By Jonathan Massey –
This week, I had the pleasure of working with a young man who came to our Elite Pitcher’s Boot Camp back in January. Due to school being 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 would be it. That went on for about 20 minutes before I’d had enough. Now, please know that this is not a negative comment about the young man I was working with. In fact, he was a joy! 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 often from others. But, to play off of one of Coach Wolforth’s many sayings, “I don’t know is an okay place to start, but it is a terrible place to finish” …
Feeling good 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 wish to 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! But if we stay there, then we will stunt our development. Just as I explained to this young man, after it feels ‘good’ on a regular basis, 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 good 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 some more 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 on a regular basis, 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 has 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
- One of the things we do exceptionally well with our Extended Stay Summer Program at The Texas Baseball Ranch is to help young men map out a plan for progress and help them to stay on track. If you or someone you know would like to join us at The Ranch this summer, please check out the program at www.TexasBaseballRanch.com/events. There is an early bird discount that ends on April 16th.
- Dates for our Elite Pitchers Bootcamps for the summer are available. Watch your email or check our website https://www.texasbaseballranch.com/events/
- Athletes continue to be excited our “Ranch Remote” training. It’s a program for people that would still like to get access to, and ongoing instruction from, the TBR staff but prefer to avoid travel due to the virus or other limitations. Click here to get more information on this NEW, hyper-personalized training option. Space is limited in this program and we only have a few spots open currently so if you’re interested, don’t delay.
for more details or to sign up for any of these options.
