Does anyone read the research?

Sometime I am so confused by the research.  One article says this is good and this is bad.  Curve balls are bad to throw and fastballs are good.  Another article says that curve ball are fine and its fastballs that are harder on the arm.  So what's the truth?  Has there been actual research and biomechanical analysis done?

Here is the Article link from American Journal of Sports Medicine on biomechanic (Abstract)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19448049

The keypoints are in the Results, Conclusion, and Clinical Relevance.


These two articles just have Abstracts:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25251251
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19741352

Photo from zacharymagee.com

They are published articles with no bio-mechanical data just case studies and questionnaires to collect data.  So when reading and comparing data sometime its like apples the running shoes.  The research on one is correct and so is the other but its really hard to link them together.
If you just talk bio-mechanics with torque and arm velocity and stress then a fastball is more stressful than a curve ball.  That is what the data reports.  So do we stop throwing so many fastballs or do we find the real culprit......overuse.  Or is overuse the real culprit.  I know that the same muscles in the arm are made of the same fibers as those in the legs.  Runner train and train and keep increasing their speed and distance.  Do runners have overuse injuries?  Yes they do.  They have stress fractures, (the most common one), sprains and strains to joints but rarely the tendons and muscle tear like in the classic Ulnar Collateral Ligament tear in pitchers.  I personally think running 13.1 or even 26.2 miles is more traumatic then throwing 100 pitches.  There are some marathon runners that go out and run 6-8 miles the day after the have run a full marathon.
Training may be the key also.   Alan Jaeger says players do not throw enough.  I think he is right too.  I think he is right about older players that their bones have stopped growing.  After really studying the anatomy of the elbow and shoulder I am firm when I say this.  The combination of overuse, growing epiphysis, developing muscles and tendons and lastly inflammation are the real culprits.  Then the parents, coaches, and player ignore sound medical advice about dealing with an arm injury.  Feeding the young player anti-inflammatory pills is not the great fix all either.  It is probably a major contributor to the problem.  The elbow is a high tissue turn over area.  Meaning tissue in the synovial region is constantly being replaced and repaired.  Anti-inflams stop that turn over to reduce inflammation.  So the repair is slowed, but it needs to happen.  The young pitcher feels better because the inflammation has gone away and range of motion is restored so they think, "I can throw again!"  With out explaining this any farther are you seeing the problem?  It really is a combination of things that lead to the demise of that pitchers arm.    

Check or Zach Magee's article too.
http://zacharymagee.com/trouble-with-the-curve/

Just Do It. You'll never get a hit unless you step up to the plate.

Tonight I am feeling pretty good.  Maybe it's all the alone time I have had to reflect on how really blessed I am.  Or maybe it's the two beers and the best garlic knots I ate tonight.  Either way it's time to journal.  There are a few people that have shaped my path at Palmer.  One I want to acknowledge is Dr. Bill DuMonthier.  In my first two years I have had many conversations with him expressing my concerns about how hard the program has been for me and that I struggle with "just getting by".  I have always been the type of person that has excelled when it comes to just about everything.  I did well in high school and even made the Dean's list in college with out much effort.  In sports I can pick up any sport and become proficient at it in no time at all.  I had other choices to pursue in professional sports.  I was the Michigan state champ in bowling in the eight grade bowling against high school and some college amatures.  I had offers to play college football, baseball, and even played one year of college basketball.  Anything and everything requiring movement and sports comes very natural to me.  In a six month period I studied for and passed the series 7,6,31, and 3 test and became a financial advisor for Morgan Stanley.  Chiropractic College was a whole new animal in itself.  I was not prepared at all for this.  I had an undergrad background in kinesiology and biomechanics but had not really been in a book let alone research since 1994.  It was like starting from scratch in a fast paced program where I had to learn everything again.  I spent hours in class trying to stay awake only to go home and pass out, wake up at nine or ten o'clock at night and start studying till three in the morning.  A common site in my trailer park room where I lived for my first year was  to wake up in bed with a pile of books all over me and my laptop on the floor because I knocked it off the bed when I had fallen asleep.  I barely passed most of my classes and when Part I of boards came close I expressed my concerns to Dr. DuMonthier.  He had some comforting words for me then that carried me through. He said, "It is because you care so much about this that I am not worried about you.  Because you care you will do whatever it takes to pass these exams."  Now the number and all the stats compiled by the school were not in my favor.  C average students that do not take a board review course have an 80% fail rate for Part I boards.  I could not afford to pay for a board review course so I got Irene Gold and read through it over and over on my own.  There were some very smart people in my class that failed Part I, but I was not one of them. Nor did I fail Part II. So thank you Bill for believing in me when I didn't quite believe in myself.  I will always struggle when I have that feeling of just getting by.  I always desire to be the best at what I do.  Today I find myself in books learning about techniques, functional movements, rehab and core strengthening.  Medical books about diseases are my new favorite.  I do not want to be know as just a chiropractor.  I desire to be a great doctor of wellness that has chosen chiropractic to express myself through.

Placebo Effect

I sometimes have these livid dreams.  Some people would call them visions.  I tend to believe they are supernatural in nature and they are streamed into me for the Most High or my higher self.  The amount of information is staggering and it comes so fast I spend days going back over it.  The best thing for me to do is put it on my board so it stays in front of me.  So the other night I was asking Why do I make the same mistakes over and over and do it almost unconsciously. Why is the Placebo Effect more successful than actual medications sometimes?   Remember the Bible quote, "Ask and Ye Shall Receive"?  Well later that night between  3:00 and 4:00 am (which is when they usually come) these answers came to me.
    The Placebo Effect is when something is given that in reality has not real proven benefit but the person is told that it will help them.  They believe it, so it is.  This is another reinforcement of how powerful your thoughts really are.  Person A gets a sugar pill and the reassurance that this pill will help them and they get better.  Person B is just given the medication and they get better.  How does person A get better without the medication?  I their mind they actually believed that the pill would cure them and their biology responded to that belief and they got better.  I had a friend that fought in Viet Nam.  His father told him to go and protect his brother.  To him the reason he believed he was their was to protect his baby brother.  He had been in seven helicopter accidents, five of which he was the only survivor.  He told me he started to believe that he was meant to live.  He had been shot, peppered with mine fragments, claymore pellets riddled his body, and many other things designed to kill a man in the jungles of Viet Nam.  I truly believe now that his belief was what sustained him and his biology responded every time he was wounded.  There are many stories out in the public of how someone was diagnosed with cancer and in their mind they saw themselves as whole and by some miracle their cancer disappeared.  Other will argue that they were misdiagnosed or they never had cancer to begin with.  Well then their is the No-cebo effect.  Where the person is told they have a disease when they do not and are perfectly healthy and their health begins to fail.  When told they have this rare cancer they begin to think, "I am dying" and actually do.  The biology changes as the conscious thought does.  Once the conscious thought overrides the program the subconscious starts to run this program in the background.  I once heard Bruce Lipton say that the Subconscious Mind's processor is running 95% of the bodies biology and the conscious is running 5%.  So 95% of you is running without consciousness of it running.  It's like this computer.  All I see are these words forming on the screen but behind the keyboard there are a million little functions happening and I pay them no attention. I do not have to think about breathing but if I become conscious to my breathing I can speed it up or slow it down or even stop my breathing.  I am not thinking about my heart pumping, If I consciously change my focus I can speed it up or slow the rate down.  Once I have learned something it gets turned over to the Subconscious and starts running automatically.  Driving is a prime example.  When I was first learning how to drive I was focused on driving and keeping my car in between the lines.  I was distracted by everything.  I had to think ahead and plan things out.  Today I just get in and pay little attention of driving.  It sometimes scares me that I can not even remember driving to a destination.  I get in and then I am there and say, "Wow!  Where did that three hours of time go."  I wasn't present.  I was concentrating on something else.  So if the conscious mind is 5% and the Subconscious is 95% and running a million times faster how can I change the biology and create wellness?  This is my million dollar idea.  Find the answers to the Placebo Effect and put them into everyday living and healing.  On a personal note when I became aware that I had the power inside me to do this it transformed my life.  I do not have time to be sick so I say, " I am always healthy".  I have been sick or ill 2 times in the last seven years where I had to take an antibiotic.  I just let whatever I have run its course and tell myself that my body can handle this and my body is designed to handle this.  I have no doubt in my mind, I will recover.  When I am run down I say to myself When I am rested I will heal.  I rest and I heal.  When I fractured my right ankle and had a plate and nine screws put on it, my thoughts where of winged angels knitting that piece of metal and my fibula together to make a stronger skeleton.  The doctor said this break would take 8 weeks to heal.  The two bone had been completely separated.  I went back in three weeks and he scratched his head and said, "There is no break line anymore.  Like it never happened. Your body heals very well."  The day my cast came off I started walking.  I wasn't walking very well but I was waking on it.  Thirty days later I threw one inning of relief with no rehab.  I did not go to PT one time.  Here is where I also see this placebo effect, in the clinic.  Patients are hurting, but when they get the clinic they say I am feeling better already.  How?  I have not done anything.  What if they tell themselves I will feel better when I get adjusted?  So for the next couple of days until their appointment they hurt and are in pain and not feeling very well.  On the day of the appointment they start feeling better.  By the time they get onto my table their symptoms are less severe and I adjust them.  They start to smile and say thanks and walk out like nothing was wrong.  I truly believe that these people delay their natural bodies process to heal by their thoughts.  I'm sure if it happens with me then it happens with medical doctors too and even surgeons.  People will say, "As soon as I see the doctor I will feel better."  Why not just take a picture of your doctor and put it on your fridge?   As soon as you see him you will feel better!  What I am really trying to say is that you are so powerful as a human.  You were created in God's image.   If our subconscious is running 95% of our biology then it is also speeding or delaying our healing process by the programs in the background.  The subconscious is really a recorder playing back the messages that we feed it.  Some of those messages are good ones or good programs while others are bad.  People will say, "Just think Positive!"  Well I'm hear to tell you positive thoughts plus bad programming is a losing battle.  You can say I want to be healthy or I am healthy everyday, but if your subconscious is saying look in the mirror fatty and the processor is a million times stronger you can see where this is going.  Fatty wins out.  So how do you change the programs? You do have to change the thoughts, and be conscious, as well as creative.  Meditating and using theta frequencies are a big key also.  The first six years of your life your brain is a recorder, this is where a lot of information is planted and the recorded starts recording.  Have you ever heard this, "My little Sally is a sponge.  She absorbs everything." Little Sally is 4 years old and she really is absorbing everything.  She hears her father tell her mother that she has put on a little weight and I don't like it.  Or she has heard her father say I love you precious, you are going to be a star.  One good program and one bad.  Children really do hear everything.  They do things and get yelled at, "What were you thinking?"  They weren't.  Their brains do not have the ability to reason yet.  They are recording.  Do this or don't do that.  This hurts me but this doesn't.   That is probably why their answer is always, "I don't know why I did it."  One parent sees a snake and says, "Look Sally that is a garden snake." Then picks it up without any fear and lets Sally touch it and examine it with awe.  Never really knowing that there is any danger.  Another person sees a snake a freaks out.  Sally's recorded says snakes are dangerous and when I see one I should freak out.  I grew up on a farm.  I have seen snakes and spiders and step in all kinds of crap.  I have no fear things like that because as a small boy I was curious and just didn't have anyone around me freaking out.  My grandpa would walk over and say that's a black widow they can bite you and make you sick then he would step on it.  So I natural kill black widow spiders when I see them.
 The bottom line I am trying to get across is that your thoughts are powerful.  They can control your biology, especially the biology of healing.  Have those thoughts of I am getting better, healthy, my body is healing and regenerating. Then believe the healing has happened.  Envision yourself as whole and complete.  Meditate and be present to the recorder or the voices that are contradicting what you believe.  Believe that you are powerful and trust yourself, because you are powerful and rare.  You are one in a billion.  No one has ever been like you and no one ever will be exactly you again.  That kind of rarity has value.  In all truth you are priceless.  Believe.  

How Stress is the Silent Killer.

If you could just look at the bodies chemistry and how it changes when chronically stressed you would get scared. Some people reading this might even say to themselves, "I wonder if I am at risk because I have stress and some of these issues already." If someone reading this has these thoughts then I would says you probably are at risk. Stress is known as the silent killer. The first sign of any stress related issues is sometime death. Cardiac Arrest or Heart Attack is sometime the first sign of a chronic stress condition unfortunately. Let me explain how stress works and why some stress is normal and good and how other stress is not and what happens to the body physically. Stress is need and good in most cases. If you needed to run from danger because someone is trying to mug you then the bodies response to this is natural and needed. The brain stimulates the release of ACTH, then the ACTH stimulates the Adrenal Glads to release adrenaline and cortisol. The bodies physiology changes to think faster, be stronger, and feel less pain so it can fight or flee. Triglycerides are mobilized and glucose is used for quick energy. This is all needed and very natural. After the threat is over the body adjusts back to normal. The blood that had been shunted from the core to the extremities and brain returns to the core and growth hormone production resumes along with digestion. The parasympathetic nervous system returns the body to the rest and recovery state that it so much enjoys. So what is wrong with stress? Nothing if this is the only stress you are experiencing. If you experience this kind of stress and then experience another and another and you start to get that feeling of being "stressed out" you just might be. Stressed out is going from being late to work, traffic jam, anxiety for being late, then your deadline for work is five minutes away but you still have two days of work on it, followed by bad eating choices, then the drive home in another traffic jam, finally home to kids or you significant other that starts dumping their day on you...... I'm feeling my blood pressure rise just writing this. What if this not a one day event but an everyday event? You stop sleeping because your brain will not slow down and now you start to look for something to bring you down or at least slow down your mind. Alcohol works so you start drinking a little at first. Since your cortisol levels never normalize your adrenal gland is hyperactive. You blood pressure, pulse and respiration are gradually rising little by little day by day. This elevated pressure starts to break down the vessel walks and tears begin to appear. Since cortisol increases blood fat levels and vasoconstriction is already happening, paired with small tears in the vessel walls from the increased pressure this will create plaque formation in those constricted torn vessels. Are you starting to see how slowly over time this could lead to disaster? Also there are studies that have shown that people under chronic stress make poor choices when it comes to healthy eating. Also the heart is an amazing thing. It just keeps pumping and pumping twenty for hours a day 365 days per year. Under chronic stress the heart is working harder than its normally used to and over time this can lead to failure. Stress might not be the actual cause of a heart attack but it sure is directly related to the other aspects of the overall degeneration of the tissues.
This is a list of pathological condition created by chronically elevated Cortisol levels.
1. Suppressed immune system
2. Hypertension
3. High Blood Sugar
4. Insulin Resistance
5. Carbohydrate Cravings
6. Metabolic Syndrome
7. Type II diabetes
8. Fat deposition int he neck, face, and belly
9. Decreased Libido (who the heck wants that?)
10. Bone Loss

Inflammation, Inflammation, Inflammation!

Recently I was playing baseball and a teammate slid into second base and then started flopping around like he had been shot in the leg. People were running out to see what had happened. The way he was rolling around I could see he was in a lot of pain. It was his knee. Then everyone starts yelling for me. I'm the unofficial official team doctor. I'm technically not a doctor yet but my teammates assume since I am in my last few months of chiropractic school that I am a doctor already because I treat people in the Palmer West clinic. My first questions are, "Did you hear or feel anything pop? Is there any burning pain? What happened?" That should have been my first question because from what I saw I was thinking ankle. When he told me he came down hard on it and slammed it on the hard dirt. So I asked him to lay still and I just wanted to perform a couple of instability tests on him. He was fine. He has a very bad bone bruise on the patella and the superior aspect of the patellar tendon. It was painful. Ice and compression to keep the inflammation down. Then he asks if he should start popping anti inflammatory pills. He is surprised when I say no. Inflammation is good at this point. Your knee is a high tissue turnover area and right now you do not want to turn off this natural response. He is even more confused , so I explain it to him in a little more detail that makes since and he just agrees to not take any anti-inflammatory drugs right now. So many people have the wrong information. Athletes just want to get back on the field so they say Doc just give me the cortisone so I can get back in the game. They get the shot, feel better, go back and play and all this time the bodies natural healing process has been turned off. The shoulder or knee gets worse and eventually their career ends prematurely because of arthritis pain that is unbearable and performance has diminished. Inflammation is good sometimes. When tissues are injured inflammation is a huge part of the healing process. So where in the body is inflammation bad? How about your digestive tract. If your Gastrointestinal (GI) tract is inflamed then you are going to have all sorts of problems. People with GI problems report painful joints, fatigue, muscle weakness, gas and bloating, nausea, constipation, diarrhea and many many more. Why would a chiropractor be concerned about the GI tract? People come to see us for joint pain. When I find functional and structure issues with the spine I will run a trial of care. Some time the person reports they feel better and normal after a few weeks. But I have had patients that come back and have the same complaint week after week. This is not a chiropractic problem. This is an inflammation problem. I am willing to say that ninety percent of these people have inflammation related GI problems. They are overweight, on all kinds of medications, dehydrated, report food allergies, fibromyalgia, celiac disease that is unresolved when taken of gluten. There history tells me this is the case loud and clear. I though I once had chronic neck and lower back pain. Once I put myself on an anti-inflammatory diet my problems began to go away. For one month I ate no dairy or meat. I lost twenty pounds, my skin looked younger healthier and was softer. Then next month I reintroduced dairy. I added cheese to my food and salads, butter in my coffee. The gas and smelly stools returned and my head is full of mucus. I even got sick for the first time in two years. My lungs are now full of mucus too. So I'm off the dairy again for good. I do drink coffee but instead of butter I use coconut oil and it is still creamy. I'm tired of being a nice about people's health. I'm at the point where I care about people to much to sugar coat what they are doing to themselves. If your body is in a constant state of inflammation then you are slowly killing yourself. If your body is too acidic and is a breeding ground for all kinds of bacteria and even cancer. You are consciously choosing to kill yourself buy the eating choices that you make so here is some "Tough love". Sorry to be so straight forward, I am just sick of the lies you are being told so really I'm not sorry. If your food last for months in your fridge then it is not food, it is food stuff or food product. These food products have very little nutritional value. Food spoils in days. It is living and therefore it dies. You must consume it while it is living to keep life in your body.
Does this make since? Why do you think people are aging faster? People are dying faster is the reason. The human body is designed to live to 120-140 yet ours are done at 75, and its a miserable 75 years at the end. If you have questions about an anti-inflammatory diet and how to reboot your system email me at greg@baseballchiro.com.

Reason #2 why I chose to become a chiropractor.
Recently on HBO there was a special report on the pay for minor league baseball players. here is the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=tfgsenSCyPE&app=desktop

There is a huge difference in pay from a major league player and a minor league player. I remember Carlos Castillo telling me that his check when he got called up was somewhere in the $8500 range. He had been there for two weeks. I didn't make that much for a whole season. Yes sir my first year with the White Sox I earned every penny of the $4200.00 before taxes. It was probably about $3500.00 after. Now that was only five months of work, since I signed as a free agent on May 6th. I will mention that the following year when I went to spring training I was paid $36 a week, which I had to give the club house manager $8.00. They fed all of us three meals a day which included breakfast, a sack lunch and dinner at the hotel. Who can live on $36 a week? I am thankful that The Organization paid for the hotel while I was there. When I did the break down of my last years salary with the Sox I was earning $1250.00 a month before taxes. I went to the office or the ballpark just about everyday of the season which starts the first week of April and can go to the middle of


September if team made it to playoffs. We play 140 games plus playoffs in 150 days. So lets do the math. The typical day started for me about 11:30am with flips or short toss with the hitting coach (some guy started earlier) and then early work with the positional fielding coaches, side pens with pitchers, full stretch run and throw, batting practice, break for the other team to take batting practice, suit up and then a 7:05 game start, finish by 10:00, then weights, shower, leave exhausted 11:00pm. Road trips meant morning lifting so the day started earlier and ended after the game. Twelve hours a day for 150 days equals exactly 1800 hours of work. That is only 20 hours less than an average person working 40 hours a week working 50 weeks a year. I use 50 weeks instead of 52 because everyone gets a vacation. We would get three days a season for All-Star Break. So I earned $7500.00 that season divided by 1800 hours comes out to be $4.17 an hour. Wow, what an idiot I seemed to be on paper now that I actually did the breakdown. I was worth so much more than that as a drywall apprentice. I earned $14.00 an hour doing that. As a professional hitting instructor I earned $60.00 an hour doing that. If I would have made it to the majors and sat the bench for a full season I would have earn $270,000 in 1999. I earned 2.7% of the major league minimum in 1999. I was blind a stupid, chasing my childhood dream. I was once asked if I would play professional baseball for free? I didn't think twice about my answer either. Hell No! Then I would say that my time is worth more than that. I laugh now because my time really wasn't. It was worth $4.17 per hour. So in the off season I would work my butt off saving money so I could weather spring training and the first two weeks of the season till I would receive that check. Also if you cried about it they would hand you a Taco Bell application and say, "Taco Bell is hiring why don't you go there?"
So this is the second reason I decided to become a doctor. I want to receive the compensation that I am worth. I have a tremendous amount of value and I feel I should be compensated handsomely for it. I'm glad some players finally sued for wage equality. I hope they win and all of us that played receive a check for back pay. It would help with some of my current expenses as I finish my last year. The lower 10% of chiropractors earn around $96,000 per year. That is still 12 times greater than the average minor league player makes. According to MLB, the average MLB player earns $3.39 million! http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/10158314/mlb-average-salary-54-percent-339-million So as a chiropractor in the lower 10% of earners this would still be 3% of what the average MLB player earns. I figure I find comical.

What is Little League Elbow and How Can It Be Avoided?

According to Dr. Thomas Souza DC LLE (Little League Elbow) is more like a syndrome than a pathology. It is usually an adolescent pitcher with medial or lateral elbow pain. The adolescent elbow has growth plates in it until around age 24. This information was given to me a general knowledge fact in chiropractic school. The long bone has a diaphysis, a metaphysis, and a epiphysis. The epiphysis is at the end of the bone and in adolescen children it looks like a broken fragment or chip on a radiograph or x-ray. Here is a x-ray of a normal child's wrist.

The end plates of the radius and ulnar bones look broken but these are normal, these bones have not matured yet. I used a wrist because it is easier to see the plates then the ones in the elbow. The radius and ulnar have a proximal end that articulates with the distal humerus. The distal humerus also has growth plates on the distal ends of it to. With LLE there can be two major complaints. The medial or inside part of the elbow may have stretch injuries from the throwing when the external rotator muscles pull the arm back an then stretch the ligaments and then compression injuries can occur on the lateral side. There is a law called Wolff's Law that also can come into play here to. There is a non union of the immature epiphysis along with stress from throwing and stretching of the tissues. Wolff's Law works like this, when a bone has added stress to it then it will increase bone building activity and lay down additional matrix to make that bone stronger. An example of that would be to look at the tibia and femur bones of a long distant runner that is 60 and a couch potato that is 30. The 60 year old runner will have more dense and slightly larger bones from the stress of all that pounding of the body on those knees. The couch potato has really no need for this because they do not bear a lot of weight on their bones so their radio-graphs will show less density in the bones. Now add this stress to a bone that is still not finished growing and you will see that on an x-ray of a child that is right handed, hard throwing, and pitching many innings that their right elbow joint may be slightly larger than their left. It will definitely have an increase in external and internal rotational range of motion in the shoulder as well. The excessive throwing can also cause the growth plate to mature early and the epiphyseal plate will close early. Medial elbow pain is usually due to microtrauma of the medial anterior oblique ligament. The stress may also cause fragmentation of the medial epicondylar ligament. Now imagine your little league all star throws with his right arm and hits from the right side of the plate too.

Now they are experiencing the same medial side arm stretch but holding a weighted lever. The developing arm is experiencing two to three times as much stress as when they were throwing. I hypothesize this from the fact that a baseball weighs nine ounces and a little league bat can weigh 18 to 27 ounces. Some people will argue with me that the swing has two hands involved and the throw only one. I can accept this argument to a point, but from high speed video I can still see the medial arm being stretched.

As much baseball as I played as a kid and all the complete games I threw as a pitcher I didn't injure my arm until I was in college. Here is the difference. I throw right handed and hit from the left side of the plate. My right forearm muscles were getting work on both sides and avoiding an imbalance. The internal rotators involved in throwing where not involved in my hitting, when hitting my external rotators were getting the work. My pectoralis muscle on the throwing side were not getting stretched on the hitting side. I noticed also that I had more than a few students that were not pitchers that were having medial arm pain in their elbow. I thought it was strange that their arms were always hurting and they were not pitchers at all. When I asked them what they did most they said, "I hit three days a week and play tournaments on the weekends." After working with these hitters for a few months their arm problems mysteriously disappeared.
Was it by chance? I really believe it was how I trained them. I used a weighted chain system and made them swing from both sides of the plate to strengthen their core muscles. In the beginning some of them complained that it hurt to much to swing with their top hand or the one stretching the medial arm side. I would have them just do the bottom hand swings with that arm. I had a one handed bat with a chain attached to it and I made them swing that from both sides of the plated using forehand and backhand. Lastly I cleaned up their mechanical flaws and made their swing more efficient. So based on my clinical experience I would train both sides of the whole arm and their arms problems resolved. They trained the accelerating internal rotator muscles and then trained the decelerating muscles. They trained the forearm flexors as well as the extensors and if they were significantly weaker with their bottom hand I had them do more reps with that hand until is became stronger. The pectoralis muscles are part of the internal chain, so the latissimus muscle on the back must be trained too. If your young pitcher is using rubber tubing then I recommend Jaeger Bands. Use these bands for resistance training then use then in the exact reverse motion. Start from the release and jump back the the wind up. The bottom line is if the growth plates are damaged at a young age then the damage may be permanent. Which can mean a lifetime of arm pain and problems. Start out slow when the arms are young and still developing and do not be in a hurry to get them to the major leagues. Baseball is typically a forward moving sport, so do not forget to train the backward moving muscle too. This will create stability and overall greater strength. I have no problems with inning restriction at the lower levels and if curve balls are going to be thrown then proper mechanics are a must. I see so many young players trying to snap the elbow and wrist to make the ball spin. This is a receipt for disaster. My personal recommendation is learn to throw a fastball consistently for strikes to locations first, then a change-up, and curve ball and slider last. I played with professional players that were in there 20's that did not throw a curve ball at all. Best pitch in baseball is a well located fastball with changes in speed. When these guys learned how to throw a slider or curve ball it just put another bullet in their gun.
I hope this information was useful. I value any comments or feedback.

Ref:Differential Diagnosis and Management for the Chiropractor 4th Edition, Thomas Souza DC

What Does It Take to Be the Best?

To be the best your ways of BEING have to align with what you are trying to accomplish. For example, for me growing up I wanted to be a few things. A doctor, A professional motor cross rider, a police officer, a marine, and a professional baseball player. As I grew older I started talking more and more about being a professional baseball player then anything else. I one point I gave up riding motor cross because I feared I would injure myself and not be able to play baseball. So my ways of being started to change to conform to what I was really wanting. I like to party too, but when the partying and drinking began to affect my baseball performance then I had to cut that out too. Again partying and drinking were not in alignment of what I was wanting so I changed my way of being. I even used performance enhancers to elevate my game. Some people say, "You did whatever you had to to make it happen." It it the same with chiropractic school. The closer I get to the prize the more I see myself modify my behavior. I am on a three week break now and all I can think about is how I am going to pay my daughters medical expenses, where can I find extra work, and how many hours a day do I need to study to prepare for my next round of board exams. Everyday I do not put in the time of my craft I feel like I am going backwards. I am not wired for mediocrity. I find it hard to sleep at night just getting by in school with C's. Nobody is going to know what I received for a grade in school accept me. They will just see that I have a doctorate in chiropractic. People will just trust that I know what I am doing. Only thing is I know that I am just getting by and it bothers me. I question my knowledge of the situations. If I only know 70% of the material how can I be 100% sure I know what is going on? Maybe I am to hard on myself? Maybe I ask too much of myself? I remember training as a player and what that required. It required can't see hours. Can't see hours are hours that people can't see you working. Before people wake up and while they are sleeping at night, I was honing my craft. I remember some nights hitting with Eric Cole of the Houston Astros at 11:30 pm. I have worn out so many pairs of batting gloves I should have bought stock in Franklin, Easton, and Rawlings. That is what it takes. Champion Sports has a moto that I align with. "It takes a little more to be a Champion." They are right. There are guys with unbelievable natural talent. If they do not continue to grow, experience, change, adjust, and get better, then in a short period of time they become average players. The raw player or average player that continues to do repetitions and develop their skills will so pass the natural player that does nothing. I find myself lying in bed at night saying how am I going to get the reps I need to become a professional at chiropractic? The back and neck are not an Iron Mike with the ability to just spit out fastball after fastball. How am I going to get patient reps? How will I be able to diagnose injuries and subluxations correctly if I only have 250 treatment hours to graduate? It seems impossible to me sometimes. Then someone says, "That is why they call it a practice." I get to practice on unknowing participants. I am going to take some 60 year old woman's neck in my hands and give it just the right amount of thrust to move the bones in a way that gives her relief without giving her a stroke. Sound scary to you? It used to be scary for me. Today, two years later I know that my intention is to put life back into the body. I only with to restore things not destroy them. I love chiropractic because it has many similarities to baseball. Both are performance and result driven. Both require daily practice to improve. Continuing education is a requirement for both. My body has to be able to perform at a high level for both. Proper practice leads to better performance. I have heard people say perfect practice equals perfect performance and there is truth in this. What is really required is the discipline to be committed to what I say I want and the actions I do. I can say I want to be a chiropractor, but if I just go to school and do the minimums and then find other things to occupy my time and I really committed to what I said I wanted? Am I really doing a little more? Am I really doing what it takes to become a champion for chiropractic? If the results are not in alignment with the goal then there is only one piece of the equation to change and that would be the action. I am committed to changing the results and the action. What are you committed to doing?

NOS Swing Trainer by Speed Chains

This is a great product. I own one and take it with my where ever I go. The small balls are easy to carry in a small bag or even a plastic bag.

The Hands and why lining up the knuckles is Important.

MORE ON FUNCTIONAL HITTING PART 3.

IF YOU HAVEN'T VISITED THIS SITE YOU SHOULD!

WWW.HITTINGISAGUESS.COM

ORDER THE E-BOOK "FILTHY"

Every pitching coach that has read this from the little league level to the major league level has reported amazing results. You can experience these results too!

Love you all and Merry Christmas!

BAT LAG AND LOCKING OUT.

Functional Skills by Perry Husband

There are some examples of the points I make about

foot down and hands back creating stretch and then getting off

the backside and locking out at impact.

Chandler Blanchard class of 2013

My friend and mentor Perry Husband did a swing test on Jay Bell a 17 year big league veteran.
Jay hit the ball on average 77 mph for 30 swings. A 17 year big league vet! I started working with Chandler and his old brother Jordan four years ago. They are a testimony that there is no one way to swing. A swing is like a finger print they are all different and personal. Some kids like their hands high some low. Some kids like a wide stance and some kids like to keep it short. Oh back to Jay Bell, after a few hours with perry they retested Jay. Put him in a more balance stance so he could move faster. Changed his load a little so he could get maximum weight transfer and lastly got him to push off his back side. The result was his exit speeds jumped to 86 mph and he hit more ball near the center of the swing target. So I have a 14 year old incoming freshman that is 40lbs lighter than Jay Bell and hits the ball on average about 82 mph with a high of 86 mph. Yes, I do think this young man has potential and not because he's my student but because of the numbers. Watch the Video.