Another Kickass Workout Session
I woke up early today and got in a kickass workout session with Jacob that lasted all day.
10:30 AM - Swimming laps until our lungs were on fire (didn’t take me long, I’m out of shape!)
11:15 AM - Sat in the hot tub, felt good on my sore legs from the previous day’s workout
11:30 AM - Taught Jacob how to do one-arm DB snatches and high pulls; in return, he showed me medball toss on a decline bench. Tons of reps of all the aforementioned exercises, plus static stretching.
After that, we went to Paseo Caribbean Grill (where Jacob had never been) and enjoyed a Midnight Cuban Press and a Chicken Breast sandwich. Can’t believe that place has been closed for over 2 months. So good to have it back!
Two hours rest time, then it’s time to hit the batting cages at Arena Sports. Both Jacob and I had arms that felt really good, and his curve has turned into something nasty. It now has a lot of overspin, comes in waist-high, then just falls off the table. It looks way different than his previous curve - which was good! - and should be infinitely more effective. He seems to retain his original get-me-over variant as well for weak contact and first pitch strikes, so with that curve ball package, his very consistent slider with excellent lateral break, all he has to do is figure out how he’s getting his arm-side run with his two-seam fastball. Once he pieces it all together, he’ll have three absolutely dangerous weapons to attack the zone with.
My arm felt really good, and I threw a bunch before the mitigating circumstances forced us off the mound and into another cage, but from what I was doing, my fastball was popping a bit more than usual (both torque and maxline variants), and I was experimenting with a high arm slot that seemed to work fairly well. Hopefully I can replicate this with a friend on Thursday, or maybe even Jacob later today. My pronation slider is developing at a fast rate; I saw it slash through the zone with excellent depth and decent lateral break. Starting the pitches from a supinated grip has helped me with all of my pitches: I get better and more consistent releases with my fastball with some sink to it, I get a lot of sink on my change, and I have been getting a ton of spin on my slider as a result of going from supinated to pronated. Marshall was right there, that’s for damn sure.
As far as our velocities, I’m not sure where we’re at. I don’t want to measure it because we both have major flaws that we know of, and we want to get those under control before we release video to the YouTube public (they sure do love Dick Mills there, don’t they?) and to this blog. My biggest flaw is my timing right before, at, and right after footstrike. I need to keep my shoulders closed while firing the hips, so I can preserve the idea of rotating body segments which will deliver the power through my body, across my acromial line, and through my arm.
If I had to hazard a guess on what Jake’s major flaw is, I’d say it would be the fact that he pauses a bit too long at max leg lift. Like Carlos Gomez of Hardball Times, I prefer to see drifting into footplant, rather than sitting over the rubber. This helps generate momentum down the hill, which adds to velocity and cuts out time for mechanical errors. I’m sure he has his own view on it, though, and hope he posts about it.
Time to get some sleep. Early start tomorrow (10 AM is early for me) - running, stretching, prepping some clean food, maybe throwing some with Jake, and then I have Roosevelt High School baseball meetings at 5:45 PM.
