Your New Mechanics

By Chad Rhoades

Mechanics will not get you there.

We can all agree that efficient mechanics and a consistent delivery are essential in reaching ones peak performance and eventual level of success, but is it the most important thing?

With a quick glance of all the MLB pitchers, we can see their own style shine through. They all look significantly different with their deliveries, yet so similar. Teaching and coaching mechanics has been a monotonous journey for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love adapting each pitchers own unique individualistic style to pitching, but it is still limited. Just like MLB pitchers that look so different, if you break it down to the fundamentals, they all get to certain points in their mechanics that every pitcher has to get to in order to be efficient with their body. Blah, blah, biometric blah. What makes a man, much less a pitcher, is his thoughts. read more

KNOWING YOURSELF

By Brian Lovett, Johnson University Pitching Coach

When I address my guys for the first time one of the topics we cover is what it truly means to know yourself and one of the major factors of that is being completely honest with yourself. The worst lies you can tell are the ones you tell yourself! I am going to cover the eleven topics I discuss with my guys and expect them to fully understand. I ask these questions and rely on them to give me an honest assessment. It is step one in learning how they see themselves. As time goes on I will reflect on their answers and will revisit them and possibly make adjustments to them with some feedback. read more

Pride and Prejudice: A Case for Deconstruction

By: Casey Fisk

Most of the baseball coaches I know are pretty good. Some are extraordinary. Others are the kind you could, conceivably, read bad reports about on the internet. The third kind isn’t reading this article, so congratulations! You are somewhere on my “pretty good” to “extraordinary” scale of coaches. You care, and you’re looking for the edge to make yourself and your program better. My hat is off to you! You make me proud to be writing to you. But pride is a sin, and so is prejudice. Dang it! Why did I have to go there? read more

Slow Down to Keep Up

By: Casey Fisk

1/15/2015

You don’t know what you don’t know, and what you don’t know is stealing your joy and killing your success. That’s not exactly true. You know. You’ve played baseball, and many of you reading this are now coaches. The truth is in you already. A reminder is often more powerful than a new idea, because you get to say, “I knew that!” You knew it, but if you didn’t do it, that may be why you blew it.

Baseball, as in all sports, is filled with high-energy, Type-A competitors who share a passion for winning and a hatred for losing – at anything. They want to succeed so much that they and their parents invest countless hours and dollars on physical training, skills training, equipment, travel ball, showcases, etc. They run after success so hard and so fast that they overlook the truth they know: Their successes and struggles hinge on something they rarely, if ever, invest time working on. read more