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How to Improve Your Mobility and Performance on the Mound · The Mound Visit

0:10
Speaker 1: All right, awesome. So I know I haven't been on
0:14
Speaker 1: this podcast for a while, and that's because I've been
0:18
Speaker 1: on vacation or a long trip. And so we started
0:22
Speaker 1: with Japan Tokyo and Tokyo was crazy. We went and
0:30
Speaker 1: the the amount of people there, the food, everything was awesome,
0:36
Speaker 1: and so if you haven't been to Tokyo, then highly recommend.
0:42
Speaker 1: We went from Tokyo to Singapore, and Singapore the airport
0:46
Speaker 1: is absolutely crazy. It's like an amusement park, and so
0:49
Speaker 1: again if you haven't been there, I would highly highly recommend.
0:52
Speaker 1: And now I'm in Sydney, which is home, and so
0:56
Speaker 1: I'm recording this from home, and it's really good to
0:59
Speaker 1: visit at home. It's quite nice during this time of year.
1:03
Speaker 1: So three places where if you haven't been, I would
1:07
Speaker 1: highly highly recommend to go. But so today I want
1:11
Speaker 1: to dive into mobility and how important it is and
1:16
Speaker 1: how to actually gain mobility because this is something that
1:21
Speaker 1: I've struggled with my whole career and I feel like
1:27
Speaker 1: I've started to figure it out just a little bit now,
1:32
Speaker 1: which is kind of funny because I'm I'm technically retired now,
1:36
Speaker 1: but it's like I finally figured out how to increase
1:40
Speaker 1: the flexibility and the mobility in my body. And it's
1:44
Speaker 1: thanks to this new style of training that I'm going
1:46
Speaker 1: to explain to you guys. And you guys are actually
1:50
Speaker 1: getting a treat because I've created a guide and a
1:53
Speaker 1: program which is going to be exclusive for my email subscribers,
1:59
Speaker 1: but you got are going to get them today here,
2:03
Speaker 1: and so that's what I want to dive into today.
2:08
Speaker 1: So let's get straight into it. So my whole career,
2:14
Speaker 1: I underestimated the importance of mobility. I focused all of
2:18
Speaker 1: my energy into throwing and lifting, and I never really
2:22
Speaker 1: worked on my mobility, and this is something that eventually
2:25
Speaker 1: caught up to me. In twenty twenty one, I badly
2:29
Speaker 1: earniated my disc back squatting. If you see the picture,
2:34
Speaker 1: you know, you can see like the spines and the
2:36
Speaker 1: discs and you can see one just absolutely protruding out,
2:42
Speaker 1: and so my disk just I think it just exploded.
2:46
Speaker 1: I was in backsports. I was going, I want to
2:49
Speaker 1: say too heavy, because it wasn't like something that I
2:51
Speaker 1: haven't done before, but I was going pretty heavy. It
2:53
Speaker 1: was like four or five, so four plates on each side,
2:56
Speaker 1: and I was trying to wrap it out, and I
2:59
Speaker 1: think the desk just gave out. And so what happened
3:06
Speaker 1: was the herniated disc was pressing on my sciatic nerve.
3:15
Speaker 1: Hopefully I said that right, but it was pressing on
3:18
Speaker 1: it so hard that it was sending just like excruciating
3:23
Speaker 1: pain down my leg, and any kind of pressure on
3:26
Speaker 1: that leg was just like excruciating, so so painful. It's
3:31
Speaker 1: the most pain I've ever felt in my life. And
3:35
Speaker 1: so the pain was so bad that I was bedbound.
3:37
Speaker 1: I couldn't walk, and if I did walk then I'd
3:41
Speaker 1: have to have crutches and like hop on one leg,
3:47
Speaker 1: and so it was really really bad. I remember like
3:50
Speaker 1: being in the bed and trying to get up to
3:53
Speaker 1: go pee, and that was like a mission because you know,
3:58
Speaker 1: walking that distance was so difficult for me at the time.
4:03
Speaker 1: But anyway, I got surgery on it. I got a
4:07
Speaker 1: micro dis skectomy, and that relieved like ninety nine set
4:11
Speaker 1: of the pain. I was like pain free. But the
4:14
Speaker 1: thing was like I lost so much mobility, like absolutely
4:19
Speaker 1: a ton of mobility. And I didn't really think much
4:25
Speaker 1: of it at the time. I was like, yeah, I
4:26
Speaker 1: just had surgery, that's normal, Like you're gonna lose mobility
4:29
Speaker 1: after you have surgery. That's normal. But like I did
4:35
Speaker 1: like two years of rehab exercises and I was playing
4:38
Speaker 1: at this point. I rehabbed at all, and then I
4:42
Speaker 1: kept getting told, yeah, the mobility would come back, just
4:44
Speaker 1: keep doing the rehab exercises, keep doing that. But the
4:49
Speaker 1: thing was that never came back, and it felt like
4:52
Speaker 1: I was stretching every single day and I was making
4:54
Speaker 1: backwards progress. And the rehab exercises that I was programmed
4:59
Speaker 1: was like core strengthening exercises, like all right, get your
5:03
Speaker 1: core stronger, work on your abs, let's get all of
5:08
Speaker 1: that supporting structure strong, and then that will protect your back.
5:15
Speaker 1: And you know, in theory that sounds it sounds good
5:19
Speaker 1: or all, but it wasn't translating to increased mobility or
5:23
Speaker 1: I didn't feel safe with my back. I remember one
5:26
Speaker 1: time I felt so tight and I tried to reach
5:31
Speaker 1: for my toes with straight legs, and you know, normally
5:35
Speaker 1: people are gonna get pretty close, they might not actually
5:37
Speaker 1: get to their toes, but I couldn't even get to
5:41
Speaker 1: my knees with straight with straight legs. That's how tight
5:44
Speaker 1: I was, That's how immobile I was. And I was like, man,
5:48
Speaker 1: this is really really bad. And as my mobility regressed,
5:54
Speaker 1: my velocity on the mound went down as well. And
5:57
Speaker 1: now my worst this was actually this year. Early this year,
6:02
Speaker 1: my mobility got to my worst where I couldn't even
6:04
Speaker 1: touch my knees with straight legs. I was like throwing
6:08
Speaker 1: in the high eighties, like some in the mid eighties,
6:11
Speaker 1: because you know, my body just wasn't able to get
6:15
Speaker 1: into the elite positions to throw in the low mid nineties,
6:20
Speaker 1: and so that was a big struggle. H But yeah,
6:27
Speaker 1: it just highlights the importance of mobility. You know, it's
6:30
Speaker 1: not the sexy thing to work on. The sexy things
6:34
Speaker 1: are throwing, lifting, all of that stuff. But the thing
6:39
Speaker 1: that I realized is that mobility becomes so much more
6:41
Speaker 1: important the higher level you get. And so, you know,
6:46
Speaker 1: it might not be as important for a guy who's
6:48
Speaker 1: throwing eighty five and trying to get to ninety. I
6:51
Speaker 1: believe that for that it's more okay, like get on
6:55
Speaker 1: a structured lifting throwing program and then you'll get pretty close.
7:00
Speaker 1: But going beyond that, getting from like the low nineties
7:03
Speaker 1: to the mid nineties, mid nineties to the upper nineties
7:06
Speaker 1: and beyond mobility become super super important. And it's because,
7:14
Speaker 1: like you need, your body needs to be able to
7:15
Speaker 1: get into these elite positions to develop that elite velocity.
7:21
Speaker 1: And so one of the regrets that I have throughout
7:25
Speaker 1: my career is not focusing on that every single day
7:28
Speaker 1: and prioritizing that because I really didn't care about it
7:34
Speaker 1: too much. But yeah, okay, So I talked a lot
7:38
Speaker 1: about the back, but a lot of these stuff and
7:41
Speaker 1: the new style of training that I'm going to explain
7:43
Speaker 1: to you today that really helped me and made me
7:47
Speaker 1: more mobile than I've ever been before applies to all
7:50
Speaker 1: body parts. It's not just the back. But I just
7:52
Speaker 1: give the back as an example because I had such
7:55
Speaker 1: limited mobility in the back. But yeah, let's dive into
8:02
Speaker 1: it exactly what I did and the new style of
8:05
Speaker 1: train and how I came across it as well. So
8:14
Speaker 1: I had just retired, my mobility was the worst he
8:17
Speaker 1: had ever been. Again, I couldn't even touch my knees
8:22
Speaker 1: with straight legs, like my body just felt like painful
8:25
Speaker 1: and tight, and I was like, jeez, I gotta do something.
8:30
Speaker 1: And I listened to a ton of podcasts and one
8:32
Speaker 1: of my favorite podcasts is called Modern Wisdom, and I
8:38
Speaker 1: came across one of the episodes with a guy called
8:42
Speaker 1: Knees overtoas Guy, and I was like, oh, this is interesting,
8:46
Speaker 1: and I listened to that podcast and the thing that
8:52
Speaker 1: really struck me was that Knee's overtoas guy. He is
8:54
Speaker 1: super flexible. If some of you are going to know him,
8:58
Speaker 1: his big on YouTube, Instagram, but his super mobile. He's
9:03
Speaker 1: super flexible. He's a great athlete. He can dunk with ease.
9:07
Speaker 1: He's in his mid thirties now. And the one thing
9:12
Speaker 1: that struck me was that he said he didn't develop
9:17
Speaker 1: that flexibility by stretching. He doesn't really stretch at all.
9:22
Speaker 1: It was just the type of lifting that he does
9:24
Speaker 1: that increased that mobility. I was like, damn, okay, Like
9:29
Speaker 1: let me look into that because that's a concept that
9:31
Speaker 1: I've never heard before. Where it's like I was always thinking, like, Okay,
9:35
Speaker 1: if I want to increase flexibility and mobility, I gotta
9:40
Speaker 1: do like stretching, and I got to go and stretch
9:43
Speaker 1: that static stretching, dynamic stretching. I gotta rep those out,
9:48
Speaker 1: you know, And that's kind of what I was doing before.
9:51
Speaker 1: But I wasn't seeing the progress that I wanted to,
9:55
Speaker 1: and so I dove into the knees over toes guys'
9:58
Speaker 1: concepts on how to increase flexibility, and what he describes
10:04
Speaker 1: is what's called stretch strength. And so what stretch strength.
10:13
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a hard thing to say, but
10:16
Speaker 1: stretch strength is when you train your muscles through a
10:21
Speaker 1: full range of motion with weight. And so an example
10:28
Speaker 1: is the ATG fronts split squad, and so it's a
10:36
Speaker 1: very distinct movement, but it's pretty much you're in a
10:40
Speaker 1: split squad. And then instead of stopping where your front
10:45
Speaker 1: knee is like ninety degrees, you'll not try to get
10:47
Speaker 1: your hamstring to touch your calf on the first on
10:51
Speaker 1: the front leg. And what that does is that it
10:54
Speaker 1: puts you into a position where stretches your hip flexa
10:59
Speaker 1: on the back leg like crazy. And so the theory
11:04
Speaker 1: behind it is that you're putting your body into like
11:08
Speaker 1: a stretched position, but the weights are pulling you into
11:12
Speaker 1: deeper and deeper positions and ranges where you wouldn't have
11:16
Speaker 1: access to that without the weight. And so it's a
11:22
Speaker 1: little bit hard on a podcast format, But if I
11:26
Speaker 1: could show like a demonstration it's you're in a you're
11:32
Speaker 1: in a split squat position and you go down as
11:36
Speaker 1: far as you can, and you want to keep the
11:38
Speaker 1: back leg as straight as possible, and if you do that,
11:42
Speaker 1: you're gonna feel a deep, deep stretch and you hit
11:44
Speaker 1: flexa and you'll kind of know what I mean. Another
11:48
Speaker 1: one is like the Cossacks squad, and so if you've
11:52
Speaker 1: ever done a Cossack squad, you could you know that
11:54
Speaker 1: there's like a deep stretch in the inner thighs and
11:58
Speaker 1: you go deep, deep, deep, and the weights just keep
12:01
Speaker 1: pulling you and pulling you into deeper positions. And so
12:07
Speaker 1: this is kind of what's called the strength stretch. Strength
12:11
Speaker 1: training is where you're strengthening the body through full range,
12:16
Speaker 1: stretched positions and the weight is pulling you into deeper,
12:21
Speaker 1: deeper positions and your body is getting strong in those
12:24
Speaker 1: full range motions. And so I thought this was a
12:29
Speaker 1: really really interesting concept, and I put it to practice,
12:34
Speaker 1: and for three months I did a bunch of these exercises,
12:38
Speaker 1: and I'll break down some of these exercises in a second,
12:43
Speaker 1: but what actually happened was I went from not being
12:45
Speaker 1: able to touch my knees with straight legs to now
12:48
Speaker 1: I have straight legs and I could get my knuckles
12:51
Speaker 1: to the floor, which is like better range than most
12:55
Speaker 1: people have. And so after seeing these results, I was like, Okay,
13:01
Speaker 1: like there's definitely something to this. I need to keep
13:04
Speaker 1: doing this. This is the most mobile I have ever been.
13:08
Speaker 1: It's worked way better than stretching. And so I just
13:11
Speaker 1: keep diving deeper and deeper, and I keep doing these
13:14
Speaker 1: exercises and now I feel like I have the best
13:17
Speaker 1: mobility of my life. And so I want to dive
13:22
Speaker 1: into a little bit a couple of exercises that you
13:27
Speaker 1: can try some of my favorites. And you know, it
13:34
Speaker 1: is a little bit difficult, but if you type it
13:36
Speaker 1: into if I describe the exercise and you type it
13:39
Speaker 1: into YouTube, you can see the movements and so you
13:45
Speaker 1: can look that up if I don't describe it enough.
13:50
Speaker 1: But yeah, let's dive into some of those. So a
13:54
Speaker 1: note before I dive into some of the exercises. These
13:58
Speaker 1: exercises are best with like a one to five second
14:01
Speaker 1: pause at the stretch. And so you know, we just
14:05
Speaker 1: talked about the ATG split squad, the full range split squad.
14:10
Speaker 1: When you're in that deep stretch position, you want to
14:14
Speaker 1: hold that for one to five seconds. My sweet spot
14:18
Speaker 1: is like two to three seconds. I'm in that stretch
14:21
Speaker 1: position and I kind of pulse. I'm like pulsing a
14:24
Speaker 1: little bit just so I can get a little bit
14:26
Speaker 1: deeper and deeper into that position. And you're really going
14:29
Speaker 1: to feel those weights pull you into a range that
14:33
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have access to without those weights. Another note
14:39
Speaker 1: is that you can't go too heavy with these. There's
14:42
Speaker 1: a sweet spot to where if you feel like your
14:45
Speaker 1: muscles are resisting the stretch like it's a it's not
14:51
Speaker 1: allowing the stretch to happen, then you go into heavy.
14:54
Speaker 1: You want it to be like the stretch is happening
14:57
Speaker 1: and the weight is just pulling you into a deeper position,
15:01
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like a relaxing into that position
15:04
Speaker 1: type thing. It's not like a resisting like. It shouldn't
15:09
Speaker 1: feel like a strength exercise. It should feel like a stretch.
15:13
Speaker 1: And so I would really start super light with these
15:16
Speaker 1: until you get comfortable with the exercises, and then you
15:19
Speaker 1: can start adding weight and adding weight, and as you
15:22
Speaker 1: add weight, you're going to be able to get into deeper,
15:25
Speaker 1: deeper positions and get stronger and stronger in those stretch
15:28
Speaker 1: positions which are going to make you more mobile. And
15:32
Speaker 1: so those are the two disclaimers or notes on these exercises. Again,
15:41
Speaker 1: it's it's this is for mobility. It's not for strength.
15:44
Speaker 1: Don't use these as a strength program because you know
15:53
Speaker 1: you still need to do your like squads, deadlifts, stuff
15:56
Speaker 1: like that to add that strength, add that horsepower. This
15:59
Speaker 1: is just purely form mobility. And so let's time into
16:04
Speaker 1: a couple exercises. So we've already explained this ATG split squad.
16:09
Speaker 1: The ATG split squad is if you do it, you're
16:13
Speaker 1: gonna feel it. It's gonna be a crazy stretching. Your
16:15
Speaker 1: hit flexes and the hip flexes are something that gets
16:19
Speaker 1: neglected a lot, and they tighten up because these days
16:24
Speaker 1: we're sitting a lot, and so when we're sitting, we're
16:26
Speaker 1: in that the hip flex that is in a flex position,
16:30
Speaker 1: and so that just gets tighter and tighter and tighter,
16:32
Speaker 1: and so loosening that up was huge for me in
16:37
Speaker 1: my back because the hip flexer connects to part of
16:41
Speaker 1: the lawer back and it pulled my pelvis into a
16:45
Speaker 1: position where it was hurning my back and so I
16:51
Speaker 1: when I loosened that up, I felt a lot of
16:52
Speaker 1: relief in my lawer back. So atg split squad, you know,
16:57
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of different benefits, but for this episode
17:00
Speaker 1: and for mobility specifically, it's mostly for the hip flexo.
17:07
Speaker 1: So I'll do those. That's a really good exercise. Another
17:10
Speaker 1: one we already talked about is the Cossacks squad, and
17:13
Speaker 1: so for the inner thighs. Another one that's crucial for pictures.
17:19
Speaker 1: You want to go down deep and then just let
17:22
Speaker 1: the weight pull you into that stretch and hold it
17:28
Speaker 1: for one to one to five seconds and then come
17:30
Speaker 1: up and so you want to wait. That's heavy enough
17:34
Speaker 1: for you to feel like it's pulling you into a stretch,
17:38
Speaker 1: but not so much where it's like you can't even
17:40
Speaker 1: get into the right stretch position. That one's a huge one.
17:45
Speaker 1: The next one is a Jefferson curl, and so there's
17:50
Speaker 1: a little bit of a disclaimer on this one. Do
17:53
Speaker 1: not go heavy. I've been doing these for a couple
17:56
Speaker 1: of months now and I still don't go past I
17:59
Speaker 1: still don't go heavier than the bar itself. And so
18:02
Speaker 1: the Jefferson's curl, it looks scary, it's it's a dead lift.
18:08
Speaker 1: But once you get yeah, so it's a deadlift with
18:11
Speaker 1: straight legs. And so once you get into the end
18:15
Speaker 1: range of your deadlift as far as you can with
18:18
Speaker 1: straight legs with a straight back, you relax your back
18:23
Speaker 1: and you curl it, and so you get as deep
18:26
Speaker 1: as you can with as low as you can with
18:31
Speaker 1: the bar. I don't know if I explain that right,
18:34
Speaker 1: but if you look up Jefferson curl it's it's this
18:40
Speaker 1: was one of the biggest exercises that help my back
18:44
Speaker 1: because it decompresses the spine. It opens up each segment
18:48
Speaker 1: of the spine, and it improves the mobility that way.
18:54
Speaker 1: And so the weight that you're carrying in your hands
18:58
Speaker 1: again pull you into the positions that you wouldn't be
19:02
Speaker 1: able to without the weight. You know, if you have
19:05
Speaker 1: straight legs and you just try to touch your toes, like, yeah,
19:08
Speaker 1: you feel a stretch. But if you have like even
19:13
Speaker 1: just like ten pounds on each side, it's a completely
19:17
Speaker 1: different feel. You get way more of a stretch in
19:20
Speaker 1: the hamstrings, in the back and everything else. And so
19:25
Speaker 1: look it up, Jefferson curle. You want to research exactly
19:28
Speaker 1: how you do it, because it is a little bit
19:30
Speaker 1: of a complex exercise and you want to be able
19:33
Speaker 1: to do it properly. But yeah, this exercise goes against
19:39
Speaker 1: conventional wisdom of oh, never round your back. This one
19:44
Speaker 1: is all right, we're rounding our back and we're strengthening
19:48
Speaker 1: and stretching in those positions, and this is something that
19:54
Speaker 1: you definitely have to work towards. Maybe you start with
19:57
Speaker 1: like two pounds, like super lightweight, and then go from there.
20:01
Speaker 1: But yeah, definitely don't go heavy with this one. But
20:04
Speaker 1: really really good exercise for the spine and improving mobility
20:10
Speaker 1: in the spine. Okay, next one. The next one is
20:17
Speaker 1: a QL raise. So there's a thing called the QL muscle.
20:24
Speaker 1: It's on the side of our lower back, and it's
20:29
Speaker 1: a muscle that gets neglected a lot. We talk a
20:32
Speaker 1: lot about the obliques, but there's this thing called QL
20:34
Speaker 1: on the side that can get really really tight, and
20:37
Speaker 1: so this is an exercise for that. And basically what
20:41
Speaker 1: you do is you get to you go to a
20:43
Speaker 1: hyper extension machine like a back extension machine, where you know,
20:48
Speaker 1: you have the padding on your stomach and then you
20:51
Speaker 1: go down and up and it's like working a lower back.
20:55
Speaker 1: But what you do is you go on the side
20:58
Speaker 1: and so the padding is on the side of your hip,
21:02
Speaker 1: and then you put your arm on your head and
21:06
Speaker 1: you go as far down as possible. And when you
21:09
Speaker 1: do this, you feel a crazy stretch on the side
21:13
Speaker 1: of your like your obliques and then the QL muscle,
21:17
Speaker 1: so like the side of your core. And again this
21:23
Speaker 1: is something that you want to ease into because you
21:27
Speaker 1: don't want to overload the spine and do you don't
21:29
Speaker 1: want to mess with the spine or anything like that.
21:31
Speaker 1: And so as you gain confidence with it, you can
21:35
Speaker 1: start increasing weight. Right now, I've been doing it for
21:39
Speaker 1: like a couple of months now, probably like four or
21:41
Speaker 1: five months, and I can do, you know, like fifty
21:44
Speaker 1: sixty pounds with this, but I would definitely not start there.
21:48
Speaker 1: I would start with five pounds, ten pounds, and really
21:52
Speaker 1: really take your time increasing the weight because you don't
21:55
Speaker 1: want to mess with the spine. A little bit of
21:58
Speaker 1: aggravation in the spine and you're out a couple months,
22:00
Speaker 1: so really take your time. But again, this isn't a
22:05
Speaker 1: strength exercise, it's a mobility exercise. So go down, really
22:09
Speaker 1: feel the stretch, let the way pull you into the positions,
22:14
Speaker 1: and then come back up slowly. This isn't going to
22:16
Speaker 1: be like some explosive exercise or anything like that. It's
22:21
Speaker 1: a slow tempo, pauses, take your time, feel the stretch
22:26
Speaker 1: kind of exercise. So that was the Q L raise
22:33
Speaker 1: q L. So the letter the letter Q and the
22:37
Speaker 1: letter L and then raise. All right. The next one
22:43
Speaker 1: is the dumbbell pullover. So this one's pretty straightforward. You
22:49
Speaker 1: lie on a bench. The bench is like here, and
22:52
Speaker 1: then you lie on it this way, so it's like
22:54
Speaker 1: a cross bench pullover. You lie on it, you grab
22:58
Speaker 1: a dumbell above you, and then you bring it as
23:02
Speaker 1: far back as possible. This is with two arms. I'm
23:06
Speaker 1: just doing it one because I have to carry the mic,
23:07
Speaker 1: but you bring as far as possible and then you
23:10
Speaker 1: bring it back. And so this is opening up the chest,
23:14
Speaker 1: it's opening up the lats, it's opening up the upper back.
23:20
Speaker 1: If you do what you're gonna feel a crazy exercise.
23:23
Speaker 1: But what do you want to do is here, hold
23:25
Speaker 1: it for one to five seconds and then come back.
23:29
Speaker 1: The dumbbell pullover. You'll be able to see a lot
23:33
Speaker 1: of stuff on YouTube for that. That's a pretty straightforward exercise,
23:38
Speaker 1: all right. Two more more the full range Romanian deadlift. Okay,
23:44
Speaker 1: so you know we do dils all the time as
23:48
Speaker 1: baseball players, but we stop at our knees and then
23:52
Speaker 1: we come back up. Now this one is a full
23:55
Speaker 1: range DL. So instead of stopping at your knees, you
23:59
Speaker 1: want to go as deep as possible and let the
24:03
Speaker 1: weights pull you into a deep position. Again, I'm going
24:06
Speaker 1: to repeat that, but this is the point of the weight.
24:10
Speaker 1: It's to pull you into the deep positions and it's
24:13
Speaker 1: not for like the strength adaptation. And so you want
24:18
Speaker 1: to go as deep as possible, as much as much
24:22
Speaker 1: range as you have, and then you want to hold
24:24
Speaker 1: it there and then come back up and again start
24:28
Speaker 1: like you know, you don't want to slap on three
24:30
Speaker 1: point fifteen and do this straight away. But as you
24:33
Speaker 1: get stronger and stronger, there are guys who do this
24:35
Speaker 1: with you know, four plates on each side and they
24:38
Speaker 1: go deep, deep, deep, and then come back up. And
24:41
Speaker 1: what's what that's doing is just opening up your hamstrings
24:44
Speaker 1: and your calves and like you glutes, so in thatflection position,
24:51
Speaker 1: it's just opening everything up. And this is something that
24:54
Speaker 1: I've been doing for a lot a long time and
24:56
Speaker 1: it's and it feels crazy. It. It hits your ego
25:02
Speaker 1: a little bit because you really need to start light.
25:05
Speaker 1: You know, I started at probably just the bar itself,
25:10
Speaker 1: and then now I'm working myself up, but like going
25:14
Speaker 1: into full range RDLS. It's something that's really opened up
25:18
Speaker 1: my hamstrings and my posterior chain, something that I would
25:23
Speaker 1: highly recommend. All Right. The last one is a seated
25:30
Speaker 1: good Morning, And so you're sitting on a bench or
25:34
Speaker 1: anything like bench height. You sit there and legs are
25:41
Speaker 1: a little bit wider than shoulder width, okay, and all
25:45
Speaker 1: you do is a good morning. So if you look
25:49
Speaker 1: it up seeded good morning, you'll be able to see
25:52
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff on that. But basically what you
25:54
Speaker 1: want to do is straight back, straight back, and you
25:57
Speaker 1: want to try to get your belly button two the bench,
26:00
Speaker 1: and you want to go as lower as possible. And
26:03
Speaker 1: what this is doing is just opening up the inner thighs.
26:07
Speaker 1: So like the inside of your thighs is just a
26:09
Speaker 1: deep stretch. If you do it correctly, you're gonna feel
26:12
Speaker 1: deep stretch within the inner thighs and it's just going
26:18
Speaker 1: to open those up. And so a lot of this
26:23
Speaker 1: is like, Okay, I did a lot of these because
26:27
Speaker 1: my focus was on the lower back, and the lower
26:30
Speaker 1: back is like the center of all things, and so
26:32
Speaker 1: I think all players should really be focusing on the
26:35
Speaker 1: lower back and the core, and a lot of these
26:38
Speaker 1: exercises open up around the lawer back, and so it's like,
26:43
Speaker 1: all right, we're going to open up the upper back
26:45
Speaker 1: with the dumbbell pullover. We're gonna open up the inner
26:49
Speaker 1: thighs with the Sea to Good Morning and the Cossacks squad.
26:52
Speaker 1: We're going to open up the front of the thigh
26:54
Speaker 1: with the ATG split squad. We're going to open up
26:58
Speaker 1: the hand strings and the glutes and posterior chain with
27:03
Speaker 1: the R D L and stuff like that. So you
27:05
Speaker 1: want to open up all these little parts and that
27:10
Speaker 1: allows your core to move the best it can, which
27:14
Speaker 1: is what leads to you know, out of mobility and
27:18
Speaker 1: out of performance as well. And so those are kind
27:24
Speaker 1: of the exercises that I would recommend to get started with.
27:28
Speaker 1: There are a ton more, but I don't want to
27:30
Speaker 1: keep listening out exercises because these are kind of like
27:33
Speaker 1: my favorites and the core ones that I feel like
27:36
Speaker 1: any athlete can just incorporate and get a lot of results.
27:41
Speaker 1: Really quickly. So but yeah, the so i'll I want
27:48
Speaker 1: to quickly go through like a sample program of how
27:51
Speaker 1: I would program these and then we can wrap things up.
27:54
Speaker 1: But with the mobility program, the general concept is to
28:00
Speaker 1: work from the ground up, okay, And so you want
28:03
Speaker 1: to open up the calves, the hamstrings, and then your
28:08
Speaker 1: hips and then your hip flexes and then you go
28:12
Speaker 1: to like you just want to go up and then
28:15
Speaker 1: you can go like the q wel and then the
28:17
Speaker 1: upper back. And so that's kind of like the concept
28:20
Speaker 1: that I use is like open things up from the
28:23
Speaker 1: ground up, all right, And so how I would do
28:27
Speaker 1: this is I would start with a carf phrase. I
28:31
Speaker 1: know we didn't talk about this, but a car phrase
28:33
Speaker 1: is another one. You want to do a car phrase
28:36
Speaker 1: where your calf is in a deep stretch position right
28:40
Speaker 1: here and then full range up and down. Okay, this
28:45
Speaker 1: is with weight and so again two to three sets,
28:49
Speaker 1: ten reps, one to five second pause at the stretch
28:54
Speaker 1: and you're gonna feel it the next day if you
28:56
Speaker 1: if you do these properly, your carves are gonna get
28:59
Speaker 1: really store because it's probably not used to this type
29:02
Speaker 1: of stretch and stretch strength training. Okay, so I'll start
29:08
Speaker 1: with the calf hrase and then I'll go into the rdils.
29:11
Speaker 1: Start light, you know, go as deep as you can.
29:15
Speaker 1: Come up again, two to three sets ten reps, five
29:19
Speaker 1: second poles. At this stretch, whatever really feels good. How
29:25
Speaker 1: like how long you want to pause at the bottom
29:27
Speaker 1: is up to you, but you want to go from
29:29
Speaker 1: like three to five seconds is a sweet spot that
29:32
Speaker 1: I found. Next, go into the seated good morning, and
29:37
Speaker 1: so you're on the bench, good morning, open up those
29:40
Speaker 1: in the thighs, and then go into the Jefferson curl.
29:44
Speaker 1: This is the one that opens up each segment of
29:46
Speaker 1: the spine. You're rounding your back and you're going as
29:49
Speaker 1: deep as possible with straight legs. Start light, do not
29:54
Speaker 1: go heavy. Don't go heavy on any of those, and
29:58
Speaker 1: really take your time adding weight with these. After you
30:02
Speaker 1: do the Jefferson curve, go into this ATG split squad.
30:05
Speaker 1: So now we're going to open up the hit flexes.
30:08
Speaker 1: Do two to three sets of ten reps, then cosack squad,
30:12
Speaker 1: dumbell pull over, and then the QL raise And so honestly,
30:18
Speaker 1: this is like the bulk of the things that I
30:20
Speaker 1: did to become more mobile than I've ever been before.
30:26
Speaker 1: I did these probably three times a week, and like
30:32
Speaker 1: I saw it really really good results, and so I'll
30:35
Speaker 1: just incorporate these into your strength program. You know, if
30:42
Speaker 1: you do like a full body three times a week
30:45
Speaker 1: type thing, then that's easy. Just do these in front
30:48
Speaker 1: of your strength training and then complete your strength training.
30:52
Speaker 1: And that's how you can incorporate it three times a week.
30:55
Speaker 1: Or if you do lower upper lower upper stuff like that,
30:58
Speaker 1: you can you can pretty much do it every workout day.
31:03
Speaker 1: And so as long as you're not going heavy and
31:06
Speaker 1: treating it more as a stretch mobility exercise, then you
31:10
Speaker 1: can complete these, you know, four or five times a week.
31:15
Speaker 1: The biggest mistake is to go too heavy and so
31:18
Speaker 1: then your muscles need time to recover and it's not
31:21
Speaker 1: getting the type of stretch and stimulus that we're looking
31:27
Speaker 1: for to gain that mobility. And so again I don't know,
31:31
Speaker 1: I keep repeating this, but it's not a strength exercise,
31:34
Speaker 1: it's for mobility. If you do want to use some
31:38
Speaker 1: of these exercises for strength, and people do, and there's
31:41
Speaker 1: something that I'm going to start doing, like you have
31:45
Speaker 1: to program them completely separate, because you can't be doing
31:49
Speaker 1: like you know, like these exercises for strength and then
31:51
Speaker 1: going into your strength training, because that's just overloading your body.
31:56
Speaker 1: And so I would say start light, start with these
31:59
Speaker 1: as a mobility exercise, doing before your lifting program, and
32:05
Speaker 1: then yeah, go from there, really focus on the stretch
32:11
Speaker 1: and pausing in the stretch position. And so I think
32:15
Speaker 1: if you're able to do most of those exercises for
32:18
Speaker 1: consistent three to five times a week, you're going to
32:20
Speaker 1: see really really great results. And yeah, I would really
32:26
Speaker 1: like to see if someone's consistent with this, see the
32:30
Speaker 1: results that they get, because it's something that really really
32:33
Speaker 1: helped me and I think it's going to help a
32:35
Speaker 1: lot of other players. And so if you do this,
32:38
Speaker 1: you're consistent with it and you see some results, then
32:42
Speaker 1: message me on Twitter at Guessner Josh and we can
32:46
Speaker 1: talk about how to progress from there. But for today,
32:52
Speaker 1: that's it. I'm going to wrap things up. It's the
32:57
Speaker 1: thing that may be the most mobile I've ever been
33:01
Speaker 1: was stretch strength training, and what that is is using
33:06
Speaker 1: weights to pull. It's like training where you use weights
33:11
Speaker 1: to pull you into deeper and deeper positions. And so
33:16
Speaker 1: we already talked about the exercises, but those are the
33:19
Speaker 1: exercise that I did. I did them three to five
33:22
Speaker 1: times a week, and I found really really great results.
33:26
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I think that's it for today. And again,
33:32
Speaker 1: if you do try this and you see some results,
33:35
Speaker 1: message me on Twitter. I would love to connect and
33:38
Speaker 1: see how we can progress and keep incorporating these styles,
33:45
Speaker 1: this style of training, because I don't see it in
33:48
Speaker 1: baseball at all. So yeah, I'll see you guys soon.
33:52
Speaker 1: So yeah. Six