In part 1 of the training imbalance saga, we talked about how we need to critically look at unilateral versus bilateral exercises in our programs.

As a refresher, when it comes to the lower body, the legs are both on the ground for only a brief instant in pitching.  That's a telling sign of what's more biomechanically relevant in a pitcher's training.  If you want to take a look it's for up on our blog.

This week's piece will cover the impact of internal vs. external rotation imbalance and its impact on throwing performance, and it comes with an important story that was career-defining for me.  

I will tell you a story about one of the true heroes who was involved in taking the Angels from the most injured organization due to pitching arm injuries and reduced IL days by 50% throughout the entire organization.

This hero and others like him could do this because they had a balanced strength profile for their rotator cuff. This metric indicated their ability to be a rubber arm for the organization.

From The Bottom To The Top

In 2017 and 2018, the Los Angeles Angels had the most pitching injuries in baseball.  I arrived with the team in 2017, and there were 14 players in the RTP program who were recovering from Tommy John Surgery. 

At the time, there were minimal technologies available to evaluate players' physical characteristics; worse, there were even fewer people to share the load in assessment, data aggregation, interpretation, and communication to intervene. 

Then in 2019, I was promoted to a new position as the organization's Director of Performance Integration. I started a small department that sat in the middle of scouting, strength and conditioning, sports medicine, and skill development.  

It was mainly a sports science operation to ensure a collective, evidence-based approach to performance and that stakeholders in athletes' programming did not confuse the athlete or each other. Ultimately, the interconnection between departments expedited desired outcomes, but a ton of behind-the-scenes work was required.  

Priority number one was defining a process to look at arm strength, as we did not have success with range of motion testing or biomechanics projections.  

In my beginnings, I noted several issues with how we assessed arm strength.

For starters, strength was only evaluated in Spring Training and generally not re-evaluated until an injury occurred. We also had consistency issues primarily because we were conducting break tests. 

A break test means that the athlete pushes on a clinician as hard as possible who was wearing the device, and the clinician would push on the athlete's arm at various positions until the athlete's arm position could not be maintained. The strength is measured when the athlete's position is "broken."

Without going into too much detail, I'm sure you can see the obvious problem of many trainers assessing players at different time points. We were getting different readings because of the trainers' inherent strength differences and not the player's strength. This error had to be changed to avoid reliability issues.

We found a stabilized solution to test strength by having the athlete push into a consistent fixed apparatus, and we were off to the races with strength testing at more frequent intervals. 

Our biggest issue was that it absorbed time from trainers and strength coaches, who became more like data collectors than practitioners. One of the problems with sophisticated technology is that athletes cannot run it on their own.  

Additionally, players during homestands had to arrive at the ballpark early, which was not convenient for anyone.  

Still, we were convinced that monitoring strength would minimize the risk of injury, so we committed to testing each athlete thoroughly at least twice per month, which was the bare minimum, in my opinion.

There were so many important people involved in the strength assessment and intervention process, but the outcomes were that each player would receive an individualized arm care program.

That took us from the worst team for throwing arm health for pitchers in 2017 and 2018 to the middle of the pack in 2019 by having no surgeries at the MLB level. Then we made it to the top 5 for throwing arm health in 2020 with no active roster pitchers on the IL with any surgical injury.  

Pretty profound results from dedicated staff members, but what was not communicated overtly was the involvement of a few pitchers in the organization who were the workhorses and the unsung heroes of the operation. 

The Legend of Simon Matthews

Now, let me tell you about Simon Matthews.  

Simon was a pitcher in the Angels organization who literally was the definition of a "rubber arm."  

You hear of these guys who can throw back-to-back-to-back, can switch between starter and reliever easily, and are basically available any day of the week at any time.  

Well, Simon Matthews was an anomaly and taught me the most about the ER/IR ratio and why balanced arm strength is so important.  

During the early stages of the season, when workloads were low and guys were building up competitive pitch counts, we identified Simon as having an ability to maintain an ER/IR ratio near 1.0.  

Before the season, we believed that the ideal ratio should be 0.8, meaning that ER strength should be at least 80% IR strength, and we thought the more ER strength, the merrier, which was incorrect.  

Because of Simon's ability to have one of the most balanced rotator cuffs in the organization, and his ability to compete, he quickly became one the most valuable pitchers in the organization.  

When pitchers at other affiliates need time off due to significant strength imbalances or huge deficits, Simon could compete in a heartbeat and jump on a plane.  

I believe there was a two-week period where he pitched at every level in the organization, from A-ball to AAA. Not many people could say that they could accomplish that and have done so with success.  

What was amazing to me was that I also evaluated his non-throwing arm to ensure he wasn't suffering from central nervous system fatigue because it seemed like he was throwing every other day. Central nervous system fatigue can be seen when both arms show similar strength deficits.  

To my amazement, Simon had an almost perfect ER/IR ratio in his non-throwing arm and did not show significant strength loss—so whatever he was doing in the weight room and through individualized arm care was working.  

What Simon didn't know was that if he went down with a significant injury, our ability to recover pitchers who had significant arm fatigue would collapse, and everyone's jobs could have been in jeopardy.  

Imagine going from the worst team in the league for pitching injuries, buying expensive technology (more than $70k) to reduce those injuries, only to see your team in the basement again.  

I was on pins and needles the whole year, but with Simon in the mix, we were good because he gave us 10-14 days to fix a guy, and then he would go to another affiliate and give us a chance to restore another player.  

So, throughout the season, we had 11 pitchers recovered, and 3 of them made it to the big-league level since 2019.  

As of this week, I had not seen Simon in three years, but I never forgot his rubber arm and how we contributed to an incredibly successful undertaking to restore pitching arm health across the organization.  

So, I am in to see the Reds, and we are breaking down training proportions as the percentage of exercises that are unilateral, bilateral, internal, external, short-lever, long-lever, grip intensive, anterior, and posterior to the body.  

We are discussing what these relative proportions look like in rehabilitation and strength and conditioning programming, and I never put two and two together that the Rehabilitation Pitching Coordinator is, in fact, Simon Matthews.  

We go to the weight room, where I show the differences between past and current arm care approaches. I covered how training can be further advanced by focusing on strength and coordination versus strength and conditioning and how to make training more focused on arm position rather than arm speed, a critical distinction in withstanding high torques and forces.  

As I was handing out my business cards at the end and we were face to face, I suddenly recognized him, and it all made sense. He was the most consistent athlete I have coached regarding arm strength and is now the protector of throwing arms that have been badly damaged. 

Baseball is a funny game. One day you are on top of a mountain, the next day, smashed up on the rocks, but one thing is for sure, you will learn, you will be humbled, and in the case of Simon Mathews, you will be amazed.

Dawn of a New Age

As we go into the pitch clock era for MLB, the AAA level is critical now more than ever. You will need your rubber arms.  

Jerry Weinstein of the Colorado Rockies mentioned that, on average, 23 seconds elapse between pitches, but by reducing the clock to 15 seconds, pitchers will now receive 8 seconds less rest between pitches. 

The sum of that 8 secs equates to MLB pitchers missing 18 minutes of recovery time each game, then compounded over a 162-game schedule, you can imagine how much recovery time MLB pitching staffs will lose. 

Here's my message to teams preparing for the MLB pitch clock:

• Frequently test your pitchers' arms,
• Identify who has the most consistent ER/IR ratio,
• Evaluate the non-throwing arm to ensure the athlete does not have central nervous system fatigue, 
• Find a guy like Simon who can help strategically recover your athletes, so they are always available.  

And finally, for the hardworking people in player development, as Instructional League is coming to an end and you are disconnecting for the offseason, don't forget to tell your players how much they mean to you.  

Before they leave for the season, thank them for what you have learned by being a part of their career. 

Some players you meet for a season, and others for a reason. For me, Simon Mathews came at a time when we were in desperate need of improvement, and without him, I am not sure we would have learned how to remediate strength deficits in under 14 days, and we would not have known the secret of having a balanced shoulder.  

Rubber arms bend, they don't break.

Ryan

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