Road to 90: The Prequel
They say you can’t figure out where to go if you don’t know where you’ve been. So let’s go back and start with what happened during the season and the time shortly after. This will help tell the story about where I am at today training-wise while giving a peak at what the plan will be after the January 14th Mound Velo test.
August 6th. The last game of the season I pitched. The first game of the playoffs and I couldn’t make it out of the first inning. Couldn’t command anything, got a bomb hit off me, and, to say the least, nothing went right on and off the field. We lost the game but won the series. From there, however, I wouldn’t see the mound again. You could say I lost my spot. Based on my performance and the fact that I was the soft thrower on the team, it made sense. I threw probably 70-75% sliders because my fastball was slow and ineffective. Besides, I had been working on a pretty filthy slider and could command it. So when the playoffs came around, we needed a little more firepower which is understandable. We had our sights on the championship and you gotta know your role on the team. If we were gonna win it all, it probably wasn’t with me starting. So that says a lot about what I needed to do in the offseason: get a fastball.
August 22nd. First Monday after the championship game. We got swept in two games. We had a good run, but couldn’t quite take out the defending champs. By this time, I’m ready to let some pitches eat. Even though I didn’t see the mound in the next two series, I kept myself ready. So this day was my chance to see where I am at and where I needed to go. During this pen, I was sitting around 77 mph but popped one up to 80.6. My top 5 average came out to be 78.2 mph. Interesting since my in-game top end was 77 mph while my bullpen/live ab PR is 82.4 mph. This is a big change between in-lab/game and has always been a problem, but the top 5 average and max were both lower than expected. Oh well though, it is what it is and this was just the starting point.
From there, I started back at the beginning of the training phases since it was the beginning of the offseason. What this means is I went back to the on-ramping, get your arm in shape phase for throwing. This would allow me time to work on the few things I was noticing that caused the disconnect between training and game performance. On-ramping was a also great time to spend more training economy in the weight room since throwing at this time is lower intent and not as taxing. Based on my predicted velo being 83.7 mph, it was close enough to my actual velo showing my lowest hanging fruit was lifting weights. So basically, my next 6 weeks involved 4x week hypertrophy lifting and 3x a week throwing of varying intensities (70-90% RPE).
Leading up to the end of the 6-week on-ramp phase, I filled in The Lab’s IG followers on what I have been doing and let them vote on how hard they thought I would throw. The results are above. It’s safe a majority of our followers thought I would gain velo. I mean, that was the hope anyways. Instead, I proved the 25% that voted 80-82 mph right with an 80.9 mph max. Up only 0.3 mph. Seems like a bummer, but the top 5 average went up 2.8 mph to 80 mph. Now that we like. Plus my arm felt great. All in all, it was looking up even though there was only a slight bump on the top end. In reality, it was only 1.5 mph below my PR. With the post of the results, I showed the initial plan for the next 6-week block (left). Next mound velo test: November 19th.
At this point, I had been using my Pulse Throwing Sensor long enough that I wanted to start using it better. Each week, I would adjust my throwing days based on the recommended workload. Knowing what workload each type of throwing day requires of me made this possible. So I flipped around Pulldown and Plyo Velo days and even did two Plyo Velos in one week. It was an experimental time with my high-intent throwing. It was fun. I ended up pushing my retest back to the 21st. The resulting workout schedule is below.
A week before my next retest, I’m feeling good. I have one more Pulldown day and Plyo Velo before that next Mound Velo test. I just have a great feeling about this day and after seeing the numbers dip, I was starting to see them trend up again.
During my movement prep and warmup, I was doing some Tuck Jumps to get ready to be explosive. And then it happened. I tried to explode up a little higher, tuck my knees up more and my back tightened up. Now, this isn’t new to me and one of the reasons I knew I needed to take mobility seriously, but this was frustrating. It seems like I always hit this wall, and strain my back. That’s why one of my main three focuses in this phase was mobility. Having not been consistent with mobility, I felt like I deserved this. That this was my fault.
Well… it kind of was. Mobility was a little thing that needed to be done. It takes just 15-20 minutes to do some sort of mobility work and I neglected it. But here’s the thing, owning a new business while being a new parent is difficult. I was putting in late nights in order to throw and workout, getting up early and putting in hours at a part-time job to bring home a little more income, and being sick and tired all the time, there were a ton of variables that lead to my body breaking down. The timing just wasn’t right, I wasn’t able to do what was demanded of me training-wise because of what I needed to do running The Lab and taking care of my family. It was virtually taking a part of my training economy and I didn’t realize it.
But I pushed through the pulled back and I’m glad I did. It ended up being my best day of the fall as I hit 85, 84, 85, 94, and 89 with the 7, 6, 5, 4, and 3 oz baseballs respectively. That’s good for 3 PRs while the other 2 were the best in a very long time. I “pulled” through. Despite the pun, my back was not feeling great. The Plyo Velo 3 days later had some ok numbers but nothing reflecting the pulldown numbers. Then, on that mound velo on November 21st, I saw a max of 79.4 mph with a top 5 of 78.8 mph. Lower than before the last test, unfortunately, but my back was still stiff and I was not 100% healthy.
Disappointed, I posted nothing on Instagram as I had planned. But proceeded with my transition to the mound with a couple of weeks of mound blending as I continue to lift heavy as I did during the velo phase, just with a slightly different template. I’ll be going through the strength training I was transitioning through during this time in the next blog. Going through Thanksgiving, I knew something had to give. Now another month into working myself like crazy, my body and mind were truly breaking down. Because of my crazy schedule, I lifted one day then threw the next, and my shoulder did not respond nicely. It had worked pretty well the day before and was not recovered. So that added weakness caused a little strain. Another little setback.
This one had an obvious reason, I had worked myself into such a deficit that I couldn’t handle the slight switch-up in throwing/lifting days. Based on the numbers from my Apple Watch, I haven’t been under a 20% sleep debt in a long time. When you take this into consideration plus the fact I need to free up some time in the day, it made sense to take a step back. With that, I eliminated throwing from the workout plan temporarily. Taking away some of the training volume this way gave me a chance to recover better with the amount of sleep I was currently getting while still being able to focus on my lowest-hanging fruit: max strength. Another change to the lifting program (once again, I’ll go over these changes in detail in the next blog) and I dove all-in on strength gain for a few weeks. After all, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel with the part-time job and was about to have a ton of time and energy freed up.
That’s when “The Road to 90” idea was formed.
I had some personal realizations on what mattered most and what I wanted to do with myself training and baseball-wise. That’s when the decision to rededicate myself and do what I know it takes to chase 90 came about. This included not playing Men’s League for the first summer since the 2020 COVID summer giving me enough time without playing games to truly transition through all the phases without rushing for quick gains. I have never felt freer and more convinced I can get to 90 when I came to this conclusion. And not just “get to 90”, but be in love with and execute the process of getting to 90. After all, it’s the journey, not the ending.
When I started planning things out, the timing worked almost perfectly to set up my mound velo for my 31st birthday. This would give me enough time to focus just on lifting, quit my part-time job, then get my arm ready for letting it eat for a birthday velo day. This all happened on December 5th while my birthday is January 14th giving me a full 6 weeks to get ready.
I am now 8 days away from the mound velo date. I’ve been feeling good, strong, mobile, and excited. Can’t wait to see what happens. Thinking 80 is in the cards, but feel like there’s a chance for more. Keep an eye out for the results.
