Tyler Anzmann Performance

The hinge is essentially the loading of the hip musculature as the COM shift occurs.

The questions we want to answer when considering the hinge are:
How well can we wind tension, leverage the linear move, and still stay in a position to be able to block and send energy up the chain?

This can go wrong in a variety of ways.

✅Losing the stack of the torso
✅Staying too linear
✅Tipping or false pelvis

We’re trying to load the large musculature around the hip winding tension.

Here are a few ways we work on this:
✅Hinge on slider
✅Band feed the mistake w/ coil
✅Band assisted throws-bands or core velocity belt

Begin slow so you can feel it. Start as a feel drill prior to throws. The final band assisted version can eventually be used during a throw once you have established the pattern and feel.
•
Struggling to gain velocity or improve pitching performance? Email or DM me and let’s set up a time to discuss your needs and our remote and in-person training options.

Getting ready for a big offseason with some GPP

Below I’ll go through some explanations for choices I’ve made for some of the more interesting pieces.

A) Getting things started with an extensive plyo circuit for the upper body. I’ve written a ton about these, but upper body plyos are still frequently overlooked. Throwing itself is a plyometric, so prepping the body for these more intensive actions is huge. We can change LT relationships, the amount of elastic energy that can be stored and utilized, stiffness, impact reflexes, and add robustness to joints and ranges that may be more vulnerable.

B) Clusters are great for accumulating volume (an important lever in this phase) while keeping bar velocity high enough that we don’t negatively impact potential fiber type shifts.

D) Get strong overhead for athletes who can’t do a handstand, accumulate TUT in a variety of positions and make it exploratory.

E) Finger and grip strength are extremely important for throwing velocity and health (see previous post) and the ability to access lateral flexion is huge for throwers as this impacts rotation in a meaningful way (see our post on spinal engine).

Get after it!
•
Struggling to gain velocity or improve pitching performance? Email or DM me and let’s set up a time to discuss your needs and our remote and in-person training options.

Submaximal sessions, whether it’s throwing, sprinting, jumping, or anything else can serve a few purposes.

Extensive throwing, much like extensive plyometrics, involves submaximal effort and gradually increasing volumes and/or complexities aimed at preparing the neuromuscular system for the higher intensity movements to come, while also allowing for improved competency in the movements themselves through higher volume exposure and reduced intensity.

An extensive phase allows pitchers to acclimate to rising intensities, build their chronic throwing load, and enhance their ability to time intent (rhythm) and use elasticity.

Submaximal throwing can be used as part of a reload or ramp up period or it can be a useful option for athletes who struggle with muscling up.

The Rewzon jump study from years ago separated two long jump training groups. One group jumped maximally every time, while the other group jumped to a variety of distances, often submaximal, and had better results than the maximal effort group.

Submaximal training isn’t the answer all the time or in every context, but as training load is being built, after a layoff, or with athletes who are used to gritting their teeth and going as hard as they can every rep, some submaximal cycles may provide some benefit.
•
Struggling to gain velocity or improve pitching performance? Email or DM me and let’s set up a time to discuss your needs and our remote and in-person training options.

Throw 100 from a pulldown but only 85 on the mound? How is this possible?

Watch Oneil Cruz throw 103.3 and Trevor Rosenthal throw 100. The broad patterns that we look at will be similar-pelvis rotating into foot strike, the lead leg stopping, redirecting, and transferring, etc-but one is more elastically driven while the other is a bit more muscle driven.

If you are substantially better at a running throw than the mound or vice versa, there may be a patterning limitation, but your body may also be giving you clues about preferences and movement qualities. This is where the spectrum of muscle vs elastic driven athletes comes in to play.

To be clear, this is a spectrum and everyone is somewhere in the middle, but it can be helpful to look at the differences and be mindful when choosing training interventions, addressing weaknesses and strengths, etc.

It’s important that we’re cognizant of what makes an athlete special and that we lean into that while giving them enough of what they need to top up their weaknesses. Don’t chase numbers in absolute terms, allow bandwidths for the individual in front of you.
•
Struggling to gain velocity or improve pitching performance? Email or DM me and let’s set up a time to discuss your needs and our remote and in-person training options.

All-Concentric Training and Throwing Velocity

Within some training phases depending on the needs of an athlete we may utilize all-concentric movements (eliminating the countermove) in both classic strength movements and ballistic movements.

These movements have a few important effects:

✅Increased rate coding

✅Improved motor unit recruitment

✅Improved RFD

Throwing is time sensitive, especially in the upper body: cocking to ball release is under 180ms, so the ability to produce force quickly is critical.

Movement selection can be more or less “specific” depending on athlete needs, with fly variations, pullover, and ballistic pullover variations being other great options.
•
Struggling to gain velocity or improve pitching performance? Email or DM me and let’s set up a time to discuss your needs and our remote and in-person training options.

Consistency, Slow Progression, and Extensive Plyos for Throwers

🚀If you expect to achieve results from plyometrics you have to do them every week, generally multiple times per week

🚀Move through a variety of ranges of motion

🚀Progress gradually. If the movements and transitions aren’t smooth, don’t rush to the next progression

🚀High intensity is enticing from both a measurement standpoint and the idea of potentially faster results, but many athletes are not actually ready for them

🚀You can/likely should have some volume of high intensity ballistic movement in your training at all times, but it may take a while before you can actually progress to high intensity plyometric variations

🚀The inability/difficulty to objectively quantify output/progress in movements like this can make them a hard sell for some coaches, but this is yet another example of practice being ahead of research. Stay up to date on research, but if you always wait for research to confirm everything you’re doing, you’re going to be years behind
•
Struggling to gain velocity or improve pitching performance? Email or DM me and let’s set up a time to discuss your needs and our remote and in-person training options.
•
•

If you want to improve on-field performance the single most important piece is health or availability. It’s challenging to get better if you’re not healthy enough to train.

So, if we want to improve velocity and stay healthy we should absolutely care about finger and forearm strength.

As the arm transitions from cocking to acceleration, and just before max layback, the elbow will resist its peak load, between 60 and 120 Nm (Fleisig et al., 1995).

The primary “passive” stabilizer during this is the anterior band of the UCL, and from cadaveric research we’ve seen that the UCL can’t handle that whole load on its own. This is where the forearm comes in.

The flexor pronator group specifically has a major role to play here in helping the UCL and taking some of this load. The extensor supinator group, biceps brachii, and triceps brachii also seem to help.

Also important to note here is that fatigue is worth considering-the FPM is not just immediately at full strength and elastic ranges 24 hours after throwing (Mukohara et al., 2024). This means that fatigue may lead to greater loads on the UCL and thus greater risk.

Often overlooked on the health and performance side though is finger strength’s role in ball velocity, spin, and health. While metrics like flexion strength, pinch strength, open hand, etc may be familiar to rock climbers, they’re less frequently used in baseball. However, research suggests that pinch strength and rate of force development can make an impact on velocity as well.

Some ways to increase these measures are isometrics with fingers extended, hangs without thumbs, plate pinches, roll-ups with a dumbbell. As with everything these should be progressed gradually and volume should be monitored, especially when throwing volume is high.
•
Struggling to gain velocity or improve pitching performance? Email or DM me and let’s set up a time to discuss your needs and our remote and in-person training options.

Whether you view throwing through a performance or health-based lens there are a few qualities that overlap to drive these processes.

✅Access and strength through deep ROM

Performance lens: From a throwing velocity perspective if you’re able to apply force to the ball over a larger arc of motion we can increase the impulse (wider FT curve), and thus throwing velocity.

Health lens: If you’re going to use it on the field, make sure you’ve improved your ability to tolerate it in training. The dose makes the poison-vaccinate yourself against the competition.

✅Stiffness: Simply, this is the ability to resist deformation.

Performance lens: In order to maximize RFD stiffness is critical. But, walking the tight rope between stiffness and compliance is critical as they both hold keys at various points during a complex movement.

Health lens: Removing slack, cocontractions, and joint or systemic stiffness aren’t just performance enhancers, they allow the body to resist movement that’s potentially injurious. Think about the ability to rapidly catch yourself when you stumble, maintaining a torso stack during a jump, etc.

Training and rehab have been separated for too long. Good rehab looks more like training than most think, and good training should serve some of the same purposes as rehab.
•
Struggling to gain velocity or improve pitching performance? Email or DM me and let’s set up a time to discuss your needs and our remote and in-person training options.

The Overhead Move

Wondering why you’re seeing Gerrit Cole try the overhead move? Any specific answer would be speculation in that individual case, but here’s why we use it occasionally.

✅It can be a helpful adjustment for athletes who struggle with rhythm or a stabby arm action

✅The ability to rapidly relax a muscle before and after a muscle contraction is what separates some of the fastest, most powerful athletes from their counterparts. From hand break to ball release we’re looking for a smooth transfer of energy, building from the arm swing, and arm acceleration, all the way through into ball release.

✅A stabby or choppy arm swing can interrupt this flow of energy and result in lower output.

✅Tweaks like a glove tap or overhead move can help with this as they help sync up the rhythm of the upper and lower body, and by increasing the tempo can alleviate some of the problematic movements.

✅We’ve experimented with a few of our athletes who struggle with rhythm and relaxation during the arm swing and we’ve seen increases of 2-3 mph in a single session.

This move isn’t for everyone, but if rhythm is an issue a glove tap or overhead move may be a helpful change. As always, objective testing with a radar gun will give you helpful feedback about whether a change is helping or not.
•
Struggling to gain velocity or improve pitching performance? Email or DM me and let’s set up a time to discuss your needs and our remote and in-person training options.