Bullets from Eric Schoenberg, Eric Cressey, and Matt Blake: Part 2

About a month or two ago, Eric Cressey (@EricCressey) hosted a baseball training mentorship at his facility in Massachusetts. He had a few guest speakers there, including Eric Schoenberg and Matt Blake (@Blake_Matt). They were "live tweeting" during the event, trying to share some info on Twitter with their followers. If you already follow these two, then you may have seen this information before. If you haven't (and even if you have), I suggest you click to read more as I will post a few of the bits I found good for parents/coaches/etc.

While the purpose of this mentorship may have been geared toward baseball players, A LOT of the information they shared can be applied to athletes of many different sports.

There is a lot of information here, so I'm breaking this up into three parts. Part One will be quotes from Eric Schoenberg. Part Two from Eric Cressey. Part Three from Matt Blake.


From Eric Cressey (follow on Twitter at @EricCressey):

1. MRI doesn't always tell us everything: How does rest of body function? Soft-tissue density? How lax is athlete?
2. Major injury mechanism: lay-back (of arm).
3. Everything begins with static postural corrections. Overwhelming majority of young athletes live in gross extension pattern.
4. Gross extension pattern speaks to more than just arm injuries: labral tears at hip, sports hernia, oblique strains, etc. **#PRI (Postural Restoration Institute); #ZOA (Zone of Apposition)**
5. PRI is a tremendous resource for understanding how important getting to "Neutral" is and how to manage natural asymmetries #ZOA
6. Nobody will be perfectly symmetrical, but it's crucial to understand what's excessive. #LeftAIC/RightBC
7. Scapular downward rotation syndrome is combination of the "YTWL generation" meeting the "AAU generation." Starting position is key.
8. "If your biceps tendon hurts, it's probably because your cuff sucks..."
9. A great exercise to teach guys how to get their hands overhead with scapular upward rotation: Wall Slides with Overhead Shrug.
10. Be aware of "fake" lay-back. Need to dissociate between glenohumeral and scapulo-thoracic motion. Athletes will cheat to get arm back.
11. Important to consider how lower extremity contributes to thoracic rotation, scapular control, and cuff function. Huge for deceleration of throw.
12. Some possible solutions- Get lower extremity strong, improve rotary stability, avoid early/excessive extension with rotation training.
13. While executing forearm wall slide, it's important to cue scapular elevation and upward rotation with arm movement.
14. Prone trap raise is great arm care drill to teach scapular control. Make sure to palpate low trap for proper firing.
15. Bigliani, et al (1997): 61% of professional pitchers have positive sulcus sign in throwing shoulder, an indication of laxity.
16. Warm-up consideration for lax athletes- Avoid aggressive, uncontrolled ROM (range of motion) in upper extremity, and monitor glenohumeral joint excursion.
17. Remember during strength training for lax, you're creating stability within ROM that is already present, not trying to increase ROM.
18. Important to understand adductor (groin) function. Plays integral role in core stabilization/destabilization. Need to be long/strong.

Above, I've provided links to the exercises Cressey is making reference to that you can watch by clicking on the name of the exercise itself. He also references the Postural Restoration Institute multiple times, so I've included a link to their website.

As I did in Part One, I'll list the numbers that I think are most important for parents/coaches to take note of: 1, 5, 8, 9, 13, 14, 16, 17. And again, Athletic Trainers, Physical Therapists, Personal Trainers, etc. should be able to help assist you as parent/coach/athlete with the other bullets should you need more clarification.

Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, contact me or post a comment below.