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15 At Home Strengthening, Stability, & Rehab Exercise Tips For Catcher's Knee Pain, Sever's Ligament Syndrome, & Osgood-Schlatter

15 At Home Strengthening, Stability, & Rehab Exercise Tips For Catcher’s Knee Pain, Sever’s Ligament Syndrome, & Osgood-Schlatter

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Discover 15 exercise tips you can use to strengthen, stabilize, and rehab knees for symptoms surrounding catcher’s crouch knee pain, Sever’s ligament syndrome and Osgood-Schlatter disease…

Osgood-Schlatter Disease Treatment:

 

 

Sever’s Disease Rehab Exercises:

 

15 Ways To Prevent Injury, Minimize Damage, & Rehab Knees

 

Fragile.  What a “dumb” joint.  I heard one of my 8th grade hitters, who took a break from lessons to play football, busted his knee requiring surgery, and would be out for 6-8 weeks.  Another one of my 7th grade hitters busted his knee playing soccer, requiring minor surgery.

And yet another hitter of mine, a Junior in High School, tweaked his knee playing basketball at school, and will be undergoing an X-Ray (which will probably turn up negative), followed by an MRI to be safe.

And btw, all these hitters are smart young men, who have performed above and beyond for their age in the batter’s box.  I frequently tell my hitters, you’re no good to your team sitting on the “shelf”, so take care of your body.

So, what’s the answer?

SCIENCE-BASED TRAINING:

Improve your hitting strategy dramatically by applying human movement principles.

Learn not only how and what to train but also the science behind the methods.

Right Course For You? Take Quiz Now

Now, we can’t pull out ye ol’ pocket crystal ball, reveal an injury before it happens, and avoid it.  But…we…can…prevent them!  We’ll get into what we can do in a moment…but first,

Studies show today’s young athletes are sitting 80% of their day.  Athletes are specializing in one sport earlier and earlier in life.  If you read my recent post on 4 Tips On How To Train Springy Fascia, then you’ll remember the first rule of Fight Club is…ahem…training fascia is, to vary training vectors (i.e. be varied in different movement planes of motion).  Healthy fascia HATES moving in the same way over and over again – like a 2yo, it gets bored easily!

On top of all that, observe the following reality about young female athletes from a New England Baptist Hospital post titled, “Why Do Female Athletes Suffer More ACL Injuries Than Males?”:

“High school female athletes in the United States suffer 20,000-80,000 ACL injuries per year. The issue isn’t only that female athletes are prone to these potentially season-ending injuries: the National Institutes of Health reports that female athletes are two to eight times more likely to suffer an ACL injury than their male counterparts.”

For young female athletes, factors that contribute to this increased risk are the differences in sports undertaken and in gender anatomy and structure (duh!).  The truth is, a wider lumbo-pelvic-hip complex puts the knees in a structurally compromised position.

For all athletes, the knee is considered a “dumb” joint, oftentimes stuck, or rendered unstable, between two immobile joints – the hip and ankle.  When the “bookends” are tight, stiff, and immobile, then the knee becomes unstable or “fragile”.

So, what can we do to prevent injury, minimize damage, or treat a knee injury?  I wanted to share a list of credible FREE resources parents and coaches can use to reference for knee speed bumps…

  1.  Overcome Knee Pain: Exercises and Solutions for Crunchy Knees (Gold Medal Body Fitness)
  2. Speedy Recovery? Ice Bath Benefits Not What They Seem (Hitting Performance Lab)
  3. 5 Simple Solutions For Anterior Knee Pain (Breaking Muscle)
  4. How To Do The Splits: Proven Hip and Leg Stretches for Splits (Gold Medal Body Fitness)
  5. Are You Weak In The Knees? (Breaking Muscle)
  6. Dr. Kelly Starrett from MobilityWOD is one of my favorite resources for troubleshooting injuries.  Click Here for a YouTube link to view the videos he’s done on dealing with knees.
  7. Identifying the What and Why of Valgus Collapse: Part 1: Identifying the What of Valgus Collapse (FunctionalMovement.com)
  8. CLICK HERE for a YouTube video of Charlie Weingroff demonstrating how to fix knee valgus using Reactive Neuromuscular Training (RNT).
  9. The Do’s and Don’ts of Training Squats (CharlesPoliquin.com)
  10. Building Your Arsenal: 5 Exercises for Bulletproof Knees (GymnasticBodies.com)
  11. How to build Super Knees (Forum Topic at GymnasticBodies.com)
  12. Have a favorite training website with an overwhelming amount of info on it?  Here’s a trick to filter information for what you’re looking for…go to Google, type the following into search engine: “site:<<insert actual website w/out www. here>> + keyword…for example “site:gymnasticbodies.com knees”
  13. PAY-FOR Local in-a-town-near-you Programs: Yoga and Pilates
  14. PAY-FOR Online Program #1: https://gmb.io/ff/#choose (I have no affiliation with this program)
  15. PAY-FOR Online Program #2: https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/gb-courses/stretch-series/#titleBar

If your athletes move better, then they’ll perform better.  The knee is considered a “dumb” joint, so make knees SMART (aka “antifragile”) again!

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Hitting Training For Baseball & Softball Swing Trainers | Hitting Performance Lab

Importance Of Diaphragmatic Breathing Techniques On Sports Performance And Psychology For Baseball & Softball Athletes | STOP Anxiety, Famous Athletes Who Do It, & 4-7-8 Study

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Discover importance of diaphragmatic breathing techniques on sports performance and psychology for baseball and softball athletes.  Learn how to STOP anxiety, famous athletes who use breathing techniques and the 4-7-8 breathing study.

Breathing Technique For Hitting: Why Hitters Shouldn’t Breath Like “Normal”

 

 

Before we get to the breathing technique for hitting a baseball (same for softball), consider breathing is one of the most commonly dysfunctional movement patterns today.  In other words, nowadays “normal” breathing IS dysfunctional!

Breathing Technique For Hitting A Baseball

Photo courtesy: MobilityWOD.com YouTube video

Why?  Here are a few reasons off the top of my head – you could probably think of others:

  • High levels of stress hormone cortisol throughout the day because of constant bombardment of mind numbing hamster-constantly-on-the-wheel technology (phones, video games, etc.),
  • Overuse training – doubling training efforts without doubling recovery efforts (dangerously over scheduled youth athletes), and
  • Injuries to certain areas of the body, playing a one-sided dominant sport (i.e. baseball and softball), and imbalanced training (without proper flushing of waste by the lymphatic system), can build a shorter breathing pattern, which can cause a constant drip-drip-drip of the fight or flight response throughout the day.

SCIENCE-BASED TRAINING:

Improve your hitting strategy dramatically by applying human movement principles.

Learn not only how and what to train but also the science behind the methods.

Right Course For You? Take Quiz Now

One of my hitter’s dad asked me what physical training I recommend outside of a busy baseball and football schedule, and I said either Yoga or Pilates.  I HIGHLY disagree with most hitting coaches putting ORGASMIC emphasis on explosive, Olympic, Cross-fit, or whatever else type of performance training out there.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and place for physical training geared for performance, but corrective maintenance training SHOULD precede performance – if we want healthy moving athletes.  If you put fresh 80,000 mile tires on a Lamborghini with a misaligned front end, then you’ll be lucky to get half the miles out of the tires!  Also, the tires won’t be your only problem.

Let’s connect what an effective breathing technique for hitting a baseball means to hitters…

World renowned strength and conditioning coach Brett Jones says this about “anatomical” versus “biomechanical” breathing in a post titled, “How Your Breathing Relates to Your Movement”:

“Anatomical breathing match refers to the natural matching of the inhalation and exhalation with extension and flexion of the spine/body. Extension facilitates inhalation and flexion facilitates exhalation. As the body gets compressed (flexion) exhalation dissipates the pressure and extension assists in opening the thoracic area to assist in inhalation. In addition, anatomical breathing can be used in stretching where the exhale is used to enhance the relaxation into a stretch.

Whereas, in the biomechanical breathing match we flip those actions. Inhaling to increase the intra-abdominal pressure during flexion and exhaling to improve muscular action and stability during extension. Biomechanical breathing match is key to being able to handle loads through the body during performance. During a dead-lift, kettle-bell swing or a kettle-bell military press the biomechanical breathing match allows us to amp up our strength and stability.”

The video above demonstrates this biomechanical breathing technique for hitting a baseball.  I’ve had quite a few of you ask about this, so here you go!  The description says the above YouTube video is about…

“Identifying and correcting low back extension loading issues through the correct sequence of breathing. If we can get our athletes to breath better across all movements and under load, performance will improve.”

Dr. Mark Cheng, one of my many favorite strength and conditioning coaches, says:

“When you truly own a movement pattern, strain isn’t part of the picture.”

There are a couple other resources I’d be estupido not to mention that plays right into improving breathing technique for hitting a baseball:

The above video is only 3-min and 41-secs, so there won’t be any breathing technique for hitting a baseball notes.  I’d love to hear your thoughts in the REPLY section below this post…

Move better, perform better.  Enjoy!

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Hitting Training For Baseball & Softball Swing Trainers | Hitting Performance Lab

Speedy Recovery? Ice Bath Benefits NOT What They Seem

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Ice Bath Benefits? Biggest LIE To A Speedy Recovery…

 

In short, when it comes to a speedy recovery, ice IS NOT nice.  And we’re not talking “immigration” here.  Those cold little cube things you grind up and put in your Margaritas, yeah, that “ice”!

Contrary to what most think, ice causes a back-flow of waste in the lymphatic system (waste management), and actually STOPS recovery.  That’s right!  Ice stops recovery.  How so?  I know, I know, ice numbs the area and makes it feel better…temporarily.  Just like Ibuprofen, but guess what?  That’s even worse!!  They’re examples of ineffective band-aids, not a definitive solution to the problem area.

Speedy Recovery? Ice Bath Benefits NOT What They Seem

MobilityWOD.com’s Dr. Kelly Starrett (on the right), interview MarcPro.com’s Gary Reinl about how “ice” is not nice.

If you’re looking for a speedy recovery, then listen up…

…we MUST look beyond supposed ice bath benefits because the key to a speedy recovery is muscle stimulation.

Gary Reinl (guy in the above video on the left) is being interviewed by San Francisco Crossfit Sports PT Dr. Kelly Starrett.  For those Growth Mindset coaches out there, check out their fantastic books:

Gary and his simple solution (not cheap by the way) to a speedy recovery jumped on my radar after I watched the above video quite a few years ago.  We’ve all been drilled to use ice to help reduce inflammation.  Even conditioning us to follow the R.I.C.E. method to recovery, whereas 75% of the equation is irrelevant, slows healing, and even STOPS it (hint: the “R”, “I”, & “E” letters in the acronym).  The video above gets more into this.

Gary Reinl is to a faster recovery like David Weck is to improving systemic strength and power concentrating on Tensional Balance and Rotational Power.

But get this, “inflammation” IS part of a speedy recovery.  According to Gary Reinl, there are three phases to healing:

  1. Inflammation,
  2. Repair, and
  3. Remodel…

And here’s the quote of the century…

“There can be inflammation without healing, but there CANNOT be healing without inflammation.”

Let that sink in for a moment…researching ice bath benefits isn’t the answer.  So stop it!  I ear marked some notes for you from the video above.  Enjoy!

  • At about 2:00-min mark, Gary Reinl introduces himself, consultant/teacher to all Professional and other Elite Athletes of Marc Pro, “garbage out, groceries in”
  • At about 3:40-min mark, is icing not good? Depends on what you’re using it for, you want less inflammation – why do you want less?  You’re better at regulating the body’s own natural inflammation response?  Swelling goes away by circulation and lymphatic system (set of one-way bags), it’s the muscle contraction/movement that squeezes waste out.
  • At about 5:30-min mark, isn’t immobilization good for an injured area?  What if injured site is too painful to move? Use muscle simulator to get muscles moving outside the pain site, batter hit by pitch example, the “highway back out”
  • At about 7:30-min mark, does compression work?  Yes, but it’s not the best method.  Manual stimulation? Yes, but it’s not the best most effective method.
  • At about 8:15-min mark, what about the R.I.C.E. method? RICE is not nice! Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.  Resting is NOT pushing waste out because muscles aren’t contracting. Ice makes you numb.  What’s your goal.  Ice causes back-flow of waste.  It stops recovery. Ibuprofen is worse because it prevents the signal to push out the waste.  There can be inflammation without healing, but there cannot be healing without inflammation.
  • At about 14:00-min mark, 3 phases to healing: Inflammatory Response, Repair, and Remodel. Prevent inflammatory response, then prevent the other two phases.  Compression (low level), okay but not better than activating muscles surrounding injured area.  Pain to take IB’s is a “blockage” of their waste management system.
  • At about 25:55-min mark, Dr. Kelly Starrett says the only place ice belongs is in your Margarita sitting in the hot tub 😛

DISCLAIMER: I am an affiliate to both the Marc Pro and Marc Pro Plus.  However, before becoming an affiliate, I promoted both to a countless number of clients – for years – when I was doing corrective fitness full time.  They do carry a hefty price, but the benefits to a speedy recovery are well worth the investment.  Also worth noting, each model has an affordable monthly payment plan…AND if you use my coupon code at the MarcPro.com website checkout: mpjoey5 (code stands for Marc Pro Joey 5% off)…you’ll get 5% OFF…

Speedy Recovery? Get Access To The Marc Pro Now

Okay, so here’s a video of how the Marc Pro muscle simulator works…

 

The Marc Pro uses the body’s natural healing process.  Lymphatic pump system.  Clearing congestion.  Remember to use my speedy recovery coupon code: mpjoey5 at the MarcPro.com website checkout to get 5% OFF your Marc Pro model…

Here are some testimonial videos of some well known Marc Pro users…

Kevin Rand of the Detroit Tigers

 

David Leadbetter – How to Perfect your Golf Swing for Increased Power & Rotation

 

Corey Kluber of the Cleveland Indians

 

Dan Straily of the Miami Marlins

 

The Marc Pro uses the body’s natural healing process.  Lymphatic pump system.  Clearing congestion.  Remember to use my speedy recovery coupon code: mpjoey5 at the MarcPro.com website checkout to get 5% OFF your Marc Pro model…

One question I know I’ll get from coaches is, “Who is the Marc Pro for?”

And it’s a great question.  Here’s who this speedy recovery product is best suited:

  • Hitting/Pitching academy owners,
  • Hitting/pitching instructors,
  • High School coaches and players,
  • College coaches and players,
  • Pro level coaches and players, and of course…
  • Sports Physical Therapists, Chiro’s, Massage Therapists, Rolfers, Fitness Trainers, etc.

If you have any other questions, comments, or criticisms about the Marc Pro, then please leave them below.  I’ll do my best to answer, but if it’s above my pay grade, then I’ll have Gary Reinl chime in…

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Hitting Training For Baseball & Softball Swing Trainers | Hitting Performance Lab

Cody Bellinger Hitting Analysis Reveals Ways To Consistently “Hulk Smash” The Ball

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Cody Bellinger Swing Dissection: How To Get “What’s Real” Out Of “What’s Feel” 

Thome on Bellinger – MLB Tonight

“His hands are absolutely electric.” – Jim Thome on Los Angeles Dodgers sensation Cody Bellinger

Posted by MLB Network on Tuesday, June 27, 2017

I have a treat for you (and it involves the swing of hot hitting rookie sensation Cody Bellinger)…

…an analysis of an analysis if you will! lol

I’ve been licking my chops over the past week, to share the above video that multiple reader-friends asked my opinion on.

This was a perfect opportunity to discuss the “real” versus “feel” debate that confuses many new coaches.

Cody Bellinger Swing Analysis: Jim Thome

Look how well Cody Bellinger uses Knee Action to consistently “get under” the ball. Photo courtesy: MLB.com

And here are interesting Jim Thome talking points from the above video (watch this first, don’t jump ahead to the video below):

  • “Hit through the middle…not hook the ball”.  Not letting top hand get out in front at impact…wanting to keep “bat flat” or flush at and through impact (about 1-min & 3:00 mark)
  • Want wrists to come through impact towards the pitcher, Harold Reynolds using terminology “stay inside the baseball”, Thome saying “stay through the baseball”…Thome makes comment that this game will tell you what to work on next (about 2:00 min mark)
  • About Cody Bellinger’s swing: “Hands are absolutely electric”, back leg is straight (during stance), knob points down to back foot, back foot has a little bit of turn in it…allows hips to get through? Everything stays straight (he mentions “level” later in the video) to the baseball with shoulders and pelvis, hands are above the baseball (about 3:30 mark)
  • “King of the Mountain” Drill…down to the baseball means level to the baseball, barrel flat and level with the baseball, hit middle to a little bit below. Hit middle of the ball, not bottom or top. Hands above the baseball.  (about 4:50 mark)
  • Load slower and control my breathing…”diving steep”, not falling forward committing too much weight forward.  Good drill for controlling forward momentum (about 6:50 mark)
  • Straight back leg, turning the back toe slightly forward toward the pitcher.  Creates torque in the back hip. (about 8:15 mark)

I was just going to do a post and ask for your thoughts on this Cody Bellinger swing analysis, but some of the talking points fired me up, so I couldn’t help myself with the following analysis of the Jim Thome analysis… 😉

Yes, I know, the video is a bit long, but there are MANY gold nuggets in there I think Jim Thome touched on, EVERY coach can learn and share with their hitters.

Here’s a list of my talking points (in this order)…

 

Addressing Jim Thome Comments of Cody Bellinger’s Swing

  • “Hands electric”,
  • Back Leg Straight,
  • Knob points down at stride landing,
  • Back foot turned slightly in towards pitcher (Supple Leopard book by Dr. Kelly Starrett), and
  • Shoulders/Pelvis should be straight or level.

And,

Jim Thome General Swing Comments

  • Hit through middle – “flat” or flush with impact,
  • Game tells you what to work on next (Golf Flow book by Dr. Gio Valiante)
  • Load slower, control breathing (CLICK HERE for this Jose Bautista video that discusses “load slow and early”,
  • “Diving deep” cue,
  • Swing down, and
  • Barrel above the hands.

Please share any comments, questions, or criticisms below… 😀

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Hitting Training For Baseball & Softball Swing Trainers | Hitting Performance Lab

Baseball Hitting Video Spine Mistake PART 3

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In This Baseball Hitting Video Spine Mistake,

 

We’re going over:

  • The One-Joint Rule (how-to test “Spinal Integrity”, also known as head and spine alignment),
  • Spine Engine Theory (how ALL athletic movement is driven), and
  • Tensegrity, OR Tension Integrity (discover how explosive the body’s own natural springiness can be).

Here’s a video of Physical Therapist Dr. Kelly Starrett of MobilityWOD.com demonstrating the One-Joint Rule:

In case you missed it, in the above video, Dr. Kelly Starrett said:

“Hinging at one of the segments [vertebraes in the neck]…when we put a hinge across the central nervous system, the body recognizes that as a primary insult, or threat to the body, because you’re basically guillotining or kinking the nervous system.  You’ve kinked ‘the tube’, so it [force production] just drops off.”

He also mentioned:

“The spine has major potential to decrease your force production.”

Here’s video of 2013 NL MVP Andrew McCutchen breaking his head and spine alignment.  This is actually a semi-common hitting power mistake made by quite a few of my young hitters – as you’ll see in a bit.  Scary to think that Andrew McCutchen was bleeding force at impact with the numbers he put up this past year:

Baseball Hitting Video Spine Mistake Andrew McCutchen

Watch Cutch’s chin nod to his chest at and through contact…

The first baseball hitting video spine mistake was leaked from The Truth About Explosive Rotational Power online video course.  This is all a part of the human movement rules.  As you can see, breaking our spinal integrity at contact can have a bleeding force effect on performance.

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