I have never played baseball on any kind of serious level but being around athletes and coaches for the last few decades I was always under the impression that it was a big mistake to have the younger kids (ages 9-14) throw a curve ball. Many coaches and parents would bring this topic up frequently. It was not until more recently that I realized that this can really not be the case.

Here is what I believe about throwing and not only just young pitchers but all pitchers. First to throw a ball without the risk of injury requires several things to be happening. You need to have balance, strength, flexibility, power, coordination and on and on and on. Can we just make life easy and call it muscular efficiency. We have in every other post so why not this one. So with the motion of throwing, it is just like everything else we ask our bodies to do. Our ability to do it is based upon the overall efficiency of our muscular system.

In a young pitcher you have to understand the limitations that go along with being a 9-14 year old boy, or girl for that matter. First and most importantly they are limited in their muscular endurance when it comes to power. They simply do not have as developed of a muscular system as kids who have gone through puberty. Their strength endurance is not as high as it becomes later in their physical development. I am not a Doctor but I have simply watched the thousands of athletes I have trained over the years and the younger kids lack the strength endurance to do high reps of power moves like pitching.

My 8 year old can run all day. Today at Trinity Camp he ran 150 meter sprints close to 20 times with a few minutes recovery but he lacks the strength and power to do even a small number of legitimate pushups, even with steroids (kidding of course, unless slurpees count as steroids).

Another issue is growth. As younger athletes go through their big growth spurts it wreaks havoc on their overall muscular efficiency. As the skeletal system lengthens the muscles and of course the tendons and ligaments try to keep up. During this time it is very easy for their bodies to loose that natural posture they had just a few years prior.

Now the danger comes into play of doing repetitions of power type moves. The lack of muscular efficiency means they will most likely not be using proper throwing mechanics regardless of what pitch they throw. Curve ball, fastball, slider, sinker, they are all going to be detrimental to their young arms if they throw to many of them.

The article goes on to say more or less the same thing only not in regards to muscular efficiency. The article instead says that it is about the amount of pitches a kids throws that is far more important than the type of pitch it is.

I worry that we keep asking our young athletes to do more and more. If you are a coach or parent, please allow your kids to continue to play multiple sports and encourage them to still go out and just play. Obstacle courses, climb fences and trees, just go out and challenge their bodies. The best way to help prevent injuries in the younger athletes is to keep giving them the muscular stimulus they need to protect their soft tissues. It just so happens this is the same training they did before they were the next All Star pitcher.

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So in the last post I started to explain how the anatomically correct position versus the actual position your client is in,  should be one of your many clues as to what the potential negative side effects of your chosen exercise may be. So we use the postural photographs as one good clue. Another component we use is some diagnostic exercise moves. We are looking for certain abilities or inabilities that our clients have in their overall muscular efficiency.

Examples of moves we use are Active Bridges (shoulder bridge, tricep bridge), Cats and Dogs and quite a few others. With these moves we are looking for a clients current ability to get flexion and extension of the spine, both lumbar and thoracic. We want to see if they are able to rotate the spine evenly in both directions, can they achieve full flexion and extension in the pelvis, and are they able to load bear evenly onto both sides of the pelvis. These are just a few examples of the many different diagnostics we like to use.

This is in stark contrast to what I used to do about a decade ago when I would take a resting heart rate, blood pressure, body composition, sit and reach test, grip strength test, lung capacity and a few other silly ones I do not even remember. At the time this was thought to be a pretty thorough system and was a primary practice for the Gold’s Gym certification we went through. I look back on it now and realize I actually learned things about my clients that were of little to know help in building a program that would truly be designed to impact their muscular system in a way to give them maximum results.

Once you have a really good understanding of what your clients true muscular efficiency is you can start making some decisions on what exercises to do or not to do. Lets use the pictures from the last post again. I will get some new ones that are a little more complete but I forgot to get some from the office today. Sorry. So here are two of the pictures again so you can see them.

Looking at these 3 pictures I will keep this short and just point out a few things. First on the 2 pictures that show the side views notice the extreme anterior tilt (forward rotation) in the pelvis that is creating some serious lordosis(curvature of lumbar spine) in both athletes. Now keep in mind this represents their neutral position, far from the anatomically correct position. This is where the issue comes in for a move like barbell squats. here are just 2 examples of people with an imbalance that is causing poor alignment in the body but to be honest 99% of the thousands of clients I have worked with have some form of imbalance when we start.

If this is the person you re working with you know just form the postural photographs that they lack the ability to accept weight correctly onto their hips so now when you go to doing a barbell squat you have a major problem. I don’t care if you are the greatest barbell squat educator in the world. If your client has poor anatomical alignment and muscle efficiency they simply can’t have good form, regardless of how much coaching you give them. One of the comments told me to educate myself and read what the National Strength and Conditioning Association has to say about squats. Well here is exactly what it states, under paragraph 7 it states, ” While Squatting results in high forces on the back, injury potential is low with appropriate technique and supervision.”

I agree that what they are saying is absolutely true except the point is that supervision will help to limit injuries, however,  the fact that the risk of injury is there should be what you are thinking about. If the potential for injury is there then why are you doing the move? They openly state that there is going to be high forces into the back so have you made sure that your client has a back that is capable of handling these high forces? Have you made sure that they are capable of correctly achieving full flexion and extension throughout their spine? Have you made sure that they are able to fully articulate the pelvis so as to not place any unnecessary pressure in the spine and knees? Have you given them the necessary stimulus to ensure that their knees are in the anatomically correct position and not turned out like in the photo to the right?

When did we decide that an exercise was so valuable that it was worth us risking injury, sometimes major injury to do it? In the pictures above, especially the one to the right, imagine the strain and pressure being placed on the lumbar vertebrae in his body if he has a barbell on his shoulders with 200lbs. Why would you do this to him just so that he may gain some strength in his legs that could so easily be accomplished without the risk of injury?

Here is a rule to live by as a trainer, never, ever should a client get injured while training with you. Safe training practices are great but if you do not understand the imbalances and inefficiencies of your client than how can you know what is safe and unsafe to give them.

This post is getting long so I will finish my thought in the next post.

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First off I liked several components of the comments. Let me give you a little more background on what I do know about squats and then you can rip me apart after that. As I mentioned in a comment after the last post I was coached starting at age 15 by a former Olympic lifter on how to perform a legitimate squat. His angle was obviously a little more towards the power lifting component of the move so it had its weaknesses for every day use. He made huge mistakes in my opinion like placing plates under heels of the guys who were too tight in their hips to be able to break all the way down.

Then starting at age 19 I had a strength and conditioning coach for track who taught us how to use squats as a tool to specifically focus on its ability to improve our vertical leap. He used slightly different form than what I had used in High School but still more or less the same move. He was also a huge fan of the hip sled and LEg extension and leg curls. We can discuss how non beneficial these are later.

I went on to become a personal trainer at the age of 20 and received certifications from the ISSA, ACE, Gold’s Gym, NISAQ (National Institute of Speed, Agility, and Quickness). During each of these I had to demonstrate proper form myself as well as how to teach someone how to them correctly. The point I am trying to make is that I know how to do squats, I know good form, I know bad form, I even know how to change the move based on various demands of hip angle, femur length, and sport specific demands.

The video was not a scare tactic and if you think injuries do not happen doing squats with good form and not as a powerlifter your crazy. In my years as a trainer and a coach I have seen many athletes get injured in the squat rack with moderate weight and perfect form. I will explain how this can happen and why it makes squats too risky of a choice for most to bother with making it a move to focus on. I understand that for several decades now squats have been used as one of if not the primary move for gaining strength in the lower body. I understand that there are strength benefits to doing the exercise. I am not a complete idiot nor am I retarded like some of the comments said. I also have done all the research and yes even visited the NSCA conventions and read all the papers on how amazing squats are.

Just listen to my argument against them and then we can continue to have a good discussion about them. I will split this into a few posts so it does not get ridiculously long but next keep these things in mind as we go through it. I have stated it many times on this blog that all exercises represent stimulus to the muscular system. Your goal should be as a trainer to establish which type of stimulus your client needs and then go from there. Not the other way around. Don’t look at the positives an exercise offers, those are obvious. Instead look for the negatives that come along with the exercise your choosing.

I understand that this is all relevant to the trainer giving the exercises but those of you who commented clearly know what you are doing in regards to squats so I will look at the negative side effects that exist even when you do have good form.

Again thanks for your comments and please continue to add to this discussion. I will start the next post now so we can keep this going.

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Many students love this classes for obvious reasons, if you like to play sports why would you not sign up for a team sports class? And Weight training is a chance to look good for the girls. Here is the issue with classes like this, they are not educating students on how to take care of themselves post High School. I realize this is a huge generalization so if you are  a teacher of one of these classes and you are working hard at teaching the students various forms of training modalities, I applaud you. 

I was just a typical jock in High school and when I graduated I struggled with how to stay in shape. I only learned one way of taking care of myself, doing 6 different weight training moves and running till I thought I would pass out. This works fine when preparing for a game or a season but try to train like that without the same carrot on the end of the stick. I consider myself lucky because I was instantly inserted into the fitness world and was exposed to tons of different styles of training. 

For those not as lucky as I exercise can become very unsuccessful in a hurry which leads to enough discouragement to stop working out all together.

I work in the State of Oregon and no offense but the standard for Physical Education is pretty non specific. This is not necessarily a bad thing as it allows for someone who truly cares about their subject to have the freedom to give their students some great life skills in regards to their personal health but it also does not provide very much guidance for what students really need to be successful after they leave High School. 

This is where i think the key is to a High School P.E. curriculum. We teach our Students in an effort to get them ready for the next phase of their life. Why should P.E. be any different? High School english is the designed to prepare you for College, same with math, science, foreign languages, and many of the other subjects. So what is the next phase of life in Physical Education?

Well at the school I teach at we are trying to make this course be just a important as all the other subjects. 

Next up I will give you some ideas that we are working on. Any of you in the Physical Education Field I would love to hear your thoughts.

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1. Bear Crawl – 20 steps (On hands and feet crawl forward; keep back flat and knees under body in line with hips.)

Since these kids typically have better efficiency you can go right to the larger more integrated movements. It does not take as much focused effort to restore the various component we discussed earlier. Instead think more about making their bodies go through as many movements as you can, using movement to accomplish all your goals. The Bear Crawl is going to be my Flexion/Extension of the hips.

2. Monkey Hops – 20x (Standing with knees bent and hands on the floor inside of feet, hop both hands out in front of you then hop both feet as far forward as you can comfortably to outside of hands; repeat.)

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Since these are some issues that your students are dealing with, the best thing you can do for them is to provide them with as much muscular efficiency training as possible. What I mean by this is give as much stimulation to the muscular system as you can to help it continue to promote proper movement of the skeletal system during these large growth spurts. Also if you refer back to the early philosophy posts consider following the natural strength progression when warming up your middle schoolers. 

Since I want to follow this progression I am going to warm this class up on some type of soft surface, either grass or perhaps wrestling mats. 

Once again the components we are looking for include the following; Muscular activation in all 4 directions of upper and lower body, spine rotation, spine flexion/extension, hip flexor and hamstring range, proper introduction of vertical load, and sport specificity stimulus. I am going to add this to the list for this age group, internal external rotation of the femur, and abduction/adduction of the scapulas. I notice in the middle school age group that due to lack of training and growth spurts they typically have terrible posture and an increasing amount of kyphosis (rounding of the upper back). 

So here is the list for the middle school. I will do my best with descriptions on this one, if they do not make sense to you send me a message and I will see what I can do. Just as with the High School one I will eventually send this out in a pdf file as well as in video form.

1. Wishbone Kicks – 20x each leg (Lay on back with knees together and feet apart with hips and knees bent at 90 degrees. Extend right leg toward the sky and lower back down to 90 degrees. Repeat with left leg and alternate back and forth.)

This is one of the best moves I learned while working for Adapt training. It is a great way to introduce proper flexion of the hip as well as hamstring range, and internal rotation of the femur.

2. Butterfly Crunches – 50x (Lie on your back with the soles of your feet together and let your legs relax to the sides. In this position place hands behind head keeping elbows back; squeeze and hold glutes while contracting abdominal muscles and lifting shoulders off the floor and back down; repeat up and down.)

Really focus on proper form. DO NOT allow them to pull their head forward or bring their elbows forward. Both of these are signs of weakness in the abdominal wall. Teach them the height of the crunch is not important, just the contraction of the muscles.

3. Frog Bridge – 30 seconds (Lie on back, place soles of feet together, relax and spread apart knees letting them fall towards the floor.n Now by squeezing your glutes, lift your hips as high into the air as you can and hold. With the hips as high as you can get them, also try to lower your knees to the ground)

This is basically the antagonist to the wishbone kicks. Now the focus is external rotation of the femur and lengthening of the hip flexors and groin. This one is a good example of why compression shorts are a good idea.

4. Active Bridge – 30x (Lie on back with knees bent and feet on the floor. Keep knees and feet at hip width.  Squeeze glutes, raising hips and lower back off the floor and then lower down; repeat.)

A great move for introducing flexion and extension of the pelvis and lumbar spine in a supported position. 

5. Hollywood Stretch – 1:00 min each side (Sit on floor with left leg straight, bend right knee and place right foot on the outside of left knee.  Put right elbow on the outside of right knee and left hand flat on the floor behind you.  Press right elbow into right knee and twist upper body back toward left hand.)

Not sure why my teachers called it this but they all did. I am a big fan of this one for the rotation of the spine. I also like the lengthening of the glutes it provides. The key is to make sure the back is straight. if they are all hunched over it defeats the purpose a bit. 

6. Cats & Dogs – 10x (On hands and knees with hands under shoulders and knees under hips, arch back up and pull chin to chest, then lower back toward floor and raise head up; repeat back and forth.)

Classic yoga move is one of the best there is. Just like i mentioned in the High School warm-up, anytime you twist the spine, do a move to realign the vertebrae. have them do this one slow and really emphasize the movement in the scapulas. This is a great way to work on the posture of the upper back. 

7. Kneeling Push-ups – 15x (On hands and knees, arch lower back toward the floor, hands in front of and slightly wider than shoulders and knees directly under hips.  While maintaining this position of hips and back, rock forward, bend arms and drop chest straight down between hands then press back up; repeat.)

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Make sure to do the exercises in the order that is listed. Each one is designed to lead into the following move. I will explain this more in detail on following a few of the exercises.

1. Feet Wide Big Arm Circles – 20x each direction. Stand with your feet out much wider than your hips. In this position contract your glute (butt) muscles and your quadriceps (thigh) muscles. Now holding the contraction in these muscles the entire time, raise your arms out to the sides at shoulder height. Keeping your torso still start to make large circles forward with your arms. Try to keep the arms as straight as you can. Once you have completed the repetitions forward, then repeat, now with a backwards circular motion.

The reason for the contraction on=f the glutes and quads is that I am assuming the kids have been in a seated position for much of the day. This would mean that the muscles responsible for the positioning and movement of the pelvis have received little stimulation at this point. So the contraction is the chance to re-establish the signal from the brain to the muscle fibers responsible for providing proper positioning of the pelvis. This will also pay help to put the lumbar spine into the proper position as well. The arm circles are to work on the 4 directions of the shoulder we discussed in the previous post.

2. Standing Lunges – 10x each leg. Place your right leg out in front of your left so the feet are at least 3 feet apart. Now place your hands on your hips. Keeping your shoulders up high and your back slightly arched as you bend your left knee and lower it towards the floor. Stop just a few inches before the floor and come back up to the starting position. Repeat up and down and then switch legs.

I like doing a move like this following the previous one because it helps to reinforce what you were trying to accomplish in the first one. Here you are now introducing range of motion into the hips based on the fact that you have already supplied some stimulus to the muscles responsible for the hips. This is also a great way to get some extension into the hip flexors. Finally we also get our flexion/extension demand in our hips.

3. Feet Wide Windmills – 10x each side.  Stand with your feet out much wider than your hips. Now Place the arms straight out to your sides at shoulder height. Keeping your arms straight, bend and twist at the waist as you lower your right hand towards your left foot. Once down, return all the way back to the starting position. Now drop down to the other side. Continue back and forth.

This is an old School move but I love it. Now only is is great for Flexibility in the back, hamstrings, and glutes, it also does a great job of rotation in the spine. I also like to do various type of twists on the floor but since this is for basketball I will not have them lay down on their backs on the gym floor. Not that they could not do it but I want to give an example of how you need to build your warm-ups based on what your surroundings are.

4. Standing Cats and Dogs – 10x. Stand with your feet pointing forwards and placed directly underneath your hips. Now place your hands on your knees and bend the knees just slightly. Now hold this position in your lower body and keep your arms straight as you arch your back up into the air like a scared cat and tuck your chin to your chest. Again without moving your lower body and arms still straight, arch your back down and look up towards the ceiling. Repeat up and down.

I feel it is very important to make sure you do flexion and extension of the vertebrae anytime you do rotation of the spine. I just always worry that someone may hold a slightly rotated position in their back from the twist so to help prevent that from becoming a problem I like to do the a move like this to help realign the spine. This is also one of the components we discussed in the last post that is necessary in a warm-up.

5. Feet Wide Hip Glides – 10x each direction.  Stand with your feet much wider than your hips. Now bend you hips and knees and place your hands down on the floor. Try to keep your weight in your hips by leaning back just a bit. Now keeping your hips as low as you can and your back as straight as you can, glide to your right, bending the right knee and trying to straighten your left leg. At the end of the motion, flex your left thigh as hard as you can for a second, then glide to the other side and repeat to the left. Continue to glide back and forth.

This is one of my favorite moves. I like the amount of mobility it forces into the hips and knees and ankles. I also like the range of motion it creates in the hamstrings. This move also takes care of the abduction/adduction directions of the hip that we need as one of our components of a warm-up.

6. Standing Quadricep Stretch – 1:00 min each side. Stand facing a wall with your feet about 12 inches off the wall. Now grab your right foot with your right hand and pull your heel towards your lower back. keep as good of posture as you can throughout the rest of your body. Now holding this position, squeeze your glutes as hard as you can and press your pelvis towards the wall until you feel a big stretch through the hip flexors and quads. Now hold this contraction.

This is not one of my favorites, there is just too many ways to do it wrong but I did want to add another one in to emphasize hip flexor range. I wold much prefer to do this kneeling bit again we are limited by the surface we are on.

7. Bear Crawl – 20 steps. Start on your hands and knees with your hands directly under your shoulders and your knees directly under your hips. Now lift your knees a few inches off the floor keeping your back straight. Start crawling forward taking small steps by reaching out with your left hand and pulling your right leg forward. Now alternate hands and feet back and forth keeping your back flat and knees close to the ground.

This is one of the best moves around. I mention back in the early philosophy posts that this is the most important step in our physical progression. i try to put it in every warm-up and workout I build. It is a great introduction to proper movement and I also like how it places load into all 4 of the structural Joints (shoulder, hips, knees, ankles)

8. Lateral Lunge Walk – 10 steps each direction. Stand with your hands on your hips, now drop your hips into a squat keeping your weight back in your heels. Now keeping your hips low, reach out as far as you can with your right leg and then still keep the hips low as you pull your left leg back towards your right. Continue and then switch and lead with the left leg. Keep your shoulders up tall and you back slightly arched.

I chose this a good intro into sport specificity movements. This one prepares the hips for the lateral demands of the game you are about to play. 

9. High Knee Rotational Skipping – 20 skips forward and backward. From a standing position, place your hands behind your head. Now start a skipping motion as you bring your right leg out to the side, then forward like you are stepping over a trash can. Upon Landing immediately go up with the left leg and continue to repeat. Try to keep your torso still during the skips so the motion is coming just from the hips. Now repeat backwards by lifting the knee in front of you then puling it around to the side.

This one is great on a lot of levels for the specificity of basketball. What I like best is the fact that since you are skipping you will be landing in random angles in your ankles. This to me is very important to help prevent your students from not being prepared for this and twisting an ankle.

10. Hands Overhead Squat Hops – 10x. Stand with your hands straight up over your head. Now squat down keeping your hands up and your back arches, then jump into the air as high as you can. As you land, bend at the knees and the hips and go right back up. Keep your arms up the whole time.

I chose this as the last activity specific one just to prepare their bodies for the rebounding aspect of the game. The combination of explosive hip movement integrated with the angle of the shoulders.

This is a pretty quick version of a warm-up. Normally with one of my classes or especially one of our basketball teams, I wold do at least twice as many exercises, probably more. I hope this gives you a good idea of the components that go into creating a sound warm-up. Give me your feedback. I would love to hear what your expertise has to say as well!

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I also recommend that you have your older students wear compression shorts or spandex. Some of these moves can leave you a little “exposed” and to avoid this unfortunate event, have them wear something to cover up the upper thigh and hips. I also will warn you that the kids will laugh at a few of these. It happens each time I start working with a new group. It takes a few times for them to adjust but eventually they just come to expect it as the normal way to warm-up

So to help and cover as many groups as I can lets focus on these three groups to warm-up.

1. Elementary Age - we will just give them a general preparation

2. Middle School – they are getting ready for a game of Kickball

3. High School – This group we will warm-up for a basketball game

I am going to do an individual post for each of these so that i can discuss each one without you needing to sift through hundreds of lines of text.

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So now knowing the components of a workout lets also take a look at a few variables that will affect the type of exercises you can do. 

1. Surface - make sure that you are choosing exercises that are appropriate for the ground beneath you. 

2. Age/Population/Body Types - we will discuss how various ages require different types of stimulus to prepare their bodies for activity. Also how to warm-up various size groups.

3. Time – obviously the length of time you have to work with will greatly impact how you structure your warm-up.

Next lets do a few example Warm-ups.

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Lets look at a different perspective on how to truly prepare the body. If you have not looked go back to the early philosophy posts. In them we discuss how your muscular system is in a constant state of change based on the various stimulus or lack of stimulus it receives. I know many of you have said to your kids that if they don’t use their muscles, they will lose them. How true this is. So for a warm-up you must then assume that outside of your class they are not doing enough to provide the necessary stimulus to their muscular system to keep it working efficiently. 

How would you warm up someone who had not been allowed to use any of their muscles for over a week? Would it change what you would do with them. I hope it would. Without going into the boring lecture we all know and give to our students and parents, kids are simply not as physical as they used to be. Video Games, Computers, Ipod’s and all the other time wasters are really limiting the physical development of our children. 

So to do a warm-up that will provide the necessary stimulus to the muscular system and will allow you to truly improve the efficiency of the muscular system requires a different approach than the standard. Let me give you a different example of what is all entailed in a proper warm-up. Here are several components that are important to consider. First is the traditional idea of wanting to lengthen the muscles or “flexibility”. Lets take this a step further and say first we want to take the joints through a full range of motion. Specifically lets focus on the shoulders and hips, the two ball and socket joints in the body.

For the shoulders I like to break it up into 4 directions, Horizontal push and pull, Vertical Push and pull. Think of the body in the anatomically correct position, standing with palms facing out and knees and feet pointing straight ahead. So for the horizontal push it would involve the muscles involved in pressing the arms out in front of you, for instance a pushup. Horizontal pull would then of course be the opposite of this motion, the act of pulling the arms back towards the body. Vertical push and Vertical pull would then be the act of pressing the arms over the head and then pulling them back down. 

This is a very basic version but If you do an exercise for each of these 4 directions you will have given the necessary stimulus to the muscles of the upper body to promote full range of motion in that joint.

We can do the same thing for the lower Body, use these 4 planes, Flexion/Extension, and Abduction/Adduction. Flexion being the act of moving the femur superior towards the pelvis. Extension then would be the opposite, abduction is the lateral movement of the femur away from the midline and adduction is bringing it back. 

Next Post we will cover the remainder of the components of a warm-up.

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