What a busy month for everyone. There are graduations—promotions from elementary to junior high and from junior high to high school—and for many of our past clients, I’m seeing pictures posted on social media of their children graduating from college. Time sure moves fast!
In fact, back in August of ’21, this newsletter lamented how time just flies by us each year as a new school year had started again. I spoke about getting ready for another year of high school baseball and, just like that, teams are finishing up their season and planning the next step of their baseball journey.
For many of these players, the fall and spring seasons brought them great success in their performances on the field. For others, the seasons were ok—not great, not bad, but average. And for some, their seasons turned into a nightmare. Whether through their own actions or by some fluke injury, all the work they had done—or for some, the lack of work done—put them in a precarious position.
I saw one client work his tail off, and while practicing an innocent rundown drill so basic to a practice plan, he tore his ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) and was out for the season. I also had clients who did the minimum during the summer and fall, had their coach over pitch them in the first game of fall, and then watched them constantly battle soreness during the season. While we can control some things and not others, the bottom line is that it’s SO important to train your heart out so that the likelihood of an injury isn’t something you’ll have to worry about.
I’ve told this story before, but in my sophomore year of high school, I usually took the fall off from throwing while I played different sports other than baseball full-time. And when the baseball season started, my arm felt like the biggest charley horse ever reared its head every time I threw or pitched in a game. I was fortunate that a full week of rain forced me to take time off, and that rest was vital to my recovery for a great rest of the season. However, in high school and even travel ball, players don’t have the luxury of taking time off as baseball is a year-round sport. That’s why training is so vitally important!!
Training and development are vital cogs that build the high-powered engine our body needs to operate at our best. Always playing in games will lead to soreness or, unfortunately, injury. Roger Clemens used to say that the easiest day of his 5-day pitching cycle was actually the day that he pitched. He worked so hard to continually build his body, his arm strength, and his mental outlook to baseball, and once he took that approach, he never dealt with a serious arm issue. Training in an environment with like-minded players and focusing on building strength and endurance is so important to a player—and our work with pitchers—that playing in a game ends up being very easy.
During the summer, Throwzone Academy hosts summer training camps for the month of June and July, a total of eight weeks for our older players. For our youth players, we train during that time for six weeks. The younger players get introduced to a training cycle to get them to understand how important training is to building strength, recovery, and a strong mental outlook.
Our high school and college players are put through a varied training regimen three times a week for two and a half hours each day, where velocity is gained but, more importantly, a strong foundation of strength is built that will teach players what it takes to continue through a long baseball season. Every year, players tell me about a month after camp ends that they’ve never felt better when they got back on the field with their high school or college program. Meanwhile, other players are realizing how out of shape they are after a summer of doing nothing but playing games or just resting for the start of the season.
It’s important to know that in this age of baseball both professional and college players barely take any time off from baseball after a season ends, maybe one or two weeks before they’re back at getting themselves ready for their long season. It’s no longer the 1960–1990 mentality that you rest after a long season and then be ready to work after the holiday break. All college programs, as well as most high school programs, begin practicing in August with bullpens beginning three weeks after that initial buildup. If we wait until August 1st to begin our training, then we’re sadly very far behind other players and will try to do too much too early. This is when players deal with soreness, because they see their teammates ahead of them. And then injury is almost certain. Now, when various Throwzone players get back on the field, after spending eight weeks getting ready for the season during the summer, they’ll see the results of that hard work immediately and will no doubt stand out to their coaches. That’s what summer training is all about!
I cannot stress enough how important our summer camps are to the development of high-level players who need and want to improve. Though honestly, we really want those players who NEED to improve, not those who just hope they get better. As my good friend Ron Wolforth always says, “Hope in not a plan.”
We have a plan to improve your son in all areas of his baseball development when it comes to arm and total body health. We guide players and put them in the best possible position to succeed on the mound and field.
You can find all our camp information at http://www.throwzone.com. You NEED to be with us this summer—and beyond. I guarantee that the results will be exactly what you want. Call, text, or email me about how we can help your son! I promise it’ll be the best investment you can put toward training.
Until next time……
Jim
Jim Wagner's ThrowZone Academy 