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General  | General | 11/3/2022

Wolforth Thrower Mentorship: Article 25

Jerry Ford
Ron Wolforth
Photo: Johnny Tergo/Truth Baseball
Ron Wolforth probably knows more about the throwing arm and arm care than anyone we know. Many of you may have heard about the famous Texas Baseball Ranch that Ron has been running for many years. We have built a great relationship with Ron and his wife Jill over the years.

It all started a few years back when Ron sent his son Garrett to a Perfect Game event. His son was a catcher/infielder and set some all-time PG records for pop times (1.75) and velocity (89 mph) at the time. He also threw mid-90s across the infield. He is now playing professionally. Being an average-sized kid, this really drew our interest. Once we realized who his father was, it became clear.



Since then we have followed the Texas Baseball Ranch closely. Ron is a very humble man, which is a reason so many speak highly of him. We have never run across a single person that shows any disrespect for him or the Ranch. So we decided to ask him to help our millions of followers.

Over the years he has helped thousands of pitchers, including many that became Major League All-Stars. Yes, he teaches velocity gains, better control and command, and everything a pitchers needs to be successful. However, unlike many others, he is an absolute stickler when it comes to doing it safely. His interest doesn't just involve velocity gains and other improvements, all of which are very important. He wants his students to understand arm care and how to throw and stay healthy. He does this without a cookie cutter program. He understands that all players are different individuals.

Perfect Game's interest in prospects, arm care and keeping young kids healthy is the major reason we have decided to work with Ron Wolforth.

Below is the 25th of an ongoing column he will be doing on our Perfect Game website. This information will be gold for any player interested in improving their throwing ability and staying healthy. Make sure you read every column he contributes and feel free to comment on them.

If you want to attend one of his camps and improve your throwing ability, here is the link to the website:
https://www.texasbaseballranch.com/

Jerry Ford
President
Perfect Game

. . .

Article 1: Where the Sidewalk Terminates
Article 2: The Exact Location of Your Arm Pain is Incredibly Valuable Information
Article 3: No Pain, No Problem...Right? Not Quite So Fast.
Article 4: The Secret to Accelerated Skill Development: Hyper-Personalization
Article 5: The Case Against Weighted Balls?
Article 6: The Truth About Pitch Counts, Workloads, and Overuse
Article 7: Velocity Appraisal: How 'Hard' Is 'Hard Enough'?
Article 8: Command Appraisal: How 'Accurate' Is 'Accurate Enough'?
Article 9: Swing & Miss Appraisal: How 'Nasty' Is 'Nasty Enough'?
Article 10: 5 Common Mistakes Baseball Players Make In Their Training
Article 11: The Truth About Curveballs, Sliders, and Cutters
Article 12: What is Involved in Deep, Deliberate Practice vs. Traditional Practice
Article 13: The Truth About Long Toss?
Article 14: The Truth About Conditioning of Pitchers?
Article 15: Simple and Effective Post Throwing Strategies for Pitchers
Article 16: 12 Common (Yet Often Dangerous) Narratives For Pitchers, Part 1
Article 17: 12 Common (Yet Often Dangerous) Narratives For Pitchers, Part 2
Article 18: 12 Common (Yet Often Dangerous) Narratives For Pitchers, Part 3
Article 19: Things To Consider When Embarking On A Velocity Enhancement Program This Year
Article 20: Is Your Pitcher Headed Straight Toward An Injury?
Article 21: The Season Has Started And You're Struggling With Command: Here's How To Turn It Around Quickly
Article 22: The Challenges & Dangers of an In-Season Velocity Program
Article 23: One Very Critical Question Every Pitcher Should Ask Heading Into The Offseason
Article 24: Why Limiting Pitch Counts Will Never Solve the Challenges of Arm Issues and Injury
There is a narrative in baseball that has been repeated so many times that it has simply become viewed as an uncontested and unassailable truth. At almost every camp, I have a parent ask me about shutting their son down in the off-season.

In this two-part article, I’m going to take this narrative head-on. I’m going to point out both where I think the general philosophical bent of this message has true merit and value, and where I think the narrative is not only wrong but dangerous and actually contributes to the very injuries it claims to prevent.

The “workload is the root of all pitching evils” narrative has taken many forms in its communication to the baseball universe at large.

Two very common examples of this communication:

“It is crucial that every pitcher shut himself down from baseball for two to three months…letting his body repair, rejuvenate, and recuperate from an extremely onerous and grueling baseball season.”

“The overwhelming cause of arm issues is overuse and excessive workload.”

My very good friend, Brent Strom, the pitching coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks, is fond of saying, “The single most dangerous thing to a pitcher are words. Words need to be interpreted. Baseball is filled to the brim with examples of verbal terrorism.”

Here are examples of what he is referring to:

(What exactly do these terms even mean? In truth, they have a wide range of possible interpretations.)

“Shutting Down the Pitcher”
When we “shut someone down,” does that mean…They are shut down simply from pitching in games in competition? Shut down from all intense or high effort throwing activities such as games, bullpens, extreme long toss, or velocity enhancement programs? Shut down from any and all baseball throwing related activities, including arm care or even simply playing catch?

Or are we shutting the athlete down from all intense physical activities involving the upper body? Shutting him down from all intense physical activities involving the entire body? Or does that mean he is laying in the sun on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean reading the latest John Grisham novel?

These are all forms of “shut down.” The real question is, which exact form and duration of shutting down makes the most sense for each individual athlete, considering his recent workload and intensity during the season, his current status as a competitive pitcher, his current arm health, and his future goals and objectives?

In my 25 years of training throwing athletes, it is clear to me that a blanket shut down template for the baseball pitching athlete at large is a very flawed, and in fact dangerous, narrative. Common sense indicates, at least to me, that we must treat each athlete as an individual and tailor his off-season to him and his specific needs.

“Repair, Rejuvenate, and Recuperate”
Let’s say I had a very busy summer of coaching at the Ranch, and I decided I really needed to give my legs a “rest.” In essence, I’m going to shut it down for a while to give my legs a little break so they could repair, rejuvenate, and recuperate. Sounds like a very benign idea starting out, doesn’t it?

Would it then be a good idea for my wife, Jill, to wake me up every morning, put me in a wheelchair, wheel me everywhere that day, and back into bed at night, making certain that my feet NEVER touched the ground for my entire “down period?” How long would such a break period have to last before I began to have negative consequences from my lack of utilization of my legs? A day, a week, a month, three months?

Some might immediately say, “Come on Coach, no one would do that. That’s going too far.”

Is it now? I disagree. I’m simply choosing to take a generally accepted faulty narrative and follow it to the end of its logical thread.

The truth is that rest is clearly NOT the exact same thing as recovery, repair, or rejuvenation. Sometimes, rest can be an important component of our total recovery cycle, but rest alone is not the same thing as recovery. Inactivity over any extended period of time will lead to atrophy and deterioration, not repair or rejuvenation.
Stress is a necessary element to growth.

In other words, your grandmother was correct, “If you don’t use it, you will lose it.”
Don’t believe her or me? Then maybe you’ll listen to NASA:
“Living and working in space is mentally strenuous. But the absence of gravity makes working in a spacecraft physically undemanding. On Earth, we must constantly use certain muscles to support ourselves against the force of gravity. These muscles, commonly called antigravity muscles, include the calf muscles, the quadriceps, and the muscles of the back and neck. Because astronauts work in a weightless environment, very little muscle contraction is needed to support their bodies or move around. Without regular use and exercise, our muscles weaken and deteriorate. It’s a process called atrophy. Studies have shown that astronauts experience up to a 20 percent loss of muscle mass on spaceflights lasting five to 11 days.

The loss of muscle mass means a loss of strength that can be potentially dangerous if an astronaut must perform a strenuous emergency procedure upon re-entry into the Earth's gravitational field. Even though muscle mass and strength can be regained once astronauts have returned to Earth, maintaining muscle in space is a concern, especially for long-duration space missions. The only way to minimize muscle atrophy in space is through intensive exercise, particularly strength training exercises, combined with an adequate diet. Astronauts on the International Space Station spend 2 1/2 hours per day exercising to combat the effects of muscle atrophy.”

Stress, obviously, is a very necessary element and stimulus for growth. One can lose strength very quickly.

The danger occurs when the athlete encounters stress which exceeds his preparation in either intensity and/or duration. We, in fact, should be very cognizant of stress which approaches or exceeds our preparation. The questions then become, “How will we know when this happens and how can we prepare ourselves to extend that limit so we can throw harder, and/or for longer, and/or more frequently without deleterious effects?”

“Overuse” and “Excessive Workload”
What amount of throwing is too much then? And what is too little? And what is “just right”? (I refer to this as the Goldilocks dilemma.)

How exactly do we determine what is overuse or excessive?

The primary challenge occurs when we often attempt to treat all unique individual athletes as if they are invariable when in truth, they are decidedly anything but homogeneous.

What is a light workload for some athletes, might very well be too much for others. When we assign universal quotas and safe ranges to the population at large, problems always arise. And I repeat… ALWAYS.

There are many ways to measure workload; the most common are pitches thrown and innings pitched.

Both are potentially flawed as standalones without context.

Exhibit A: Throwing 75 pitches in 6 2/3 innings is a very light, easy night. Throwing 75 pitches in 2 1/3 innings is a disaster. Yet both are 75 pitches.

Does anyone think these two outings should be viewed as being equivalent in terms of stress?

I don’t believe anyone would argue that the two outings are not considerably different.

Exhibit B: Pitcher A threw 50 innings over his four-month spring season, and he averaged ~18 pitches per inning. Pitcher B threw 50 innings and averaged ~25 pitches per inning. The difference between Pitcher A and Pitcher B in their 50 innings of work would be ~350 pitches over that same period. In essence, during that same span, if we assume the average starter is 75 pitches per start, Pitcher B threw the equivalent of 4-to-5 more “games” than did Pitcher A.

Does anyone view these two pitchers, heading into their off-season, as having the exact same workload during the season?

Again, I believe a vast majority of people would agree that the two pitchers had considerably different workloads during the season, even though they threw the exact same number of innings.

They may have also had very different levels of arm health and durability.

They may have also had very different levels of mechanical efficiency.

They may have also had very different levels of experience and throwing foundation.

They may have also had very different levels of strength and stability.

They may have also had very different levels of mobility and flexibility.

They may have also had very different levels of physical structural integrity, alignment, symmetry, and strength balance.

They may have also had very different habits of sleep, nutrition, and hydration.

They may have also had very different levels of personal fitness and conditioning.

They may have also had very different levels of mental or emotional stress.

One may have thrown primarily off-speed pitches and been considerably under the league average fastball velocity, and the other throwing primarily fastballs and considerably over the league average in terms of velocity.

So, what is the answer? Well, a great start is recognizing that viewing and treating every individual pitcher as an exact replica of their teammate is a very ineffective and antiquated way of managing workload. That, in fact, represents my best effort at being diplomatic. My true feelings on this matter would be stated in a much harsher manner, but Jill constantly reminds me to “be nice.”

In my opinion, we should not be looking for zero stress. We instead are attempting to manage and monitor stress. We are utilizing stress as a specific catalyst for growth and, like with many stimuli, we are going to control its strength/dosage, its frequency, and its duration to maximize our growth and development.

Next time, I will discuss how we at the Ranch look at workload from an individual pitcher’s perspective and how we go about building a customized plan for each athlete for his off-season.

-Coach Wolforth

Coach Wolforth is the founder of the Texas Baseball Ranch® and has written six books on pitching including the Amazon Best Seller, Pitching with Confidence. Since 2003, The Texas Baseball Ranch® has had over 524 pitchers break the 90mph barrier, 186 have topped 94mph or better, and 129 of his students have been drafted in the MLB’s June Amateur Draft. Coach Wolforth has consulted with 13 MLB teams, dozens of NCAA programs and has been referred to as “America’s Go-to-Guy on Pitching” and “The Pitching Coaches Pitching Coach”. Coach Wolforth lives in Montgomery, TX with his wife, Jill. They are intimately familiar with youth select, travel baseball and PG events as their son Garrett (now a catcher in the Cincinnati Reds organization) went through the process. Garrett still holds the PG Underclass All-American Games record for catcher velocity at 89mph which he set in 2014 at the age of 16.
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