|
Post by cosmo34 on Nov 15, 2009 1:56:40 GMT -8
Also, would you say that squats are not needed for football players?
|
|
|
Post by wrstdude on Nov 15, 2009 7:40:43 GMT -8
Thanks for staying on top of this for me Cos. I thought it was a fairly straight forward question that would illicit a straight forward answer.
...apparently I was beyond wrong.
We're currently waiting to see if there's a correlation to throwing a football and an increase in velocity. Sam spent from the end of July till the end of October throwing a football daily. Probably 100+ throws/day. He can throw the football about 60 yards right now at the end of the season. We busted out the baseball and gloves to play catch for about 5 minutes and he wanted to see how far he could throw the baseball. From about 2 yards deep in the end-zone he threw it to the opposite 10 on the fly-around 92 yards. Not sure if there's a valid equivalent, but we thought it couldn't be too bad. Would like to get a gun on him.
|
|
|
Post by cosmo34 on Nov 15, 2009 23:40:18 GMT -8
Knee pain comes from poor form and trying to be a hero in the rack. That I will not deny. Squats, much like bench, can derail you if you don't lift properly (I.E. be an idiot and show off, poor form, etc..)
Since he wasn't getting much faster from them, I'm going to assume he was doing them improperly. Probably didn't get down far enough, and basically only worked his quads. Didn't hit his hammies enough, which is where most of the speed comes from.
I know I dropped from a 7.0 to a 6.8 after a long summer of work in the rack, so I will always vouch for them (and did so with very little speed training. Just hardcore leg work and general endurance work). My knees actually felt better after doing them. Edit to add- I blew my knee out playing football my senior year. Had to deal with pain for a long, long time. When I got back in the rack and did squats properly, my knees felt wonderful.
I don't see what this has to do with Dude's question. He just asked, as did I, what would be the replacement, in terms of leg strengthening exercises, would you recommend.
I do not like leg presses. At all. Way too much danger, and very little gain. IMO this is always a bodybuilding exercise and not a sport exercise.
And how do leg presses equate to a skill? In no athletic sport are you on your back pushing a heavy object. Squatting is transferable to many athletic movements.
This is why I asked about football players. All football players need Sensible strong legs not only because of the speed and endurance element, but because pretty much everything you do outside of pure running involves pushing forcefully against another human. And pushing forcefully from the ground up.
When you block or tackle someone, you have to get up underneath them and explode your legs/hips to power through them. The upper finishes/pushes off/away.
The more strength you have, the more power you can impose on the other man. The more you can impart, the more you can control/dominate/get off blocks/etc..
And that last part absolutely is transferable to baseball. Since your weight shift comes from a powerful firing of the rear hip/leg, the more strength/power you can impose, the better. The movement of a tackler or lineman exploding underneath and up into another player is essentially the same as hitting. The only difference is that one is facing from the front (football), and hitting is facing from the side. But the movement of raw and powerful leg explosion is essentially the same.
We can argue the involvement of the legs for pitching, but I'm not interested in turning this into yet another Marshall vs. traditionalists debate. I believe leg drive to be important, and I'm sure you feel otherwise, but let's leave that part out.
Since leverage is a very important part of hitting, the more strength you have in your legs (where leverage comes from) the more force you can impose into the ball. Having big and strong legs will absolutely help you create more bat speed and hit the ball further.
A large part of hitting is explosive movements created by brutally strong legs and core. There is no better exercise for creating those strong legs than squats, not to mention the outstanding core workout, stability, mental toughness, and the body's resulting anabolic environment (think huge releases of GH and Test to create muscle in ALL parts of the body).
Squats are of course dangerous if you aren't smart when doing them, but when you do them right, there is nothing better.
|
|
|
Post by wrstdude on Nov 16, 2009 8:13:10 GMT -8
Cosmo I would have high school players and above run a couple of miles per day. That would not specifically help them in baseball but hopefully that practice would become a life long activity. I would also have players do sprints at every practice. That plus the general running around they did would be enough for the legs. I think I explained how the stride in the traditional pitching motion does not contribute to release velocity. For baseball hitting the key to bat head velocity is the force coupling that occurs right before contact. The problem we have when you demand a specific answer to a general question is that now we have possibly given dude the idea that his son throwing a football has something to do with achieving higher release velocities in baseball. You can't train an arm to move 90 MPH by throwing a football 60 MPH. The purpose of using footballs is to learn the proper spin axes of the pronated curves, screwballs, etc. As for football, I really don't know. I would not let high school kids do squats though. I would have them do leg presses. I asked Dr Marshall this question once and he simply said you have to first teach the skills, even with lineman. I few years ago I was driving a local football star running back to a baseball game. I asked him if he had to do squats as part of his training regimine. He said yes and that his knees were killing him. He was a sophomore at the time and slated for one of the major D1 schools around here. He did have big powerful looking legs but never seemed to get faster. He never made it to a major school but most likely will have a lifetime of knee problems. I'm convinced you do not need any type of squatting in baseball. I'm not convinced you could be a good football player without doing them. Linemen obviously need powerful legs. Kharma I find the orange to be funny in that I'm not sure what conversation you're following. You said that my question was general? What is general about my question? I asked for a replacement for squats. It's very specific and to the point. You, on the other hand, were very vague and beat around the bush, which I took to mean you didn't really know the answer. It's ok if you don't know the answer, but don't say my question was "general". If Cos hadn't stayed on your I'm sure you never would've directly answered. The second part I find funny is that I wouldn't have even mentioned him throwing footballs had you not brought it up in your vague non-answer to my original question. What does throwing a football have to with the question I asked? Can you give me any reason at all why you would submit that information as a valid response to a question about squats??? I'm struggling to find the relevance especially after you've noted that throwing a football is for "proper spin axes of the pronated curves, screwballs, etc.". I know the Marshal camp has a closed view on ways to increase velocity, but I have seen and heard of enough correlations to consider the merits of throwing a football which would essentially be overload training.
|
|
|
Post by wrstdude on Nov 16, 2009 12:59:30 GMT -8
Dude you asked what I would reco as a replacement exercise for squats. Because you were not specific I assumed you were talking about baseball. You were not specific as to whether you were talking about baseball hitting or baseball pitching. You did not say what age group you were talking about. Was it adults? Was it teens? Was it an adolescents? You may be surprised to know that some parents/coaches are letting kids do squats as young as 14. Wow. I simply wanted to know what exercise you would recommend to strengthen the same muscles as a squat. That's it. If you had a different exercise for each one of your questions (baseball pitching/hitting and various age groups) why not simply list them? If it didn't answer my question I would have stated as such.So to your general question I gave you a specifuc answer. There is no need to be doing any squatting for baseball. Then the always effervescent Cosmo chimed idemanding even more specificity. This is actually a good thing. So I graciuosly gave a brief summary of how I would train hitters and pitchers. As you don't appear to be interested enough to watch Dr Marshall's free video to see how footbals are used, you chimed in with some understandable nonsense that throwing a football fast was good traing for throwing a baseball fast. The only nonsense has been what you've been typing. I said "We're currently waiting to see if there's a correlation to throwing a football and an increase in velocity." I said WAITING. I did not state it as fact. Your reading comprehension skills are lacking. Certainly there could be other variables involved if a velocity increase was found, but the largest change would be the amount of football throwing he has done. He is NOT throwing the football as a training methodology for throwing a football fast. That was NOT stated. He's a quarterback. Quarterback's throw footballs.Sorry but you are wrong. Do yourself a favor and go watch Dr Marshall's video. I'll watch Doc's videos and listen to what he says when he produces a pitcher worth noticing.Sorry if I appear intemporate but I have a good friend whose son is a major league caliber pitcher. I have been battling this guy for 6 years. The young man has done all the stuff I see you guys recommend. Now it's last call and he's down to doing blood therapy. And the only one that appears to be outraged is me. This kid would have done the work. None of this makes any sense to me. Battling him about what? Last call and he's down to doing blood work? What does that mean?Kharma
|
|
|
Post by cosmo34 on Nov 19, 2009 21:16:21 GMT -8
Yes.
Why? Because they are good for the soul.
|
|
|
Post by wrstdude on Nov 20, 2009 10:25:16 GMT -8
Cosmo I suggest prayer for the soul and for any kid made to do squats. But let's for fun say squats are good for the soul and baseball pitching. I assume you would agree that squats help the Quads and I think you suggested hamstrings. If that is the case why would you want to come off the mound sideways to the target. Wouldn't you want to utilize the quads as Dr Marshall suggests and keep the posted foot straight at homeplate? Thus you could explode off the mounds using the more powerful Quadriceps muscles and not the relatively weaker muscle on the side of the hips. Kharma Yes, I would use squats. Squats are a compound exercise and the benefit from doing them is not found only in the legs. It is a great exercise for the core as well as you must stabilize your body throughout the range of movement. It is not the equivalent of doing an isolation exercise like curls. As for your argument, I ask, when you push sideways, does the quad not fire as well? Are you suggesting it does not when you say "wouldn't you want to utilize the quads?" When I push off the mound sideways, just by simply putting my hand on my quad I can feel the muscle firing. Does it not for you?
|
|
|
Post by cosmo34 on Nov 20, 2009 16:41:23 GMT -8
I don't know Mike Boyle.
But I know Bill Starr. And he loves them squats.
|
|
|
Post by cosmo34 on Nov 20, 2009 23:03:45 GMT -8
I would hope so given that Starr is at least in his late 60's and possibly early 70's.
|
|
|
Post by cosmo34 on Nov 21, 2009 14:25:23 GMT -8
Heavy is a relative term.
I don't like going below 4 reps and I don't like using weights heavier than I can explode with.
|
|
|
Post by wrstdude on Nov 21, 2009 14:48:21 GMT -8
I just spoke to the dad of the young man who is in the blood therapy phase of destroying his arm. The head coach of this team is a real muscle head. Anyway the dad told me that they have his son do squats but with real light weights. To get the explosiveness you guys are looking for you need heavy weights. Correct? Kharma From what I understand, heavy/heavier weight does not equate explosiveness. Most weightlifters looking for size preach lower reps heavier weight. Lower weight, more reps for muscular endurance. Squats, IMO aren't very explosive, but some consider them to be so. They have an element of explosiveness with the extension of the legs. For a truly explosive exercise, power cleans and hang cleans are the way to go IMO.
|
|