Shattering old-school thinking

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Bill Glasheen
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Shattering old-school thinking

Post by Bill Glasheen »

When a maverick in any activity goes against the grain of "conventional wisdom", are they really shattering "old-school thinking"? Or is it a case of "expert opinion" inappropriately trumping evidence-based methodology?

If you know me, you know I bring my life experiences to my martial training and methods. A dear colleague and phenomenal Shotokan practitioner once told me how important it was to "live life" and integrate it in with martial methods. Back when I met him in the early 1970s, he worked out every single day. His side thrust kick sounded like a canon going off, and his lunge punch was something to be avoided. But he was also an artist - both as producer and instructor. These days he teaches painting at Randolph Macon college, and still practices/teaches his Shotokan. And I still remember what he told me.

When I started my martial training, I evolved to a kind of Shaolin approach. I never saw my sports past (baseball and track), academic training (PhD program in biomedical engineering), music (guitar and piano) and martial arts as separate. To me they were all part of the same whole I was building so that I could live life. What I tried to do was find the common themes that allowed me to jump from venue to venue so that I could bring in fresh insights to what I was doing. Mostly I just muddled things up. But with time, it all began to jell.

If you're a fan of baseball, you know that the Red Sox and Yankees are uncharacteristically at the bottom of the AL East. And why? Pitching. Without good pitching, you'll never be a championship team. Offense requires fine and complex motor coordination, so doesn't travel well. Pitching not as much, so often will survive road trips and pressure situations. So needless to say, Boston and New York having some of the best offenses in baseball haven't helped them much. And they'll both stink until they fix the pitching problem.

And what is it? Injuries. I've contended all along that their pitching coaches are ruining perfectly good athletes. And now... this story bolsters what I think.

Read the story below. Ponder the controversies discussed. Then think about things we do in martial arts. What is evidence-based, and what is "expert opinion" largely based on tradition and folklore? What is "genuine" and what is contemporary disguised as genuine because an Asian made it up (so it MUST be true!!!)? How can we as students and teachers dig deep in our body of knowledge and separate the wheat from the chaff?

- Bill
Game's top two pitching prospects may be igniting a revolution

Meet Dylan Bundy, the Great Hope of Baltimore and the most fascinating pitching prospect since The Freak, Tim Lincecum.

Bundy is 6-0, 195 pounds, can squat 500 pounds and throw a 100 mph fastball. He's a health and nutrition freak that eats homemade granola bars, drinks broccoli-and-barley smoothies ("Last time he touched a soda pop or hamburger was five years ago," says his father, Denver), swims, boxes, and long-tosses for 30 to 45 minutes at 300 and sometimes even 400 feet, even before starts. He's 19 years old, the best minor league prospect in baseball, and he's about to change how we think about the development of the most valuable currency in the game: the young power arm.

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About a year ago, as last year's draft loomed, Dylan Bundy, his father and five officials from the Kansas City Royals were sitting around the Bundy kitchen table at their home, which is on 15 acres "out in the country with the cows," Denver says, in northeast Oklahoma. The Royals, who were picking fifth (the Orioles would draft Bundy a slot earlier), were serious about taking the righthanded phenom who went 11-0 with a 0.20 ERA and 158 strikeouts over 78 innings in his senior year at Owasso High. But they also had deep concerns about Bundy's unconventional pitching program.

"They did not like Dylan throwing long toss," says Denver. "They were discussing the way he throws, how he shouldn't throw on a long arc. Dylan and I were sitting there, just listening. And then, at some point, Dylan just took over. He took over the whole conversation, talking about specific muscle groups, why he does what he does. Before the session was over, he was teaching them about how the shoulder really works. They were in awe."

Long-toss -- a hot-button issue in the major leagues -- is at the heart of Bundy's pitching program. Bundy, as well as Diamondbacks uber-prospect Trevor Bauer, have become the poster-boys for the training method that many think is destroying young arms. Bundy and Bauer disagree. Last year as the draft both players advised certain teams to pass on them because of fears that the organizations would alter their throwing programs. About half the teams in baseball restrict their players to tossing at 120 feet; Bundy and Bauer like to air it out at 200, 300, and, on occasion, 400 feet.

Bauer went third, to the Diamondbacks, and Bundy went one pick later to the Orioles. Now they are the two most dynamic pitchers in the minors. Bundy is putting up mind-boggling numbers: he started the year with a 13-inning hitless streak, and over his first 17 innings has struck out 25, walked two and has yet to allow a run. Opposing hitters are 1-for-50 against him. Bauer is 6-1 with 1.96 ERA and 51 strikeouts in 41 1/3 innings for Class AA Mobile.

Like Bauer, Bundy has an insatiable mind and a tireless work ethic. This spring he was almost always the first player to walk through the doors at the Orioles training facility in Sarasota, Fla., at 6:30 in the morning, and would run for an hour before most of the other players showed up. Orioles strength coach Brady Anderson shadowed Bundy for a few days in Sarasota and signed off on his routine. Bundy has an 80-pound punching bag, which he brought with him from home, set up against his bed in his hotel room. "He's in the room, with the music cranked up, on his knees, still doing his workouts," says Denver.

Much of what Bundy does is about strengthening the range of rotation of his shoulders -- "an emphasis of creating rotation in the shoulder and creating stronger legs," says Denver. "It doesn't do much good to create a greater range of motion in the shoulders, unless at the ends of that range you can add strength. One of the benefits I'm starting to see out of long-toss is that those guys are strengthening, stretching and increasing the range of external rotation of the shoulder by doing long-toss."

Denver adds, "I know that when Dylan pitches he can come back and throw his long toss the next day. One reason is that if anything's wrong, he'll know right away, and something can be done about it. Since we've been doing that, he just never gets sore."

* * *

"It's something I did as a player, it's something I believe in," Rangers pitching coach Mike Maddux says of long-toss. "I remember going to spring training one time [as a player], and went out to play catch, but we were on a regimented catch program. I was kind of shocked. I was saying, 'I'm going to stretch it out, I have to get some long toss in,' and it was, 'No, we're going to play at 60 feet, 90 feet, and bring it back to 60.' And I was like, When are we going to play some long toss? 'Oh, that is our long toss,' they'd say."

Long-tossing vanished from baseball in the 1980s as player salaries increased and pitching injuries mounted. "This 120-[foot] program was built on the medical influence that started in the late 80s and early 90s with Tommy John surgery, and the medical people had more influence on the actual throwing programs," says long-toss guru Alan Jaeger, who has advised several major league teams and tutored the likes of Dan Haren and Barry Zito. "It's what they do in post-rehab surgery to get the arm back in shape, and they do a great job at that -- but that's where the story begins for training, when the rehab is done. Unfortunately the majority of organizations took on this rehab mentality, and all of the sudden you have players training at 120 feet, and it's really been the gospel."

That is, until a few years ago when a handful teams like the Rangers --- a club Jaeger has advised --- reevaluated their pitching programs and began to incorporate long-toss throughout their system. Now Maddux encourages his players at the major league level to air it out -- "long toss is not a number -- everybody's different," he says -- and when new players arrive in Texas, many are dumbfounded. Says Maddux, "Some new guys will line up, and they're saying, Oh my god, we can long-toss it? Yeah, we tell them. Get 'er done, man." Maddux adds, "When you limit players, you lower their ceiling, and you set limits on them."

Jaeger recently compiled a list of the top 11 arms in this year's upcoming draft, and found that all of them have long-tossed out to at least 300 feet and most around 350. He estimates that as recently as four years ago, there were less than five teams open to long-toss. Now he thinks that number is up to 15. Among the recent converts are Bundy's Orioles, whose new director of pitching development, Rick Peterson, is a long-toss advocate. In the Orioles system, Bundy is under no restrictions. In the Diamondbacks system, Bauer is free to throw over 300 feet before games just to loosen up before he starts. He ends up toward the right-field foul pole and launches the ball to a teammate standing near the left-field foul pole. Two throws are required to get the ball back to him.

But there clearly remains a large divide on long-toss, particularly at the major league level, and Bundy and Bauer are leading the revolution to shatter baseball's old-school thinking. "Baseball is one of the most statistical games known to man," says Denver Bundy. "And yet they don't have any statistics on injuries. How many pitchers, for example, were hurt the night after they consumed alcohol, which is a drying agent? We don't know. When it comes to pitching, injuries and developing pitching, they can't tell you anything."

These two phenoms may be about to tell us everything we need to know.
Sports Illustrated
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Glenn
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Location: Lincoln, Nebraska

Re: Shattering old-school thinking

Post by Glenn »

Here is a video of long-toss training, from Alan Jaeger who was interviewed for the SI article
Jaeger Sports Baseball Throwing Program -- 360' translates into 97mph Arm Strength & Velocity

Are the mechanics of this long-toss the same as for quarterbacks when they make similar throws with a football? It looks the same to me, but since the balls are held differently I can imagine that there may be some differences in the body mechanics used to make the throws. If not, then given such throws are a regular part of football it seems odd that baseball would be concerned about them causing injuries.

Traditional MA is often all about specialization, for example not practicing the full range of kicking techniques because one's style only specializes in one or two kicking techniques. While there are some benefits to this there are some limitations as well, and it can become codified to the extent that it becomes too restrictive to allow students to reach their full possibilities. It sounds like baseball has experienced this as well.
Glenn
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Bill Glasheen
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Re: Shattering old-school thinking

Post by Bill Glasheen »

Glenn

You ask some interesting questions, and I don't have all the answers. It is however worth mentioning that I've taught the range of kicking techniques in my classes, and still do/teach them in my latter 50s. Other than the football injury I nurse along (right knee has no lateral meniscus), it isn't hurting me any.

What kicking 10 ways to Sunday has taught me is that EVERY kick has core movement in it. Take the core out and you have decaffeinated coffee kicks. Once you see it in every kick, you look for it in classic Uechi kicks. And low and behold... you find Master Uechi Kanei doing what many considered "bad form" in his front kicks. He's got that body undulation thing going on. And you know what? One day I just got it.

As for the throwing... I read Nolan Ryan's biography many years ago. He was one of the most durable pitchers in baseball, throwing triple-digit fastballs with ease and pitching no-hitters well into his 40s. No Tommy John surgery on his arm. I remember reading where as a youth, Ryan said he couldn't necessarily throw harder than any other kid. But he remembers being able to throw FARTHER. Hence he very likely was doing long toss either for fun or as part of his training.

When I played baseball, I pitched but also played outfield. I was able to play both positions because I could throw runners out at home from center field. That power throwing motion could be translated to a good fastball. And to throw long, you have to put lots of backspin on the ball. That gives it "lift" when it travels. Change the trajectory and you have a "rising" fastball from the mound.

The long toss shown is mostly about relaxing the arm and learning to throw the ball with the core. And what do you know... there's that core thing again. Just like me with my generic karate kicks, everything is exaggerated. Once your body understands the exaggerated mechanics which derive power mostly from the core, then you make it smaller and faster.

- Bill
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