By Coach Jonathan Massey –
This week, I had the pleasure of working with a young man. He came to our Elite Pitcher’s Boot Camp in January, and due to attending school online, he had an opportunity to come back and train for a few days before his season ramped up.
On the second day of training, we were doing drills to help clean up some mechanical inefficiencies and as usual, I kept asking, “How did that one feel?”. He would say good and that was it. That went on for about 20 minutes before I’d had enough. Know that this is not a negative comment about the young man I was working with! In fact, he was a joy to work with. However, as the coach who does roughly 90% of the lessons here at the Texas Baseball Ranch®,I am quite used to getting this simplistic answer. To play off of one of Coach Wolforth’s many sayings, “Feeling good is an okay place to start, but a terrible place to finish,” …
“I don’t know” is an okay place to start, but it is a terrible place to finish.
I get it, most of the kids that come to The Ranch are dealing with some sort of arm pain (or soreness, tenderness, or whatever term you use here), so when we get them to a point where the pain is very minimal, they’re ecstatic. That’s good, they should be very ecstatic! However, if we stay there, then we will stunt our development. Just as I was explaining to this young man – after it feels good regularly, we need to move on to, “Did that throw feel slightly better, slightly worse, or was it just weird?”.
If it felt better, what did you do differently, or what felt different about that throw? If it felt worse, what did you do differently, or what felt bad about that throw? If it felt weird, that’s okay. Weird simply means different than normal, and you need to throw more in that way to figure out if it is better or worse.
There is nothing wrong with trying to feel good. In fact, that is where we begin 95% of the time; trying to find something, be it a tool or a drill, that makes our arm feel good. Achieving greatness only comes with continual reaches beyond our current capabilities and beyond our comfort zone. I know it doesn’t sound right, but once you reach the point of feeling good regularly, that is now your new comfort zone. In an effort to make your arm feel better, will you make some throws that don’t feel good? Absolutely. But in order to get to the point where your arm feels the best that it’s ever felt, you cannot be satisfied with simply feeling good. If you do, you’ll never reach greatness.
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Important TBR Updates
- Our Alumni Camp will be held January 7&8, 2023. This camp is only for players who have been to a previous Ranch event. This camp is currently sold out. Call the office to get placed on the waitlist.
- Summer Intensive Program information will be available mid to late January. Watch for updates.
