Has your favorite song ever been blasting from the speakers as you’re on the mound warming up and you feel electric, as though the ball is jumping out of your hand into the catcher’s mitt? You are all linked up and then the song is turned off and the batter steps in and you lose that feeling as your first pitch barely floats over the plate. Or how about a time when you felt completely gassed, you thought you had no more energy to get through your workout and then a great song starts bumping through your headphones and you catch a second wind?

Music is deeply rooted in the history of mankind. Every culture on earth has known music. As my two examples illustrate, responses to music can be easily observed and felt. Music can influence us in a number of ways: It can speed up or slow down the heart rate, make us angry or sad, it can even fill us with a sense of spirituality. Needless to say, music can be a very powerful force and one that if used correctly can be beneficial to athletes.

Rhythm and tempo are the two most important aspects of music in terms of eliciting a physical response. Rhythm organizes a number of physical movements in the human body. A person’s heart rate, walking/running, and even breathing are controlled by rhythm. Rhythm helps organize physical movements in time. Tempo on the other hand is simply the speed or pace of things. These two facets of music can be phenomenal training tools for athletes of all sports.

How do you best utilize music to enhance performance? It all depends on the activity and the goal of that activity in which the athlete is about to engage. If the activity is one of high intensity then a song with fast tempo and rhythm is best. This type of music will raise the athlete’s heart rate and awareness level so that he is ready for the intensity of the coming exercise. If the athlete is about to undergo a long duration cardiovascular workout then an up-tempo song with a good steady rhythm that the athlete can fall into pace with would be ideal. If relaxation such as yoga or stretching is the task at hand then a slow tempo and very rhythmic beat is needed because it will slow the heart rate and help release tension throughout the player’s body. It is such an easy task to match music with the intensity and purpose of the exercise at hand yet so often it is overlooked.

In my opinion the most beneficial aspect of a song’s rhythm and tempo is its ability to help organize an athlete’s movements to become more fluid and dynamic. For example, many pitchers struggle to find their natural speed and tempo during delivery. For so long they have had coaches telling them to speed it up, and even more common, to slow it down. Each pitcher is a unique individual with their own natural tempo that will provide the best results. I have seen with my own eyes, pitchers gain 3 or 4 miles per hour on their fastball during one bullpen session simply because they put on their ipod and listened to their favorite song while throwing. Immediately they had a more rhythmic delivery as they matched their body’s movement to the song coming through the headphones. This is such a great way to teach a pitcher his delivery since he is finding what comes natural to him. This same principle applies to athletes working on hitting a baseball, swinging a golf club, or working on their running form to name a few.

Think about all the elite athletes you see on television during practice or games. How many of them have headphones on while they go through their pre-game routine? Is this a coincidence that so many of them do this? I think not. These highly tuned, highly trained athletes are preparing their body for competition by synchronizing it with the beats of their favorite songs. This allows them to stay fluid and relaxed instead of becoming stiff with tension and anxiety.

Many people may ask, well what type of music is best for motivating, relaxing, or pumping athletes up. It doesn’t matter whether its country, rap, hard rock, latino, or from the Big Band era. All these genres have fast tempo/rhythmic songs and slow tempo/rhythmic songs and that is the key. Use the music you or your athletes like because this is what will have the greatest influence on them.

Because music is able to raise your heart rate and can start the flow of adrenaline coursing through your veins it can give athletes a natural boost in energy and determination if that’s what is needed, or it can slow the heart rate to help athletes relax in stressful situations. Whatever the goal, use this simple trick and look for a boost in performance.

Brian Oates

Brian@Oatesspecialties.com

The Importance of Measuring and Recording:Objective measurement. Those two words are extremely important if you are seeking to enhance your skill and ability in any sport. What do I mean by them exactly? I’m talking about athletes measuring and recording everything they do. This idea is certainly nothing new in regards to athletics. For decades coaches have been timing 40 yard dashes, recording the amount players are able to lift in the weight room, and all sports keep statistics. However, this is only brushing the surface of what I mean by measuring.What I am referring to is measuring more than just an athlete’s performance in games, or a player’s speed or strength once every few months. I mean keeping a daily recording of any and all activities an athlete does in preparation for their sport. How do you measure all of the different activities an athlete does in practice and workouts? Its not as difficult as you might think.

Only a few instruments are necessary to record just about everything an athlete does. The primary devices are a stop watch, a countdown timer, a tape measure, and a radar gun. All of these items are relatively inexpensive (around $30 or less) excluding the radar gun. However, most baseball programs have one so all you need is to get permission to borrow it.

The benefits of measuring and recording what you do is tremendous. First and foremost you will have a record of all the activities you’ve done along with the results from those exercises. You will then be able to compare your numbers with those of your teammates and in some cases with players from around the country to give an indication as to where you stand (such as in velocity, running times, or weight lifting). The most important reason to objectively measure yourself is to have a specific goal to aim for at every activity every single day. The only way to make sizeable gains on a consistent basis in practice is to push your body past its previous best, day in and day out. It is impossible to do this if you have no clue what you are capable of.

For example, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked a baseball player how far he can long toss and get the response, “I don’t know.” Or ask a player how fast they run the 40 or 60 yard dash and they respond, “Well last year” or “a few years ago I ran this.” These athletes certainly haven’t been pushing their bodies to throw further or run harder as efficiently as possible because they don’t know what they are capable of to begin with. The same is true for agilities, medicine ball work, pop times for catchers, time it takes to get to first base for hitters, velocities from certain drills for pitchers (torques, step behinds, etc.) and the list goes on. Each of these activities can be improved more quickly if the current time, velocity, or number of reps from a drill is recorded and the athlete repeatedly strives to break it and set better times, velocities, and reps. Just imagine the number of times an athlete will break his newest record best in the course of a year and as a result the amount of improvement the player will see.

In order to improve your athleticism and specific ability in your sport you will be doing yourself a huge favor by taking the time to measure and record what you do. It’s no wonder All-Stars such as Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling, and Alex Rodriguez are fanatics when it comes to keeping track of their performance in practice and games. Or elite programs like Vanderbilt keep such detailed measurements they know each of their position players average time from the dugout to their position (not to mention an array of other data which most of us have never even thought to measure).

I will leave you with something that Pitching Coach Ron Wolforth, who is known as one of the leaders in objective measurements of baseball skills, often says to his pitchers when they are wanting to improve in a certain area:

“If you want to improve something…measure it!”

Brian Oates

Brian@oatesspecialties.com

twitter: @oatesspecialty

Check out our new site: http://www.chaintraining.com

There have been several questions from readers of this blog regarding the amount of time it takes for the body’s ATP energy system to recover after an exercise. This is a very important question and yet one of the most difficult to answer precisely. Most research on the topic shows the rest time for full recovery of the ATP energy system to be approximately 2 minutes. However, there are a number of variables which affect the amount of time needed for recovery.

The first variable has to do with how depleted the athlete’s ATP system is after the exercise or activity. In other words, how long was the duration of the exercise. Remember the ATP energy system provides the body energy for as long as 30 seconds (although after 12 seconds the amount of ATP providing energy sharply decreases as the glycogen system begins to take over). If an athlete exercises with high intensity for 25 to 30 seconds then their ATP energy will be completely depleted and they will need a full 2 minutes to recover. On the other hand, if the exercise was 6 seconds in length, not all of the stored ATP was used and the recovery time will be shorter than 2 minutes.

The second important variable has to do with the athlete’s physical condition. As an athlete trains his fast twitch, explosive energy system, the amount of ATP stored in his/her muscles will increase and the recovery time needed will be less. Athletes who have specifically trained their ATP energy systems will need less recovery time to replenish their energy than athletes who don’t train in this way or from the general population. As a result, elite athletes can recover much more quickly than others.

With that being said, an easy thumb rule to determine the amount of rest needed is to give athletes at least 3 to 4 times the amount of rest as the duration of the activity they are doing. So if the exercise lasts 10 seconds they should get at least 30 to 40 seconds of rest. Ideally, you want an athlete’s heart rate to return to normal and breathing to be under control before they start the next set. Since an athlete’s heart rate is often extremely difficult to judge, another indication of whether an athlete’s ATP stores are replenished can be determined by watching their performance in the exercise. Since intensity is the most important factor when training the ATP energy system, the easiest and perhaps best way to gauge appropriate recovery time is to watch an athlete’s intensity.

If an athlete starts to slow and show fatigue (his intensity diminishes), there are two options. The first is to allow more rest time and the second is to decrease the duration of the activity. If neither option is helping the athlete regain his explosiveness, speed, power, or energy then it is probably wise to end the day’s workout since he/she is no longer performing at maximum intensity and the body will actually be teaching itself to move more slowly.

These types of indications about an athlete’s recovery time may be easy enough when training individuals or small groups of players but I know some coaches will be wondering how they are supposed to gauge each athlete’s intensity, or heart rate, when an entire team is training. The best way to do this is by partnering up players so they can watch and record each others performance. If a player sees his partner is getting significantly less reps or his time is slowing dramatically then he can let the coach know that more rest time is needed. Another benefit of pairing guys up in groups of two or more is that while one athlete is working the others are resting and therefore letting their energy system replenish itself while no time is wasted. They are spotting/evaluating/recording/timing their partner while resting and everyone is benefiting from the time spent.

The key to remember whether you are training by yourself, one on one, or with an entire team is to be sure the rest time is at least 3 times greater than the exercise itself. Don’t begin the next activity if you are gasping for air or if you can still feel your heart pounding in your chest. Most athletes will probably need more rest than 3 times that of the exercise but as long as you keep an eye out and watch an athlete’s performance you will have a pretty good reading as to how well his/her energy system is recovering.

For questions or additional information on this topic or any others contact me at Brian@oatesspecialties.com

Check out our other site http://www.chaintraining.com

Brian Oates

When speaking with Carl Crawford’s trainer, Lee Fiocchi, he told me why he integrates the Speed Chains into his professional athletes’ workouts. Interested in hearing what Lee had to say?

Check out http://www.chaintraining.com/blog.php for the conversation.

Hopefully some of you were able to see Baseball Tonight and watch Crawford on the Chains. For those of you who missed it we will be doing our best to upload the video onto our website as soon as possible!

Brian Oates

Brian@oatesspecialties.com

Recently an ESPN crew visited Lee Fiocchi’s facility, Dynamic Sports Training in Houston, Texas to film one of his clients as he went through a typical offseason workout. This client is Tampa Bay Devil Rays outfielder Carl Crawford. Although Lee takes a global approach to training his many professional clients, one piece of equipment they integrate into their workouts are the Speed Chains.

Due to editing we are unsure if the Speed Chains will be shown on the segment about Crawford’s offseason training but we encourage you to tune in and find out! It will be aired on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight at 12:30 pm ET (11:30 Central) on Sunday, February 14th.

For more information about Speed Chains check out http://www.chaintraining.com

or email Brian@chaintraining.com for questions or comments.

I want to stay on the theme of athleticism and explosiveness and address what is killing many athletes’ ability to become athletic. It often boils down to the fact that too many coaches are “over coaching” their players. This is something that has been happening in baseball for many years now.

Coaches are breaking pitching and hitting mechanics into many tiny parts and teaching each of these micro positions individually hoping the athlete can piece them together to create an athletic, explosive 90 mph fastball or a screaming 400 foot line drive. This is not the right way to go about producing it. I’ve heard Ron Wolforth say so many times, “What happens between the dots is far more important than the dots themselves.” It is so true. A player may look picture perfect, identical to a Hall of Fame big league guy, at 3 or 4 points, such as at the top of his leg lift, or at a particular point with his arm action, or even at release point, but why is it that this same kid is throwing 15 miles per hour slower. It’s because of what happened between these points in time that the big league guy separated himself.

A lot of the blame has to go to technology, where we can break down a pitcher’s mechanics in the blink of an eye with a camcorder or high speed camera. We are getting too caught up in the minute movements and not the over all big picture. Our athletes need to feel athletic. They want to be explosive, not worried about where their arm is at foot strike, or how their balance is. Baseball instruction has to be one of the best examples of taking athleticism out of players and “over coaching.” In 2009 28% of MLB players were born outside of the United States. Even scarier, 48% of minor league players were born outside the United States. This has to tell us something about our instruction. The majority of these players from outside of the U.S. are emanating from Caribbean nations whose populations are minuscule compared to ours. These are poor 3rd world countries where instruction is nearly non-existent. Latin-American athletes have never had a coach tell them to reach a “balance point” or that they are “rushing.” They are teaching themselves how to connect the dots in the most explosive way they can which produces the best results.

Think about it, do any two pitchers throw exactly alike? Any two hitters hit exactly alike? Then why do so many of us try and teach every guy the exact same delivery or starting position? Picture a jazz musician who is moving with the rhythm of the song. This musician is loose, free, full of energy, exactly how our players should feel while playing. Sports is a performance based, results driven world and in the end all that matters is a players’ performance. All that is important is the moment the ball is released and at contact. In other words, how the ball comes out of the hand and off the bat.

I challenge coaches to let your guys be free and athletic. Provide them with drills where they can be explosive and dynamic while still having a specific goal in mind. Try and get them to be as free and loose as they can, not paused in a certain awkward position throwing 10 pitches in a row from it. You will see it is far more comfortable for athletes when you stop teaching little movements and start teaching the big ones. It would be better to just roll a ball to each of your guys and tell them nothing more than to throw the heck out of it (if you want velocity) or to hit specific targets (if it’s a command day) then to confuse their mind and bodies while sucking the athleticism out of them by having them pause at certain “important positions.”

As for athletes, don’t let somebody talk you into having a robotic, generic delivery. You are your own athlete, different than any other on this Earth and in the end your performance is on your own shoulders, not your coaches.

Brian Oates

Check out http://www.chaintraining.com/blog.php for my blog on functional strength for athletes!

email: Brian@oatesspecialties.com
twitter: @oatesspecialty

Giant flat band resistance loops are fairly common in the sports and conditioning world. However, many people do not know just how versatile these bands can be. They can be used to assist stretching hamstrings, groin, hips, glutes, and quads. Others use them in the weight room as they wrap the bands around the ends of weight bars while doing exercises such as bench press and squats.

You may have known of these uses for the giant flat bands but I recently ran across a video of former National League MVP Barry Larkin (click here) using these bands in a method that I hadn’t seen before. Barry is using the largest flat band, the 2 1/2 inch band, around his waist and is working on his first few steps when trying to steal a base. His trainer is holding the smaller 1 1/8 inch flat band and helping Barry’s hips explode open as he takes his first stride. They are working on the first explosive step that a runner takes when the pitcher begins to deliver to the plate. This is a great exercise because not only are Barry’s hips being snapped open in the drill but he is also training against the resistance of the band which is a type of overload training. I would even suggest going a step further with it and switch the side the bands are pulling from so that Barry’s next set would have the bands pulling him toward 2nd base. This way his body is being sped up by the bands and is giving him a feeling of moving faster than he does when he’s actually stealing a bag. This would be his underload training.

For those of you who have read my last few articles, this is another example of an elite Major League athlete who is training his explosive, fast twitch ATP energy system in order to try and create as much speed and power as he can from a still position.

Hopefully this can give you some new thoughts and ideas on how to train your base runners and a new way to use the giant flat band resistance loops.

Brian Oates

email: Brian@oatesspecialties.com

twitter: @oatesspecialty

These past couple of posts may be a complete revelation to you or it could be something you’ve been incorporating for years just from intuition. A little over a year and a half ago it was a total eye-opener for me. I had been seriously training since I was about 17 years old and yet my world changed at age 23 in terms of training. I had just arrived home from playing in the Appalachian League and met with my pitching coach/trainer Ron Wolforth (of Pitching Central and The Baseball Ranch) to talk about the upcoming offseason. He gave me a short lesson on the body’s energy systems (much like my last article) and how we needed to target the ATP system.

So I set out to do just that. Everything I did for 5 months was geared toward short duration, explosive exercises and the results I witnessed were amazing. Not only did my average velocity on my fastball increase a couple of miles per hour but I felt so much more explosive as an athlete. How can I justify making this type of subjective comment? Before I left for spring training, I dunked a basketball for the first time in my life. I ran a sub 7 second 60 yard dash for the first time in my life. My agility in drills such as the shuttle run were drastically improved. Not to mention I dropped 2 % in body fat while maintaining my exact same weight. I was more cut and more in shape than I had ever been in my entire life all from changing my training habits.

People often stand in awe of the abilities of professional athletes especially in terms of what they are able to do physically and too many people put off these abilities to “God blessed them with their talent.” I’m so sick of hearing that. Yes, some people have the innate gift of being faster, stronger, or more explosive than others but that doesn’t mean a person who isn’t considered the fastest, strongest, or most explosive can’t become an elite athlete. If trained with the right methods and through hard work it is amazing the types of changes it is possible to undergo in terms of athletic ability.

Brian Oates

Check out our new site http://www.chaintraining.com

Email: brian@oatesspecialties.com

twitter: @Oatesspecialty

Because my focus is on baseball players, both pitchers and hitters, the ATP energy system is the one of greatest interest and importance. However, if you are involved in any sport which requires explosive movements then this should be the system of greatest interest to you as well. As I said before, it is possible to specifically train the ATP system by engaging in short, high intensity repetitive bouts with proper rest intervals. Remember the ATP system provides energy during the first 12-15 seconds of activity and has the highest potential for power output. Using this knowledge, lets look at how it is possible to incorporate different areas of training with the goal of improving the ATP energy system (and as a result your explosiveness as an athlete)

Agilities:
For years coaches in many sports have had their players do flat rung ladders, 6 inch and 12 inch agility hurdles, and/or agility rings to warm up and prepare for practice or games. Most coaches know this is a great way to get their players lathered up and can improve footwork and quickness. But in many instances players are going through the ladders or jumping over the hurdles at a low intensity for up to a minute at a time. This is what has to change. Instead, athletes need to attack agilities for short durations. The duration ideally needs to be 12 seconds or less so that they are relying on the ATP energy system. The best way to do this is to measure their agilities by time and distance. This can be accomplished by having your athletes mark which rung on the ladder they made it to or how many hurdles they were able to make it over during the set time. Then repeat this same agility after the athlete fully recovers (breathing returns to normal) and have them try to get past the point they reached the first time through. It really doesn’t matter if the time is 5, 8, or 12 seconds because the right energy system is still being trained. Ideally you will mix up the times involved with some days being very short (such as 3 seconds) with other days being longer up to 12-15 seconds.

Strength Training:
I think one of the biggest misconceptions in all of sports has to be weight room training. So many weight programs, including the majority of MLB organizations are promoting the conventional lifts which have been around for decades such as bench press and squats. Do you realize that when you load up the weight on these lifts you are actually training your body to move more slowly? Elite track and field coaches are understanding this and are trying to change how they train. They are actually looking for strength exercises where they can still be explosive and train the fast twitch ATP system while getting stronger. Many have found the Speed Chains (Click here) to be exactly what they wanted. This is not to say weight room training cannot be tweaked to become very beneficial. Check out Pittsburgh Steelers’ Safety Troy Polamalu and the explosive, dynamic way he trains in the weight room (Click Here). He is one of the hardest hitters in the NFL and yet do you see him lifting any heavy weights in slow, controlled movements. He is training his body to be amazingly quick yet still powerful. You can tremendously improve your weight room workouts if you lighten the weight your athlete is lifting and instead of establishing the number of reps to complete in a set see how many reps they can get in a certain time (keeping the time under 15 seconds and within the ATP system of course). You would be surprised how hard of a workout this will be for athletes even when the lifts are only pushups, pull-ups, body weight squats, box jumps, reverse body rows etc.

Running/Conditioning:
It seems like when people talk about conditioning/running its always about a set distance whether it’s a 100 yard sprint or a 60 or 40 yard dash. What if you changed that and made it all about time? See how far you or your athlete can run in 5 or 10 seconds. Mark that distance with a cone or some object for the athlete to see and once they recover have them try and make it past that point in the same time frame. This will keep athletes training at higher intensities and won’t allow them to slack off, or at least it will be obvious if they do. They will have to constantly battle against themselves and will always have a goal (set distance) to strive for. Long distance running in baseball or any other high intensity, explosive sport really has no place. When was the last time you saw an athlete jog in baseball (besides rounding the bases after a homerun), or football, or track? Running for 6 minutes, or 10 minutes, or a half an hour is training the wrong system (the oxidative system) and really has no carry over to high performance in many sports. Not to mention it is far more demanding to do high intensity sprint and agility work than to pound out a mile or two.

Although I only touched on agilities, strength training, and conditioning you can modify any work you do on or off the field to better train your athletes. The key is to keep the duration of the exercise less than 15 seconds and to try and allow the athlete enough time to catch their breath or at least give them as much time as they would have in a game to recover. By training this way it is possible to increase athleticism and explosiveness by expanding the capacity of the ATP energy system and by training the system to recover more quickly. This will really pay dividends in performance if you take the time to implement the small changes necessary to train the right way.

In order to be an explosive, dynamic athlete you must train to be one. I know that may seem obvious and far from genius but think about how you or your athletes train. Do you ever just go through the motion? Just get your “reps” in? Have you ever said before a sprint, “Just stride it out.” By doing things 75% of full speed you aren’t increasing your athleticism, explosiveness, or speed in any way and therefore aren’t making the gains which can really set you apart from the rest.

I’ll leave you with something my pitching coach Ron Wolforth often says, “If you do what everybody else does you are going to get what everybody else gets.” So change those workouts from run of the mill ordinary to something with purpose which will set you apart from the pack.

Brian Oates
Follow me on twitter: @oatesspecialty
email: brian@oatesspecialties.com

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