Achieving The Breakthrough Perspective | Resourceful Change NLP Blogchieving The Breakthrough Perspective
Are you looking for a breakthrough? Where are you looking for that?
The answer is probably not where you expect it, as most breakthroughs are counter-intuitive. Why? I’ll answer that in a minute, but first think about “common practice” and intuition.
There are unwritten rules in consciousness, in social groups and in businesses – processes that we rarely notice, or think to alter because “that’s how we do things around here” or it just “feels right”.
It’s good to shake things up every once in a while, though not just for the hell of it. You need to defocus your processes and awareness to see something new. It’s now widely accepted that we see what we expect to see and tend to filter out information that doesn’t fit those expectations.
We also tend to filter out additional information if we are consciously focusing on something else. That’s why most of the world’s greatest discoveries were made by accident. Here are just a few examples:
1. Gunpowder
Legend has it that gunpowder was accidentally invented by a cook who mixed together charcoal, sulphur, and saltpetre – all common kitchen items in ancient China. The mixture exploded when compressed in a bamboo tube.
2. Gelignite
Alfred Nobel discovered gelignite when he accidentally mixed collodium (gun cotton) with nitro-glycerine, forming ‘safe’ dynamite.
3. Penicillin
Alexander Fleming failed to disinfect cultures of bacteria when leaving for his vacation, only to find them contaminated with Penicillium moulds, which killed the bacteria.
4. Vaccination
English physician Edward Jenner discovered vaccination after he observed that milkmaids did not catch smallpox after exposure to (the more benign) cowpox.
5. Electromagnetism
While Hans Christian Oersted was setting up his materials for a lecture, he noticed a compass needle deflecting from magnetic north when the electric current from a nearby battery was switched on and off.
Also, x-rays, insulin, quinine and a great many other discoveries were made by accident.
The real genius was to see the unexpected and search for a meaning outside of the current model (i.e. not to “explain it away”).
“In the field of observation, chance favours only the prepared mind.” - Louis Pasteur
Breakthroughs are counter-intuitive because our expectations are based on “the way things should be” otherwise we’d see the solution right away. As you might know from experience, the solution is often hidden in plain sight and it often takes a special person or unusual circumstances to reveal that answer.
That’s why the outside perspective of a trained observer is so valuable – the ‘prepared mind’ that Pasteur was describing above. Some consultants excel at this, in my experience, except for those who just apply an off-the-peg model to everything.
So what is a breakthrough and how do you get it?
I define a breakthrough as “the discovery of radically improved choices through a shift in awareness.” One formal breakthrough process is “The Incisive Question”, which I teach on my NLP Coaching seminar.
Here is a different way of achieving a breakthrough perspective.
Being your own outside observer
1. Identify a repeating pattern in your life:
* Do the same problems keep coming up over and over again?
* Reflect on your past and notice any repetitive blocks or problem behaviours.
2.Explore inside perspective first by asking yourself:
* What would it be like if you did it differently?
* What choices are you aware of at present?
* Are they acceptable?
3. Pick a resourceful role model. Imagine them in the situation where your repeating pattern occurs.
4. Unconscious insight. Step inside the role model and experience the repeating pattern from their perspective.
* What new choices are you aware of now?
* Are they acceptable to you?
* What resources do you need to make use of these new choices?
* How can you access those resources?
5. Conscious insight. Now think about your role model from the outside.
* What would they do in that situation?
* What would they see or hear and how would they look as they do that?
* What would it be like if you saw, heard and felt as they did?
* Could you do things that way?
* How many times would you have to do things the new way before it felt comfortable and natural?
6. Integrate perspectives. Go inside and allow your mind to put together the insights from the process. What new options are you aware of now?
Insight processes similar to this can be incredibly useful if you get stuck and feel you have no good options left. The value is derived from the sense of perspective provided and the use of conscious input at the right part of the process.
Explore, search for insight and ask yourself good questions. This leads to the ‘prepared mind’, allowing you to break the unwritten rules that prevent breakthrough.
There is a certain point when a problem just dissolves…
Kids and Curveballs | EricCressey.comWhen Should Kids Learn Curveballs?
Posted on Friday, 29th January 2010 by Eric Cressey
Today, we’ve got the first in a series of Q&A contributions from Matt Blake.
Q: What do you think of Ron Johnson’s presentation at the ABCA convention where he stated that curveballs are okay for youths to throw and that they do not cause any structural damage beyond what a fastball does? Rather, it was the frequency the curveball was thrown that was the indicator.
A: I was at Ron Johnson’s presentation and have had the chance to read much of the research that has been presented on this topic. I do generally agree that curveballs are not inherently more dangerous than fastballs, but I think the idea of curveballs sends a conflicting message at the youth levels.
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Fundamentally, I’d like to believe that this game is centered around the pitcher being able to locate a fastball to the center of the plate 100 out of 100 times. Obviously, this is an idealistic perspective, but above average fastball command should be the trademark of an advanced youth player, not the fact that he can spin a baseball with his hand in a supinated position so that he can fool unsuspecting 11 year olds. We don’t teach hitters to focus on curveballs at this age, so why should we teach pitchers to throw them?
Squaring up the fastball over the middle of the plate is step one for both hitters and pitchers. In order to put a player in the best chance to succeed down the road, I think a pitcher should be able to repeat his fastball mechanics and create a certain amount of hand-speed, before he is taught to craft his pitching skills. This is generally considered to be a throwing mechanics versus pitching skills debate and would prioritize mechanical knowledge and the sequencing of the body’s rotations.
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If a player has demonstrated above average command of his fastball to the center of the plate, then obviously, the next progression would begin to zone the plate off for him. Once he can dissect the lanes of the plate with a straight fastball, then maybe teach him a different grip on the fastball or even a changeup. Start by working the changeup down the middle, etc….This game is built on efficient pitching, so to skip steps at these early developmental levels or to place too great an emphasis on winning at this age would compromise the player’s development. Obviously, all of this is just simply my opinion.
When would I teach a breaking ball? I guess it would be when a player looks skeletally mature to repeat his delivery and can demonstrate effective use of his fastball/changeup combination. If these pieces are set as the foundation, introducing spin tilt and depth might follow. If a player at the age of 11 or 12 is capable of doing this because he has put the necessary repetition in, then I suppose you can’t hold him back, but for some reason, I think people might be skipping steps 2 and 3 to get to 4, because 4 gets outs easier at age 12.
Have a question for Matt? Drop him an email at mablak07@gmail.com.
WebBall.com - Sacred Goals for Pitcher DevelopmentSmall Steps - Mini Goals
This is more of a comment in regards to your vote on setting goals for the up and coming season. Setting goals have been a huge part over the past several years in my son's development as a pitcher. Our goals were sacred (not like a New Year's resolution). We both took them very seriously. We started with obvious goals, 1st pitch strikes, fewer walks, strikeouts and so on. These mini goals helped keep my son focused and I strongly feel as the goals were reached that this gave my son more confidence and a sense of accomplishment.
We always tried to keep the goals realistic.
As each goal was reached we would set another. We decided instead of 1st pitch strikes to set a goal of more 1-1 counts, taking some pressure off of the 1st pitch. In doing this, his 1st pitch strikes soared in numbers.
Game Check Sheet
I could go on and on about all the goals that were set and reached, Goal setting is a big part of every game for me and my son. I have a game check sheet this year on some new goals. Examples...
* How many times he walks the lead of hitter,
* How many times the lead off hitter gets on base
* How many times he fails to close out an inning after 2 outs,
* How many times he exceeds 15 pitches in an inning
* How many strikeouts he gets on a 1-2 or 0-2 count,
* How many times he lets the count go to 2-2 or 3-2 after going 0-2 or 1-2.
We decide before each game what the goal is for that particular game.
In the WebBall Insider newsletter when I saw that you were taking a vote on goal setting it did make me smile because of how it has been an ongoing challenge for my son and the success he has had because of his goals.
Keeping Them Real
In closing I would like to say one more thing about setting goals. Last spring, before the season started, [my son's] pitching coach, during his last pitching lesson, asked what goals he had set for himself for the up and coming season. Keeping it real, Sawyer told him he wanted to hit a homerun. He hadn't done this yet.
"We stood there in silence looking at each other."
His pitching coach said "why don't you make a goal to pitch a no-hitter?" [My son] looked at me and I looked at him because both of us knew that we set realistic goals and took them very serious. We stood there in silence looking at each other. The pitching coach said "you need to set your goals high". Then he turned and said to me "he is more than capable of doing this."
I was hesitant to agree with this goal. Coach, you know the rest of the story. Now you know why I smiled to myself when I read the newsletter today and you were asking for player's to vote on what their goals would be. Last but not least, we even set off-season goals. I keep a spread sheet on push-ups, tubing reps, med.ball, lunges and so on. My son looks at this sheet and we have calculated and set goals on how many reps he can get in during the off-season. It is just another way for him to visualize his accomplishments and give him the confidence he needs this spring. This way he can go to the mound and have fun because he knows he has put in the work.
In the beginning God created heaven and earth…In the beginning God created heaven and earth…
by Paul Nyman
April 18, 2008
Left-handed pitchers are almost an enigma in baseball. Every team wants them but few can figure out how to develop them. Even if they are not very good they will probably have a job in some team's bullpen. Most lefties are considered soft tossers or control artists and the ones that can "bring it" are considered gems. In the minors there are few of these power lefties and the ones that do exist top this list.
—Baseball Examiner
In the first article in this series, “A Bridge Too Far,” I started the quest to understand the how and why of Barry Zito's lost fastball (what little he previously had). It's simply the result of never learning how to throw a baseball efficiently. The how and why of Zito's lost fastball is the how and why of throwing mechanics (as opposed to pitching mechanics), along with what makes the pitcher successful at the major league level.
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Finding Zito's lost fastball requires an understanding of throwing mechanics (as opposed to pitching mechanics) and what makes a pitcher successful at the major-league level.
It is generally accepted that left-handed pitchers usually have an advantage over their right-handed counterparts at all levels of baseball. Why? As with all questions of pitching mechanics, there is as much mystique as there is fact. For example, many baseball people believe that a left hander's ball moves differently than a right hander's ball. Some will tell you that left handers throw differently because of the left brain versus right brain “thing,” that left handers are “wired” differently.
I became interested in left-handed pitchers because of their ability to succeed with a lesser fastball than their right-handed counterparts. Understanding how left handers throw could tell me something about how the body throws by studying the fastball exception rather than the fastball rule.
Going back in time to find video of the best who ever threw the baseball has helped me understand how the body optimally throws the baseball.
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Hall of Fame left handers Herb Pennock and Carl Hubbell were not your typical left-handed pitchers; they knew how to throw the ball.
My answer to why left handers can succeed with less pure stuff than their right-handed counterparts is the same explanation as why/how a fastball rises. The physicists tell us that a fastball doesn't rise, because there is not enough translational and rotational speed to totally overcome the effects of gravity. But players who faced fireballers such as Nolan Ryan will swear that his fastball rose!
Physicists will explain this apparent contradiction by saying that Ryan's ability to throw the ball 100 mph did not give the ball time to fall as much as someone throwing 90 mph or less. And because hitters don't see 100 mph fastballs as often as 90 mph ones, pitches approaching 100 mph may appear to rise because they (we) expect the ball fall more. In other words, our eyes and brain trick us into thinking the ball is rising.
This same phenomenon or principal can be applied to a batter facing a left-handed pitcher. As hitters grow up, they do not face many left-handed pitchers, especially quality ones. At the younger/lower levels of amateur baseball, 90 percent of the pitches they see come from a pitcher throwing from the right-hand side of the mound.
Most hitters do not develop the same comfort level facing left-handed pitchers as they do right handers. This disparity continues up to and including the major leagues. The same phenomenon also helps explain why some people believe that pitches thrown by left-handed pitchers move (behave) differently than the same pitch thrown by right-handed pitchers.
Mel Antonen has observed in USA Today that most left-handed prospects are graded on a lower scale. "They get drafted when a right hander with similar talent doesn't. They get more time to develop in the minor leagues. And if they become established in the majors, they can turn a 10- or 15-year career into a 20-year run and pitch into their 40s."
In general, the velocity of left-handed pitchers is lower than that of right handers. The average major league fastball is 88-90 mph. A right hander with an average velocity less than 88 mph is more an exception than the rule. But a significant number of successful left-handed pitchers throw fastballs in the 86-88 mph range, especially those who are considered left-handed “specialists.”
Left handers who don't have good fastballs have another possible advantage: Hitters dial in their swings to the pitch speed they most often see. At the major league level, it is typically an 88-90 mph fastball. A left hander throwing in the 84-86 mph range can upset a hitter's timing, especially if the hitter doesn't see left handers frequently. But MLB hitters will adjust (that’s why they’re MLB hitters) and it's not unusual for a left hander (or right hander) to get through the order the first time and encounter problems the second time through.
All of which would appear to be the good fortune of being a left-handed pitcher. But there is a nasty potential side effect: A left hander may never really have to learn how to throw the baseball.
What constitutes effective pitching?
In my previous article, I made the point that you throw baseball without pitching it but you can't pitch a baseball without throwing it. I also said pitching instruction is everything that is necessary to defeat the batter, whereas throwing instruction is how to optimally move the ball through time and space. And, the article said, "pitching mechanics" is really a misnomer. It should be referred to as throwing mechanics.
In trying to better understand how the body optimally throws the baseball, I distinguish between skills and abilities. The skill of getting the batter out is the skill of pitching. Attributes that are important to developing the skill of pitching are demonstrated in the following diagram.
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The physical aspect of pitching skill
Abilities such as strength, physical size, muscle composition, connective tissue, range of motion, flexibility, nervous systems, etc. are all physical attributes that play an important rule in the ability to develop pitching skill. Professional baseball understands this, as evidenced by the amateur player draft (with emphasis on physical size of the pitchers). But again, left handers receive a special physical dispensation. Major league clubs are more willing to take a chance on an undersized left hander than they are on an undersized right hander.
Often, that's a mistake, as evidenced by pitchers such as Tim Lincecum and Johnny Cueto.
Hall of Famer Steve Carlton and future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson have physical attributes.
Mechanical aspect of pitching skill
Simply stated, this is the ability to efficiently and effectively throw the baseball. Efficiency means throwing with the least amount of effort while developing speed, location and movement of the ball. Attributes such as a quick arm and arm speed are highly sought after. Also there is a somewhat mystical quantity that has to do with effort. Scouts want to see pitchers who can throw 95 mph with minimal effort, as opposed to what they think is maximum effort. What they're really talking about is being able to throw with no wasted, unproductive movements. There is no such thing as maximum effort.
Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax may have had the best pure “stuff” of any lefthander.
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Mental aspect of pitching skill
All voluntary movement is the result of doing what is necessary to achieve a goal. The intent to throw is the most critical aspect of the throwing process. From a pitching perspective, this means that the intent to get the batter out is the most important part of the pitching process.
Intent affects all aspects of getting the batter out—type of pitch, location of pitch, speed of pitch, movement of pitch, etc.; all are determined by the intent of the pitcher. The mental aspect of pitching is what allows pitchers, whether right handed or left handed, to be successful without having the best throwing mechanics or physical attributes.
Hall of Famers Warren Spahn and Whitey Ford knew how to get batters out.
A few words about intent and maximum effort pitchers: Quite often I hear the term "max effort pitcher" used as a negative regarding a player's pitching (throwing) mechanics. How do you throw a baseball 100 mph without maximum effort? Here is a clip of Nolan Ryan. By the expression on his face and looking at the muscles in his neck, I would say that Ryan, while he may not be putting his maximum effort into the pitch, is coming pretty close.
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When people call a player's mechanics “max effort,” I believe they are saying he doesn't use his body to throw efficiently. That's because unless the player is putting close to 100 percent of his effort (intent) into throwing the ball, he is not going to succeed at the major league level.
A few more words regarding individual differences: No two people will respond identically to the same situation or same stimulus. This difference is embodied in the principle of individual differences, which applies to just about every aspect of human behavior, ranging from how the body responds to training to how effectively and efficiently the body acquires movement skills.
Optimal flexibility varies considerably. These two teammates underwent similar training programs through high school and college. Variants of flexibility may lead to variance of techniques, selection or profiling of sport. The athlete being stretched in the first picture was a national champion in the freestyle stroke; the athlete being stretched in the second picture was a national champion in the butterfly stroke. Performances is the product of flexibility, strength and neuromuscular integration.
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This principle of individual differences as applied to throwing a baseball is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it helps explain how players succeed at hitting and pitching by being different. On the other hand, not fully understanding or appreciating the principle leads to misinformation regarding how the body optimally swings and throws. Two words that I find frequently used in player selection and development as “fudge factors”—words used to explain the unexplainable”—are “talent” and “style.”
In throwing a baseball, the biggest abuse of individual differences is attempting to predict injury based on how the player appears to be throwing the baseball. Factors such as strength, flexibility, neuromuscular integration all combined to create a unique capability in every individual. Attempting to judge a player's mechanics as being either good or bad based upon a single, stereotyped set of mechanics is a potential exercise in futility.
Some left handers who throw like left handers
These are players who don't look to be using max effort and are also not throwing very efficiently. One of the first left handers who caught my attention was Denny Neagle, because at the time I was trying hard to understand the role of arm action. Neagle was listed at 6-foot-2, 215 pounds, with a fastball 86-88 mph. Neagle's arm action is “soft,” as is his entire delivery. Left handers have a tendency to sling the ball. Yet Neagle still got batters out and was rewarded with lucrative contracts.
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Early on I used Neagle as an example of how not to throw the baseball.
Another left hander whose delivery I consider one of the worst I’ve viewed is a player I thought several years ago would be out of baseball but seems to be doing quite well. Mark Redman has atrocious arm action, but is another testimonial to the rule that if you are left handed and you can pitch (location, changing speeds and movement), you will be handsomely rewarded.
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One left-handed pitcher who personifies the combination of adequate throwing mechanics and very good pitching mechanics (how to get batters out) is Andy Pettitte.
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His success is in no small part due to his consistent ability to throw a 90-plus mph fastball along with his pitching smarts.
“Old Men Rivers” are players who have found the right combination of intent to throw and reasonably decent throwing mechanics for their physical abilities. This combination leads to longevity. One of the great potential advantages of a left-handed pitcher is the ability to minimize wear and tear on their body if they can find and maintain the minimum velocity necessary to get batters out. These four pitchers have managed to do this.
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Old men (by MLB standards) throwing a baseball. From top left clockwise, Jamie Moyer, Tom Glavine, Randy Johnson and Kenny Rogers.
Show me a left hander who throws like a right hander, and I will show you a pitcher with potential to be very successful. Left-handed pitchers who throw like right handers have a greater opportunity to achieve MLB success than their right-handed counterparts.
One of the more blatant examples of how little MLB pitching coaches really know about pitching mechanics was the trade by the Mets of Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano. The word on the street was that the Mets' pitching coach, Rick Peterson, thought Kazmir’s mechanics needed to be changed to prevent future injury. Apparently Kazmir did not agree, and hence the trade.
I found it quite interesting because I fell in love with Kazmir’s mechanics the very first time I saw him throw baseball (high school video clip).
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I will also say that it appears that Kazmir’s mechanics have changed his since high school, and in my opinion not for the better. Possibly that's a subject for another day.
Some of the young guns who have right hander “stuff,” starting top left-hand corner and going clockwise: Scott Kazmir, Erik Bedard, C.C. Sabathia and Dontrelle Willis.
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Erik Bedard throws the ball well, having led the American League in strikeouts last year. He also has a very interesting baseball history.
A Franco-Ontarian, Bédard began his baseball career in the Orleans Little League and the Ontario Baseball Association. He pitched he 1992 Orleans Junior Red Sox team which beat Glace Bay in the 1992 Canadian Championship. Bédard did not play high school baseball, which is the norm in Canada due to the short season. Just 5-foot-4 and 120 pounds as a senior, he grew seven inches and gained 30 pounds during the summer between graduating from high school and beginning college. He accompanied a friend to a tryout at Norwalk Community College in Norwalk, Conn., and made the baseball team as a walk-on
While in college, he added 10 mph to his fastball, gained another 30 pounds, took the "lowest level" non-credit English language course to enhance his knowledge of the language, and became a junior college All-America.
Bedard has the throwing tools to be a successful left hander. At least the Mariners think so.
Willis burst onto the baseball scene in 2003 as much for his funky delivery as for his success on the pitching mound. Willis’ delivery was a throwback to the likes of Louis Tiant. And Willis can throw the ball. He had statistically solid years from 2003 until last year. His ERA jumped, as did his home runs, and his ability to locate seemed more a problem than in previous years. It would be interesting to compare his mechanics of 2003 to what he was doing last year to see if he is another potential victim of MLB coaches making his mechanics “look better.”
Sabathia is probably the most interesting of all. The Cy Young Award winner in 2007, he has gotten off to a shaky start. And then there is the little matter of his pitching for contract this year. The hot stove talk before the season began was whether Sabathia would break Johan Santana’s contract record. (The three largest contracts for pitchers
all have gone to left handers—Mike Hampton, Zito, and Santana.
Sabathia has been a workhorse for Cleveland since 2001, averaging almost 200 innings a year. Hde can get it up there (fastball consistently in the low 90s). But I never liked the way he threw the ball—a portion of his velocity is simply due to his size, in my opinion.
Raw throwing ability does not guarantee major league success. You still have to know how to pitch. But given two pitchers of equal throwing ability, the left hander has a greater chance of achieving success.
Still, the same things that work for a left hander are also working against him. And in some ways, the left hander is on a more precarious precipice than his right-handed counterpart.
Next: What the Lord giveth, the MLB hitter taketh away—and exactly what are effective throwing mechanics?
An engineer by training whose company, Sports Engineering & Training Products, strives to maximize a players baseball potential through the design of proprietary swing and throw training products . You can contact him at THTstuff@setpro.com
The Paul Nyman interviewThe Paul Nyman interview
by Dave Studeman
April 11, 2008
Can you talk about your background and how you came to focus on pitching mechanics?
Sigmund Freud would be happy with my answer. It goes back to my "early childhood." When I was in junior high school I had great hopes of becoming a professional pitcher. Now remember, this was back in 1958-1959. I set a target in the backyard (an old carpet hanging from the front of a deck) and I spent hours each day during the summer throwing into that carpet.
There was an elementary school across the street from where we lived; in the elementary school was a branch of the public library. The first book I took out on pitching mechanics was by Bob Feller, published in 1946 (when I started SETPRO I got a copy of it). I learned how to throw curve from a mail-order book that was advertised the back of Popular Science or Popular Mechanics magazine—can't remember which one. It was written by a former professional catcher. So my interest in pitching AND mechanics goes quite a ways back.
As it turns out I was a pretty crummy pitcher. I could throw the ball pretty well but never knew where it was going. They called me "Headhunter." I was also very much into science and tinkering, and I experimented with a way to measure velocity by the impact of the ball on a target. So I've always been interested in the scientific and physical aspect of throwing a baseball.
Can you tell me more about your background? Did you immediately go into the baseball "business" and, if not, how did you get there?
The sum total of my playing career was two years in high school. In my senior year I was not good enough to make the varsity. And for lack of something better to do, I went out for track (I was always able to jump pretty high). Turns out in my very first track meet I broke the high school's 18-year-old high jump record. Thus began my track and field career, which carried me through college.
Thanks to track and field, I really learned what training is about. This was in the mid-to-late 1960s, when track and field was the one of the fields in which the U.S. and Russians fought their "Cold War." Russian training techniques fascinated me. I was an engineering-physics major and tried to apply my science and engineering background to how the body most effectively runs and jumps. I had dreams back then of developing training systems. The name of the company was going to be "Sports Training Systems" (STS).
Marriage and children sent me in the direction of the establishment, and for the next 25 years I held various positions ranging from engineer to VP of engineering. In 1989 the company I was working for relocated from Connecticut to Wisconsin and I was ready to say goodbye to the good life and strike out on my own. I consulted for the company for about five years while I looked around for something else to do. And that's when STS reemerged as Sports Engineering and Training Products (SETPRO).
My initial emphasis was strictly on training products to develop a player's abilities to swing and throw more effectively. I did not want to confuse the marketplace by attempting to produce information. But to develop the best training products, you have to know everything you can about the subject. That, combined with my technical background in engineering and physics and my background in track and field, not only allowed me to produce proprietary equipment, but SETPRO became known for producing the highest quality information regarding how the body swings and throws.
Thanks, Paul. So tell me what some of the key philosophies of SETPRO are.
"It must make sense" pretty much sums up the philosophy at SETPRO. But the problem is that what makes sense to me is not necessarily going to make sense to you. One of my favorite sayings is "we are only capable of seeing what we are capable of seeing." My life experiences and my accumulated knowledge are not the same as your life experiences and your accumulated knowledge.
I don't talk about pitching or hitting mechanics. What I talk about are swing and throw mechanics. Pitching is doing everything to defeat the batter and win the game. Hitting is doing everything to defeat the pitcher and win the game. I prefer the terms "throwing mechanics" and "swing mechanics."
My biggest breakthrough came when I started looking at the swing and throw as systems problems. And by systems problem, I mean that most discussions regarding swing mechanics and throwing mechanics are based upon a reductionist approach—if you break the swing or throw down into small enough pieces, then eventually you'll discover the secret of how the body swings and throws most effectively.
In my opinion, much of what is purported to be pitching or hitting mechanics is an inability to see the forest because of the trees, the trees being the treatment of symptoms of throwing or swinging as opposed to understanding the overall process.
A systems perspective is based more on the belief that the whole is greater than some of the parts ... that the body is composed of a large number of what might be called subsystems. And that the systems can be combined in a synergistic fashion to yield in optimum swing or throw performance. No better example of this synergy is in understanding that much of what the body does to swings or throws is based upon the principle of cracking the whip—that somehow the large, slow-moving body parts get transformed into very fast small moving body parts and, ultimately, the ball or the bat.
In terms of how the body swings a bat or throws a baseball, I see very little difference in terms of the physics and physiology. To throw a baseball 100 mph the same physics are applicable no matter who throws the baseball. The same physics that explain how an arm can throw a baseball 100 mph also explain why a hitter can swing a bat 100 mph. The bottom line is that there is that there is very little difference between swinging a bat and throwing a baseball when it comes to moving an object through time and space.
And my opinion is that the differentiation between hitting coaches and pitching coaches really only applies to how to get batters out or how to get base hits off pitchers. It has very little do with how the body swings and throws.
Last, but not least, is that the greatest opportunity for understanding how to develop high-level performance lies in a better understanding of how the body acquires and creates movement skills.
I don't want to use the word "science" to describe SETPRO's philosophies. Far too many people have attempted to differentiate themselves by using the word science or by implying science in their methodology. If anything, much of their science is pseudoscience and has done a great disservice to the word science and to those who are really trying to understand how the body optimally swings and throws.
Also critical to the SETPRO process is the ability to measure and quantify. This comes from my track and field background. The two sports most responsible for improvements and breakthroughs in training science are track and field and swimming, for one simple reason: You can, more than for any other sports, measure cause-and-effect. When you can measure fractions of an inch and hundreds of a second, you are better able to understand what works.
What type of equipment do you provide?
In terms of equipment one of the important philosophies is the ability to measure and quantify. And I left out the ability to simulate on-the-field conditions, typically batter versus pitcher.
For the swing and throw development, the ability to measure parameters such as bat speed, reaction time, anticipation time, swing quickness—and to simulate training conditions similar to what the player is going to face on the playing field—is what SETPRO's swing training equipment/systems does/do.
Overload/underload training is an integral part of this process. SETPRO's equipment has built into it training features such as the ability to do swing training sets analogous to what a player does in the weight room; i.e., sets and reps with varying resistance loads. One of the reasons why weight training produces benefits is the ability to always know what you've achieved in a previous workout and then the ability to set new goals in the next workout.
SETPRO's equipment can measure and keep track of your swing and throw training progress. The equipment also has proprietary training modes that I call Ballistic Overload Failure. In this mode you take only as many throws or swings as necessary to fail. Failures are when you cannot improve upon your best set average throws.
Again, much of this training expertise came out of my involvement with track and field.
Do you provide pitching and hitting instruction?
I have created nine instructional e-books on throwing and swing development. I do not provide instruction itself; i.e., I do not work with players. I used to, but that's not where I want to be.
It is very difficult for someone who does not have a "playing or coaching pedigree" to be taken seriously as a source of hitting or pitching instructional information. So SETPRO's mission was not to confuse the marketplace by attempting to sell information. At least it wasn't initially. After 15 years of developing equipment, I felt I had a wealth of instructional information to sell to the general public.
I know that former THT writer (and now a Diamondbacks minor league pitching coach) Carlos Gomez subscribes to your philosophies. Have you worked with other professional players?
A great source of my own personal frustration has been the inability to shine some light on what I view as the darkness of pitching and hitting mechanics instruction. To develop high-level swinging and throwing training systems you have to know everything there is about how the body swings and throws.
Several years ago I was fortunate enough to be invited to spring training by a very enlightened professional pitching coach. He still rues the day he met me because, as he said, "ignorance was bliss." Simply stated, major league baseball doesn't really want to know anything about how the body swings or throws. For two reasons: One, it's beyond their capabilities to understand. I'm not saying that coaches are dumb people. What I am trying to say is that they don't have the background and training to deal with something as complex as how the body swings and throws.
And second, they really don't need to understand how the body swings and throws. Major-league baseball gets the choice of absolute best players in the world who have already demonstrated their abilities to swing and throw. It's not within the scope of professional baseball to develop swing and throw capabilities.
Swing and throw capabilities are almost always developed from birth to 16 or 17 years of age. After that, it becomes almost impossible to make any significant changes to how players swing and throw. How many times have we heard the story of the player throwing 95 mph before the draft in two years after being drafted throwing 88 mph?
I have provided information to many players who have been drafted and have gone on to the major league level. Kevin Kouzmanoff of the San Diego Padres is a player who developed his swing using SETPRO's training equipment. He was going nowhere as a college freshman until a SETPRO customer in Colorado took him under his wing and introduced him to SETPRO training. He a perfect example of what can be done if you know what you're doing.
I like to use this quote in my marketing material:
"Paul Nyman has looked at throwing the the baseball like no other has. His unique way of looking at how the arm and body learn to throw from the most efficient way to how one learns to throw is truly remarkable. No one, and I repeat no one, has looked at more video, done more research and left no stone unturned in the quest of finding out about the throwing process than he has. Step aside and let you ego go for a moment and see what he has to offer. As a professional coach I did and it has opened up a whole new view for me. While I have gained, my pitchers have been the ones who have benefited and in essence isn't that our job as coaches."
—Brent Strom (former major league pitcher, major league pitching coach, pitching coordinator Montréal Expos/Washington Nationals, currently in charge of all minor-league pitching instruction, St. Louis Cardinals)
I will also say that the biggest fallacy that exists is that some coach or instructor was responsible for a specific player making it to the major leagues. Nothing could be further from the truth, in my opinion.
It is the player who gets himself to the major leagues. I figure that the people most responsible for helping a player are his parents. Getting to the major leagues is a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week, 365-day-a-year task. No coach or instructor is capable of making that happen. Unless, of course, the coach/instructor is the player's parent.
Dave was called a "national treasure" by Rob Neyer. Seriously. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.
Exactly what are effective throwing mechanics?Exactly what are effective throwing mechanics?
by Paul Nyman
May 02, 2008
This is the third in the series of articles in an attempt to explain why/how Barry Zito lost his fastball. Check out parts one and two.
My previous article (In the Beginning God Created Heaven and Earth… And the Ability of Man to Throw Left-Handed) extolled the virtues of being a left-handed pitcher, but there is also a "dark side.".A left-handed pitcher’s velocity often teeters on the edge of his left-handed ability to deceive the batter. And it doesn't take a significant velocity decrease (Zito) to nullify the advantage of being the left hander.
Left handers have had an advantage over the hitter since day one, and because of this often throw with less efficiency (never really having to learn how to throw the baseball) as compared to their right-handed counterparts. This also leads to the inability to make throwing adjustments (dial it up) because they don't know what it is to be throwing efficiently.
Left handers who lose their velocity do continue to have an advantage over their right-handed counterparts, often as left-handed specialists. Or a select few (Jamie Moyer, Tom Glavine, Kenny Rogers) become exceptional pitchers (knowing how to get the batter out). Exceptional pitchers are rare, be they right (Greg Maddux) or left handers, simply because after one or two times through the batting order MLB hitters can make the adjustments.
Throwing a baseball: an exercise in dynamic systems, and complexity…
image
Figure 1 The “balance” between defeating the batter/pitcher.
Diagnosing and making changes at the highest levels of throwing performance is difficult because small changes, quite often imperceptible even to the most experienced pitching coach, can have dramatic effects on performance. This same principle of small differences (changes) is echoed in the following exchange between Varos McCracken , a sabermetrics consultant, Gary Huckaby another sabermetrics consultant and Eddie Bane, the Angels’ scouting director and a former top pitching prospect himself.
Voros McCracken: "I would say that you know almost as much about what a guy's going to do in the big leagues from his Triple-A stats as you do from his major league stats."
Gary Huckaby: "I'll go further and say exactly as much."
Eddie Bane: "That doesn't surprise me, but I don't believe it. I won 15 games in Triple-A two years in a row. I won seven games total in the major leagues. The level of play is completely different. I led the league (Triple-A) in ERA both years. I wasn't good enough to pitch in the major leagues."
The human body, especially with respect to developing voluntary movement patterns, is a complex dynamic system and is subject to the principles that govern all complex dynamic systems.
"Dynamical systems theory has emerged in the movement sciences as a viable framework for modeling athletic performance. In dynamical systems theory, movement patterns emerge through generic processes of self-organization found in physical and biological systems (see Chapter 7 of Williams et al., 1999 for an overview). (Dynamical Systems Theory: a Relevant Framework for Performance-Oriented Sports Biomechanics Research)
An example of what 4 or 5 mph can do for a left hander (any pitcher), is the run that Kenny Rogers had in the playoffs of 2006 (three games, 23 innings, 0.00 ERA, 19 strikeouts). What is unfortunate is the controversy created by the alleged substance on Rogers' glove. It's unfortunate because the attention given to that was a convenient explanation for his dominance while ignoring the potential real reason, his ability to crank his fastball up 4-5 mph over what it had been during the season.
Chaos theory: Explaining the difference between a 90 mph and 85 mph fastball...
Dynamic systems can exhibit chaotic behavior.
"Lorenz had discovered that small changes in initial conditions produced large changes in the long-term outcome.The term chaos as used in mathematics was coined by the applied mathematician James A. Yorke. The concept means that with a complex, nonlinear system, very (infinitely) small changes in the starting conditions of a system may result in dramatically different outputs for that system." ("Chaos Theory" http://www.crystalinks.com/chaos.html).
As applied to pitching/throwing mechanics, especially at the highest levels of performance, small changes in mechanics can create significant results in terms of speed, location and/or movement. And for anyone whose job it is to work with and hopefully develop high level throwing or swing performance, the concepts/principles of dynamic systems and chaos explain much of the unexplainable.
image
Figure 2 above represents a mechanical simulation of throwing the ball.
Some golfers may be familiar with the “Iron Byron” swing robot that was used to test golf balls. The simulation in Figure 2 has the same attributes except that it is throwing a ball rather than swinging a golf club. The maximum ball speed in this simulation is approximately 86 mph.
image
Figure 3. A difference of only .01 seconds reduces speed by 8 MPH
In Figure 3, everything is the same as in Figure 2 except I have changed the length of time that the arm stays flexed. In Figure 2, I am holding the arm flexed for .02 seconds into the simulation. In Figure 3, I am holding the arm flexed for .01 seconds into the simulation. A difference of only .01 seconds. Yet this change has dramatic results on the final throwing of the ball, achieving a maximum speed of only 78 mph—an 8 mph difference from the previous simulation.
The point of these simulations is to demonstrate the effect of chaos on dynamic systems; i.e., that small changes in throwing mechanics can have dramatic effects on the results of the throw. This is something that is not fully understood or appreciated by most who engage in what is called pitching mechanics. More often than not, words such as "style" or “talent” are used by coaches and instructors to explain the unexplainable.
What constitutes effective throwing mechanics?
Before attempting to answer this question it's important to distinguish the difference between pitching and throwing: You can throw a baseball without pitching it, but you can't pitch a baseball without throwing it. This emphasizes that pitching is all about defeating the batter. And throwing is an integral component of the pitching process.
But throwing in itself does not constitute pitching. And this is where the water begins to muddy; i.e., the difference between pitching mechanics and throwing mechanics. In reality, there should be no difference, but more often than not what is deemed as good pitching mechanics is more about defeating the batter than it is about throwing a baseball.
Effective throwing is efficient use of the body to throw the baseball. Effective throwing is the least amount of wasted effort necessary to achieve the desired throwing result.
There are two primary components at work in throwing a baseball: strength and mechanics. The strength component can manifest itself in several ways. The good way is when the strength component works in conjunction with the mechanical component primarily in the form of maintaining what is called connection during a transfer of momentum from the larger body parts (torso) and the arm itself.
One interesting aspect of throwing is that once the momentum has been drained out of the torso, the action of the arm is far more passive and active. The arm behaves more like a whip (buggy whip “popper”) that has been driven by the body.
The negative aspect of arm strength is when the arm itself becomes the primary mechanism to throw the baseball. This can also be described as “disconnection.” Disconnection means the arm has lost its ability to receive/transform momentum from the body. A consequence of this disconnection forces the arm-shoulder complex to become more active than it should in terms of throwing a baseball. The player is trying to make up for the lack of efficient transfer of momentum by “muscling” the ball to the plate.
The kinetic chain or kinetic sequence...
All attempts to analyze the throwing process require understanding what is called the kinetic chain or kinetic sequence. When coaches and instructors are talking about using the body to throw the baseball. they are talking about the kinetic chain.
image
Figure 4. The Kinetic Chain
The kinetic chain/sequence is the development and transfer momentum from the larger body parts (muscle groups) such as the legs, hips and torso to the smaller body parts such as the shoulder, upper arm, forearm, hand and finally the ball. This is also described as the distal to proximal sequence, distal being the most distant point from the ball (the feet) and proximal being the closest point to the ball (the hand/fingers).
Efficiency of throwing is not the same as throwing velocity. Efficiency simply measures how effective momentum is developed and transferred from segment to segment, the ultimate destination being the ball. Velocity not only depends upon efficiency of transfer, but also the magnitude of momentum created during this process.
Another way of viewing this sequence is called the summation of velocities. That is, as the kinetic chain sequences from proximal to distal, each segment increases in velocity, as depicted in Figure 5.
image
Figure 5. The summation of speed principle
Rotational movement equals velocity….
There are two mechanisms for transferring momentum along the kinetic chain. The first mechanism is inter-segmental transfer due to muscle activity. The ideal situation is that when a preceding segment in the chain has reached maximum velocity, the muscles connecting this segment to the next segment such as hips to mid-torso contract at the point where the hips have reached maximum velocity.
Not only do we have the velocity of the hips to start with, but we then gain additional velocity due to the pulling (contracting) action of the muscles between the hips and the torso, which transfers the momentum of the hips to the mid-torso. This process continues up the chain but becomes less of a factor as the sequence progresses to the arm.
The second mechanism and one of the most critical in terms of players achieving maximum throwing velocity is the multiplier due to what is called the compound pendulum effect. The compound pendulum effect occurs when you have two or more masses connected in such a way as to rotate around a central axis such that momentum is transferred from one mass to the next.
image
Figure 6. Effects of rotation and the principle of the compound pendulum.
Figure 6 demonstrates a compound pendulum versus a rigidly connected system. The compound pendulum is the diagram on the left and is composed of a series of masses ranging from 90 pounds to five pounds connected by flexible cords.
The rigidly connected system on the left contains the same masses connected by rigid links. All else is identical between the two simulations and both systems are under the falling effect of gravity. The velocity of the most distal point (the smallest mass) is being measured frame by frame. The maximum velocity of the rigidly connected system is approximately 30 feet/second (fps). The maximum velocity of the compound pendulum (masses connected by flexible cords) is approximately 55 fps.
This simulation demonstrates several principles that are vital to maximum throwing efficiency. It demonstrates the transformation velocity effect of the compound pendulum. This velocity transformation (amplification) is a result of the physics (whipping effect) associated with rotational motion. It also emphasizes the effect of “lag” between the segments. A rigidly connected system cannot create the same final velocity as a system that allows sequential transfer momentum from segment to segment (compound pendulum).
Throwing a rotational baseball is a "two parter."
Throwing involves a strength component and there is a mechanical component. The mechanical component is how the body accelerates the ball using momentum transfer, the kinetic chain or kinetic sequence; the same principle that results in the cracking of a whip.
The cracking of the whip when throwing a baseball is the mechanical component (the “mechanics” in “pitching mechanics”) and is totally dependent on body rotation. There are two primary sources of rotation. The most talked-about rotation is hip and shoulder rotation around what is called the transverse body plane. The second less obvious rotation is rotation in the body's sagittal plane.
image
Figure 7. The body’s three planes of movement.
A cricket bowler is a very good example of rotation to throw a ball in the sagittal plane because of the restriction on the extension of the arm
"Bowling the ball is distinguished from simply throwing the ball by a strictly specified biomechanical definition. Originally, this definition said that the elbow joint must not straighten out during the bowling action. Bowlers generally hold their elbows fully extended and rotate the arm vertically about the shoulder joint to impart velocity to the ball, releasing it near the top of the arc. Flexion at the elbow was allowed, but any extension of the elbow was deemed to be a throw and would be liable to be called a no ball. This was thought to be possible only if the bowler's elbow was originally held in a slightly flexed position. In 2005, this definition was deemed to be physically impossible by a scientific investigative commission. Biomechanical studies showed that almost all bowlers extend their elbows somewhat throughout the bowling action, because the stress of swinging the arm around hyperextends the elbow joint. A guideline was introduced to allow extensions or hyperextensions of angles up to 15 degrees before deeming the ball illegally thrown" (Wikipedia 2008)
image
Figure 8. Cricket bowler 100 mph
Coronal plane movement is typified by side to side movement (first base-third base) and is generally considered wasted movement with respect to throwing a baseball toward home plate.
Using the body to throw the baseball, the “bow-flex-bow.”
Athletic activity involving the generation of speed and power is typified by eccentric-concentric muscle action. The eccentric refers to a lengthening of the muscle. Concentric refers to the shortening of the muscle.
For example, to achieve a maximum standing vertical jump height, a countermovement precedes the actual jump itself. The countermovement does several things. It creates a longer distance over which to apply force. The act of going down before reversing direction generates and stores energy in connective tissue, which then can be released in the opposite direction. And it more readily prepares the muscle to reverse direction and contract more powerfully.
This same eccentric-concentric cycle can be seen in pitchers; I call it the "bow-flex-bow” cycle. This cycle describes the sequence of first bending at the waist then arching the back and then unarching the back and bending forward during the throwing cycle.
This movement can be thought of as being analogous to the cracking of a buggy whip, were first the handle of the whip is flexed backward, creating a loop in the “popper.”
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Figure 9. The “buggy whip” sequence.
I first noted this phenomenon in Nolan Ryan. Later, I created a little graphic showing the cycle in the delivery of Mike Mussina.
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Figure 10. Mike Musina demonstrating “bow-flex-bow” sequence
North-south vs east-west...
When the body throws the baseball, all three planes come into play and, as might be expected, their interaction can create throwing mechanics which may be subject to "interpretation." The real issue is what body movements result in the greatest effect on throwing efficiency.
Typical pitching instruction and analysis focus more on rotation in the transverse plane than any other body movement. Hip rotation and separation are two of the most commonly used terms to describe or emphasize what the body should or should not be doing when throwing the ball. Often, arm slot is focused or discussed separately, when in reality arm slot is a product of what the body is doing.
For example Randy Johnson is a “transverse plane” thrower. His primary rotational mechanism is around the transverse horizontal plane, which creates a lower arm slot. This also may be thought of as a “east-west” thrower. Most pitchers (left or right handed) are east-west or west-east throwers.
image
Figure 11. Randy Johnson transverse horizontal plane thrower.
On the other extreme is the north-south thrower. North-south body action creates/promotes a higher arm slot, a more over-the-top delivery. A north-south torso action lends itself to a “teeter-totter” action of the shoulders. The lead shoulder will initially be elevated, hips leading the way, and then the front shoulder will drop and the back shoulder elevate. North-south body mechanics require a high slot for throwing efficiency. Andy Pettitte is a good example of a north-south thrower.
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Figure 12. Andy Pettitte’s “North-south” mechanics.
The most efficient way to use the body to throw the baseball is to maximize the contribution from both transverse and sagittal planes. Sandy Koufax was a great example of this.
image
Figure 13. Sandy Koufax North-south-east-west mechanics.
It is my observation that few players are able to optimally use both planes to create and develop momentum for the arm. Of the two planes, pitchers who throw north-south (more sagittal plane) incur more velocity degradation than those who are more east-west. One potential advantage of north-south is greater strike zone latitude; the strike zone has greater tolerance for missing high-low then it does side to side.
To better demonstrate the importance of rotation, body action, and arm action, I've created a graphic which I call the “rotational momentum throwing plane.”
image
Figure 14. The rotational momentum throwing plane.
This animation depicts Tim Lincecum throwing a baseball. The flat cylinder that you see centered around his upper spine represents the momentum plane that the arm and ball wants to follow to generate and take advantage of the rotational whipping effect in throwing the ball.
Tempo…
Tempo is the fuel that drives the east-west-north-south engine. To my knowledge, SETPRO was the first to really emphasize the importance of tempo, to the point of developing a measurement from highest point of knee lift to release of the ball.
There is reasonable science behind this measurement. It goes along with Nolan Ryan's belief/statement that the higher he lifted his leg, the greater his velocity. The key to this is being able to extract the momentum out of the leg lift at the right time in the delivery.
A faster tempo from highest point of the knee lift to release of the ball creates more greater momentum (mass X velocity) in the early part of the delivery, which can then be used/transferred according to the kinetic sequence.
I determined that on average hard throwers averaged approximately 22 frames on a VCR from highest point in their knee lift to the release of the ball. Average velocity throwers were somewhere around 26 frames. And the problem velocity pitchers more often than not were greater than 26 frames. Of course these relationships must be taken in conjunction with all other aspects and are not a hard and fast rule.
One interesting measurement is that Randy Johnson's time from high knee lift to release is approximately the same as Billy Wagner's (about 22 frames). One would think that Randy Johnson’s time from high knee lift to release should be longer than Wagner’s because he's almost a foot taller.
A lef -hander’s tempo correlation was the same as for right-handed pitchers; i.e., faster tempos were typically associated with greater throwing velocities. It also correlated in that left handers had a tendency to have longer tempos, which is consistent with reduced velocity.
I will repeat: Show me a left hander who throws like a right-hander and I believe that pitcher has a greater probability for success than the pitcher who throws like a left hander.
Arm action…
Arm action is one of the most important aspects of throwing, yet one of the least understood, at least from the standpoint of optimizing arm action for throwing a ball.
One way to understand arm action is to think of throwing a baseball as analogous to the buggy whip. A buggy whip has a long tapering slender handle to which is attached a “popper.” The body from feet to shoulders is the handle of the throwing buggy whip, and the arm is the popper.
Creating a loop in the popper (elbow flexion, wrist extension) is crucial to creating whipping action. The abduction of the scapular along with the upper arm in conjunction with a flexed forearm along with the wrist and hand creates the throwing loop. How this loop is created (movement pattern of the arm) has a pronounced effect on the throwing-whipping action.
There are various types of arm actions/configurations. One of the more talked about is called the inverted W, which I first described after observing the arm action of John Smoltz. Arm actions can vary from the inverted W to what is termed “slinging.” For example, Smoltz is an inverted W, while Roy Oswalt is a slinger.
There seems to be no predominant type of arm action. In my observation, left handers are subject to the same statistical distribution as right handers.
What is critical in all arm actions is creating external rotation of the shoulder. Torso rotation (transverse and sagittal) creates the change in direction necessary to cause the forearm to lay back (external rotation of the throwing shoulder). The forearm lays back as a result of its inertia; i.e., a sudden change in direction (rotation of the upper torso) leaves the forearm behind.
Another observation is that inverted W type arm actions typically lend themselves to more effective breaking balls (curveballs, cut fastballs). Slinging arm actions lend themselves more toward slider-type actions.
Initially, I felt that in inverted W had a slight advantage in terms of generating velocity. But, after 15 years of observation, I think velocity is pretty much a wash. Both types of arm actions can generate high velocities.
Glove side or front side action…
Glove side or front side action is all about symmetry. Simply stated, the glove arm and the throwing arm are mirror images of each other. Smoltz’ delivery is one of the best examples of this symmetry.
image
Figure 15. The lead arm/front side symmetry of John Smoltz
Some describe the action of the glove or front side as pulling the glove to the chest or moving the chest of the glove. I believe that both of these descriptions are inaccurate as to optimal use of the glove side.
The glove arm has three primary functions properly for the baseball. First is the symmetry aspect. From a nervous system standpoint, it is much simpler for the body to create equal and opposite.
Second is the momentum aspect. There is appreciable amount of momentum that can be generated in the throwing momentum plane as a result of glove side action.
And third is the completion of scapular action. During the throwing process, there is abduction of both the throwing arm and glove on scapula. The bringing back together again of the scapular is critical to optimally throwing a baseball.
Coaching young athletes to produce future starsCoaching young athletes to produce future stars
Doing the ‘right’ training at the ‘right’ time with a young child can maximise their future potential as an adult
‘Nature versus nurture.’ It’s a debate that will run forever in all aspects of life. Just what makes a person intelligent, optimistic or gregarious, for example? In sport, as in these other immensely varied aspects of human development, the answer resides within both realms. Genetics are crucial for performance – you won’t run a sub 10 second 100m without being born with a high percentage of fast twitch muscle fibre. But nurture is the factor you can do something about. Doing the ‘right’ training at the ‘right’ time with a young child can maximise their future potential as an adult
Skill windows (periods of optimum physical development)
There are certain times when a pre-adolescent and early adolescent will quickly and optimally respond to a certain type of training more so than others – this information is presented in Table 1 and Table 2 for boys and girls respectively. These periods are known as ‘skills windows’, although they are more about physiological outputs rather than specific skill – that’s strength, endurance and speed.
Boys’ skill windows reside between the ages of 9 and 12 and for girls between 8 and 11.
Why is it important to develop these physiological elements of sports performance at these particular times?
Research indicates that during these periods a child’s body is developing the right enzymes and hormones, for example those that maximise the development of a particular aspect of physiological performance. It is argued that if speed is not trained during the appropriate skill windows then the child will never, as an adult, be able to run as fast as they could. A 26 year old may run 10.4 sec for the 100m – this is a good near top international time. This performance may be a response to the appropriate training and the ‘right genes’ – nature. However, had they trained their speed physiology when they were 7-8 and 11-14, they might have developed into a 9.8 second world-class sprinter – nurture. Doing this could have optimised the ability on the part of the sprinter to be able to move their legs and arms as quickly as possible (elite male sprinters will achieve nearly five strides a second). It’s argued that if this is not done during the appropriate skill windows, then whether it be speed or another skill, the adult will never be able to achieve their true physical potential. This is something to ponder on.
What should you be coaching young athletes during the skill windows?
Activities must above all be fun and not overly technical, particularly for the under 12 year olds. Drills and practices must be selected that develop foundation skill and physiological development. The former Easter European countries used to follow such a practice. They ensured that all their young people were – to coin a phrase that is in current training parlance – ‘physically literate’. All children would be able to run effectively and jump and throw basically. These fundamental skills could then be developed in later life and targeted at certain sports – the Eastern Europeans would have various tests that they would use to identify potential athletes for certain sports.
Growth spurts
As a coach to young athletes you also need to be mindful of growth spurts in a young athlete’s life when they will be less coordinated, due to the way their body and limbs are rapidly growing. It’s often recommended that records are kept of the child’s weight and height on a monthly basis, in order to determine when these are occurring – although in most cases it will be obvious. It is crucial that you as coach realise that the child you are working with has not suddenly become a ‘bad’ player or athlete – rather they are trying to coordinate a body that in some cases has a bit of a mind of its own. Limbs that were once able to move with relative precision now become gangly, rangy appendages that don’t. As a coach you must watch your language, be very encouraging at these times and don’t admonish. You should also try to select appropriate training exercises.
A note on endurance
You’ll see in Table 1 that, for boys, there is only an aerobic window that begins at the age of 13 and lasts through to the age of 18, and that there is no mention of anaerobic fitness. The reasons for this are complex and beyond the scope of this article. However, very basically, young children should have near boundless energy, as anyone who has had children will know. This means that as they age their bodies will naturally increase their endurance capacity aerobically until around 13. Additionally their bodies will not have the right enzymes, for example, to improve their anaerobic capacity – these ‘become available’ in adolescence, when structured anaerobic training becomes an option. It also appears that their muscles contain a greater number of slow twitch endurance fibres, again up until adolescence, when those of the fast twitch (speed and power producing) variety begin to develop – these fibres are needed for anaerobic activity.
The skill hungry years
Between the ages of 8-12 a child is ripe for the learning of skills (and knowledge). Teach the right skills at this time and the child will become a physically gifted adult, but teach them wrongly and it will be at best a difficult struggle to unravel them in future to produce optimum performance. ‘Stem skills’ are what you should be emphasising. These, as the name suggests, should provide the stems from which more advanced skills can be learned. For example, to produce optimum adult sprint speed, the use of the arms in a harmonious action with the legs should be encouraged; while for acceleration, the pushing action of the legs could be introduced. What you should not do is introduce hugely complex skills, as the child will not be big enough, strong enough or mentally ready to perform them. For example, the key to jumping is an effective take-off, where the ‘free’ (non take-off )leg is driven forcibly up to a thigh parallel (or near) parallel to the ground position and the take-off leg is fully extended behind the athlete to propel them upwards and/or forwards. These are the stem skills that should be taught. No mention should be made of a hitch kick, long jump or Fosbury flop high jump technique, or similar, until the child is of appropriate age, strength and size. Get the stems right and optimum performance of a derivative, more complex sporting movement will follow.
Table 1: Critical development windows in the young athlete – boys
Critical development windows in the young athlete – boys
FUNdaMENTAL refers to the period when the child is most susceptible to developing physical literacy.
Table 2: Critical development windows in the young athlete – girls
Critical development windows in the young athlete – girls
Tables adapted from UK athletics coaches education programme. Note: the information provided is for guideline purposes only. No two children will mature at exactly the same rate. Note also that the windows identified should not be seen as the ‘only’ time to develop their qualities, rather they should be regarded as the most fertile times to develop these physical attributes. Progress, though not so great, can be made at other times.
Jargon buster
• Enzymes are normally proteins that are involved in cellular reactions – different enzymes produce different cellular reactions (metabolic pathways). For reference, lactate dehydrogenase is a relevant enzyme in anaerobic metabolism.
• See the simple sports science section on Peak Performance Premium to gain a fuller understanding of energy pathways and the body’s sports and fitness related chemical processes.
This article was taken from the Peak Performance newsletter, the number one source of sports science, training and research. Click here to access these articles as soon as they are released to maximise your performance
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The World Sports Science Training Workbook
The World Sports Science Training Workbook
Carbo Loading for that extra edge
Carbo Loading for that extra edge
Football Performance - How To Raise Your Game
Football Performance - How To Raise Your Game
Training For Cyclists
Training For Cyclists
Training for Maximum Endurance
Training for Maximum Endurance
Female Athletes - Training For Success
Female Athletes - Training For Success
Knee Pain - Prevention And Treatment
Knee Pain - Prevention And Treatment
Nutritional Supplements For Athletes
Nutritional Supplements For Athletes
Training for Distance Running
Training for Distance Running
Training for Sprinting, Speed and Acceleration
Training for Sprinting, Speed and Acceleration
Body Fuel - food for sport
Body Fuel - food for sport
Running Injuries - Prevention and Treatment
Running Injuries - Prevention and Treatment
The World Sports Science Performance Workbook
The World Sports Science Performance Workbook
Resistance Training - the next level
Resistance Training - the next level
Creatine - cutting through the myths
Creatine - cutting through the myths
Heart Rate Training
Heart Rate Training
Shoulder Injuries - Prevention and Treatment
Shoulder Injuries - Prevention and Treatment
Stretching to Avoid Injury
Stretching to Avoid Injury
Recovery – the magic ingredient of any training program
Recovery – the magic ingredient of any training program
The 9 Key Elements of Fitness
The 9 Key Elements of Fitness
