The Island of Misfit Pitchers
When I was a kid (back when we did our homework on stone tablets) there were no DVDs or Netflix, and we only got 3 stations on TV. One of my favorite parts about the Christmas season were the holiday cartoon shows. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was a classic, and I loved “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas”.
But my personal favorite was “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”. One of my favorite parts was when Clarice told Rudolph he was cute. He danced...
Scars Live Forever!
Yesterday was one of the coolest days of my professional career.
I’ve been in Physical Therapy practice for over 21 years, and I continue to learn more every day.
Yesterday, I had the privilege of scrubbing in and observing a UCL reconstruction done by Tampa Rays team physician, Dr. Koko Eaton. It was a joy to watch a master at work. Over the years I’ve seen lots of surgeries (labrum repairs, rotator cuff repairs, UCLs, ACLs, Total hip and knee replacements). I can’t begin to describe...
My Name Would Be Censored on British TV
Check this out,
A few months ago I was working in my physical therapy clinic when a patient came in for an initial evaluation. As she was escorted back to the evaluation area, I thought she seemed pleasant looking and kind. She was about 5'6" and thin. She had shoulder length silver hair and was using her walker to partially limit her weight bearing. I surveyed her chart and found that she was a 67 year old woman who had recently undergone a total hip replacement. She had no other...
10 Absolute Demands for Your Pitching Instructor This Off-Season
A while back I read a story about a man named Charles Proteus Steinmetz. He was a dysplasic dwarf who lived from 1865 to 1923, and he was brilliant. He pioneered research in alternating current and founded a company that was eventually bought by General Electric. According to one report, Steinmentz “almost single brainedly created the entire electrical world of generators, transformers, and motors that we all take for granted today."
Steinmetz was a difficult and cantankerous man who was...
Weight Loss and Pitchers?
Last week I was working with a patient--I'll call her Kimberly.
She was a 54 year old, woman recovering from a total knee replacement. I have worked with her 8 times over the past 3 weeks. She owns a successful real estate agency that employs over 20 people, and every time I saw her she was well dressed and made up, even though she was only 3 weeks past her surgery and hadn't returned to work yet. She projected a sharp, professional image, but she was moderately overweight.--not obese by any...
Chicks Dig Fastballs. It’s All About The TA!
Last month, The ARMory hosted a live webinar called Arm Care Summit: Decel is Ground Zero.
Some of the nation's leading pitching instructors gathered on the web to discuss the importance of safe and efficient deceleration for arm health and performance.
Everyone on the panel agreed that proper deceleration is a vital part of the pitching delivery.
But there are some out there who scoff at the idea and maintain that proper deceleration is "natural" and need not be taught. These...
The Top 10 Reasons (You Might Not Have Considered) For All These Elbow Injuries
The following message is intended to be rich with tongue and cheek satire, but I promise you I will take some flack for it. Mark my words, some shallow minded half wit will cherry pick excerpts and quote me as if were serious. Anyone who knows me understands that while I am deeply compassionate and caring, I am rarely serious.
So here goes.
With debate on the rash of UCL injuries raging, and "experts" crawling out of every nook and cranny with what they claim to be undeniable...
SOS! Here’s the 411 on the 911 of Arm Injuries
I’m from Tampa, and since the day I sat in Tropicana Field’s left field bleachers and watched Wilson Alvarez spike the first pitch in team history, I have been a HUGE Tampa Bay Rays Fan.
I suffered through the doldrums of the Vince Namoli era.
(Not exactly sure what our team colors were)
I was equally amused and embarrassed when Wade Boggs dropped to his knees and kissed home plate after his 3000th hit.
And I rejoiced and jumped through my ceiling...
“You Could Never Be A Big League Pitching Coach”
Monday thru Friday at 7:00 am I run a class for current, former or projected professional pitchers. Some of the students have been in the big leagues. Others are minor leaguers who are looking to advance to the show, and some are college graduates who went undrafted and are trying to hook up with independent professional teams. All have the same dream--to make it to the show. The class was full all winter, but now that the pro season has begun, and the extended spring training pitchers...
Poor Deceleration Can Tear Your Labrum and Your UCL
When I graduated from high school, I can honestly say that I probably hadn't completely read more than 30 books in my entire lifetime.
And the only thing that got me even close to that
number was the phase I went through in the 6th and 7th grade when I read every baseball biography and every volume of the Encyclopedia Brown series in our school library.
The reason I didn't read much?
Nothing interested me.
But now things are very different.
Call me a nerd if you want, but now I...
