• Strength in Numbers - 49

    From: Jan-31-2022 09:47:am
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    A Baseball Horror Story from the True North

    It's been quite a long time since I have ventured home to Canada.
     
    COVID-19 and having a second child did not make travel any easier.  What's amazing is that my childhood friends, who I had grown up playing with, are now coaching their kids and giving back to the game. 
     
    I had been able to work with some of their athletes and noticed a common theme from the appearance of every single player's shoulder column.  
     
    I am not sure if this is the case throughout the world, as it has been a long time since I have worked with amateur athletes, let alone between the ages of 12-15 years old, but I am concerned with what I have seen amongst them, and in fact, I am totally frightened.
     

    SICK SCAPULAS 

     
    I took 23 kids through the fundamentals of arm care training and started first by talking about posture.  I had every single athlete stand at rest before performing exercises with bands.  Before I allow athletes to engage in training, I first take a quick scan of their scapular symmetry and motion unresisted.  
     
    What astounded me was that I saw scapular winging in all 23 athletes.  
     
    In fact, for many of them, I could put the entire end of my index finger under their scapula on the throwing side.  This experience was a call to action for me, as there is no wonder why throwing arm injuries are amassing, as posture is degrading and velocity is enhancing.  
     
    Kids are playing video games, sitting at desks and tables using their cellphones with their necks flexed, or lying in bed with flexed necks and have pec minor/lat tightness.  
     
    Almost all the acromial positions I evaluated on the throwing side were depressed and anteriorly translated.  
     
    What was most amazing to me is that our Crossover Symmetry bands were entirely foreign for some athletes, as well as the concept of training their throwing arm.  Every kid who plays baseball in Canada, or better yet, the world, may not be getting instruction on how to train their throwing arms.

    Athletes at any age can reap the benefits of arm-specific training with best results in using handles to develop grip strength and increase muscle activation for the rotator cuff

    CUEING WITH A PEN

     
    I strapped six bands to an L-screen in the middle of an indoor facility and provided only one exercise to master – ATYT.  
     
    I had a whole program set up and realized immediately that these young athletes lacked the requisite knowledge of arm care exercises but also had major anatomical challenges to overcome and we needed to load them immediately.  
     
    No wall slides or unloaded activity, or bands without handles; they needed to know how to retract, grip with at least 70% force and hold endpoints.  
     
    ATYT is a complex exercise with the shoulder in 90 degrees of external rotation throughout the entire movement.  It's more comfortable for the shoulder joint but can engage the cuff and scapular stabilizers in a position that assists retraction of the shoulder blade, posterior tilting and elevation.  
     
    It was interesting to see that in the A position where the hands are below the shoulder going into retraction, all athletes preferred internal rotation to draw the band back (turning the hands over) which caused even more shoulder dumping in the forward direction.  
     
    At that moment, I knew that none of them would understand anything verbal I could tell them, nor could they copy me in performing the exercise.  
     
    So, I pulled out a pen.  
     
    I took the end of the pen and placed it on the thoracic spine between the shoulder blades and said with each movement, try to pinch the end of my pen with their shoulder blades to coordinate appropriate retraction coordination.   
     
    I won't lie, things got a little funky when we went overhead.  There was a lot of shoulder shrugging, but they had to start somewhere.  
     
    It was amazing to me that upward rotation of the shoulder blade under 3lbs of tension could be so demanding.  Five ATYT's caused grimacing with 3lbs, which was quite eye-opening how weak they were, some at the age of 15.
     
    At 15 years old, I could bench press my body weight eight times, but I was a freak and loved training which may not be the norm for all baseball players.   
     
    Anatomically, for every degree the shoulder blade rotates upward, the arm can elevate 2 degrees.  That's called glenohumeral or scapulohumeral rhythm.  
     
    When we went into the Y, everything looked like a T position, and when we went into the T position, they believed they were in the correct position, but the arms were somewhere between the A (arms near their sides) and T.  
     
    Houston, we have a serious problem.  
     
    Another cue I gave them was to pretend that someone was punching them in the stomach as the ribs were flaring on many of them initially as they could not elevate their arms under tension.  
     
    A conservative approach to correction is to regress and do things unloaded, but that was not my approach, as everything they have done is unloaded.  
     
    I needed to get muscles firing while cueing movement.  Even with pro athletes, adding load helps drive the right path and coordination, especially when doing landmine pressing for upward rotation versus wall sliding.  

    Y position in the ATYT exercise is incredibly challenging for young throwing athletes who suffer from postural dysfunction from video game play and cellphone usage. If the muscles are not strong enough to create upward movement of the scapula the arm cannot elevate easily and could have the athlete increase lean into the throw toward their glove arm to create a downward plane on their pitches and increase stress to the throwing shoulder and elbow. 

    HANDS ON THE FLOOR

     
    Outside the scapular retractors, these athletes suffer from weak serratus anterior muscles.  The serratus anterior is the only muscle in the throwing arm active during the entire critical instant of throwing from maximum layback to maximum internal rotation and pronation after ball release.  
     
    I could tell that these athletes suffered from serratus weakness by the difficulty in achieving a proper downward dog position.  If a young athlete cannot hold a downward dog position for 20 seconds, that's a problem.  
     
    We have a few handstand progressions in the video below, but closed chain shoulder training, especially when performed overhead, will increase the activation of the serratus in the closed chain, which is critical for these athletes.  
     
    You can see one of our ArmCare IQs on inverted closed chain shoulder training here for a better idea of progressive inverted shoulder training that requires minimal equipment for maximum performance.  
     

    A NEW MISSION

     
    For much of my career, I have been focused on performance for elite athletes and have not been involved much with developing athletes until now.  
     
    I spoke with the athletes and their parents after instructing them and did not give them the harsh realities as I did not want to alarm them. 
     
    I looked into the eyes of each athlete and know the facts.  
     
    Approximately 50% of them will have a throwing arm injury that will take them out of competition, but what has me shook is that I believe if their throwing muscles and functional coordination are not improved from this point onward, 50% of them could go under the knife.  
     
    I am not using scare tactics to encourage athletes and parents to get on board with ArmCare.com.  Instead, I am using education and outreach, and hopefully, 1 out of the 23 that I worked with get the message, and they change the insidious path that science has indicated for them.
     
    If you are reading this and coach youth athletes or are a parent, please pay attention to the signs.  
     
    If you see the bottoms of your athletes' shoulder blades pop out when the arms are resting at their sides, and you can get any part of your finger underneath them, reach out to us immediately, and we will correct the anatomical situation.   
    Something as simple as noticing the appearance of your athletes' shoulder blades could save their careers.  More on that later.
     
    Have a great weekend, everyone, and watch your posture!
     
    Ryan
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