Latest / The Layback Podcast / Carter Hohn, Owner/Founder of Full Send Performance (Ep. 46)
Transcript
- 0:00Hey everyone, welcome back to the Lay Back podcast.
- 0:03Joining us today is the Chaplain at the Chapel of Cheddar, Carter
- 0:07Hahn. Carter Hahn is the owner,
- 0:10operator, founder of Full Send Performance, but the cute little
- 0:13title we gave him of Chaplain of the Chapel of Cheddar fits his
- 0:18facility perfectly. His facility is located about an
- 0:22hour away from Pittsburgh and is housed inside an old church.
- 0:27So if you want to throw hard and pray to the baseball gods, I
- 0:31guess that's the place to be. Carters had quite the
- 0:34background. He really specializes in return
- 0:36to throw and performance training, so we're really
- 0:40excited to get in those topics today.
- 0:42But I'm going to kick it over to Carter so he can take us through
- 0:45a bit more of his background. Thanks again for joining us.
- 0:49Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me.
- 0:51A little bit about myself, I'm not 30 yet, but I'm getting
- 0:54there. Just finishing up my my master's
- 0:57degree in Strength and conditioning from Logan
- 0:59University. I decided to take that for a
- 1:01little bit of fun after doing some certification courses and
- 1:04whatnot. But as far as like my own
- 1:06playing career, I'll be the first to admit it, I sucked.
- 1:09But I basically used my body as like a human experiment per SE.
- 1:14So I went to a junior college for two years, took a gap year,
- 1:18trained up in driveline in Seattle for a while, did one
- 1:21year at an NAI, and then finished up my senior year at a
- 1:24separate NAIA. Throughout that time frame.
- 1:27Freshman year of college, tore my labrum in my shoulder, had to
- 1:31deal with all that fun stuff. Kind of drove me down the rabbit
- 1:36hole of throwing rehab as that one is definitely not one many
- 1:40can say that they've come out the other side of on the right
- 1:43side of things. And then junior college, I
- 1:46actually had an older nerve transposition.
- 1:48So that's where I started to dabble in figuring out what's
- 1:51going on in the elbow a little bit.
- 1:52And as my playing career finish just kind of transitioned into
- 1:58coaching pretty quickly, I found out that I was a lot better at
- 2:02that than I wasn't playing. And when there's only one team
- 2:05interested in you when COVID starts, the odds for you aren't
- 2:08very good. So just kind of started to make
- 2:12that transition and then started full sun performance about my
- 2:15gosh, we're almost exactly at two years now.
- 2:18Opened up the Chapel of Cheddar here in Pennsylvania about a
- 2:23year and a half ago. And yeah, now we're here.
- 2:26It's it's been a blast getting to this point.
- 2:29I think maybe the first point to even dive in on is the little
- 2:34thing you said about you had this amazing discovery that you
- 2:37were way better at helping people get better at baseball
- 2:41than getting better at baseball yourself.
- 2:43Yeah, my my career was really interesting going into college.
- 2:48I did not throw hard. I was in 7882 guy.
- 2:51I got up to 84. Let's be real, if I was
- 2:55graduating high school right now, I probably wouldn't get to
- 2:58play any college baseball because of how much things have
- 3:01changed. And it's only been 10 years.
- 3:03But, you know, using that time frame as experimenting with
- 3:07myself and we were figuring out the weighted balls, we were
- 3:10figuring out velocity development.
- 3:12Obviously now we know that we can train velocity incredibly
- 3:15efficiently, but I had like no emphasis on the ability to
- 3:19command the baseball whatsoever. So I sucked at commanding the
- 3:25baseball. Just to put it simply, I could I
- 3:27could spin it really well when I decided to throw strikes.
- 3:31It was a really fun outcome. But other than that, the the
- 3:35outcomes typically weren't all that great.
- 3:37Then my junior year of college actually took over a 16 year
- 3:43travel ball team and really started to see what the magic of
- 3:46my knowledge was at that point in time.
- 3:48Because then it, it was no longer about just the
- 3:51performance side of things. We actually had to win baseball
- 3:54games and stuff like that. And I think when I took over the
- 3:57team, we had initial velocity testing day.
- 4:01I had guys pulling down like 65. And I think rolling into that
- 4:06summer I probably put them through the most rigorous
- 4:09practice schedule they'd ever been through.
- 4:11We were like 3 * a week for almost six months leading up to
- 4:15their high school season. I mean, they basically didn't
- 4:17get an offseason. Obviously throwing changed quite
- 4:20a bit during that time. But I think by the time the
- 4:24season started, we had I think we had like 5 or 6 guys on the
- 4:27mound that are sitting like 8083.
- 4:29We had one kid getting up to like 86 as a 16 year old.
- 4:32And at that point in time like we thought we were pretty good
- 4:35and at that and just very quickly.
- 4:37Realized like hey. I I enjoy this just as much as I
- 4:40enjoy playing, but I'm way better at it.
- 4:44Like we're having success like our our first tournament, we
- 4:49went down to a tournament at Fort Scott Community College in
- 4:53Kansas. At that point in time the
- 4:56showcase was a pretty big deal and I remember we played a a
- 5:00perfect game, top 25 ranks team and.
- 5:05I was like wow. We just won.
- 5:10I didn't think we were going to make it past the third inning.
- 5:12Like this is really cool. And then I just kind of stemmed
- 5:16in from from there on, I just really put more emphasis into
- 5:20coaching then then I ever did my own playing career, which you
- 5:26know, I don't. I don't really have any regrets
- 5:27about that. You could you could find the the
- 5:29old Casey Weathers video if you know, you don't know what you're
- 5:32capable of until you empty the gas tank and whatnot.
- 5:36I didn't even want to empty the gas tank.
- 5:38Like I I found that I was better at the coaching side of things.
- 5:41As you've probably noticed through our our conversations.
- 5:44I'm a weird dude. I'm not great at talking to
- 5:46people, but for some reason you get me around high school and
- 5:49college kids trying to get better at baseball and like I'm
- 5:52just in my element. It is a lot of fun to me and
- 5:55I've I've truly enjoyed getting to watch all of the different
- 5:58types of success that I've I've been able to help guys with,
- 6:01whether that be getting a college scholarship, getting
- 6:05promoted from AA to triple AI. Haven't had any guys make a
- 6:08debut that have come up with me throughout the entire time yet.
- 6:12Hopefully we see one this year. I hope so.
- 6:16But yeah, it's just kind of I've really, really enjoyed that.
- 6:20I mean, there's even been points in times where I've enjoyed
- 6:24doing the classes with little 12 year olds, right?
- 6:27Like you get a different enjoyment out of each level of
- 6:31guy that you're trying to work with.
- 6:32I've just really fallen in love with that.
- 6:35And then at that point, I don't even really watch baseball
- 6:37anymore. I just love coaching it.
- 6:39I'm sure as as you've noticed, you work your entire life around
- 6:43baseball. Sometimes when you go home, the
- 6:44last thing you want to turn on is more baseball.
- 6:47So lately I've transitioned to watching quite a bit more golf.
- 6:52It's a bit more relaxing watching the green rolling hills
- 6:56and not envying them. Just it's simple to be a couch
- 7:01armchair golfer. I feel really good about being
- 7:03an armchair golfer because yeah, of course I never would have
- 7:06made that shot. I would have.
- 7:08I would have trained it. Yeah, absolutely, Absolutely.
- 7:11I'm I'm right there with you. Yes.
- 7:13But one of the things that I do find innovative that you might
- 7:18not even think of it as such based on your training
- 7:21background as a player when you took over the 16 you team your
- 7:25junior year of college. So I don't know the exact
- 7:28timeline. What is that, 2018?
- 7:30Yeah, probably late 2018 going into 2019.
- 7:32OK, so even having a group of 16 year olds do a velocity day
- 7:37testing, that's still kind of new in that time frame.
- 7:43So you you expose these kids to a type of training that they
- 7:46probably hadn't done before. I remember my senior year of
- 7:52college, grad year of college, so 2016 and 2017, and we had to
- 7:58beg to get the radar gun out. We had one as a staff and
- 8:01knowing what you threw, you had to like kind of backdoor your
- 8:05way into finding out how hard you were throwing by asking who
- 8:09was working the radar gun that day.
- 8:12But you had to be on their good side to find out because if the
- 8:15coach found out that you were sharing how hard people were
- 8:17throwing, you'd get in trouble. Yet all that weird stuff.
- 8:21So then actually putting that information in front of 16 year
- 8:27olds, it's crazy how much training can change when they
- 8:32know where they're at and they know where they want to be and
- 8:34you just start measuring it. I'm sure a lot of the gains that
- 8:38you guys had early on, especially with that younger
- 8:42adult group in a sense where they're so malleable, they can
- 8:46make adjustments pretty quickly, they can get better pretty fast
- 8:51is just as simple as guys, this is where you are, this isn't
- 8:55good enough, this is where we need to be.
- 8:58Oh, 100% that's that is that probably had more to do with it
- 9:02than the training protocols. I think any good coach has time
- 9:05goes on, you try and get better year by year.
- 9:08And every year you look back at what you were doing the year
- 9:10before and you were like, man, I was an absolute idiot.
- 9:12And that's exactly how I felt about the entire situation.
- 9:15But I had to remind myself eventually, like at the end,
- 9:19like all the guys that wanted to play college baseball ended up
- 9:22getting college scholarships. We had multiple dudes on that
- 9:25team end up throwing 90 plus. So yeah, it was, it was one of
- 9:29those things like I didn't know what I was doing, but I knew if
- 9:34I measured things and we talked about the results, then they
- 9:40were going to push themselves regardless.
- 9:42If this is in the middle of nowhere, Kansas, I mean, the the
- 9:45town that this travel ball Academy was in was like 1000
- 9:49people on a good day. So straight up middle of
- 9:51nowhere. So we would do like all kinds of
- 9:54fun bets and stuff like that. When it came to like velocity
- 9:58testing, I had a core group of guys, about eight of them that
- 10:03would come in and do like an actual velocity of element class
- 10:06on top of playing for the team. And there would be days where it
- 10:10was like, all right, well, the bed of the day is this kid
- 10:13versus this kid who can PR by the most on their pull down.
- 10:18And at that point in time, most of them just did 5 oz.
- 10:20I didn't let any of them do 6:00 and 4:00 and 3:00 and all that
- 10:23kind of stuff. They just weren't ready for
- 10:25that. But I mean, we had bets of, hey,
- 10:28you got to take a paintball to the bareback from 10 feet.
- 10:31I mean, we had all kinds of, like, the craziest things.
- 10:36And I'm just sitting there, like pumping these kids up.
- 10:39I'm like, yeah, you don't want to get hit with that paintball.
- 10:42Like, let's get after it. And it's wild how much it works,
- 10:45especially like with kids that age, like they don't care about
- 10:49what they're actually doing. Like they're just trying to win.
- 10:51They're trying not to get hit by a paintball.
- 10:53They're out there having fun. And I think that was a huge
- 10:56testament to like what what we tried to do with that team that
- 10:59year. We tried to push guys and we
- 11:02tried to do the little things right.
- 11:04I think we made 11 errors in like 39 games that that year
- 11:08with 16 year olds. So I was thoroughly impressed.
- 11:10It made me stop getting questions from the parents on
- 11:13why we took three hours worth of mass fungos per week.
- 11:16But like just just fun stuff like that.
- 11:18And it, it was really fun to see the transition working with
- 11:22those kids and trying to take all of the knowledge that I've
- 11:24learned about performance training and just trying to
- 11:26integrate it into like, hey, this is how we can use it for
- 11:29working in, in game scenarios. I mean, before, before they did
- 11:34hitting every practice, like we had like 15 to 20 minutes of Med
- 11:39ball work and they were just getting better at rotation.
- 11:41Next thing you know, we had guys on that team.
- 11:44I don't think, I think only one kid on that team had ever hit a
- 11:47home run. And by the end of that year we
- 11:49had like 9 that hit home runs. Just random stuff with
- 11:52performance training. But they were so malleable, like
- 11:54you said, like, it really did make things a lot of fun.
- 11:57So even sticking on this team for now, what was your appetite
- 12:02at that time for throwing on ramps or acute to chronic
- 12:07workload? I I don't know if you knew those
- 12:09phrases at the time, but maybe you were just intuitively
- 12:14working those systems into the process.
- 12:17Because you talk about pulling down and doing this velocity
- 12:20training. I'm sure there's some kids out
- 12:23there that think, then all I need to do is just go RIP
- 12:27baseballs as hard as I can five days a week, and I'll throw
- 12:30harder. Yeah, you'll probably throw
- 12:31harder, but you're also likely setting yourself up for failure
- 12:34in some capacity. So what did that look like even
- 12:37back then? First and foremost, don't just
- 12:39go RIP pull downs. Please do it.
- 12:41Do as I say, not as I do. But yeah, it was.
- 12:44It was interesting. At that point in time I had
- 12:47taken myself through two of my own rehab processes, so I
- 12:51understood the ramp up process pretty well, or I thought I did.
- 12:56At that point in time, I had only done one other return to
- 12:59throw and it was for my college roommate who had gone through
- 13:03TJ. He came back from his doctor's
- 13:06appointment after TJ and handed me the the lovely sheet of paper
- 13:09that we've seen 1000 times and with his return to throw
- 13:12program. And I just laughed and I was
- 13:13like, yeah, we're not doing this like this.
- 13:15I can't allow this to happen for someone that's living in the
- 13:18same house as me. But yeah, I think big thing at
- 13:21that point in time was I had guys getting introduced to
- 13:25throwing plyos. So we did probably about an 8
- 13:28week ramp up before they actually had their first Max
- 13:31intensity day. Obviously I wasn't tracking
- 13:33workload or anything like that. We didn't have sensors, but the
- 13:36one thing that I was tracking was number of throws, the weight
- 13:39of the throws that they were doing and just slowly trying to
- 13:42increase it. I think over the course of that
- 13:44eight weeks we started with about 60 throws and I tried to
- 13:47increase by about 15 throws per session per week, right.
- 13:53So maybe week one we had three sessions of 60 to 80 throws.
- 13:58Week two it was 80 to 100 throws.
- 14:02Week three it was 100 to 120, so on and so forth.
- 14:05And just kind of kept building it in that direction.
- 14:08You know, that was also really the time in which I was starting
- 14:11to understand because that was also the first year that I put
- 14:14on a modus sensor at that point in time, now called Pulse,
- 14:17obviously. But I think I went through, I
- 14:20went through a start that year where I threw like 95 pitches or
- 14:25so. And then I look back at my pulse
- 14:27data and I was like, yeah. I, I made 347 throws today.
- 14:34What are we talking about? And we're trying to tell kids
- 14:37like, yeah, your 20 minute throwing session is totally
- 14:40going to get you ready for that first start.
- 14:42And I'm just sitting here like, no, no, no, we need to throw for
- 14:45like an hour like, and that might get us prepared for our
- 14:50first start. So really trying to ramp up like
- 14:52number of throws because most people have will completely
- 14:55underestimate the number of throws that they're making it in
- 14:58a given day. And I found that it's even worse
- 15:01with pitchers. Like we're thinking about
- 15:03numbers of pitches. And number one thing that I've
- 15:06seen lately within the last like 2 years when guys like ramping
- 15:11up into a season is they might get to it and they're like,
- 15:14well, I've done, I've done three sets of 15.
- 15:17So I'm ready for three innings and I'm just sitting there
- 15:20laughing. I'm like, you might be ready for
- 15:22one. Like you forgot to include the
- 15:24fact that you have to throw a pregame bullpen.
- 15:27You forgot to include the fact that you have another 88 pitches
- 15:30of warmups. All the sudden we're at the same
- 15:32pitch count with a pregame bullpen and one inning.
- 15:35So obviously you're not as prepared as as you really want
- 15:39to. So I've kind of transitioned
- 15:41into this goal of like pre season.
- 15:44I want to build guys up to the point to where we're doing 5
- 15:48sets of 15 pitches and I'm like, yeah, you can walk out there.
- 15:51You're good for three innings. We've done.
- 15:53We've tried to expose ourselves to twice as many throws.
- 15:56I know that the stress level is going to be lower.
- 15:58So once we increase that stress, we're going to pull back the
- 16:01number of throws and we should be at least somewhere close, a
- 16:05lot more prepared than what you would have been if you said, and
- 16:08I've done three sets of 15. I can go out there and throw 3
- 16:10innings now. Like you're going to be
- 16:12absolutely fried after that. I think that was one of the big
- 16:14things that I kind of learned through that transition is.
- 16:17You have to. Think about over preparing guys
- 16:20and if you over prepare them, they might be prepared.
- 16:24So that was kind of like the the big learning moment for me going
- 16:27through that. You bring up kind of an aha
- 16:30moment when it came to you looking at your modus sleeve and
- 16:34understanding how many throws are actually occurring on a game
- 16:37day. What other maybe discovery type
- 16:42moments did you have that started shaping the way that you
- 16:47were thinking as you transition to more program building, not
- 16:52just experimentation? We can manipulate the everliving
- 16:57crap out of a throwing workload. That was the biggest thing that
- 17:00I've kind of really come to terms with.
- 17:02I think back on it, I went through, there's two main like
- 17:05research articles that came out from Driveline that kind of
- 17:08shaped this. Number one was being flat ground
- 17:10versus mound throwing and comparative stresses, which was
- 17:13fun because I was actually a part of that at the time and had
- 17:16no idea. I think I'm, I'm still the like
- 17:19banner picture for that, which is really cool.
- 17:21But I've had guys transition to the mound a lot earlier and more
- 17:25often because we found out it's actually less stressful than
- 17:28throwing on flat ground. Not by a lot, but like there,
- 17:30there is a small amount of stress decrease by throwing on
- 17:33the mound. You just have better leverage.
- 17:35So I think that is one thing that really transpired through
- 17:39that process is having guys on the mound more often and being
- 17:42OK with it. We don't have to throw flat
- 17:44ground short boxes. We can just throw real short
- 17:45boxes, stuff like that, but then we can also manipulate the crap
- 17:50out of a throwing workload given the weight of the ball that we
- 17:53are throwing. I think there was that article
- 17:55that driveline came out with comparing the stresses of all of
- 17:58the different Plio weights and whatnot.
- 18:01And I have found if I do a rocker drill with a red ball one
- 18:06day it might correlate to a point to workload on a pulse or
- 18:10I can do. 8. Split stance throws with a blue
- 18:14plyo ball for a .2 workload. So how do I want to manipulate
- 18:18this? Like if I'm I may have my
- 18:20workload goal, but how can I get in the most amount of throws and
- 18:24really really try and hone in that craft?
- 18:26So I I spend a lot more time working on arm action specific
- 18:29drills, heavier balls than most people would.
- 18:32I know that's becoming increasingly uncommon, but I
- 18:35also know that it's the easiest way to manipulate the workload
- 18:38and get in more throws. So there's a drawback to it, you
- 18:41know, early on in a return to throw, we're, we're definitely
- 18:43going to take that route because I want guys to become more
- 18:47comfortable, get the arm to relax and so on and so forth and
- 18:50just get reps in, right? Versus later on, like I might
- 18:54not care about getting those extra throws in within that
- 18:57workload because our workload limit might be high enough to
- 19:00where it doesn't, it doesn't really matter, right?
- 19:02Like those extra 30-40 throws throughout the day aren't going
- 19:05to matter as much. But if we can push intensity a
- 19:08little bit sooner that day, then we kind of take that trade off.
- 19:12That's a really good point. It's insightful.
- 19:15I haven't thought a ton about that and it's I'm glad you
- 19:18brought it up regarding not all throws are created equal.
- 19:24So I like the way that you broke down how we can manipulate
- 19:28workload and the way we can manipulate it.
- 19:30If we stick to this kind of pulse modus structure or the
- 19:35acute to chronic workload theory, there are weights to a
- 19:39give and throw at a given intensity or given velocity at
- 19:42your size. And it adds up to what we're
- 19:46chasing down as a total acute workload for the day and then
- 19:49stacking that to build our chronic workload, right.
- 19:53So what you said or what you were leading on to is early on
- 19:58when we're working with an individual, we can treat our
- 20:02goal for the day as that acute workload value, not as much the
- 20:07throw count and with that kind of added variability in the mix.
- 20:12We can spend more time on constraint based drills or
- 20:16different throwing techniques that can help the athlete
- 20:21advance in their process from a skill based perspective, not
- 20:28just from etching away at a throw count that would magically
- 20:33get them better. Yeah, right.
- 20:35Like kind of like going down that thought process I figured
- 20:37out I've probably done here. Here's a good example.
- 20:41Here's an OG modus sleeve. It still says modus on it.
- 20:46I have probably thrown 100 + 100 + 1000 throws with a with a pull
- 20:52slash modus sensor on, right. So I've, I've learned a lot
- 20:56about like what kind of goes into it, my own self
- 21:00experimentation. But like we have the weight of
- 21:02the ball, which is going to directly impact arm speed.
- 21:08OK, We know higher arm speed, lower arm speed is going to
- 21:11regulate stress and workload. And then we can also talk about
- 21:15like whether it's a Plio ball or a weighted baseball, those
- 21:19things are going to change as well.
- 21:20The weighted baseballs are typically going to have a little
- 21:22bit more stress from my experience than the Plio ball
- 21:25will. And then we're also going to
- 21:27talk about like, what drill are we using, right?
- 21:30Like are we doing a normal split stance throw, We're just going
- 21:34through a regular arm motion? Or are we doing it with a little
- 21:38bit more momentum where we're going through a Figure 8 and
- 21:41trying to get a little bit more flowy?
- 21:43Well, that's probably going to relate to a little bit more arm
- 21:46speed. So even even just small
- 21:49adjustments to drills will change how much the workload is
- 21:53actually happening per throw. So really just trying to find
- 21:57what works for each case. I know it's been really popular
- 22:00to say like, hey, no, no return to throw should look the same
- 22:04and whatnot. But I think I have a process
- 22:07that I like per SE, but every single one of them still ends up
- 22:12looking different. And I think that's the part that
- 22:14actually matters is, you know, we have to be able to change as
- 22:18things are happening and figure out the right route for that
- 22:22specific athlete, right? Like I have one guy right now
- 22:25who I'm working with who hates plyo balls with bashing.
- 22:29OK, well that's going to change things.
- 22:32How do we manipulate this now? So then having him do leather
- 22:37weighted baseball drills to create lower arm speeds rather
- 22:40than plyos. OK, well, this is already
- 22:43immediately more stressful. So our row counts at the very
- 22:47beginning ended up looking a lot lower than what I was expecting
- 22:50because most of the time when I'm starting guys off, I start
- 22:53them off with plyo balls, which there's there's a lot of
- 22:56arguments on that right now as well of whether or not we should
- 22:59be throwing plyo balls first, whether we should be throwing
- 23:01under load first, a traditional baseball overload first.
- 23:05Obviously, based off what I've said so far, you can probably
- 23:08interpret that I go with overload first.
- 23:10But then I think another major aspect that that a lot of people
- 23:15don't take into account or don't think of or understand is the
- 23:18fact that for guys who've torn their UCL, I haven't met anyone
- 23:24who's torn their UCL throwing a pliable, but almost all of them
- 23:29have happened in a game throwing a baseball.
- 23:33OK, well, the brain knows that the baseball is what hurt them
- 23:36The second you touch those seams, and we can go down this
- 23:41rabbit hole a little bit later, we're talking about the nervous
- 23:43system. You're going into protective
- 23:45tension. The second you touch those
- 23:47seams, your body's going to go into protective tension until
- 23:50you've taught it that that's no longer going to trigger you,
- 23:53it's no longer going to hurt you.
- 23:55So why would I put a baseball in someone's hands if their brain
- 23:58knows that it's what hurt them? And they're not going to be able
- 24:00to relax into lay back. They're not going to be able to
- 24:02have a flowy. Arm swing and they're probably
- 24:05going to get a little bit pushy with it, which we know is more
- 24:07stressful to begin with. It just seems like a really bad
- 24:10idea to me to put a baseball in someone's hands for their first
- 24:14throw after TJ because their brain is going to have so many
- 24:17issues with it, whether they understand it or know it or not.
- 24:22It's just not going to be the same.
- 24:24So I've kind of transitioned to like getting guys started off
- 24:26with, we're going to start with a red plyo ball and we're just
- 24:30going to do 20 throws on day one and see how your body reacts and
- 24:34see if you can fall into lay back or not.
- 24:36And then we're just going to build from there.
- 24:38I at the very beginning I might write out one or two weeks of
- 24:44throwing return to throw at a time until we get to like.
- 24:47That 6810 week mark where someone's progressing and then I
- 24:52can start to do it a month by month time as we're starting to
- 24:56transition into it, no longer looking like a return to throw
- 24:59program, but looking more like performance training.
- 25:02I both hate and love that you tease that nervous system piece
- 25:05already because I really like want to chomp at that and get
- 25:08into it. But I had other questions in the
- 25:11process before we get there. One of which being, do you have
- 25:15any idea why the weighted leather baseball is a more
- 25:20stressful throw than the plyo ball?
- 25:22I'll take a hypothesis if you have one.
- 25:24I'll take fact if you have it. I just find that incredibly
- 25:28interesting. I don't have fact, I just have
- 25:31personal experience. And I think the biggest aspect
- 25:33of it is you're not throwing it to a wall.
- 25:37You're going to relax a little bit more and you're going to
- 25:40throw it harder. I think that just is, I think
- 25:44that's kind of like my little bit of hypothesis to it.
- 25:46But then the the other thing, like if I'm trying to think
- 25:49about the psychology aspect of it is when you hold a Plio ball,
- 25:53it doesn't feel threatening like it is soft.
- 25:57It doesn't feel like it can hurt you even if someone threw it at
- 26:00you as hard as they can. Like there's there's nothing
- 26:03about it that screams like this is going to be painful.
- 26:07But if you've ever picked up an 11 oz.
- 26:10Leather weighted baseball. It feels like a shot put, like
- 26:15it is. Dense.
- 26:16It's a brick that feels like it can hurt you.
- 26:20So I think that might happen to have a layer of possibilities as
- 26:23that being a factor as well. I have no idea.
- 26:26I don't know why it's it's higher stress.
- 26:29It's it's not a massive amount by any means.
- 26:32If I were to think to myself, if I did a like a Figure 8 pivot
- 26:36pick off with a blue plyo ball, typically I'm at like 8 to 12
- 26:42Newton meters of bogus stress on a pole sensor, which is
- 26:46incredibly low to begin with. But then whenever I would do it
- 26:50with an 11 oz ball I would be at like 16-18 maybe even 20.
- 26:55So why why that was happening I have I have no idea.
- 26:59But it was something I noticed early on.
- 27:01But then if? We take that step a little bit
- 27:04farther. I actually utilize that into the
- 27:07return to throw. I was like, we know we can.
- 27:10We can find a way to manipulate this as well.
- 27:13So what I've had guys do now is, you know, once we get to them to
- 27:16the point where they can get through a full plyo set of
- 27:19however many drills with whatever weights are needed for
- 27:22that specific person. Some guys I'll have to three arm
- 27:25action drills and like 3 moving drills.
- 27:27Some ends up being like 4 arm action drills, 6 actual movement
- 27:31base drills. Like whatever it may be, I'll
- 27:34actually like when they're finished with that, I'll have
- 27:36them go back to the heavier weighted leather balls, go back
- 27:41a couple drills and then repeat them.
- 27:43Going through the leather weighted balls and going down
- 27:47and weight working into a normal baseball.
- 27:49Not only for the proprioceptive factor of like feeling the
- 27:53weight and going through the exact same drills, but then for
- 27:56the psychological aspect as well is we feel the weight like the
- 28:00Plio ball. So we're going to be able to
- 28:02relax a little bit more, but now we're adding in the factor that
- 28:04we can feel seams. So kind of helping them with
- 28:08that transition of moving into a normal baseball, which for some
- 28:12reason most guys struggle to go into layback and actually relax
- 28:16with. But if we go through this
- 28:17process, all of a sudden it seems like they don't have that
- 28:19issue because they're already confident in their ability to
- 28:22throw by the time they actually throw a normal baseball.
- 28:25So I know that that's not something that is common and I
- 28:28know that it's not necessarily something that is used quite a
- 28:32bit within within return to throw, but it's something that I
- 28:34found to be incredibly. Effective.
- 28:37What drove you into this psychology esque while thinking
- 28:42about these topics, trying to figure out how they apply to the
- 28:45individual that I believe had to happen from somewhere.
- 28:50Just natural inquisition. What was?
- 28:54That. Drove you here so first.
- 28:56And. Foremost just I can't remember
- 28:59if it was an article that I read or a video that I saw, but just
- 29:04someone I think it was. A random speech, I might have
- 29:07even seen it in like an undergrad class, just like
- 29:09talking about injury in the psychological factor that
- 29:12happens with injury. That was definitely something
- 29:14that sparked my interest to think about it differently.
- 29:18But I think the bigger aspect is like going back to that, the
- 29:21first rehab that I did for someone else.
- 29:24This is an individual who pre TJ was incredibly pushy, hyper
- 29:29mobile, but didn't ever reach layback.
- 29:32So I was really confused with this individual.
- 29:35If I crank them in the ER manually, they can probably get
- 29:39to significantly past parallel with the ground.
- 29:43And I was like there's no reason this person should have a pushy
- 29:46arm action. So we just started with plyo
- 29:50balls instead. And I was like what just
- 29:53happened? Like I think I think his first
- 29:56day of throwing and. Just terrible.
- 30:00On his first day of throwing, I gave him green pivot.
- 30:02Pickoffs. That was TJ Heavy.
- 30:05For anybody that isn't familiar with ball weights, what's a?
- 30:092.2 lbs. Yeah, I was about to say 1K.
- 30:13An absolute. Boulder.
- 30:16But immediately it was the cleanest his arm action had
- 30:19looked in like 2 years. And I was like, well, there's
- 30:21something to this. And then we just kind of kept
- 30:23playing around with it. Week 2, I had him get into the
- 30:27point where we did our first like couple baseball throws and
- 30:29it was immediately back to like a super pushy arm action.
- 30:32I was like, yeah, no, we're not throwing a baseball again for
- 30:35like another six weeks. Like I don't even want to touch
- 30:37him. We're just going to work on
- 30:38throwing and feeling that again. And then kind of went through
- 30:41that transition. We got back to a baseball and it
- 30:43was still a little bit pushy. That was kind of ingrained in
- 30:47him for well more than a decade at that point, but it was the
- 30:49best his arm action had ever ever looked as far as pushy
- 30:53aspect actually starting to get laid back.
- 30:56I think his his first Max effort bullpen.
- 30:58You know, we were hitting all time PRS on on velocity.
- 31:01So at that point in time I was just like, well, we're we're
- 31:05going to keep experimenting with this.
- 31:06We're just going to see what happens.
- 31:08And I think that's one aspect of like how I do return to throws a
- 31:13little bit different. Like, yes, we try and use as
- 31:17much data as possible, but at the same time, I still view it
- 31:21as an art, not a science. I mean, there's there's I think
- 31:24there is a lot of art that goes into it because you do have to
- 31:28have some feel that I can't tell us everything.
- 31:31Group score doesn't measure dog. We can't we can't go on that.
- 31:35We got to find like a happy medium to utilizing tech, but
- 31:38then also not becoming inundated to that data and making it
- 31:43right. Like we still know that we have
- 31:45to push things. We still know that sometimes we
- 31:48might want to push things, but we can't.
- 31:50So just kind of like having that feel and art form aspects being
- 31:53added back into. It which is funny that we say.
- 31:55This as I'm starting a series covering all of the tech that
- 31:58we're using for myself. It's a given and take, but yeah,
- 32:02also I I think that goes to the individuality of programming.
- 32:06You look at an individual, the art form is the implement you
- 32:10might be using or the drills that you prescribed to an
- 32:15individual. I think that's where you'll
- 32:18still see the art in your return to throw is You want to do
- 32:22correctives or constraint based throwing that enables you to
- 32:26achieve the movements that you are chasing.
- 32:29But you're going to use data along the way to ensure that you
- 32:34are making the strides that you need to make to be healthy.
- 32:38It's both sides of the coin. How do you, how do you
- 32:41individualize to feel healthy and then how can you check to
- 32:46ensure that the measures that you're taking on the art side
- 32:50are backed by a science based approach?
- 32:53Yes, I think, I think that's the perfect way to say it.
- 32:56Yeah. I don't even really have
- 32:57anything else on that. That was pretty much.
- 33:00Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much.
- 33:02I appreciate that. I, I do feel I've gained a bit
- 33:06of a better understanding of how you're incorporating the art in
- 33:08the process. I like the idea of getting away
- 33:12from the throw count in a sense and more focusing on what work
- 33:17is an individual prepared to do on that day and figuring out a
- 33:21way to value that work. So that's that's where we get
- 33:25the individualization. It's not so much that it has to
- 33:28be everybody does something entirely different because this
- 33:33mover does a drill, it means it's bad for somebody else.
- 33:36No, that's not necessarily the case.
- 33:39You can get into the implements that you use where you can
- 33:44differ from guy to guy. You can get into the volume
- 33:47where it differs from guy to guy.
- 33:49I it looks like you're chomping at the bit to get back in here,
- 33:52so I'm just going to shut up and and let you go.
- 33:54I don't know where you're going, but I'm just going to shut up
- 33:56and let you go. So one of the fun aspects of how
- 34:00I do return to throw is like, yes, we're going to pick the
- 34:03right drill. Yes, we're going to try and pick
- 34:05the right weight. But a couple months ago I
- 34:07actually had two guys there on the same college team reach out
- 34:09to me. I'm doing both of their return
- 34:11to throws. I have a really good
- 34:12relationship with this school. I reach out to me and like, hey,
- 34:17why are we doing the same return to throw program?
- 34:19You said it was individualized and I said pay more attention.
- 34:22They couldn't figure it out. The one thing I said was compare
- 34:26your arm speeds. So when I write out their
- 34:29programs, yes, I'm picking the drill, yes, I'm picking the
- 34:32right weight of ball that we're going to be using with it.
- 34:34But the other thing that I'm programming is a maximum arm
- 34:37speed or an arm speed range for that drill.
- 34:40Now we know that the pulse isn't perfectly accurate when it comes
- 34:44to arm speed. It has an error of up to 75 RPM
- 34:49in either direction, but at least we can get close.
- 34:52I have had a big leader who can hit 98 at 900 RPM, but then I
- 34:59also have an 18 year old who tops 86 at 1500 RPM.
- 35:06We can't treat that process the exact same way.
- 35:10The dude who? Throws 98 at 900 RPM.
- 35:12His arm speed goals should be significantly lower than the kid
- 35:16who can reach 1500 RPM. We know arm speed is a large
- 35:21correlation with velocity. But then there's again, it's
- 35:24it's not rocket science like there's some art form to it.
- 35:26We have guys who can throw incredibly hard with low arm
- 35:30speeds do the same way we have guys who have high strikeout
- 35:33rates with low spin rates. We have to own the fact that
- 35:39everyone is different. We can have goals and we can
- 35:41have expectations or guidelines on what we want guys to be able
- 35:44to achieve. We have an understanding of
- 35:46where we want spin rates to be. Preferably we have an idea that
- 35:52this was going to be the average arm speed of someone who throws
- 35:54this velocity. And it's it's great to know
- 35:57those things, but if you don't have prior knowledge of the
- 36:00athlete, I think you're just kind of shooting blanks.
- 36:02Like you're shooting, you're throwing stuff at a wall and
- 36:05hoping something sticks if you're trying to program arm
- 36:07speeds. But if you have someone who has
- 36:09thrown on a pulse. Pre TJ, if you have videos of
- 36:13them pre TJ, and then even better, if you have videos of
- 36:16them throwing as a kid to where you can look at like what their
- 36:19most authentic movement patterns are going to be.
- 36:23I think that can really give you some better guidelines on how to
- 36:26treat that specific individual rather than treating it as a
- 36:30regular case of like, hey, this is just the guy who walked in.
- 36:33This is our protocol. Think back in and make some
- 36:36really big changes for you. I mean, I made that mistake a
- 36:38couple months ago. College coach said like, hey,
- 36:40he's a really, really high arm speed guy.
- 36:42And I was like, yeah. Sure.
- 36:45I was like, I don't, I don't see he might be high, but like he's
- 36:48not insane. Like I, I personally got up to
- 36:52like 1400 in college. Like I, my arm moved very fast.
- 36:56I didn't think that this kid would be peaking at 1300 at 70.
- 37:00Percent. I was expecting like.
- 37:04Seven 5800, maybe 900. And day one I got 1300 back and
- 37:09I was like, OK, everything I wrote like we're just going to
- 37:11erase all of it and we're just going to start over because like
- 37:14this is not going to work. Because like the first thing
- 37:16that he said was tried to hit my arm speed for this drill.
- 37:20It was supposed to be at 600, but I looked like a robot and I
- 37:24couldn't get into lay back. So I went up to seven 5800 for a
- 37:29couple of reps and all of a sudden everything got smooth
- 37:31again. And I was like, OK, so then you
- 37:34just start to kind of figure out where the, you know, another art
- 37:37form of it. Like we may want a specific arm
- 37:40speed for a specific workload, but if it's going to be really
- 37:43robotic and they're not going to be able to relax, then it
- 37:45doesn't matter anyways. We have to try and move along
- 37:48what's going to be athletic and smooth, even though the arm
- 37:51speed might be higher than we and we want it to be, but if
- 37:55it's smooth and it's relaxed, odds are it's probably going to
- 37:57be less stressful than if we're trying to hit the arm speed
- 38:00anyways. There's give and take on so many
- 38:03different aspects when it comes to the return to throw that I
- 38:06don't think you truly can have a blanket process for anyone.
- 38:10You can have blanket ideals and guidelines and I think that's
- 38:13about it. Like everything else, like it's
- 38:16just so different person to person.
- 38:18You just kind of have to have be able to work through it with
- 38:21them. And if and if you're doing a
- 38:22remote return to throw if, if they can't communicate very
- 38:25well, you're just kind of screwed to begin with.
- 38:27Like communication has to be a one.
- 38:30I'm sure you deal with that often since 90% of your business
- 38:34is remote anyways, but I I wanted to take a quick step back
- 38:39again asking you for fact, hypothesis, personal experience,
- 38:44anything when you bring up a guy can throw harder with a lower
- 38:49arm speed. Although we know arm speed has
- 38:52some sort of correlation to velocity, that's been shown time
- 38:55and time again. Guys who can throw hard with
- 38:58lower arm speeds, are they just generating the force from
- 39:02somewhere else in their sequence in their system?
- 39:07I think that's a really good question.
- 39:08I think it can be different person to person on like what
- 39:11that aspect might be on why they can throw harder at a lower arm
- 39:14speed. Some of it might be strength
- 39:16related. But then I think a larger
- 39:18portion of it is going to be the mechanical sequencing side,
- 39:21right? Like the more efficient they
- 39:23sequence, they don't have to move quite as fast.
- 39:26And I think the other thing that I've noticed is guys with longer
- 39:29levers tend to have lower arm speeds to begin with because
- 39:34they don't have to move violently, right?
- 39:36Like in college, my mechanics looked a lot like Tim, let's
- 39:39come for a reason. You've met me.
- 39:41I am 5/8. In college, I was 160 lbs and I
- 39:45had to find a way to sit 90 plus that wasn't going to happen by
- 39:49just moving traditionally. So I really experimented with
- 39:53all all those kinds of things. But then, yeah, like for some
- 39:56reason, a name that that comes to mind that's been able to do
- 40:00high velocities at low arm speeds is Ben Heller, right?
- 40:04He's a Milwaukee guy and he's from Milwaukee.
- 40:06He just signed with the Cubs. He's been up and down injury
- 40:09plagued for the last. 6-7 years whatever it may be, works with
- 40:14Tread Athletics and then Kinetic Sports medicine performance
- 40:17which I know we both have a relationship with as well but.
- 40:21That dude can. Sit upper 90s with sub 1000 RPM
- 40:26arm speed. Meanwhile we have little Jimmy
- 40:29who's 14 right next to him top in 74 at 1300 RPM.
- 40:33I'm starting to get to the point where I view arm speed similar
- 40:36to spin rate. We can control some, we can't
- 40:38control all of it. And it's part of it is just
- 40:40like, hey, this is what you're gifted with.
- 40:43I would guess maybe on that I'm just fit balling here, but maybe
- 40:47the intrapersonal relationship with arm speed matters
- 40:51significantly more than the interpersonal relationship with
- 40:54arm speed. I would think so.
- 40:56There's only been one return to throw guy where I like made arm
- 40:59speed and emphasis and that's because the kid was hitting 90
- 41:02miles an hour at 800 RPM and I was like this is wild.
- 41:05This is not right. Like your arm is moving like
- 41:07molasses and you're hitting 90 miles an hour with that kid.
- 41:10We actually had a big under load emphasis to where he can create
- 41:14more arm speed and have have good feel for what that is.
- 41:16Think after he finished his TJ rehab.
- 41:19Throughout this last fall, he's been able to take average arm
- 41:23speed on Max effort days up like 75 to 100 RPM.
- 41:28Doesn't really sound like a lot, but it for him it was massive
- 41:33because the things that have come along with that is, you
- 41:36know, not necessarily a lot more VLO.
- 41:38I think VLO's only gone up another one or two, but spin
- 41:42rate has also gone up. And to me like that's a probably
- 41:46a pretty good trade off for that kid as he wasn't a very high
- 41:49spin rate guy to begin with. I think it can, it can go a lot
- 41:53of different ways, but typically I'm not just sitting here saying
- 41:57like hey, let's train for arm speed.
- 41:59If we can move efficiently, if we can sequence well and the V
- 42:02LO is popping up, then like I don't care what the arm speed
- 42:04is. If the V LO is not popping up
- 42:06and it looks like we're moving pretty well, even better.
- 42:09If we can get some biomechanical data that says like, hey, we are
- 42:11moving really well, but arm speed is just really low.
- 42:14Like then maybe I'll, I'll think that as the main prerogative of
- 42:18training, but it's it's pretty rare that I, I view it as like,
- 42:22hey, let's just do arm speed work.
- 42:25Makes sense to me, and without a better transition available, I
- 42:31just want to jump into the neural stuff.
- 42:33You teach it earlier and I I think I'm ready.
- 42:37I'm mentally prepared unless, unless there's other stuff in
- 42:40the return to throw that you feel like we haven't covered
- 42:43that you want to hit on. The neural stuff I found very
- 42:46interesting just from our private conversations.
- 42:49I think you can educate the audience here.
- 42:52So if you want to start bird's eye view and just slowly just
- 42:58scoop down towards the earth and give us the nitty gritty at the
- 43:01end that that would be great. All right, so I'll.
- 43:04I'll try and cover the things that I can legally talk on.
- 43:08Basically, I train the nervous system using a system called
- 43:12Square One, created by Sean Sherman, his main offices in
- 43:16Chicago. Then the guys who actually got
- 43:18me into it are Jared Slater, former Tread employees, just
- 43:22starting his own facility in Charleston, SC in the next
- 43:25couple months. And then Rob Blanc, which most
- 43:29people in the industry are going to know who that is about me
- 43:31saying anything about him, kind of got into this.
- 43:35And the the main thing that was being told to me is like, hey,
- 43:38you know, we're not allowed to really teach you what this is.
- 43:41But all we can say is it's going to change everything.
- 43:45And I'm just like, yeah, totally, like the biggest
- 43:49skeptic in the world. And I was like, as educated as I
- 43:53am, as many courses I've taken, like the knowledge that I've
- 43:56tried to obtain, like, there's nothing that's going to just
- 43:59tell me like, hey, everything I know is wrong, I need to
- 44:02transition. I was wrong.
- 44:05Everything I know is wrong, and I needed to transition.
- 44:08The interpretation of it is square 1 is a way to interview
- 44:13the nervous system. We're trying to figure out if
- 44:17specific joint actions, muscle actions, really any, anything
- 44:22going through any type of sense, right smell, taste, sounds, you
- 44:27name it, whether or not that is triggering your nervous system
- 44:31into a protective tension state. And then we're trying to
- 44:34reorganize the nervous system to no longer view that item as a
- 44:38threat. That's kind of how it works in
- 44:41an overview type way. But if you're trying to
- 44:47understand what occurs, I kind of take the black box theory
- 44:51with it is here's what goes in, here's what comes out.
- 44:55There's a bunch of stuff that happens in this big black box in
- 44:58the middle that none of it matters as long as I know what
- 45:01happens over here. So with square 1, you never know
- 45:06what the outcome of your work is going to be.
- 45:10Getting into it a little bit more like there's ways that we
- 45:11can predict, there's ways that we can try and work on more
- 45:14specific things, but with the general consensus of level 1 is
- 45:17you don't know what the outcome is going to be.
- 45:20Now I deal behind it and like the way that I've I've explained
- 45:23it to where people can understand it a little better is
- 45:25the nervous system controls everything in your body.
- 45:29It's electrical currents going from one place to another.
- 45:32Making sure communications are happening makes so that
- 45:35processes can be started, whether that be chemical or
- 45:39mechanical like it, it doesn't really matter, right?
- 45:41Like everything starts with an electric communication of some
- 45:45sort through the nervous system. So I view the nervous system.
- 45:49As a really, really, really big angle of speaker wires, right?
- 45:56And within all of these speaker wires, there's thousands of
- 45:59little connections and all of those connections have frayed
- 46:03endings to where within that speaker wire we may have 100
- 46:06copper wires. Well, maybe only five of them
- 46:08are still touching. As we try and clear the neural
- 46:14issues or dysfunction and cleaning up the inputs, we're
- 46:17trying to reconnect all of those wires and make sure that we have
- 46:21a more solid conduction of of those currents.
- 46:25And by doing so, the output of whatever we're trying to achieve
- 46:31typically gets more efficient. Now we can think about this in
- 46:36the simple terms of like the main way people are using square
- 46:401 and nervous system training is to get people out of protective
- 46:42tension so they're no longer in pain, right?
- 46:44Like we deal with a lot of guys, people with back pain.
- 46:47Do the normal stuff, but if you have a little.
- 46:51Bit more of an open viewpoint on square 1 and nervous system
- 46:56training. You can utilize it in any way
- 47:00that you really want to. So I've also utilized it in
- 47:04terms of motor learning. I've used it in terms of power
- 47:10output. For instance, a split squat,
- 47:12right? Like what if just going into a
- 47:15split squat and doing it with no weight is triggering your
- 47:17nervous system to where your output is low?
- 47:20OK, well if we clear the movement pattern, we clear the
- 47:23load loading mechanism where maybe holding the weight is no
- 47:27longer triggering our nervous system either.
- 47:30What if you find out that you can produce like 40% more power
- 47:33output than you thought and you've never been able to do it
- 47:36before and all of a sudden you can do it in 5 minutes and it
- 47:39doesn't go away? To me, that seems like
- 47:44everything that we know about the human body is probably not
- 47:47quite that accurate, right? Like if we can make these large
- 47:50amount of changes incredibly quickly, that can change
- 47:55everything. You know, one way that we can
- 47:57kind of put it into like return to throw or something along
- 48:00those lines is I know we're both pretty familiar with the TJ
- 48:04surgery itself and what happens. But at the end, before they sew
- 48:08you back up, what do they do with your arm?
- 48:11I slam it all over and make sure that it moves and it's going to
- 48:14stay stable. Well, then why can't we move it
- 48:17an hour later? Like, why?
- 48:20Like why is it in a brace and why can't we move it even if we
- 48:23try to? That doesn't make any sense.
- 48:26Then we get to this point, like, oh, main thing is let's regain
- 48:29all of our range of motion and our elbow extension and so on
- 48:32and so forth. And maybe that takes four to six
- 48:35weeks. What if we can do it in 10
- 48:37minutes? That speeds up the process quite
- 48:39a bit right now, maybe not the ligament maturation process of
- 48:43like it becoming an actual ligament, but if we can get to
- 48:46the point to where we're training the musculature that
- 48:49much faster because we don't have to deal with trying to
- 48:51regain ranges of motion. We're just getting rid of the
- 48:53protective tension that comes along with the surgery.
- 48:56Then my thought process is we can, we can make everything
- 48:59happen quite a bit faster. So square 1 and nervous system
- 49:03training, like there's, there's only so much that I can say
- 49:06about it because you know, it is, it is a business.
- 49:08Like there is things that I'm not allowed to talk about when
- 49:11it comes to it because we want other people to take the courses
- 49:14and get educated on it as well. But it can, it can truly make
- 49:19some absolutely massive changes. For instance, Jared Slater's
- 49:24made a couple posts about me what was going on during the
- 49:27course that I took because he was actually present for it.
- 49:30But I actually took that course three weeks after partially
- 49:36tearing my UCL topic for a different time.
- 49:38I was being an idiot when I did that.
- 49:40I took it three weeks after I had.
- 49:42I tore my UCL. I didn't know how torn it was at
- 49:44this point. Now we know that it's about 25%,
- 49:47but I was, I was still in a significant amount of pain and.
- 49:51After going through. I don't know, 5 to 10 minutes
- 49:54worth of work. He just tossed me a tennis ball
- 49:56and said, hey, throw this. And I was like, dude, I just
- 49:58tore my UCL. He's like, yeah, I know throw
- 50:00this. And I threw it and I had no
- 50:02pain. And I was like last night in
- 50:03bed, I could literally just lay my arm back and like I was going
- 50:06to feel like there was a knife in my elbow.
- 50:08So then then you kind of I kind of got to the point where it's
- 50:11like, OK, well, our injury is really that big of a deal.
- 50:14Or is our body just telling us they're a bigger deal than they
- 50:16actually are? Like if we can rehab a partially
- 50:22torn UCL and half the time which we're about to experiment with
- 50:26ourselves, then like what's actually going on here?
- 50:29So trying, trying to interview the nervous system, figuring out
- 50:32like it could be a multitude of different things that are
- 50:34triggering you. And I found that for people with
- 50:37less robust nervous systems who haven't gone through a lot of
- 50:39neural training, pretty much anything and everything is going
- 50:42to trigger your nervous system into a protective state.
- 50:44Like I can sit here and wave my hand over your hand and your
- 50:49little hairs on the top of your hand are going to feel it.
- 50:51That's probably going to trigger your nervous system.
- 50:54Like it really is. Is that simple?
- 50:56Like the smallest things can trigger you into a protective
- 50:59state. And so I've kind of gotten to
- 51:00this point where my thought process is by the time that
- 51:03you're 30, if you're not doing nervous system training, odds
- 51:06are you're only functioning at like 50% capacity on anything,
- 51:10whether that be cognitive, mechanical, whatever, like pain
- 51:16levels, you name it. Like you're operating at a very
- 51:19low potential and you could be operating at a much higher
- 51:22potential. I mean, I've had guys with ADHD
- 51:25come back to me after the first couple sessions and like, hey, I
- 51:28quit taking my ADHD medication. I'm like, why would you do that?
- 51:31Like you're a space cadet. And they're like, I don't need
- 51:34it. I can literally just be present.
- 51:36Can have a better understanding of what's going on around me and
- 51:40so on and so forth to the point where like they don't have to
- 51:42take their Adderall or their vivance, whatever ADHD
- 51:45medication they're on anymore. Bad guys where it's like a
- 51:48pitching coach that I was with it at ABCA that that you met.
- 51:51He has a torn labor man and shoulder and it's been torn for
- 51:5410-11 years. Yeah, I messed with his eyes for
- 51:57about 3 minutes and he hasn't had shoulder pain since.
- 51:59So there's no good way to explain it other than like going
- 52:05through it and having someone take you through it.
- 52:06But it is the wildest thing ever because we can go into like the
- 52:11weirdness of like, hey, constraint throwing drills.
- 52:14Like they're focusing on this. Well, if the nervous systems in
- 52:16protective tension, they're not working on anything.
- 52:18But if the nervous system is not in protective tension, you might
- 52:21not even need that constrained drill because they might just
- 52:24move more efficiently and move more authentically without you
- 52:27having to doing anything. I've had guys mechanics change
- 52:29after just going through a 30 minute square one session, not
- 52:33talking about their mechanics and not working on throwing at
- 52:35all. Like we might just do a square
- 52:38one session where we're working on triggers that are purely
- 52:41visual and the next thing you know their mechanics change and
- 52:44V lows up like 3 or 4 miles an hour and you're just sitting
- 52:47here like all we had to do was get.
- 52:48The body out of. Protective tension, like I think
- 52:52that really can't open up a lot of doors because then the
- 52:54second, like your body is no longer viewing the things that
- 52:57you're doing on a regular basis as triggering every aspect of
- 53:02the human body can become more efficient.
- 53:04And if we've had that understanding that everything is
- 53:08happening through an electrical current, and then that process
- 53:11is becoming started or whatever it may be, whether it's protein
- 53:14synthesis, whatever, if every single aspect of it is becoming
- 53:19more efficient, that sounds pretty good to me, right?
- 53:22Like if our muscles can recover 25% faster just because our
- 53:26nervous system is working better, that means we can train
- 53:28harder. That means we can train more
- 53:30often if we can learn a new movement pattern faster.
- 53:32Sweet be that. Ten week time frame in which we
- 53:35were going to be working on mechanical stuff before we go
- 53:37into a Velo phase. Maybe now that's only three or
- 53:40four weeks and now we have more time to go through a below
- 53:42phase, which means we can have the potential for adding more
- 53:45VLO. There's hundreds of different
- 53:48ways that you can use it, hundreds of different ways to
- 53:50think about it, but the big overarching emphasis is we're
- 53:54just trying to clean up what the body is interpreting.
- 53:57That way the output of whatever it interprets is more efficient
- 54:01and more robust. One good thing that I, I like to
- 54:04look at is the overhead squat, right?
- 54:07Like you can see minor changes in an overhead squat pretty
- 54:11easily. You can see the spine angle, you
- 54:13can see whether or not the hips dump under, you can see the
- 54:18center of mass shift based off shin angle.
- 54:20You can see a lot of different things.
- 54:22And I have someone do an overhead squat first time.
- 54:25Chin angle is going to be a little bit more vertical.
- 54:28Hips are going to be dumped under just a little bit, and
- 54:31when they get to the top, they can't quite get their arms in
- 54:34line with their spine. They're going to be a little bit
- 54:36further forward and hunched over a little bit.
- 54:39Next thing you know, you go through 15 minutes of square one
- 54:42work and we've doubled the shin angle so the center mass is
- 54:47shifted more, more efficiently. The hips don't dump under
- 54:51anymore because now we've opened up range of motion or we'll call
- 54:54it mobility because we can actually utilize that range of
- 54:57motion now at the hips. And then we have better core and
- 55:01spine control. Next thing you know that the
- 55:03spine is in a straight line. Like all of these things
- 55:06changing and we didn't work on the overhead squad at all.
- 55:09So you're just starting to clean up the process is going going on
- 55:12within the body to where it can do almost anything more
- 55:15efficiently. That's my current understanding
- 55:17of it, right? And and I think it is going to
- 55:19continue to evolve over time. I've definitely started to
- 55:23experiment it with it on some some other sides of things that
- 55:27I'm not willing to talk about quite yet that we can
- 55:30potentially have some fun with on on later on.
- 55:33But the results of it have been absolutely mind boggling to a
- 55:38point where I had a kid that soon returned to throw.
- 55:42He had internal brace and he's at 18 months and he was stuck at
- 55:4884 miles an hour. And this is a kid who's been up
- 55:51to 90 pre TJ and would normally sit 8688.
- 55:55Not really any issues like just for some reason like just
- 55:58wouldn't come out. Elbow would get stiff after
- 56:01throwing. Not really painful, just like
- 56:03stiff, whatever. We go through a first square one
- 56:06session and all of a sudden like elbow stiffness isn't happening
- 56:11after we're throwing anymore. I'm like, OK, cool.
- 56:13Well, we're in the middle of AD load.
- 56:15I just fried your nervous system by training it.
- 56:17We're going to extend this D load a little bit more and see
- 56:19what happens in the next V load day that he had.
- 56:22We're hitting PRS and you know, just last week I got a video of
- 56:26him and his most recent bullpen where he sat 87 O to 88.9 the
- 56:33entire time. Now PR isn't matching what we
- 56:37hit pre TJ, but the average is already higher than what we were
- 56:40at pre TJ. Now I'm going to be wrong.
- 56:43It's been a really, really long process for him.
- 56:45We've had quite a few random setbacks of like how could we
- 56:49have seen this coming type stuff, but next thing you know
- 56:52like we have no issues after we've involved square one.
- 56:56Have another kid very similar. He's a couple months further
- 56:59behind in his process. Another internal brace guy that
- 57:03was having issues trying to get back to previous levels.
- 57:06I just got a video from him two or three nights ago and he just
- 57:10popped his first 90 since TJ. He was stuck at that like 8688
- 57:15range for like 4 months and we could not blow through it.
- 57:18And I'm like, I'm sitting here, I've thrown everything at it and
- 57:21we've gone to like time frames where we just like quit lifting.
- 57:26We're doing all power and output work, like all sprints and
- 57:29plyometrics, all that kind of stuff.
- 57:30He'll still wouldn't budget. And I'm just in here like I've
- 57:32thrown everything at this kid. I take this course, I go see him
- 57:36in person. We go through a little bit of a
- 57:37session. I go through a couple more
- 57:39sessions over Zoom with him and the next thing you know, like
- 57:44hitting 90 and like it was funny seeing the the video of him
- 57:47because he's a kid who's been up to mid 90s before it's 90.
- 57:51Doesn't even react, just turns around.
- 57:55It's like a sigh of relief. House back on the mountain just
- 57:58keeps going. But like it's it's been nuts
- 58:00because like the guys who are dealing with barriers that we
- 58:03can't figure out will go through a square one session.
- 58:06All the sudden the barriers are gone, especially on a rehab
- 58:08process. Whether it's TJ, shoulder, ATL,
- 58:13like it doesn't matter. I think if you're not utilizing
- 58:16a type of neural training then you're already 5 steps behind.
- 58:22You can make that process significantly faster.
- 58:25That's my general overview. Well, I appreciate that.
- 58:29I fear asking any questions of turning this into an 8 hour long
- 58:34podcast because I I maybe, maybe I should have just left it alone
- 58:39because now I have more questions than I have from when
- 58:42I started. So this, this is probably a good
- 58:45time for you to share any contact info or ways people can
- 58:50get in touch with you because I'm guessing they're going to
- 58:53feel similarly to me. Yeah.
- 58:56OK, so something I'm actually going to be starting up this
- 59:00month is normally I don't take on any clients unless they're a
- 59:03full time client. So you can find me on Instagram
- 59:07at full send performance training Linktree is on there
- 59:10for you to be able to find Twitter, my website,
- 59:12applications, everything like that.
- 59:14But then I'm also going to add something to my application
- 59:16process here in the next 24 hours or so as I've talked to a
- 59:20couple other people. But I'm going to add an option
- 59:22for just getting on like a one hour call and either like if
- 59:26you're having pain issues, as long as it's not like physical
- 59:30damage, right? Like nervous system training
- 59:33can't fix physical damage. Like if you have a broken bone
- 59:37or something like that, Like we're not just going to fix it,
- 59:39but whether you know you're having pain issues like that,
- 59:42you can actually go ahead and apply.
- 59:44And we can set up a call to go through a remote square one
- 59:48session. And on top of that, if you want
- 59:52to use half of that session for to go over a mechanical analysis
- 59:56or whatever that may be, we can kind of leave those options up
- 59:59to it. But I'm going to start open
- 1:00:00myself up for some more, just like one off calls with people.
- 1:00:04And then for the people who do want to actually train with me
- 1:00:07full time or need someone to help guide them through a return
- 1:00:11to throw process, that's where the the full time training
- 1:00:13really, really comes into effect.
- 1:00:16I think we've done some very different things, and most guys
- 1:00:19do with the remote training. Obviously we have an app,
- 1:00:21software, all that kind of fun stuff.
- 1:00:23But then we've got a group Slack account with all of all of our
- 1:00:26athletes where they can communicate.
- 1:00:28I can communicate to the group, whatever it may be.
- 1:00:30There's all kinds of fun things that I want to do within within
- 1:00:34that community. And then another fun aspect is
- 1:00:36we're actually taking on another coach sometime this summer, not
- 1:00:41white ready to make that full announcement yet, but the team
- 1:00:44is growing and so will our product offering with that.
- 1:00:48One thing that's that's been really evident within the remote
- 1:00:53training structure is once guys are in college, depending on the
- 1:00:58college, like we might not be able to do a lot for you.
- 1:01:00So I think we're actually going to start to get into a little
- 1:01:02bit more of, you know, actually looking at pitch usage analytics
- 1:01:07and scouting reports for guys that are in the on the college
- 1:01:10realm as well to really help them dial in that aspect.
- 1:01:15I have this big weird audacious goal that in like 10 years, I'm
- 1:01:18also going to have agents on my payroll as well.
- 1:01:21So the goal is kind of beat out one stop shop, whether you're
- 1:01:23the from the time that you're 1314 years old, you can come in
- 1:01:27and you know, we'll cover all the rehab, we'll cover all the
- 1:01:29training. We have the agency and
- 1:01:31advisement part and effect that makes recruitment and all that
- 1:01:35kind of fun stuff really easy. Transition of pro ball.
- 1:01:38We can be your one stop shop. That's I mean that's kind of
- 1:01:40like the overarching goal. But yeah, that's kind of all the
- 1:01:42things that you can kind of see coming out in the future.
- 1:01:45Reach for the stars, so if you fall, you land on a cloud.
- 1:01:47I love it, love the approach. Good for you.
- 1:01:50It sounds like we can close the book on this chapter of the
- 1:01:54Chaplain at the Chapel of Cheddar's Journey.
- 1:01:58Thank you for hopping on with us.
- 1:02:00It was great to talk to you and we appreciate all the
- 1:02:03information. To all the listeners out there,
- 1:02:06thanks for laying back with us.