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Spring News

  The High School Spring baseball and softball seasons are here! Everyone else will be on the ball field in no time. This time of year always creates an interesting experience for players who work all winter long indoors -- just for mother nature to tease them with 70+ degree weather one week, and snow the next! As players begin to dust off their cleats and prepare to hit the soggy fields in March, we want to share some valuable information that will allow players to stay on the field longer throughout the coming spring and summer seasons.
 

For many years, players and teams begin their on-field workouts in March while the weather is not so inviting. March always tends to be a mixture of "beginning to get warm" afternoons and "chilly" evenings. The Pinkman Academy consistently reminds players that their bodies are the "#1-Key-to-Success" in playing baseball or softball, and they must take care of themselves.

 
Stay Warm

Throughout the winter season players constantly show up in shorts for our "WINTER" workouts. The Pinkman Academy cares deeply for your son or daughter and we feel it necessary to emphasize that everyone should dress appropriately, not only for the cold training season, but to create the same environment in which they will be competing. The same thought applies for the Spring Training season as March approaches.



While in college Jeff and Pat were required to wear long sleeves as pitchers until the temperature hit 75 degrees on the field. The reasoning behind this was to assure that their throwing arms remained warm and healthy.

Many injuries occur on the field due to players not staying warm after they have warmed up. Whether players/pitchers are wearing cotton long-sleeves or Under Armour Cold Gear, please make sure your sons and daughters are protecting YOUR investment.

Stay in Shape

How a player warms-up is also an integral part of how they will perform in the early stages of the spring/March season. During the winter training months, Pinkman students have been introduced to a wide variety of exercises (i.e. Ladder drills, J-Bands, weighted med balls, Fast-Arm, bosu balls, dumbbells, and various upper body functional fitness drills). We introduced these exercises and training tools to players to give them the best opportunity to succeed and to show them how easy it is to take care of their bodies/throwing arms throughout the course of the seasons.

One of the great inventions of the last 20 years is the Jaeger Sports J-Bands, but really have a hard time finding their way in to a players equipment bag. If you have attended lessons with us recently you will notice how your son spent time using the J-Bands. Since the inception of the Pinkman Academy we have integrated a stretch cord routine prior to players picking up a ball. We feel if there is one vital tool a player must have in their pre-practice and pre-game warm-up routine it should be the Jaeger Sports J-Bands.

The J-Bands can be purchased through us or online for as little as $35
. www.jaegersports.com


Physical therapists and orthopedic surgeons tell us that the best way to protect the throwing arm both in and out of season is by performing a daily regime of stretch cord exercises to protect the rotator cuff muscles and to rehabilitate the throwing arm after throwing off the mound either in practice or in the game. The Pinkman Academy has posted the entire J-Band routine on our YouTube channel and Pinkman On Demand.

Creating a light dumbbell routine with 1lb-5lb weights is also highly recommended by the American Sports Medicine Institue (ASMI) to help prevent injuries and rehabilitate ball players after throwing. Players can perform these exercises to help maintain strength and endurance during the season.

The most common program for this goal is the Thrower's Ten. The Thrower's Ten involves a variety of basic resistance band work and light dumbbell work in order to strengthen the muscles that make up the rotator cuff - supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis. Although a 2lb dumbbell doesn't sound heavy, performing these exercises can really help make a difference as players get deeper into the season. NCAA and MLB pitchers
use light dumbbells regularly, your players should too! Click the link to watch a sample of the
UNC Baseball Dumbbell Circuit

Throwing Routines

If players haven't already begun to throw on consecutive days, a plan should be created to jump start that process. The American Sports Medicine Institute and Health South created a return to throwing program for injured athletes. This program has players beginning with only 25-50 throws a session from specific distances. Although your athlete may not be injured, following a similar routine on an every-other-day or even an everyday basis leading up to the start of the season can help prevent injuries and provide an even better start of the spring practice or playing season. We find when players combine the right amount of strengthening and throwing exercises, players and parents are able to PRE-habilitate vs. rehabilitate.

A study by Glen Feisig et al found that "risk factors for overuse throwing injury include pitches per game, innings pitched per season, months pitched per year, pitching for multiple teams at the same time, lack of rest periods, and pitching while fatigued. Fleisig et al followed 481 youth pitchers for 10 years and noted that players who pitched more than 100 innings in 1 calendar year had a 3.5 times greater chance of sustaining a serious injury."
Click here to read the entire article in the National Center for Biotechnology Information

Whats New!

You may have heard some pounding on the walls recently. That noise is 1lb medicine balls being thrown against the walls. The Pinkman Academy will be incorporating a weighted ball routine into our new Athletic Pitcher (AP) Program COMING SOON!.

 

A new study by Dr. Glenn Fleisig, lead researcher at the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Ala., which is the research wing of Dr. James Andrews' practice, advances the cause of those who believe using weighted balls is, indeed, the wave of the future.
"The force on the elbow actually goes down as the weight of the ball increases," Fleisig said. "With a heavier ball, the arm moves more slowly. Newton told us that 'force equals mass times acceleration.' A heavier ball has more mass, but the arm is moving a lot slower, so throwing a heavier ball actually correlates with decreased arm forces and torque."

Fleisig concluded that throwing slightly underweight and overweight baseballs is not only a reasonable exercise for baseball pitchers, but also that the variation from the normal routine of throwing a 5-ounce ball serves to increase awareness in the nerves and muscles and can make a pitcher more effective when he returns to the standard baseball.
 
"It makes sense to vary things a little," Fleisig said. "Mechanics with the lighter and heavier balls are similar enough not to learn anything bad, and tweaking is good for training. It's a wake-up call for the body to pay attention."
 

Come in for a lesson to experience our new dynamic Athletic Pitcher Program first hand. Your throwing athlete will certainly experience a new way to use their body to throw the ball.
 
  If you have questions about a throwing routine, what tension or how often to perform a stretch cord routine, or what type of dumbbells your son or daughter should be doing to prepare for the season please do not hesitate to contact us.
 
Play Ball!!!
  Pinkman Academy | 703-661-8586 | info@pinkman.us | PinkmanAcademy.com

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