Functional Path Training

Trinidad & Tobago

Been here since last Sunday teaching with my colleague Ed Ryan ATC, formerly head of Sports Medicine at USOC. Have not posted much, just no time. Did a 3.5 workshop with soccer coaches; a half day off and yesterday started 3.5 days with rugby coaches. Very knowledgeable and well educated coaches who are very open and hungry for knowledge. We have had some great interchanges of ideas. I hope our work has a positive long-term impact on sport and rehabilitation from sport injuries in T&T. These people are wonderful. Also working with a track athlete on getting him back to training. We do that at the end of the day after the workshops. Makes for long days, but very satisfying. The other day on the track at Hasely Crawford stadium reminded of UC Irvine circa 1984 with all the talent out there. This young 400-meter hurdler with proper guidance could be the best ever. Makes me think of Carol Dwecks "Mindset" though, praise the effort not the result to insure growth. I do hope he gets that guidance. Amazing to see the kind of talent this small country has.

Pitch Counts

I have always thought pitch counts were an arbitrary random number. When I was with the White Sox we produced a large number of very effective starting pitchers. In their development pitch counts was one factor that was considered. Our philosophy was to condition them to pitch, teach them how to pitch and put them in situations where they had to compete and get hitters out. The record speaks for itself. Saw this article on SI site, maybe baseball is catching up to what we did in the 90's.

 

Tom Verducci - THREE STRIKES

On Wednesday, Max Scherzer, 25, of the Tigers threw 123 pitches and Chad Billingsley, 25, of the Dodgers threw 125 pitches. The next day, Josh Johnson, 26, of the Marlins threw 121 pitches and Justin Verlander, 27, of the Tigers threw 120 pitches. Nobody seemed to get too worked up about it.

There was a time -- OK, it was in the wake of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood breaking down -- when such high pitch counts for young pitchers would have set off deputized pitch-count mobs reaching for their torches and pitchforks. But something very interesting is going on during this pitching renaissance: managers are letting their pitchers ring up high pitch counts more often.

From 2001 through 2008, the number of 120-pitch outings declined every season. But last year there was a 26-percent uptick, which has been followed by another increase this year of nearly 30 percent, based on the current rates.

Here are the number of starts in which a pitcher threw 120 pitches, beginning with 2003, the year Wood and Prior carried the Cubs to within one game of the World Series, only to be hurt the next season:

2003: 226
2004: 186
2005: 135
2006: 120
2007: 81
2008: 73
2009: 92
2010: 119*

* projected

What's going on? Managers, general managers and the media no longer are running so scared. The environment has calmed. There have been fewer high-profile breakdowns, at least anecdotally. Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan, president of the Texas Rangers, has provided a strong, respected voice arguing that the Conservation Movement (fewer pitches equals fewer problems) went too far.

Perhaps most of all, this cycle of young starting pitchers has been good enough to help change the culture. Of the 70 starts this year of 120 pitches, 52 have been thrown by pitchers in their 20s. That's already more than pitchers in their 20s threw just three years ago -- and we still have more than two months left in the season.

Demise of the dinosaurs

There is another trend that becomes obvious when you look at high-pitch count games over the past decade: the pitching dinosaurs are extinct. Remember when old dudes such as Roger Clemens, Mike Mussina, Randy Johnson, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Curt Schilling and even Woody Williams roamed major league mounds? Those pitchers have vanished so quickly you would think an asteroid struck the game.

In 2004, there were 24 games in which somebody at least 36 years old threw 120 or more. Just four years later? Zip. And this year? Zip, again.

In fact, there have been only two high-pitch-count games thrown by such old pitchers in the past three years combined (by Pedro Martinez and Brian Moehler, both in 2009).

Take a look at the path to extinction for 120-pitch games by guys 36-and-older:

2004: 24
2005: 14
2006: 11
2007: 5
2008: 0
2009: 2
2010: 0

The old masters, a group that also included Greg Maddux (who went the last eight years of his career without throwing 120 pitches in a game), are gone. The generation of starting pitchers right behind them was weak. But this new generation is so deep that it's helping to change how the game is played. There is no doubt that baseball today is a young man's game.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/tom_verducci/07/23/pitch.counts/index.html#ixzz0ubmZIzN7

Cheerleading

Cheerleading is not a sport! It may be athletic, but is entertainment, a sideshow so to speak. To have any $$ diverted to this from real female sports is misappropriation of funds. Realize this is a value judgment on my part, but it is what it is. Kills me to see the youth football cheerleaders being socialized into this scene at a young age.

If You Are Interested

For may of you that just started reading this blog in the past years or months August 4, 2005 was my first post on

www.functionalpathtraining.blogspot.com

All the posts until May 6, 2008 are on blogspot when I migrated over to present host. I think you will see that I have not changed my tune at all. Always following the functional path to build and rebuild the complete athlete. Sometimes I have been the only one on this path, at other times it has been quite crowed, but there never has been a dull moment. My philosophy for over 40 years is that the pursuit of excellence has it’s own rewards and that knowledge is power. No fads, no frills, just principles and results building a body of work for over 41 years. I sincerely hope you will continue with me on the exploration of the functional path. There are many trails to be explored and many questions to be answers and ideas to be tried.

Bike versus Car: The Car Wins

Was on a nice ride this morning. Stared at around 6:45 AM to beat the heat. Beautiful dawn – see picture. Well to make a long story short I had my ride rudely interrupted by a big black SUV that turned right in front of me. Fortunately my emphasis on reactive agility training based on years of programmed agility saved me. Collided and I went down  , nothing broken or bleeding. Straightened the bike out and finished the ride. It all hit me (No pun intended) when I got home. I was lucky. Taking my bike to the shop now, hope I can get it all straightened out, would like to get in one more ride tomorrow before I leave for Trinidad again.

Training Basics

Keep it basic. The complexity will come by combining foundational elements. Be targeted and focused. Never lose sight of the goal: to prepare the athlete to be taken to their physical, technical and psychological limits in the competitive arena. Training is a means to an end – nothing more, nothing less. Constantly apply this litmus test to your training: Is what I am doing in training nice to do or need to do? If it is not need to do don’t do it. From my experience nice to do activities make you tired and hurt, need to do makes you better and advances you progressively toward your training and competition goals.

American Masters – Merle Haggard

I love this PBS program, but last nights program on Merle Haggard was real special. Certainly brought back memories of my college years in the 60’s at Fresno State. That is where I first heard Haggard and was introduced to the “Bakersfield Sound” and country music in general. More of my education came out of the classroom as I saw racism and real dirt poor poverty for the first time. The things Haggard sang about in his songs. (Seeing a family of twelve in a tar paper shack in 105 degree heat was a wake-up for me - never complained about no air conditioning in the dorms after that.) The great central valley may have been the breadbasket of the world, but in the sixties the sons and daughters of the Okies were being forced to change and it was not always comfortable. Merle Haggard’s music and life is a really metaphor or the turmoil in this most conservative region of the country. He is most definitely the “poet of the common man.”  www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/merle-haggard/watch-the-full-film/1605/

What I am Reading Now

Is this good news or bad news?

This was in yesterdays NY Times Business section:

E-Books Top Hardcovers at Amazon

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

Published: July 19, 2010

Amazon.com, one of the nation’s largest booksellers, announced Monday that for the last three months, sales of books for its e-reader, the Kindle, outnumbered sales of hardcover books.

In that time, Amazon said, it sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcovers for which there is no Kindle edition.

I am an old school bibliophile who loves the tactile feel of holding a book, smelling the paper, underlining and writing in the margins. I actually found this quite alarming. Is this really a good thing? My gut feeling tells me it is not. I just can’t tell you why, but this does not feel right to me. I will probably never have an e-reader of any make or design. I already spend too much time in the wired world. Last night I finished the 115^th book of my reading year that spans from September 1 to August 31. I am close to needing another room for my books, I love it it! I love book covers and everything about books. I understand all the logical arguments in favor of electronic books. I know that with real books we are killing tress, but with eBooks are we killing minds? How can I write in the margins, use my multi colored underlining system, it is just not the same experience. To paraphrase Howard Schulz of Starbucks fame – it is not about books, sometimes it is about the experience. I am currently reading about eight books; each one represents a different experience, a different feel, and different weight physically and intellectually. I am sure I could get them on a Kindle but it would just not be the same.

Steve Ralston - The Consumate Professional

As a coach I do not believe you can afford to be a fan, but I also know that  you cannot help but have favorite players. Those individuals who epitomize what it is to be an athlete and a professional. For me Steve Ralston, is one of those people. Today Steve is going to announce his retirement as a player for the New England Revolution. In pro sports I put him right up there with Carlton Fisk and Jack McDowell, whom I had the pleasure of working with in my White Sox days, as consummate professionals. It hardly seems that is was fourteen years ago that Steve was a boyish looking rookie on a veteran Tampa Bay Mutiny team full of grizzled veterans of soccer leagues around the world. He was rookie of the year in the 1996, the inaugural season of the MLS. He played on the flank and was tireless in creating space, then tracking back on defense. His work rate was the best. He was fit and soccer fit. He was both quick and fast. He had a deceptive first step and getaway stride that enabled him to separate himself from his mark. He retires as the league career leader in minutes played, a real iron man.

As a young rookie on that first Mutiny team than won the Eastern conference regular season championship he was the rock, solid, you always knew what you were going to get – a consummate team player. We had the mercurial Carlos Valderrama distributing the ball, Roy Lassiter was a goal scoring machine who set the league single season scoring record that still stands. Then there was Steve, he was as quiet and even keeled as Valderrama was temperamental, as consistent and steady as Lassiter was inconsistent. Rumor has it that Steve may go into coaching, I hope he does. Whatever Steve does he will be one of the few heroes that I have from my work in professional sport. It was a pleasure to work with him and watch him play. All the best to you Steve, you are a tribute to the game and the MLS. You were a pioneer who helped get the league established.