Importance of Lower Extremity Strengthening for Overhead Athletes
Overhead athletes play a variety of sports, including baseball, lacrosse, football, volleyball and even tennis. These athletes require power and strength in their dominant extremity for overhead positions. However, it is important to also consider the lower extremities of these athletes in a strengthening program.
3 Traits of a Successful Pitcher
Henry Chadwick is credited with creating the first baseball statistics in the late 1800’s.1 To gauge a batter’s success, he formulated the batting average (hits divided by at-bats), and for pitchers, the ERA (earned runs given up per 9 innings pitched). Today, with groups like Fangraphs.com and the Society for American Baseball Research, there are mind boggling ways to analyze and predict the performance of baseball players.
Video Throwing Analysis: The 6th Tool for the Baseball Player
Today’s blog post is written by guest blogger, Ryan Mertz, PT, DPT, CSCS. Ryan is also the Team Physical Therapist for the Chicago Cubs.
Much has remained constant in the game of professional baseball over the last 100 years, such as the distance from the pitching rubber to the plate, but significantly more has changed. Players are bigger, faster and stronger. Spectators know the speed and break of every pitch and that a ballpark hotdog costs an arm and a leg. With the progression of the game through technology, research and physical development standards, much of the lessons learned at the pro level have now trickled down into amateur baseball. (more…)
