90 By 40: Week 2

Inch by inch. Little by little. Brick by brick. Insert your favorite idiom here as long as it accurately reflects how slow and uphill this process is going to be.

I don’t know why I thought this would be different. Hubris, I guess. I knew the issue with arm strength would be there, so that doesn’t come as a shock. What I was not prepared for is having to reteach my body how to throw. Suppose that’s just stupidity on my part.

“How could I have completely forgotten how to throw a baseball?” Easily, dummy, you haven’t thrown one in a decade.

I’m not exaggerating when I say I have not picked up a baseball since 2009. In July of that year, I pitched in men’s league game and the next day I was in a fully packed Jeep with my mom and my brother and moved to California. That men’s league game is the only time I can fully remember throwing since that date.

The simple act of throwing is one that comes naturally, but when you’re attempting to train velocity, health, effectiveness, I’m noticing/feeling a constant change in arm slot throw-to-throw, and I’m spending more time thinking my way through the throwing action rather than just doing it. My shoulder “rolls” differently than I remember feeling, my fingers feel independent from the rest of my arm, and there’s no flexibility to initiate proper layback.

Getting full layback was something I knew would be a problem before starting this. I was under no illusions my flexibility and joint strength would be nonexistent, it’s the other issues I was not prepared for.

The next step will be to add in some light catch 1-2 times per week. It will be good to get in some more range of motion and some body movements mixed in to start some sequencing re-learning.

The positive from week 2: I’m not in any pain, surprisingly. The discomfort I’m feeling isn’t manifesting into pain or injury, it’s simply confusion on what my body and arm are doing on each throw. That’s where I think the light catch will do some good as we slowly – very slowly – continue on this project.

This week’s testing numbers are below. The numbers in bold indicate a new high – you’ll see the throwing drills on Thursday resulted in a new high for each of them. I’m still not doing the two higher velocity drills, I think I’m going to give those another week or two first. I want to make sure my arm is in shape enough to handle max effort/max stress throwing motions before pushing into it.

Some of asked what the “-” means on each of the exercises. In the Med Ball Throws and the Throwing sections – those drills are measured using a radar gun. The radar gun doesn’t measure throws under 25mph. So when looking at the Med Ball Throws section and you see a “-“, it just means I’m a weak little child and can’t throw the 4-pound medicine ball hard enough to register.

Imagine my level of embarrassment each time I throw those and my 8 or 6 year olds who do the radar-ing exclaim “nope, nothing”. Yeah, thanks, jerks.

And now for your viewing displeasure, the new high throws from the week:

57 mph double knee

57 mph standing

67 mph torque