  start to or set back start to come when strength is lost?
• 47:05
  And, and that doesn't necessarily mean like gross
• 47:08
  strength or like I can I bench press £250.
• 47:11
  That's not what I'm talking about.
• 47:12
  Just generally speaking, once I lose some of that ability, does
• 47:16
  does do those things start to creep in?
• 47:18
  And I, I would argue that that is the case over a long period
• 47:21
  of time. And again, an MLB season is
• 47:24
  absolutely grueling when you factor in all the travel and in
• 47:28
  nights, in nights out, late, late nights, their sleep is
• 47:31
  deprived in some cases, right. And some guys don't know how to
• 47:34
  bring it down South. There's a lot of factors that I
• 47:36
  think that people don't consider.
• 47:38
  They think it's a cushy life and being on an airplane is awesome.
• 47:41
  But you know, when you're in a pressurized tube for 10 for 10
• 47:45
  hours and then you got to get off the plane and you don't have
• 47:48
  any sleep and you got to go out there and perform, I mean,
• 47:51
  that's, that's something that's very difficult, right?
• 47:53
  And that and that in itself degrades strength and degrades
• 47:58
  recovery over time. So I mean, these are all factors
• 48:01
  that I'm trying to figure out on a regular basis.
• 48:03
  How do we improve? I don't know if that answers the
• 48:05
  question, but those are the thoughts that come to my head
• 48:08
  when we're talking about where can we, where can we place those
• 48:13
  strength bouts in, in a season that doesn't have any days off?
• 48:19
  The natural next question is when you are directly involved
• 48:24
  with monitoring for a player, what are things you are looking
• 48:28
  at? So the guys that you do have
• 48:30
  hands on touches with during the year, regular calls, how are you
• 48:35
  guys structuring in season monitoring?
• 48:38
  Well, I, I mean, typically we'll, we'll, we'll talk about
• 48:40
  the first thing is, is like, how are you feeling on a day-to-day
• 48:43
  basis? Are you feeling rundown?
• 48:45
  Did you get enough sleep? What is your hydration like?
• 48:48
  And, and I'm not on the nutritional side that often, but
• 48:51
  it is something to think about. Are they getting enough recovery
• 48:54
  sleep? Most of the guys that I talked
• 48:57
  to in season are pitchers at this point with it.
• 48:59
  The position players seem to have, they don't seem to be as
• 49:03
  train wrecked after an outing right there there.
• 49:06
  I think their inputs are a little bit more consistent.
• 49:09
  So they they don't feel as run down after a single bout like
• 49:13
  like the pitchers that I deal with.
• 49:14
  So from the pitching perspective, the next day is
• 49:18
  how's the shoulder feel? How's the back feel?
• 49:19
  You know, kind of those spots that you would think that would
• 49:23
  be sore and then we're OK. What are we looking at this
• 49:26
  week? How many days off are we going
• 49:28
  to have? Is there going to be an extra
• 49:29
  day off? Are we going to use those extra
• 49:33
  days off to input strength out? And it's really going to go off
• 49:36
  a feel on a regular basis. Because if, if the athlete isn't
• 49:39
  feeling about it, to try to stuff it into me is, is really
• 49:44
  hard. We can get him to grind it
• 49:46
  through, but we're going to pay for that on the back end of the
• 49:48
  season. So if we get good recovery and,
• 49:52
  and, and they're feeling better, we, we, I tend to have the more
• 49:56
  ability to slip things in that are going to pay off on the
• 50:01
  wall, you know, at the, at the end of the season.
• 50:03
  Well, and I would tell you, you know, that's, I'm talking into
• 50:07
  the playoffs, you know, too. So that's when it really gets
• 50:10
  grindy for some of these guys and they don't want to do
• 50:13
  anything. So any inputs that we can have
• 50:16
  right now are really going to significantly pay off better at
• 50:20
  the end of the season and really try and just uphold as much
• 50:23
  strength and hold on to as much strength as we can now is going
• 50:27
  to be a benefit later. Now here's a specific question
• 50:32
  that probably applies to, I don't know, maybe a grand total
• 50:36
  of like 6 listeners of the podcast.
• 50:39
  But when guys are spending that much time on an airplane, what
• 50:43
  do you encourage them to do to down regulate?
• 50:46
  For me personally, I can tell you I don't like flying.
• 50:50
  It freaks me out. It doesn't matter how much I
• 50:52
  fly, I continue to operate in this fight or flight state.
• 50:57
  Thus, when I land, I am exhausted.
• 51:00
  It doesn't matter. I've taken a lot of plane trips
• 51:03
  in my life. I'm fortunate to say that I
• 51:05
  understand it. However, it wrecks me
• 51:08
  emotionally, mentally, and physically.
• 51:10
  I can't imagine I am the only one in that boat.
• 51:15
  So please, even if this is personal for me I I'd love to
• 51:19
  have any advice you can offer. Yeah, it's such a deep thing and
• 51:25
  we've toyed with a lot of different ways to to cope with a
• 51:29
  pressurized tube that you're going to be in for 3456 hours,
• 51:33
  right. The number one thing I, I would,
• 51:35
  I would want my athlete to do or somebody that was getting on a
• 51:39
  plane would be hydrate really well.
• 51:41
  Try not to hit that many carbs before you get on the plane
• 51:46
  hours in advance because when you do that, you tend to
• 51:51
  inflamed the body that that pressurization kind of really
• 51:54
  messes with your internal workings and that become that
• 51:58
  becomes an issue. And then the last thing I want
• 52:00
  guys to do is, is is drink on a plane, which in baseball, that's
• 52:04
  kind of a common thing to do when you're on the plane,
• 52:07
  whether that be a glass of wine or a beer or something like that
• 52:10
  to kind of wind down. But these guys want to get into
• 52:14
  recovery mode. That is not the way to do it.
• 52:16
  I don't exactly know what happens on some of these planes,
• 52:19
  but like, like that's and, and, and try to not eat a ton of food
• 52:22
  while they're on them, even though sometimes that's just not
• 52:25
  the case. They get out, they get done with
• 52:27
  the game, they go straight to the airport and then they're
• 52:29
  they're flying out. And that's just not an option.
• 52:30
  And one of the things that I I don't think the normal person
• 52:34
  understands about high level athletics is nothing that a
• 52:38
  Major League Baseball player or an NHL player or anything has
• 52:41
  anything to do with them being a well functioning human being.
• 52:44
  Like, yeah, high performance athlete has high, high
• 52:49
  performance problems. They just have found a way to
• 52:51
  cope with these things, whether that be get on the plane and
• 52:54
  operate with only four hours sleep or, you know, drink.
• 52:58
  Like they just deal with it better than than a lot of people
• 53:01
  that you see. John Carlos Stanton is a statue
• 53:04
  of a human being. If a regular person operated
• 53:06
  like he did, like he does it the way that he keeps muscle on his
• 53:10
  body or like it was some of these guys that look like
• 53:12
  statues is crazy to me because the normal human being would
• 53:15
  just disintegrate with the type of with the type of travel and
• 53:21
  and how they have to turn themselves on.
• 53:23
  I mean, when I was a player, we used to have a coffee pot in the
• 53:26
  dugout to keep us awake because at 7:05 start, I mean, we were
• 53:30
  still flying until 10, you know, 2:00 AM in the morning.
• 53:33
  So it was a I don't think people are trying to drink that much
• 53:37
  caffeine or whatever they do to, to, to, to be awake at the times
• 53:42
  that they have to be. Those are problems that that the
• 53:44
  normal person does not understand that they have to
• 53:48
  deal with being extraordinarily awake and and alert to get the
• 53:53
  best hitters out in the world. It's mind blowing to me how they
• 53:56
  do it. And then of course shut it off
• 53:58
  so then they can recover and hopefully do it.
• 54:00
  Yeah. And then 2:00 AM around and
• 54:02
  you're like, OK, I need to get things.
• 54:03
  Imagine. And I got to do it again in five
• 54:06
  days. Right.
• 54:07
  And then you wonder why guys develop dependencies on
• 54:10
  different substances and things like that.
• 54:12
  It is an unfortunate cycle and it's the downside, the less
• 54:16
  talked about side of professional athletics and we
• 54:19
  don't need to open up that that door too much.
• 54:22
  I'm sure you you've seen it and probably had to put your arm
• 54:26
  around a guy here in there to to help them through some of those
• 54:29
  times. You're you're talking to a
• 54:30
  person that has has seen people from not well known to
• 54:36
  absolutely well, the majority of people that I've come across.
• 54:39
  I've I've never I've never gotten the first round pick
• 54:42
  delivered to my lap. I've I've always started at home
• 54:44
  plate and went all the way around the bases.
• 54:46
  Somebody that has they've been given, you know, a first round
• 54:49
  pick and, and started to work with them.
• 54:51
  So I've seen these guys kind of work through the process of
• 54:54
  becoming well known. And you know, you're talking to
• 54:57
  some of that totally believes that these people are paid every
• 55:00
  dollar they should because they, nobody sees the back hours that
• 55:04
  they put in. Nobody sees the, the turmoil and
• 55:08
  the, you know, the years of trying to grind it out that
• 55:12
  they've, that they've endured to now be on the stage where
• 55:16
  they're paid exponential dollars.
• 55:18
  But they didn't see when they were making, you know, before,
• 55:21
  before the new players agreement, when they were making
• 55:24
  $400.00 a month in the minor leagues, taking out loans on
• 55:28
  their credit cards to pay for food and, and doing all that.
• 55:33
  So I find professional sports extremely grueling and when
• 55:39
  these athletes are done, you just hope they continue to
• 55:41
  become healthier individuals over time because of the damage
• 55:45
  that they've done to their bodies and, and, and the
• 55:47
  endurance that they've had to go through so.
• 55:50
  Yeah, wow. This, this little part of the
• 55:54
  conversation I think has been really illuminating.
• 55:56
  It's been a lot of fun for me. And it's why I said I I like to
• 56:00
  just kind of see where conversations take us.
• 56:02
  So I appreciate you going down that road.
• 56:04
  There's a couple things we still haven't spent too much time on.
• 56:08
  So before I do let you go, I'd love to at least sprinkle those
• 56:11
  in and one of which is the hockey side of things.
• 56:15
  We, we've mentioned it a few times.
• 56:18
  You're still training a good bit of hockey players and my
• 56:21
  daughter's trying to make an appearance on the podcast in the
• 56:23
  background vocally, Hopefully my mic is pretty good and keeps her
• 56:26
  muted. Usually it does.
• 56:28
  We, we shall see what, what kind of crossovers or what kind of
• 56:34
  comparisons have you been able to make in your hockey athletes
• 56:37
  versus your baseball athletes? Again, I I don't know how much
• 56:40
  other people are going to really gain from this other than wow,
• 56:43
  that's really cool. I actually think that the the
• 56:46
  hockey guys have benefited from baseball background quite a bit.
• 56:50
  For me, I actually got into the major part of my hockey, we'll
• 56:54
  call it successor relationships, because of the background I had
• 56:58
  or gained from treating shoulders.
• 57:01
  The injuries themselves in hockey are really relatable.
• 57:05
  We have a ton of rotator cuff injuries.
• 57:07
  We have a ton of, we'll call it like scapular problems in
• 57:10
  hockey. They're forward fold during
• 57:13
  their skating position, but the majority of those injuries come
• 57:17
  from a collision base, not so much as a movement profile like
• 57:21
  a baseball player getting overhead.
• 57:23
  The rotator cuffs come from from getting banged into the boards.
• 57:27
  But really at the end of the day, a lot of their rehab is, is
• 57:30
  very similar. And so that's been a really,
• 57:33
  really interesting thing for me because I've I've gained a lot
• 57:36
  of clients that we never worked with before because they needed
• 57:40
  to go through shoulder rehab very similarly to a hockey
• 57:44
  player. Now they might not get overhead
• 57:45
  and they might not need the range of motion necessary
• 57:48
  necessarily that a baseball player needs, but they need a
• 57:51
  functioning rotator cuff. So a lot of those those injuries
• 57:57
  come from collisions and high speed contact that that they
• 58:00
  have. So I would say that in my
• 58:03
  career, the hockey players have benefited from the baseball
• 58:06
  background that we have within our our company and within the
• 58:09
  history that I've I've had. So that's how the relationship
• 58:12
  has been come. Now, if you take it to a sport,
• 58:14
  being able to shoot a puck and having the ability to rotate
• 58:16
  their their torso and and move their trunk, there's a lot of
• 58:20
  crossover there too. Because in hockey, because of
• 58:23
  the multi directionalness of the sport, being able to maneuver
• 58:28
  their torso like a baseball player helps them change
• 58:31
  direction. So being on a skate, they almost
• 58:34
  have to turn their foot 90° to the direction that they want to
• 58:37
  move. And that's something where they
• 58:39
  have to manipulate their upper body to be able to do that well.
• 58:42
  And then that crossover has been a big thing.
• 58:45
  So hockey and baseball, they're played on different surface,
• 58:48
  different temperature, different stick implements are very, very
• 58:53
  related. I would say the only thing
• 58:54
  that's relatively different is their arm moving above their
• 58:58
  head and, and really the Sprint factor, although there's a lot
• 59:01
  of crossover with their ability to Sprint hockey.
• 59:04
  Their, their, their feet may be a little bit abducted and their
• 59:08
  hip might be a little bit more abducted.
• 59:10
  But generally speaking, we would we love training sprints inside
• 59:14
  hockey as much as I do baseball, if that more.
• 59:17
  One other possible disconnect. I think a lot of people would
• 59:21
  see at least on the surface between baseball and hockey
• 59:25
  would be the cardiovascular requirements are.
• 59:28
  How are you addressing that in the training space?
• 59:31
  You know, it's interesting because as the pitch clock has
• 59:33
  become a thing, we've gone to a little bit more, a little bit
• 59:37
  more conditioning level, particularly with pitchers Now
• 59:39
  it wouldn't be, you know, our bouts are very much way shorter,
• 59:44
  but more, maybe more reps over over times.
• 59:48
  When we're training some of our pitchers, we're looking at quick
• 59:51
  3-4 second bouts, 1520 seconds off and done over 15 reps, We'll
• 59:56
  call them innings, things like that.
• 59:58
  And then repeated it after a rest period in hockey.
• 1:00:01
  Our durations could be in hockey.
• 1:00:03
  It's interesting because people would think that it's like 45
• 1:00:06
  seconds on and then their shift is off.
• 1:00:08
  They're actually much smaller than that.
• 1:00:10
  There might be an 8. 2nd followed by an 8 second float,
• 1:00:13
  followed by an 8 second on, followed by an 8 second float,
• 1:00:16
  followed by an 8 second on, which actually reflects a little
• 1:00:19
  bit more closer to what a baseball bout would be because
• 1:00:22
  they're not necessarily propelling themselves at full go
• 1:00:27
  on skates the entire time that they're out there.
• 1:00:29
  Now I will tell you that there are guys that have better motors
• 1:00:32
  than other guys, there's no doubt about that.
• 1:00:34
  But that kind of like 8 on, 8 off, 8 on, 8 off, 8 on, 8 off
• 1:00:39
  next shift is kind of really more so towards what, what
• 1:00:43
  baseball guys do. Like, you know, 4 seconds on, 15
• 1:00:46
  seconds off, 4 seconds on, 15 seconds off.
• 1:00:48
  And it lends itself a little bit more to that modeling.
• 1:00:51
  The baseball guys don't do nearly as much in between, we'll
• 1:00:55
  call it that rest period. But they're a little bit closer,
• 1:00:58
  more related than you would think just looking at it, I
• 1:01:02
  would say. So there's there's definitely
• 1:01:04
  some some cross related training that we've done.
• 1:01:09
  I'll do bike training, aerodyne bike training with our baseball
• 1:01:11
  players because maybe we don't want them to have as many foot
• 1:01:14
  contacts. Maybe they exceeded their foot
• 1:01:16
  contact that they needed for their sprints for that week.
• 1:01:19
  We'll do a lot of off ice training on our bike, rowing
• 1:01:21
  machine, things like that, in addition to sled drags and sled
• 1:01:25
  sprints, things of that nature too.
• 1:01:28
  Yeah, I find that area very interesting.
• 1:01:31
  Someone we've been fortunate enough to grow close to kind of
• 1:01:36
  over the past year is the head baseball strength coach at LSU,
• 1:01:40
  Chris Martin. And Chris Martin is a huge
• 1:01:42
  proponent of developing cardiovascular fitness for
• 1:01:47
  baseball players in general. That's probably his passion
• 1:01:50
  project right now more than anything else is Earlier we were
• 1:01:54
  talking about that pendulum swing of sports specificity.
• 1:01:57
  And for him, one of those that he's really trying to address is
• 1:02:01
  like, oh, baseball players don't need this cardiovascular base
• 1:02:05
  because the sport is so ballistic in nature.
• 1:02:10
  His take is not, not that it is a cardiovascular base sport, but
• 1:02:15
  if we have a greater cardiovascular base, we might be
• 1:02:18
  able to see faster recovery times in athletes and we will
• 1:02:22
  just have overall better baseline fitness and I guess
• 1:02:26
  sport expression for an athlete if they're able to handle.
• 1:02:31
  That greatest? Cardiovascular Stimulus.
• 1:02:34
  Oh man, a couple years ago we were, we were on this when the,
• 1:02:36
  when the pitch clock first came in.
• 1:02:38
  I, I think we had even even a year or two before that there
• 1:02:42
  were, there were starting to be some, some spring training slash
• 1:02:45
  minor league coaches that were, I don't know, they were doing
• 1:02:48
  some studies that were on what their average heart rate was for
• 1:02:52
  pitchers. And I think it was like 187
• 1:02:54
  beats per minute or something like that during an inning.
• 1:02:58
  I mean, like, to me that threw up a flag, right?
• 1:03:01
  Like right away. Like there is a cardiovascular
• 1:03:03
  component to what they're doing. And when the pitchcock came in,
• 1:03:07
  I mean, how many guys fell out immediately that couldn't keep
• 1:03:11
  up with the pace that the game now created?
• 1:03:14
  And to me, like I thought, I thought there's going to be
• 1:03:17
  major kickback. To me as, as an on watcher, some
• 1:03:19
  of that, I think that the pitch clock was one of the best things
• 1:03:22
  that ever came in, but it has created some some things that
• 1:03:25
  needed to be needed to be addressed.
• 1:03:28
  There is contribution to some of these, we'll call it setbacks or
• 1:03:31
  injuries that these guys are going through because they
• 1:03:33
  aren't recovering as well between ballistic events, which
• 1:03:37
  is basically you're trying to throw the ball as hard as you
• 1:03:39
  can every single Rep and you've got to do it on a 151820 second
• 1:03:44
  repeat mode, which wasn't the case before the pitch clock.
• 1:03:48
  So 100% that is, that is a contributing factor and
• 1:03:52
  something that we've definitely implemented into our programming
• 1:03:57
  that I think a lot of people are doing a good job of.
• 1:04:00
  I think there needs to definitely be more.
• 1:04:02
  We got to consider more as we progress forward with these
• 1:04:05
  guys, especially if they're throwing harder and harder and
• 1:04:08
  harder and, and it just, it never stops.
• 1:04:10
  I mean, who knows what it's going to be.
• 1:04:13
  I don't personally, I don't think they need to throw that
• 1:04:15
  much harder, but I mean, everybody's race to the top.
• 1:04:18
  But like, you know, guys are at this point, like how hard is
• 1:04:21
  hard enough? That's a question I have.
• 1:04:24
  Well, I guess that will always be defined by hitters ability to
• 1:04:27
  hit the ball. So either more movement or just
• 1:04:30
  throw it harder and get it by the bat.
• 1:04:32
  But time will only tell as you said, how hard is hard enough.
• 1:04:36
  But Joe, there's no question, we've been at this for a while.
• 1:04:40
  We've hit a ton of topics and I've really liked the direction
• 1:04:43
  of conversation today. Before I do let you go, normally
• 1:04:46
  I would say, is there anything else you feel we didn't cover?
• 1:04:49
  I know before we started, I wanted to talk very quickly at
• 1:04:53
  least about your kind of new mission to get out there and
• 1:04:58
  speak and be part of the education circuit.
• 1:05:00
  So I will steal your answer to is there anything else we didn't
• 1:05:05
  cover to I know what we didn't cover, which is kind of your
• 1:05:09
  your new passion to get out and help the industry advance.
• 1:05:14
  So I'd love if you could touch on that for a little bit.
• 1:05:17
  I don't even know what the real question is other than what's
• 1:05:20
  the motivation and what is it that you really feel you're well
• 1:05:24
  positioned to share? Yeah.
• 1:05:25
  I mean, over my career, I've, I have the interesting perspective
• 1:05:29
  of both being in in the weight room with a lot of athletes who
• 1:05:35
  have been their evolution of their career over time.
• 1:05:38
  I've seen before they were nobody.
• 1:05:41
  And now there's somebody, right? And, and I've not only have I
• 1:05:44
  been in the weight room with them, but I've kind of
• 1:05:46
  transgressed the, the whole throwing perspective too.
• 1:05:49
  So I've gotten to see this modeling.
• 1:05:51
  I'm from both ends of the spectrum, both a skill
• 1:05:54
  perspective and the strength perspective, right?
• 1:05:57
  And so I think it's giving me a really interesting view on how I
• 1:06:02
  think things should go. And I think we're where I kind
• 1:06:06
  of now stand is I can give a lot of people the experiences that
• 1:06:10
  I've had. And I think I have something to
• 1:06:11
  say. For a long time, I felt like I
• 1:06:13
  didn't have a lot of things to say because I didn't have the
• 1:06:15
  natural background that a lot of these these coaches in our
• 1:06:18
  industry have seen a lot of careers and being part of a lot
• 1:06:22
  of homegrown careers and so many homegrown careers.
• 1:06:25
  It's it's kind of giving me that perspective to get out there.
• 1:06:27
  And I've been trying to get out to not only local coaches, but
• 1:06:30
  on the national good and talk about these experiences that
• 1:06:33
  I've gone through. So, you know, that's that's my
• 1:06:35
  new mission and really putting putting together the perspective
• 1:06:39
  of like, look, we need to look at what is happening out on the
• 1:06:43
  field and, and really lending our programming and our modeling
• 1:06:46
  to what's happening out on the field, Not just trying to push
• 1:06:49
  people into back squats, good for them and single like split
• 1:06:53
  squats, good for them. And this is because it looks
• 1:06:55
  like that gross movement. That's what they should be
• 1:06:57
  doing. I think it lens to the person
• 1:07:01
  and what that person is going through and how we need to be
• 1:07:03
  designing programs specifically to the athletes that we're
• 1:07:07
  addressing and how they decide to move on the field, which
• 1:07:10
  might be a little bit different than how they decide to move in
• 1:07:13
  the weight room. And then combining those two.
• 1:07:16
  So that's my movement, you know, is is based on moments instead
• 1:07:21
  of just general movement. I think it's kind of the perfect
• 1:07:28
  high of the knot to the podcast that we just put out there
• 1:07:32
  because it it really does address everything we discussed
• 1:07:34
  today, taking into consideration the development cycle of the
• 1:07:38
  athlete. Everything that you said, taking
• 1:07:41
  nobodies to somebody's, whether whether that is through good
• 1:07:45
  programming or just these guys had something that was untapped
• 1:07:48
  and for whatever reason in your work with them, you guys have
• 1:07:51
  been able to identify it. But that that really does come
• 1:07:55
  from getting people to believe in the athlete in front of them
• 1:07:59
  and not just having the most impressive programming or the
• 1:08:03
  most impressive system. It's creating something that
• 1:08:06
  works for the individual. So I appreciate you sharing
• 1:08:09
  that, Joe. And really with that, I'd like
• 1:08:11
  to say I appreciate you for all your time today and what you've
• 1:08:15
  been able to share and tolerating.
• 1:08:16
  Going through that last answer with my daughter here, I don't
• 1:08:19
  know if she provided much of A distraction, but for all the
• 1:08:22
  public speaking you're doing, you're probably used to weird
• 1:08:25
  things going on in the audience. I can tell you this would have
• 1:08:28
  sent me over the edge. But I appreciate you dealing
• 1:08:31
  with us, Joe. How can people get in touch with
• 1:08:33
  you? Yeah, best way is you can, you
• 1:08:36
  can catch me on Instagram at Joe Neil 2 e-mail anytime, Joe at
• 1:08:42
  twospsports.com. That's an easy way to get a hold
• 1:08:45
  of me. I'm I'm always available.
• 1:08:47
  I love talking to people, talking to shop with coaches and
• 1:08:51
  and athletes and players and things like that.
• 1:08:53
  So if I can ever be of help, I'm happy to blend that for sure.
• 1:08:57
  Perfect. Now I'll actually do the outro.
• 1:09:00
  So once again, Joe, thank you. And to the audience, thanks for
• 1:09:04
  laying back with us.