Posts Tagged ‘coaching’

Invented in the U.S. over 150 years ago, baseball has been woven into the fabric of countless players’ and fans’ lives. Simply put, baseball is a game of two primary skills: Hitting and pitching. Both of which tend to be very important. However, as significant as hitting is, learning how to pitch effectively and efficiently via proper pitching workouts is more important. As proven time and time again in the annals of championship baseball lore, great pitching almost always wins more championships than good hitting. And so, the goal of this article will be to outline some of the best strategies being used to help develop the fabric-weaving pitchers of today and tomorrow.

One of the more-common misconceptions regarding modern pitching workouts is that in order to gain more velocity –along with better control– young pitchers need to use weights and other strengthening methods to build arm strength. The reality is that pitching is not a talent of strength but rather of explosive movement. So by building specific, arm-muscle strength, in essence, the body is training to slow down. It’s true the arm is important, but it is the ENTIRE pitcher’s body that creates good and effective pitching. Pitching is a whole-body motion and thus overall body flexibility and movement should be the center of any pitcher’s training regimen. This is why methods for solid pitching workouts need to focus on a balanced fitness strengthening program –requiring all the body’s muscles to react with greater flexibility and motion. solid pitching mechanics are important, however should not inhibit momentum; which is what creates increased velocity and movement, two of a pitcher’s best companions.

Dick Mills offers coaching on pitching mechanics

Since the body’s central muscles –the abdominals and the lower back muscles– are the basis for the body stability, strengthening and conditioning them are crucial. Good movement, and the resulting good flexibility, starts with a solid core. And as a result all effective pitching exercises should include a core-muscle, strengthening regimen. If these muscles are in good condition, proper posture and balance return thus allowing the body to utilize its full range of motion and flexibility.

Another excellent development in pitching workouts has been the emphasis placed on momentum instead of fixed-mechanics pitching. Basic physics indicates that higher momentum (created by better flexibility and movement) results in greater speed. This is the reason such an emphasis is now being placed on pitching methods utilizing a quicker, less static-based, and longer method of throwing the ball. This type of method has been the “secret” of many of the greatest pitchers of the past and must therefore continue to be taught.

The training rooms and doctor’s offices are often-filled with pitching-related injuries created by too many ill-focused training regimens and implementations. By using more-balanced, complete-body-based, core-stabilized, and momentum-producing pitching workouts, pitchers of any age can develop greater speed and control, and suffer fewer injuries while playing their game.

pitching grips

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After his Division 1A (FBS) College Football Team Set multiple NCAA and MAC records, Jeff Genyk decided to take a year to invest in career, professional development and family during 2009. In those final two games Genyk’s team was injury free enough to implement the “Warp Speed” Offensive system.

The warp speed offense quickly became noticed by many Division 1A college football coaches. Football programs such as, Cincinnati and Michigan were interested by the number of plays that could be run in a game. “An offense that can hang fifty points in a game and run over one hundred plays grabbed the attention of many coaches that run the spread offense”.

Spending time with Coach Kelly and Rodriguez has been mutually beneficial. “You are always looking to improve as a coach, great idea exchange is an excellent way to grow and develop. The “Warp Speed” package is a fun and exciting system to coach and play in.”

This year has ushered in a new page to the career of Jeff Genyk. He recently accepted a position with ESPN as a color analyst for Atlantic Coast Conference football games. With the help of several nationally recognized broadcasters, Jeff was offered the analyst position for ESPN Regional Television and ESPN 360.com. As stated, he is currently broadcasting ACC games and Jeff says: “Working for ESPN has been a great opportunity and I enjoy sharing my coaching perspective with the fans.”

Genyk was involved in 3 Big Ten Championship seasons during his 12 year tenure at Northwestern as an Assistant. During this period in his career, Jeff Genyk was able to work with some of the best and brightest coaches in the country. His experiences gained while working with at Northwestern form Genyk’s foundation as a head football coach.

Likely the biggest impact on Genyk was made by the late Steve Musseau. Steve was the former Idaho football coach and a performance expert. Through Genyk’s relationship with Steve and others , Jeff’s “Expect to Execute” program was born. Genyk’s “Expect to Execute” program is a program that instructs athletes and business professionals how they can operate in their field when they face difficult obstacles in their careers.

“We attempt to improve your belief system by improving focus, self talk, visualization, framing skills and physical presence.” The ability to utilize the best from the sports world and improve other professionals is a very rewarding process. The “Expect to Execute” program is presently being used at Medtronic, Inc., General Motors and Michigan High School(s).

Jeff has also introduced a program to help high school age kids develop and advance in their area of interest. The “Potential to Reality” program can be used by high schools to help musicians, actors and athletes get the support they need to advance in their area of interest to the highest levels. Ron Reed, Michigan High School Principal, “Potential to Reality has allowed us to focus our energy as a school and community to ensure our young people are prepared to take advantage of opportunities in the future.” “Life is all about how you respond to tough situations,” the late Randy Walker’s favorite character phrase. Jeff Genyk and his systems are examples of this type of perseverance.

Want to find out more about Jeff Genyk

As more and more companies are giving more attention to coaching as a learning and development tool to help improve the performance of employees, more and more managers are learning more about different and effective ways of giving their employees the kind of coaching that they need. One way to effectively deliver the reinforcement and motivation needed by employees is through learning more about their representational systems and how these modalities affect their aptitude to pickup what instructions and messages are being given to them. These four representational systems are auditory, auditory digital, kinesthetic, and visual.

In the workplace, visual and auditory modalities of learning are often more dominant and this is primarily the reason behind instructional materials being designed to either catch the cognitive attention of employees or their sense of hearing. There are ways to tell whether employees are more of the visual or the auditory type. Being able to determine whether they react to what they see or here is important in effectively delivering continuing education to them.

People who react more to what they see (or what we call the visual type) tend to be neat and well-groomed. They tend to observe erect posture – including slightly holding their head up high. They are also normally thin who breathe in a shallow manner or from the top of their lungs. They can also be very organized and they can memorize or remember things based on what they see.

They are not easily distracted by noise but they often have difficulty remembering verbal instructions. They usually give importance to appearance and they tend to give focus on how things look. When coaching with this type of persons, try to paint a verbal picture or make use of pictures and/or videos. This can help them identify their feelings, desires, goals, and needs with what is being taught or instructed to them.

On the other hand, auditory people tend to talk to themselves and they are usually easily distracted by noise. They learn best by listening and they can repeat things back to their coaches. They have a penchant for music and/or talking on the phone. They either talk to themselves or move their lips when they are deep in thought. They memorize and learn things in a sequential manner, and they do not have mind maps. They prefer that managers or supervisors talk to them when they are being given instructions. This type of people would appreciate learning through audio recordings or tele-courses. When coaching auditory people, see to it that there are no distracting noises in the room.

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Some baseball coaches just don’t really understand proper pitching mechanics, and therefore end up having their pitchers dedicate a lot of their time doing drills that are not really very effective at increasing pitching accuracy or speed. They likely also make their players life weights to build up arm strength, which really isn’t necessary in order to throw a faster pitch. The time spent in pitching workout programs would be much better spent if the coaches focused on the pitching techniques and the way that the whole body can be used to generate explosive power to increase the speed of a pitcher’s pitching.

Some of the more common aspects of most baseball pitching workouts include drills for pitchers, weight training, using weighted balls, and stretching have actually been shown to make it more likely for pitchers to become injured or actually end up slowing down the pitch. Why? – because many of these methods or drills don’t focus on the body as a whole. The best pitching comes from pitchers who use their entire body when they throw the pitch, and not just their arms. When you use your whole body to throw the pitch, and use it with maximum effectiveness, there are certain postures that your body should go through, and if your body gets trained in this process, it becomes natural to use the proper body mechanics to throw your pitches.

While this theory has been proved in a number of studies, most coaches don’t realize it yet. Consequently, many coaches still have their pitchers waste the time spent in pitching workouts with worthless methods of pitching. More and more people are beginning to learn about the importance of using their whole body and the proper way to throw a pitch through the use of pitching videos and manuals that are being sold online.

Hopefully, as more studies are done showing the typical pitching workout programs are not as effective as many believed, more coaches will switch to more effective pitching training regimens. Better workouts will lead players through baseball pitching techniquesb, beginning with the end and working their way backwards, and on te process of using their body to produce the explosive velocity that can be generated during the throwing of a pitch if everything is done just right.