The Daily 100

How Moms and Dads Can Really Bring Out the Talent in Their Baseball Talent

by

Edwin  Robert Larson M.D. (baseball dad)

with

Max Larson (pitcher)

Shuffling Papers Publication a Division of Edwin R. Larson M.D. P.O. Box Cincinnati, Ohio  45242

Copyright  c 2002 Edwin R. Larson M.D.

All rights reserved. No portion of this work may be reproduced by any means without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN

Contents

1. Introduction 2. Warnings and precautions 3. Useful tips from the very beginning 4. Description of Pitcher’s Kit 5. Contents of The Pitchers Kit

Introduction

On the eighth day God created baseball so that on His day of rest He could go to the nearest park and watch a game. Baseball is a holy game perhaps only to the most ardent fan but to the ambitious and hopeful parent of a six year old player it can also be a way of life.

It is impossible to plan a major league career for our children or even plan for a college scholarship but it is very possible to help the young player have more thrills, more success, more accolades, and more smiles from you, friends, and especially the coach.  I think that most parents don’t know what role to assume for their superstar after they rounded the bases, struck out, or sat on the bench. I am not talking about improving basic parenting skills which includes teaching good sportsmanship, good self esteem, responsibility, social awareness, and patience. This manual only focuses on training techniques, including suggestions about parent attitude, that would directly enhance the quality of play of your child. The “little league dad” behavior is an unfortunate outcome of a caring parental attitude without control, direction or sensitivity. It is very important to understand that the development of your superstar requires the love generated conviction that they will succeed onlywhen we unwaveringly give our very best to them.

If our children can survive our parenting mistakes they will become healthy adults.  We cannot and should not be perfect parents but we should try and then perhaps we can be good parents.

Against that backdrop of advise the question of how to motivate, cajole, convince, make, lead, distract, etc. the young player into effective regular practice is the task. Over emphasizing as well as under emphasizing the importance of practice is a constant and ever changing problem. There are no rules for this kind of thing because the rules for effective motivation change from moment to moment, situation home  to situation, and year to year.  Therefore, it is imperative that some reliable guide lines be established that can survive the years, the indifference, the over enthusiasm, and disappointment that inevitably occurs in both the developing player and the parent.

It is far beyond the scope of this treatise to describe a psychological approach for the “parent trainer”.  I have found it better to outline a series of parent coached baseball exercises that fit the capacity, interest, energy, and time available within the family functions. I not need remind that academic pursuits come first in the youngsters daily routine and that homework always is done before the Daily 100 begins.

To be successful the implementation of the Daily 100 must compliment family goals and the temperament of the player. This exercise strategy is designed to help you as the parent (not as a coach) take an active and realistic part your the child’s athletic training. I will not try to define the role of the coach except to say that the coach must always be in complete charge of the team practices and games, and game strategy. In the team practices interested parents must coordinate their efforts with the coaching staff plans.

The coach may have recommendations about off season training and skills practice between games which would not be replaced by the Daily 100.

Precautions

Bone and joint development is very important to keep in mind.  Over working the joints and muscles in a youngster can lead to permanent injury. The bones begin to mature at about fifteen years of age which restricts some rigorous exercise until then.  This program emphasizes “light and easy” with regard to the amount of weight used and number of repetitions. A good rule of thumb is when finished to feel that you could have done more.  Bringing the muscle to a point of exhaustion can defeat the purpose of training by enhancing the likelihood of both injury and burnout. The emphasis here is continuity and daily habit with the focus on developing the specialized muscles for particular motions.

Preface

This book is divided into two major parts. The first section focuses on thoughts ideas and tips of how the Daily 100 con be implemented based my experience with Max.  I briefly review training techniques chronologically from the time he started playing “T” ball to the present time.

The second part is a description of the Pitchers Kit. Each apparatus and workout aid was developed through the years as Max grew and developed. Both of us knew that given the fast paced life style of our family the time for parent training was very limited so I spent many nights devising methods for, work-outs promotion gimmicks, apparatus, etc. that could help him pitch better and fit the workouts within the time he and I had together. This method of parent training, of course, will not work for everyone and many parents naturally devise there own systems. Obviously, talented, and motivated youngsters develop athletically, just fine, with minimal parental involvement and to be honest develop in spite of parental involvement.  This strategy Pitchers Kit can be flexibly used, and we hope, can be of some help to many baseball families.

Let me emphasize that this training system is not a manual for learning baseball skills. It is a description of the methods I found useful in helping my son be a better player.  By following these guidelines, which are by no means exhaustive, I believe the parent can remain in the role of parent trainer and play a  very significant role the little leagers carreer. Edwin R. Larson M.D.

The Daily One Hundred from the beginning (containing basic thoughts, advice and tips)

*At four years old, play a little catch every day. *Don’t oooh and aaah too much but both of you feel good about the accomplishment. *Use the funny bat and funny ball and have fun. *Go to games together and explain a little. *Baseball cards,  bobble heads, and starting line ups, posters and the like make a lasting impression.

*At five comes the first ball and glove, the t-ball stand and the first grand slam. *Hitting and running is the game and there is not much to say for catching. *How far can he/she can throw a tennis ball, a baseball or a little football is exciting for the whole family.

*At six the game is more of the thing. *Hitting is much more fun than the pitching to the hitter who gets to run the bases while others run after the ball. *Catch a little more. It comes with progressive practice. *It’s almost all offense except for the games in which the guys look at the sky and run where the Dad’s and Mom’s say to run. *See how far he/she can throw and how much without stopping except for lunch or dinner or bed.

*At seven, the off season baseball absence is no problem with baseball card shops, autographs, etc. *Remember, the daily hundred will make the game immeasurably more fun but practice can still be grinding. How clever can dad be to mix oppositionalness with some smiles. Try to always make it interesting. *Draw Mike Piazza’s mitt on an available wall and hit the circle one hundred times to win a prize. *Now is the time to throw hard and throw long in the back yard front yard or where ever you can find a space. *Get a weighted bat or find a heavy tool and sling it from shoulder to shoulder twenty five times like Babe Ruth and his 41oz bat.

*At eight, there are no “daily’s” on game day or practice day unless he/she wants to practice. *Home run derby is really fun, fast, and furious. *Swing the bat or any thing that resembles a bat one hundred times. *”I bet you can’t bust this.” I said as I held out a stick toward has bat. That stick was busted. *One swing equals one penny, for as long as I could afford it, motivated him for a couple of days. *See how high or how long you can you throw so he/she  can just barely catch it. *If you can, have your prospect shag your pop-ups. *Swishing the bat (like shadow batting) is a nice thing to do many times to develop a smooth swing.

*At nine, if a tree needs chopping or yard work needs done and with arm motion the “daily one hundred” is easily done. *There are no “daily’s” on game day or practice day unless he/she wants to practice. *Make every effort to practice if your child wants to. *At times lay on the back with the pitching hand grasping a can of vegetables, preferably corn, and alternate touching the floor above the head and the abdomen with the can. This can be done for many repetitions and is a very effective way to develop or help rehabilitate the delicate rotator cuff. *Hang up a heavy blanket or tarp in the basement or outside into which balls can be thrown without bouncing back. One doesn’t need much room. Your ace can pitch to a spot all day to practice location. its construction should make rapid repetitive pitches possible and a lot of fun as you hand your pitcher balls as fasts as he/she can throw them. *At around this age begin a collection of baseball: old, new, or cheap ones, perhaps up tofifty or so, to be thrown rapidly into a target such as a heavy blanket. This workout is exceedingly important for the development of hand, eye coordination and muscle memory as well as development of stamina and strength of the rotator cuff. *I don’t know how commonly this is done, but, we have found that using slightly heavier baseballs in practice yields dividends in the game.  In this system of training we hammered one small masonry nail in all the practice balls the first year.  The second year of this practice we put two nails in each balls.   The third year we put in three nails, etc.

*At ten, hitting a well thrown baseball is easier for him but throwing it to him properly so that your slugger can improve his/her hitting is not easy for some of us. There are many aids to help. *Through a poster tube near the ceiling drop a plastic ball in one end and let it roll out the other so that it will drop down in front of the hitter. This really improves reaction time. *If it is possible to hang plastic sheets in the basement to create a batting cage, do so. *Hang a ball suspended like a speed bag that will act like a “T”. This can be done by securely putting screw eyes in opposite ends of a baseball and hang it with an elastic cord on one end from the ceiling and attaching a stabilizing weight to the other. This apparatus is great for developing a good swing. *Hang up an old tire outside that can be worn out by thousands of hits. *For the sake of variety or necessity, any object launched from a sling shot, peashooter, underhanded, over handed, or even a spud gun can beemployed as a pitching gun. *Throw frozen peas if nothing else. *A pitching machine that throws wiffleballs etc is always good to practice with but is expensive. *During perennially popular home run derby don’t mind running after well hit balls. They like that as much as watching you pick up food hurled from the high chair. *A novel technique employs waffle golf balls hit with a “dummy” samurai sword. Be careful. *An extra heavy bat for hitting off the “T” or hitting slow pitches has a great influence on bat speed. *We found that batting practice the day before a game with the game bat and wiffle golf balls always got good results the next day.

*At eleven a heavy ball, like a javelin practice weight, does a lot to strengthen the arm. Throwing it must be done carefully, of course so as not to cause an injury. *This age is a good to begin highlighting specialized exercises not only focusing on strength and stamina for throwing 50-80 pitches in a game but also focusing on the legs, torso, wrist and fingers. *The pitching motion of pushing off of the back leg can be enhanced by lunging motions on that leg. Work both legs to maintain balance. The lead leg motion can be enhanced by knee raisers. The twisting whip motion for throwing can be enhanced by trunk twists such as passing a medicine ball back and forth from person to person back to back. Also, don’t forget good ole’ sit- ups emphasizing movement of elbow to opposite knee. *Some kind of back board from which a ball can be repetitatively bounced against is always great and could be done a lot, a little, alone, or with you. *One the must effective training exercises I havefound involves rapidly throwing 30-50 baseballs. You hand them as fash as they can be thrown. It can be a lot of fun to work out a little system to make it go faster.

*At twelve years old the light use of weights will start good habits for general strength training. You do them at the same time to supervise and show the right way. *Location, location, location. Since the pitcher must throw to a spot and not a target it has always seemed reasonable to me that the beginning pitcher could easier learn to throw to that spot if at first it was a target. To that end we recommend throwing at two tall thin stakes inserted in the ground on either side of home plate at least the shoulder height of opposing batters. This is of course done when the diamond is free for practice. The object is to knock down the steaks and thereby the beginner learns to hit the corners. *You might consider the advantage of specialization by this age with regard to his/her best sport especially if competitive performance later is a possibility.

Final Words

Let me emphasize here that brevity and simplicity is critical when designing a long term training program. You are facing the normal resistance of a child in which inadequate or excessive time or enthusiasm or intensity of workouts can kill your training plans. A name for the short workouts (ie. Daily 100) is helpful as well as a generally set time of the day. Most all sessions should be done with you present and doing some of the same exercises. The support of the other parent is very helpful so that the timing is maximally convenient for the family and then supported by both parents. Remember, you are wanting to construct a healthy habit that endures throughout his/her baseball carrier.

It is not difficult to locate the muscles needed for pitching or hitting which is what I have tried to do. You do not need to have a lot of hitting or pitching knowledge or need to second guess the coach. Quite simply, you need to know what each major movement requires from specific muscle groups, and know that they are the ones needing conditioning. Then, you can devise simple exercises that isolates the action of those muscle groups. It is not necessary to bring the young muscles to the point of exhaustion to help developed muscle memory, strength, and injury protection. There are other routes and oppottunities for general conditioning.

It is very helpful for there to be a weights or exercise equipment available with supervision. Very light weight lifting will increase muscle power at any age as well a normal running, bicycling, soccer, tree climbing, rock climbing, martial arts, etc. Cheerfulness is obviously essential to maximize cooperation and to establish a willingness for this kind work that is boring for most children.

A quick nonintensive, but effective over the long run, routine at any age consists of:

#1  stretching: legs slowly spread and a lean to the right, left and middle, etc. for about 1min.

#2  simple jumps on one leg at a time 20-30 times

#3  knee raisers to chest 20-30 times

#4  running in place so that the heal touches the butt 20-30 times.

#5  small hand weights lifted from waist to over head as many times as can.

#6  push-ups as many as can.

#7  pull-ups as many as can.

#8  short squats with small hand weights. Keep the back straight.

#9  stretching by touching one foot and letting the other leg off the ground up and down 10 times.

#10 finish by repeating #1.

#11 This should take 20 minutes, tops.

Burn out is produced in any idealistically minded individual working in an unrewarding situation. To much or to little focus on parents plans can be discouraging. For baseball burnout would basically produce an avoidance of excessively vigorous or strained workouts. The avoidance could  be immediately or could come any time later. During these vulnerable times on route to a baseball career if you disappoint your player to much, your player will disappoint you. If you are empathic but firm with practices you will naturally find out the true aptitude, interest, and level of skill of your baseball player. You will also discover your own level of interest or commitment to the maximizing your players skill. You get out of your efforts what you put in.

Motivation and parent training is not a one dimensional gung-ho process but requires normal good parenting skills with the kind of purpose that your player can grasp to go forth with your best hopes in mind integrated with his/her personality. Your test or challenge as parent trainer (not coach) is to maintain gentle persistence and learning how to quickly respond to training opportunities as they occur.

(A) Pitch Master

How often have you wished to have an easy way to train indoors during the off season and not destroy the house with fastballs?

One of the most useful apparatus’s, for strengthening the rotator cuff, is the Pitch Master. The Pitchers kit furnishes an inexpensive baseball with a 2”screw hook and three different lengths of bungee chord. The length you choose depends on the amount of tension for the exercise or the amount of room you need to perform a full pitching motion. The two ends of the bungee cord is hooked to the ball and the part middle is wrapped around a door knob.

Grasp the ball and in a pitching motion stretch the bungee cord as if throwing the ball. This exercise is quick and easy and covers almost all of the muscles needed for pitching.

(B) Finger Stretch

A little appreciated but very important pitching element are  the index and middle fingers which,  like the tip of a “whip”  focuses all the energy generated by the rest of the body to send the ball toward home plate. Consequently, those fingers must be strong and flexible in order to produce both force and spin. A regular exercise would need to done gently because the fingers themselves are delicate. Most any rubbery material will do but  Theraband is one of the  easiest to handle. Stretched between the elbow and the index and middle finger the fingers are caused to be slightly hyperextended. The fingers are flexed against the theraband as many times as desired. If the theraband is not available the fingers can be merely pushed against the palm of the other hand in the hyperstreched position and gently allowed to flex finger against palm of the opposite hand about twenty times consecuitively.

(C) Shoulder Ice Poach

The lack of care of the pitchers arms is one the must glaring deficiencies I have witnessed in youth baseball and in particularly the care of the rotator cuff.  For a thirteen or fourteen year old to throw over ninety pitches in a game unfortunately is not that unusual. Even worse is the absence of ice application for the shoulder immediately after the game, lack of adequate warm-ups, warm downs, and pre- and post-game stretching in the little league baseball I have witnessed. No one particularly is to blame for this since it has not been established as a necessity. I would like to see  iced arms become as standard as bicycle helmets. The availability of an inexpensive and simple to use shoulder ice bag like the one in the Pitchers Kit could preserve many young arms.

(D) Curve Ball Gripper

The curve ball has been the demise of many promising  pitchers. The specialized effort by the elbow, wrist and fingers to cause the ball to spin forwards is so unnatural of a motion that without proper technique and muscle training, injury is expected.  It is my belief that finger and wrist exercises that strengthen the muscles needed to throw a curve ball would reduce injury, extend the life of the pitcher, and improve the effectiveness of the pitch. Even though the young arm is not ready throw the curve ball until fifteen or sixteen, training for it could begin years earlier.

I have included in the Pitchers Kit, two baseballs bolted together with a wing nut to adjust the pressure between the balls. One of the balls is held stationary by the nonpitching hand while the other ball is held in a curve ball grip by the pitching hand. Then the ball is rotated back and forth by the thumb and fingers and wrist in a curve ball pitching motion of the pitching hand. The resistance can vary by tightening or loosening the wing nut.

(E) Shoulder-Flex

If the refrain of pitching strategy is location, location, location the refrain for injury protection is rotator cuff, rotator cuff, rotator cuff.  Any method of conditioning the deltoid muscle and rotator cuff is a positive approach.  There are numerous ways to strengening the shoulder muscle that must employ simultaneous elbow and wrist support but very few that isolate the shoulder muscle.

The Pitchers Kit contains a harness that fits over the bent elbow. It can be held in place by the opposite hand. (photo__) The under surface has a metal eye through which one on the three bungee cords can be hooked. The other end on the bungee cord is hooked to a loop around the foot.  The bungee cord then creates resistance when the elbow is raised. The resistance can be adjusted by switching cords or adding cords.

The Daily One Hundred from the beginning (containing basic thoughts, advice and tips)

*At four years old, play a little catch every day. *Don’t oooh and aaah too much but both of you feel good about the accomplishment. *Use the funny bat and funny ball and have fun. *Go to games together and explain a little. *Baseball cards,  bobble heads, and starting line ups, posters and the like make a lasting impression.

*At five comes the first ball and glove, the t-ball stand and the first grand slam. *Hitting and running is the game and there is not much to say for catching. *How far can he/she can throw a tennis ball, a baseball or a little football is exciting for the whole family.

*At six the game is more of the thing. *Hitting is much more fun than the pitching to the hitter who gets to run the bases while others run after the ball. *Catch a little more. It comes with progressive practice. *It’s almost all offense except for the games in which the guys look at the sky and run where the Dad’s and Mom’s say to run. *See how far he/she can throw and how much without stopping except for lunch or dinner or bed.

*At seven, the off season baseball absence is no problem with baseball card shops, autographs, etc. *Remember, the daily hundred will make the game immeasurably more fun but practice can still be grinding. How clever can dad be to mix oppositionalness with some smiles. Try to always make it interesting. *Draw Mike Piazza’s mitt on an available wall and hit the circle one hundred times to win a prize. *Now is the time to throw hard and throw long in the back yard front yard or where ever you can find a space. *Get a weighted bat or find a heavy tool and sling it from shoulder to shoulder twenty five times like Babe Ruth and his 41oz bat.

*At eight, there are no “daily’s” on game day or practice day unless he/she wants to practice. *Home run derby is really fun, fast, and furious. *Swing the bat or any thing that resembles a bat one hundred times. *”I bet you can’t bust this.” I said as I held out a stick toward has bat. That stick was busted. *One swing equals one penny, for as long as I could afford it, motivated him for a couple of days. *See how high or how long you can you throw so he/she  can just barely catch it. *If you can, have your prospect shag your pop-ups. *Swishing the bat (like shadow batting) is a nice thing to do many times to develop a smooth swing.

*At nine, if a tree needs chopping or yard work needs done and with arm motion the “daily one hundred” is easily done. *There are no “daily’s” on game day or practice day unless he/she wants to practice. *Make every effort to practice if your child wants to. *At times lay on the back with the pitching hand grasping a can of vegetables, preferably corn, and alternate touching the floor above the head and the abdomen with the can. This can be done for many repetitions and is a very effective way to develop or help rehabilitate the delicate rotator cuff. *Hang up a heavy blanket or tarp in the basement or outside into which balls can be thrown without bouncing back. One doesn’t need much room. Your ace can pitch to a spot all day to practice location. its construction should make rapid repetitive pitches possible and a lot of fun as you hand your pitcher balls as fasts as he/she can throw them. *At around this age begin a collection of baseball: old, new, or cheap ones, perhaps up tofifty or so, to be thrown rapidly into a target such as a heavy blanket. This workout is exceedingly important for the development of hand, eye coordination and muscle memory as well as development of stamina and strength of the rotator cuff. *I don’t know how commonly this is done, but, we have found that using slightly heavier baseballs in practice yields dividends in the game.  In this system of training we hammered one small masonry nail in all the practice balls the first year.  The second year of this practice we put two nails in each balls.   The third year we put in three nails, etc.

*At ten, hitting a well thrown baseball is easier for him but throwing it to him properly so that your slugger can improve his/her hitting is not easy for some of us. There are many aids to help. *Through a poster tube near the ceiling drop a plastic ball in one end and let it roll out the other so that it will drop down in front of the hitter. This really improves reaction time. *If it is possible to hang plastic sheets in the basement to create a batting cage, do so. *Hang a ball suspended like a speed bag that will act like a “T”. This can be done by securely putting screw eyes in opposite ends of a baseball and hang it with an elastic cord on one end from the ceiling and attaching a stabilizing weight to the other. This apparatus is great for developing a good swing. *Hang up an old tire outside that can be worn out by thousands of hits. *For the sake of variety or necessity, any object launched from a sling shot, peashooter, underhanded, over handed, or even a spud gun can beemployed as a pitching gun. *Throw frozen peas if nothing else. *A pitching machine that throws wiffleballs etc is always good to practice with but is expensive. *During perennially popular home run derby don’t mind running after well hit balls. They like that as much as watching you pick up food hurled from the high chair. *A novel technique employs waffle golf balls hit with a “dummy” samurai sword. Be careful. *An extra heavy bat for hitting off the “T” or hitting slow pitches has a great influence on bat speed. *We found that batting practice the day before a game with the game bat and wiffle golf balls always got good results the next day.

*At eleven a heavy ball, like a javelin practice weight, does a lot to strengthen the arm. Throwing it must be done carefully, of course so as not to cause an injury. *This age is a good to begin highlighting specialized exercises not only focusing on strength and stamina for throwing 50-80 pitches in a game but also focusing on the legs, torso, wrist and fingers. *The pitching motion of pushing off of the back leg can be enhanced by lunging motions on that leg. Work both legs to maintain balance. The lead leg motion can be enhanced by knee raisers. The twisting whip motion for throwing can be enhanced by trunk twists such as passing a medicine ball back and forth from person to person back to back. Also, don’t forget good ole’ sit- ups emphasizing movement of elbow to opposite knee. *Some kind of back board from which a ball can be repetitatively bounced against is always great and could be done a lot, a little, alone, or with you. *One the must effective training exercises I havefound involves rapidly throwing 30-50 baseballs. You hand them as fash as they can be thrown. It can be a lot of fun to work out a little system to make it go faster.