As we move into the summer season for baseball, many players have ended their own season and many more are continuing on with tournaments, all-star games, and week-long showcases. The glass is either half full or half empty in terms of development depending on the player.
At Throwzone Academy, it’s the real beginning of the development season, starting with our summer-long training program. This is the 15th year we’re hosting this camp, which includes arm care, core training, explosive activities, velocity enhancement, and general throwing development.
Our classes at 4pm and 6pm continue as well. The key word we always use is ‘development,’ and this becomes important to understand for the player who’s looking to go far in his career, be it college or beyond.
There are many pundits who write and speak about the dangers of playing too many games. While this is true, it should be understood that PLAYING in too many games doesn’t mean the same as continual THROWING on a regular basis. PLAYING doesn’t allow for the skill development needed for the game of baseball. It only allows for the player to continue to solidify the level they’ve already trained up to at that point in their game. If they haven’t continued to further the skill development necessary (arm health, velocity, solidifying mechanics in their throwing delivery), then they will only continue the bad habits they develop during this period of continual playing.
I’ve written about the quality of this skill development in previous emails (the difference between taking 100 ground balls, taking 100 swings, and throwing 100 balls in a practice or workout setting over the course of a weekend vs. getting 5 ground balls, taking 10 swings, and making 50 throws over an entire weekend of games). You cannot develop at nearly the same rate in a game setting to the degree you can in a practice or workout setting. Continual skill development is the difference between practicing chess with a Grand Master versus playing chess against a novice. You just cannot achieve the same level of skill acquisition in playing that you can in practice.
MLB and their guidelines called Pitch Smart talk about the dangers of playing year round. The American Sports Medical Institute (ASMI) and their orthopedic doctors talk about overuse in the youth pitcher and how pitchers should take three months off each year from pitching. (Note: The word ‘pitching’ is used here.) But what they don’t talk about is the development needed to enhance their skill set on the field and mound. Try to name one other sport where they advocate taking 1/4 of an entire year off from that sport and see how other sports would just laugh at that conclusion.
My point is that the next several months are critical to the future of your child’s arm health and development. Playing in games is fun and can become a treasured memory down the road. However, a surgical scar is also memorable as is remembering the doctor’s office and recalling the exact layout of each room there because of an injury.
One of the top items on the wish list of a new client is the idea of how cool it would be for their child to play in college someday. And I can tell you that it’s an absolute joy to watch your child play on one of the biggest amateur stages in baseball. However, there are no shortcuts to developing a fundamentally strong game in hitting, fielding, and especially throwing.
We’re continually seen as one of the premier throwing academies in the Southern California area. Our clients drive from all over Southern California to continue their path to the biggest stages in baseball. They come to us because they see improvements in their game. They are constantly assessed to gauge their improvement through video and objective measurements.
We invite you to check out our website at www.throwzone.com, read the testimonials, and see for yourself the number of players in professional and collegiate baseball we’ve helped in their playing career. Over the years, those numbers keep rising and they’ll only continue to grow.
Call us today and find out what we can do to further the development of your player at our pitching and throwing facility. Let us take your child to his next level of development and be a springboard into that next level of competition that every player works so hard to achieve.
Until next time…
Jim
Jim Wagner's ThrowZone Academy 