Absolute Throwing; Part I.
As we follow up absolute hitters with the next series, absolute throwers, I find it appropriate to start where the last entry ended, where I provided an overview of the temporal approach for Hitters. Since the 3D Approach serves as a universal baseline for all athletes, coaches, and trainers, there is no need to further explain this approach for that of the thrower.
If you’re just catching up with the blog now, the temporal approach can be summarized as a style of program organization that is complementary to the kinematic sequence. In other words, force expressed from the trail leg to the lead leg during rotation. In rotational sports, actions (in this case the swing and the throw) are quite similar. Therefore, the sequence of exercises will be almost identical with a couple key differences. For a pitcher, the trail leg is the leg in contact with the rubber and of course the lead leg guides the athlete’s momentum towards the batter.
The purpose of the Temporal Approach is to develop and (over time) increase usable arm speed within the thrower’s delivery. From this perspective, the pitcher’s tool IS arm speed, whereas a hitter’s tool is bat speed. Simple enough.
In addition to arm, speed and strength for a picture, other tools to be considered are:
pitch array, the variant ball spins in a pitchers arsenal, plus the ability to locate each of those pitches.
pitch sequence, the manner in which the hitter is attacked via spin variation and location.
stamina, the duration for which the pitcher can effectively last in a competition by utilizing each of the aforementioned tools.
Without a doubt, the Most significant difference between the approaches for the hitter and thrower is in the importance and implementation of the flexion curl.
The throwing action is more extremity driven, thus the flexion curl is placed at the end of the Temporal Approach, matching the kinematic sequence of throwing. For hitters, the flexion curl serves the purpose of helping the athlete manage posture before committing to the swing. For that Integrated Approach, the Flexion Curl can be used to attribute an explanation and solution for pitchers who struggle to decelerate after ball release. Neither the swing or throw occurs in one Axis or another, however improving movement skills in the X- Axis may prevent the rotating athlete from spinning off or in other words, over rotating. For the pitcher, this means finishing with energy moving towards the direction- of the throw (the batter).
In Part II., we will further examine industry trends and conclude Part III. with a proposed formula that may improve an athletes tolerance for higher volume throwing and recovery.