Video description by STackBaseball…Justin Verlander, a star baseball pitcher for the Detroit Tigers Major League Baseball (MLB) team, and his trainer Javair Gillett, teach the Walking Lunge. “”We really wanna make sure that the glutes and the hamstrings are strong going in the season, so we’ve gone into a walking lunge, and glutes are where you get your power from. Your butt is where you generate the power. Three goals you have in mind: first thing is you gotta avoid injury, so where the squat is really to, is really that power-generating maximized performance, the lunge is let’s-try-to-decrease-injury, and hopefully, it will transfer over to maximized performance. But first and foremost, reduce the likelihood of injury. Then we can get into the maximizing performance. Start with three sets of ten. Right now, we’re adding weight, so we’re at three sets of six on each leg, so 12 total.”"

The video is from StackBaseball. Here is their description…Jimmy Rollins, an MVP shortstop for the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team, teaches the kettle ball swing training exercise. ?Kettle ball swing is actually something I made up for Jimmy. I thought about his movement when he is doing his trunk rotation and stuff. Basically, it’s just swinging on a lateral movement. You’re swinging upwards and we’re coming down and basically it’s using the antagonist and the agonist muscles, meaning the opposite muscles because you’re exploring one side. And then, you’re coming back down and you got to control it going back down. So it’s like coming back and forth and you’re really working the transverse abdominis and you learn how to roll your hips too and everything. It’s not something that you should be using a lot of lately. I think there is no more than like 8-10 pounds of working through the hip, following the motion and to see everything has to do with hips and explosion and be able to hit that ball. That’s what we’re trying to work on. Usually those with D3 sets of 20.

Here is a video of Justin Verlander demonstrating the overhead Medicine ball throw. It is designed to improve explosive power for pitchers and all throwers.

Justin Verlander is a Cy-young pitcher for the Detroit Tigers.

Coaches and parents usually have a players best interest at heart when they send their players to showcases and college camps.  Maybe you will think twice about that after reading this article by renowned trainer Eric Cressey.

Baseball Showcases: A Great Way to Waste Money and Get Injured

Is the Curveball Potentially Harmful?  This study compares the curveball, changeup, and fastball to see which pitch puts the most stress on your arm.

Contributors:

Shouchen Dun, MS
Jeremy Loftice, CSCS
Glenn S. Fleisig, PhD
David Kingsley
James R. Andrews

Background: The curveball has been anecdotally considered as a dangerous pitch among youth pitchers, especially for their ulnar collateral ligaments. No biomechanical studies have been conducted among youth pitchers comparing different types of pitches.

Hypothesis: The kinetics of the baseball throw varies significantly between the fastball, curveball, and change-up for youth pitchers. Kinematic and temporal differences are also expected.

Methods: Twenty-nine youth baseball pitchers (age, 12.5 ± 1.7 years) pitched 5 fastballs, 5 curveballs, and 5 change-ups with maximum effort in an indoor laboratory setting. Data were collected with a 3-dimensional motion analysis system. Kinetic, kinematic, and temporal parameters were compared among the 3 pitches.

Results: For elbow varus torque, shoulder internal rotation torque, elbow proximal force, and shoulder proximal force, the fastball produced the greatest values, followed by the curveball and then the change-up. The fastball also produced the greatest elbow flexion torque. Shoulder horizontal adduction torque and shoulder adduction torque were the least for the change-up. Several differences in body segment position, velocity, and timing were also found.

Conclusions: In general, elbow and shoulder loads were the greatest in the fastball and least in the change-up. Kinematic and temporal differences were also found among the 3 pitch types.

Clinical Relevance: The curveball may not be more potentially harmful than the fastball for youth pitchers. This finding is consistent with recent epidemiologic research indicating that amount of pitching is a stronger risk factor than type of pitches thrown.