Strength in Numbers #173
Welcome back to the discussion (Read Part I HERE) on whether you should or should not attempt to learn Olympic lifting techniques.
In my 20 years of coaching, I have seen more injuries happen with heavy loading on a tired body versus Olympic lifting, but you have to have common sense and start somewhere, and that somewhere is with the barbell if you are starting out.
I have spent a great deal of my academic and professional baseball career researching injuries. Roughly 2% of team injuries occur in training. Generally, none occur with significant time lost. I have only ever known one athlete who required surgery from a training injury, with the most common being hamstring strains of the biceps femoris muscle, the largest and most versatile of the three hamstring muscles.
In this article, we will dive deeper and identify some interesting variations requiring coordination that significantly impact throwing arm strength.
I call them snatch casts. They are not technical like a traditional snatch. They cannot be loaded heavy, and the focus is on eccentric control, a contractile focus that builds velocity and resistance to deceleration overload.
IMPROVING SAFETY WITH VELOCITY-BASED TRAINING
To ensure safety and manage the risk of injury, you must be coached by people who are experienced in Olympic lifting and knowledgeable in the specific needs of baseball.
Furthermore, using velocity-based training tools such as linear encoders can improve training safety by providing real-time feedback on bar speed, allowing for better control of lifting intensity and reducing the risk of overload.
I really enjoy the Gymaware unit that tracks the velocity of the curvilinear bar path quite well and provides an added layer of safety when athletes become more experienced and want to get competitive with the lift. We get into trouble when we start to compete in weightlifting rather than understand the purpose of strength and coordination.
Baseball is not an absolute strength sport. Athletes get to a level where maximum strength provides limited returns from a global strength perspective (squat, deadlift, pressing) but has huge health benefits when you raise your maximum strength for the throwing arm relative to your body weight.
As it relates to compound lifting (multi-joint lifting), If maximum strength is translated for all athletes, we would be shooting for 1200 lbs squat strength, a big deadlift, and a 700 lbs bench with all our athletes.
Competing in Olympic Lifting in training can overexert athletes and change the force-velocity curve from speed-strength (applying high force fast) and strength-speed (applying higher percentages of strength fast) to maximum strength (applying absolute force at slow rates).
If maximum Olympic Lifting strength is the goal, we are headed toward teaching the body to have slower recruitment times and longer stretch-shortening cycles that can reduce muscle power in the lift as contractile velocity slows down significantly.
Velocity-based training tools, such as linear encoders, allow coaches and athletes to monitor lifting speed and intensity. This feedback helps ensure that athletes are not overloading, which can reduce the likelihood of injury by controlling fatigue levels and maintaining proper form.
For hang cleans, as a general safety range, I found the technical execution of the lift and speed-strength was conditioned at a higher level between 1.5-1.65 m/s for hang cleans, which I found to be an easier lift to master for most baseball players.
Velocity-based training can also help identify optimal load ranges for specific athletic goals. By using the data from these tools, coaches can adjust training to target specific points on the force-velocity curve, ensuring that athletes develop both power and strength in a balanced manner.
For example, lighter loads with high velocity might be used to emphasize speed-strength, while heavier loads with moderate velocity focus on strength-speed.
This allows baseball players to benefit from Olympic lifting without compromising their musculoskeletal health, especially in vulnerable areas like the shoulder, elbow, and wrist.
PREPARATION AND KEY COACHING POINTS
Like throwing, Olympic lifting is highly coordinated, and the body must be prepared with specific movement-based flows to prepare for high-speed movement.
In my first course with USAW to earn my L1 certification, we must have practiced with a barbell for 90 minutes. It was a helluva workout as it required whole, part, whole coaching, and we spent significant time holding the bar, holding positions, and mastering the basics.
With the Angels, we taught a progression using a barbell with proficient coaches.
The first aim of Olympic lifting is mastering the bar and building endurance with it to perform components of Olympic lifts in sequences from RDL patterns to high pulls, from high pulls to the high catch, from high catch to the front squat, and from front squat to the push press.
Many variations can be integrated into a player’s routine to improve technique, gain familiarity, and help the athlete progress appropriately.
These prep exercises initially were training exercises for all athletes. When the movement was proficient, and limitations were acknowledged (catch vs. no catch, etc.), we gradually loaded the athlete.
Critical Coaching Points
- Environment: Make sure your lifting space is clear and that if the bar is dropped, it will not land on anything to redirect it into someone else or damage surfaces. Bumper or rubber plates must be used when dropping the bar, and it is a good general safety practice to guide the bar to the ground and avoid using effort to bring it to the ground, which causes traction on the shoulder and elbow.
- Foundational Strength: Develop strength in front squat and RDL patterns. These are basic positions that are integrated into Olympic Lifting. In order to handle higher weight, strength must be mastered in these positions. When it comes to RDLs, keep your toes in contact with the floor, as when you pull the bar, you don’t want to fall backward.
- Risk Avoidance: Escaping the bar is necessary. Like getting hit with a pitch, you must prepare athletes to handle high-risk situations where they can safely fail a lift attempt. If overhead lifting, athletes need to be taught how to escape the bar if it moves behind them for shoulder safety, and if the athlete cannot catch the bar, how to clear the body away from it. As mentioned before, loading needs to be more on the spectrum of speed-strength so that it will be light relative to the athlete’s strength capacity, yet for general safety, athletes need to be shown how to escape the bar in any event.
OLYMPIC LIFTING VARIATIONS WITH THROWING ARM STRENGTH CONSIDERATIONS
Not all Olympic lifts will be conducive for an athlete, but that does not mean we should not attempt to provide a stimulus in another way.
Here are a few of my alternatives for athletes with challenges getting a barbell overhead that can significantly increase shoulder strength and overall coordination.
- Hexbar Hang Snatch: This lift provides the benefits of a deep hip hinge and puts the shoulders in an external rotation position. I do not load this lift with weight as I feel the bar is a good stimulus for transferring energy overhead. Again, the shoulders are externally rotated with the hands facing each other, so there are minimal restrictions for athletes who have difficulty training with a barbell overhead.
2. Landmine Push Jerk – this lift is a good substitute for the jerk. Starting with the barbell, the athlete has to coordinate an explosive jerk movement to get the bar overhead. Since the bar is in a landmine position, the safety is high, and complexity is lower. It has tremendous benefits in transferring force into a split stance with an overhead position similar to ball release.
3. Single Leg Barbell Snatch Cast to Box with Eccentric Lowering – This one is extreme. Way down the line in an athlete’s conditioning, but I wanted to show you how complex the training can be and how the emphasis on eccentrics from the ground down are mastered. In this lift, the concentric effort is minimal, where the eccentric strength and proximal co-contraction (simultaneous activation of the paraspinal, muscles around the abdominal wall, and diaphragm) are executed to provide stability to slow the barbell to the start position. The platform is to reduce proprioceptive challenges in guiding the bar down. When the foot needs to be controlled in the air as you are lowering the weight on one leg, the complexity of the lift and the effort required of the nervous system to stabilize is through the roof. This looks easier than it really feels like, so I do not advise you to start with this lift until you have greater strength built (over 100 ArmScore), are physically mature over the age of 18, and experienced with Olympic lift technique in general, as you may encourage too much fatigue if you are using muscular effort in raising the bar overhead.
VARIATIONS FROM OUR NEW CERTIFIED ARMCARE SPECIALIST COURSE
Truthfully, the exercises shown in the practical section of the new Certified ArmCare Specialist Course are very challenging. When you pull out a barbell for arm care training, you know it’s not your typical strength exercise. The body has to coordinate, not waste energy in concentric, and focus on the eccentric components of the lifts, which builds a lot of strength and stability.
Here’s an example below that blends carries to build endurance, Olympic lifting technique to group a stretch-shortening pattern from the posterior chain to the anterior muscle groups, including the deltoid, but also engaging the supraspinatus and the serratus in their fight against gravity.
You will learn many training progressions in the course that will give you options for athletes across a variety of age ranges, skill levels, and training ages. Always start with the most basic and easiest to master before adding complexity and load. The course has over 80 new exercises to put into your toolbelt to elevate throwing arm strength and overall coordination.
Snatch casts provide an expansion training method where the load is far away from the body’s axis of rotation. This increases core activation and proximal co-contraction, which must assist the upper extremities in controlling the path of the barbell.
The key here is not to waste energy raising the bar and using hang clean patterns to bring the bar overhead so greater muscular recruitment efforts can be allocated to the eccentric portion of the lift in lowering the barbell to the floor.
I have seen tremendous scaption strength improvement measured by the ArmCare.com platform with this type of lifting in experienced baseball players with significant training experience in college and professional levels.
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER
Despite the limited research specifically addressing Olympic lifting for baseball, this style of training offers benefits related to enhanced athleticism, mainly through its effects on the force-velocity curve.
The force-velocity curve illustrates the relationship between the force an athlete can produce and the speed at which they can generate that force. Olympic lifts occupy a key position on the spectrum, fitting into the speed-strength and strength-speed regions.
This positioning is beneficial for baseball, where athletes must generate high force at high speed for actions like pitching, hitting, and sprinting.
Olympic lifts can improve strength reflexes, reactive strength, and explosiveness, which are valuable for baseball’s rapid, powerful movements. Enhanced reactive strength, developed through the quick transitions of Olympic lifts, can help athletes adapt to sudden, unpredictable shifts in play.
Furthermore, improving speed-strength and strength-speed allows athletes to exert force quickly, which is crucial for throwing and swinging in baseball. In particular, these lifts train the neuromuscular system to produce force efficiently, which may translate into better on-field performance.
As this article has shown, there are variations that can be individualized to athletes to accomplish the goals of grooving the stretch-shortening sequence, adding more coordination to training, and improving overall elasticity.
As mentioned earlier, please consult with a coach in your area who is well-versed in teaching Olympic lifting techniques and take the Certified ArmCare Specialist Course to learn other variations that enhance throwing arm strength.
With the World Series ending, the offseason is here. Be technical in your approach, use common sense and safety, and focus on increasing your arm strength and coordination in preparation for Spring Training versus blowing your back out trying to pull 650 from the floor.
Strength and Coordination Training versus Strength and Conditioning – there is a difference.
Ryan
Ryan@armcare.com
