Bridging the Gap
Every other week I write an email discussing what I learn launching and growing Reboot Motion. If you would like to receive it directly in your inbox, subscribe below.
In the most recent Reboot Insiders, Jimmy sat down with Mike McFerran and Leslie Poole- two incredible coaches.
Mike and Leslie have a lot in common and I think they are the future of personal coaching. Whether discussing specific mechanics or general philosophies- this was a master class in player development.
One of the most impressive things was how both viewed their craft holistically. They understood the importance of competitiveness, biomechanics, physical training, psychological development, and more.
However, they took this approach while being sticklers for details- diagnosing mechanical issues with precision.
—
Mike, Leslie, and Jimmy spent the hour breaking down two pitchers:
First, a Dodgers’ minor leaguer whose recently picked up nearly 10 mph on his fastball
Then, a college pitcher looking to regain some lost velocity.
The group uses a lot of video, so I highly recommend watching the webinar in its entirety. But for those who want the summary, here we go:
John Rooney Touching 96
John Rooney, a 2018 3rd round draft pick currently in the Dodgers organization, trained with Mike for much of the last year. While the two worked on a variety of things, our focus was on two big changes:
Change 1: Foot Plant
Mike began by showing the group a before video.
Prior to Mike pointing out the biggest change, Leslie quickly noticed what it needed to be: foot plant- Rooney was planting “heel first”.
The first image is taken at initial contact, while the second is when he gets his entire foot down.
This is important because it is only after his entire foot is in contact with the ground that he can maximize the energy transfer from the lower body to the hips, the upper body, the arm, and eventually the ball.
The problem is the change in the upper body between the two images. Notice the rotation that has taken place in his upper body before foot plant.
By starting his rotation prior to transferring momentum from his lower half, he is losing energy and therefore velocity.
—
When we compare this with the after, the difference is obvious. Rooney’s entire foot hits at the same time- in line with the slope of the mound.
By getting the entire foot down sooner, John maximizes his ability to decelerate the bottom half before the torso starts rotating, making the momentum transfer more efficient.
Or, in Mike’s words: “His pelvis, his trunk, and his shoulder have not gone anywhere. And his arm is ready to go”.
As Mike was showing the improvement- specifically how he creates a ton of torque in the second half of his rotation- Jimmy jumped in to explain the physics, with Leslie following up with a great analogy, making things 10x easier to understand (she does this a lot):
From Jimmy:
So as someone who loves providing the physics perspective, literally what's going on there is that right leg, that foot is in the ground. He's pushing on the ground. And then the right upper leg, the right femur, the ball of that femur is pushing into the pelvis.
And it's creating torque around his center of mass that is whipping everything forward. And, in physics, we love perpendicular 90 degree angles because, that's the angle at which you can create the most torque for the force that you're applying.
From Leslie:
If you have a cup of coffee on the roof of your car and you hit the brakes real slow, the cup won't go anywhere. But if you slam on the brakes, the cup will go flying. So we want the top half to go flying. We got to slam on the brakes with the right leg.
Change 2: Keeping the Arm Vertical
The second thing Mike touched on was how vertical John’s arm is just before he begins to rotate. We do not have a “before”, but we can look at John in spring training and understand how a vertical arms implies increased separation, which again leads to more efficient energy transfer.
By keeping his arm back, John creates separation between the upper arm, the forearm, and the ball. Since each piece moves easier on its own, the transfer of momentum is more efficient, leading to less stress and/or higher velocity.
Again, Jimmy jumped in with the physics explanation, with Leslie following up with a clear takeaway:
From Jimmy:
And so what Rooney is doing here by keeping the elbow flexed and keeping the ball still is he's allowing his body to accelerate the upper arm without adding the inertia of the forearm. So now you can accelerate the upper arm to a really fast velocity. And then transfer it to the forearm as opposed to trying to accelerate it as one unit, which has a ton of inertia.
From Leslie:
If you have a long arm, it takes a long time to move. It won't move as fast. If you try to move it just as fast, you're going to have a lot more stress on all those joints, but if you keep the ball in line with the ear longer, you basically end up in that stretch position. So at the last second, you can let it go and it'll just whip on its own and you won't have to work so hard to move the big lever in the same path.
—
Diagnosing Problems
Exaggerated Leg Extension
The second half of the session discussed a college pitcher who had seen his velocity drop since high school.
Going through the video, Mike and Leslie immediately centered on the pitcher’s stride length- noting how exaggerated it was.
I was quite surprised by this, as I consistently hear long stride length as a positive quality. However, as Jimmy explains, correlation is not causation:
Extension has become a thing that people talk about a lot, like perceived velocity, release the ball closer to home plate. Well, if you try to get down to the mound super far and you lose your real velocity by five miles an hour, the fact that you've got two extra inches of extension is not going to help you.
It really frustrates me when people talk about it [extension] so much, because extension is actually something that happens with your arm as a by-product of doing things earlier in the chain on time. It's not something that you strive for. It's a by-product of doing other things well.
In other words, yes stride length and performance may be positively correlated in large data sets. But that does not mean a focus on increased stride length will improve performance.
And we can take what we learned from John Rooney to understand why.
Here, the pitcher is rotating his upper body, and even beginning to move his arm forward, prior to his foot touching the ground. As a result, he is not transferring his momentum on time to get energy where it needs to be.
Arm Drag
Outside of foot plant, the group found an issue with the pitcher’s throwing arm. In this case, the arm is not vertically aligned- in contrast to what we saw with Rooney before, and with the comparison to Gerrit Cole below (on the left).
Again, here is Jimmy with the physics:
So we have torque equals inertia times acceleration. We have two variables there. If we increase the inertia of the arm, by definition the acceleration goes down and the arm drags. Whereas if we can decrease the inertia of the arm with the same exact torque, the acceleration goes way up.
So that's why I think this is something that can give people some gains pretty fast. You don't actually need to add more torque. You just need to reduce the inertia of the arm to make it easier to accelerate.
Followed by Mike with something everyone can understand:
I want the ball to be as close to your spine as possible. So the analogy I love that made so much sense was when a figure skater starts getting closer to herself, she spins faster, right?
So the more outside you are from 90 the slower you're going to spin and the more at 90 or inside to 90 that you get to, the faster you're going to spin around the axis of rotation, which happens to be your spine.
Other Takeaways
These deep dives were incredible. Yet, some of the best takeaways may have been broader coaching philosophies they discussed throughout:
Coaching is Communication
When Mike discussed specific cues and drills to help create change, I loved the emphasis he placed on communication. This came up throughout the webinar, as a coach’s knowledge is useless if they cannot communicate it.
Mike and Leslie each rely on external cues to help drive home their points.
For Mike, this involves plyos, while Leslie gets even more creative with putting a piece of plastic in a sock:
Conclusion
Overall, I left with incredible admiration for how Leslie and Mike help their athletes towards mastery, while simultaneously honing their individual craft.
They know that, in order to continue delivering value, they must constantly reevaluate their own skillset and expand it.
They look to learn more drills, improve their communication, gain a greater understanding of psychology, and more.
While this was evident throughout, I specifically remember two lines from Leslie:
“Improvement is more than reps…it is the right reps.”
“If you worry about output before input, it’s not going to work.”
Mike and Leslie each put those words in to practice for their athletes….and for themselves.