Watch Dr. David Friedman explain his approach in enhancing young baseball athletes’ mobility and core strength to  Zoned Baseball Academy management.

 How Much Do You Need to Improve Your Game?

If you watch a golf club pro-the pro at Plainfield Country Club, the pro at any golf club- they’re unbelievable. They crack the ball, they shoot par maybe under par and they’re not on the pro tour. They’re not good enough to be on the pro tour.

The difference between a club pro and a touring pro is probably not much. If I took the Delaware Blue Hens and their offensive line and put them with the Ohio State Buckeyes offensive line in a lunch room, you couldn’t pick out who is who. That the vision 1 AA versus division one. It’s fractional. They’re all the same size but the guy in Ohio State maybe a little step quicker, a few pounds … maybe a little bit more strong — that’s it.

For kids at 12, 13, 14, 15, if they use this in the strengthening and things like that, they’re going to get exponentially better. They can move a long way.

A guy like Carlos, if he gets this much more it’s a game changer for him. So all of what you going to see is going be to get fractional improvement. The people I’ve worked with doing the baseball stuff in my office, numerous kids over the years, more so lately, they feel the improvement. I’ve never really done measurable staff because I don’t have the facilities to put a zap on or a radar gun and do before and after. But empirically everybody says “Hey, I feel better.” They come back. They want more of it. They wouldn’t do that unless they found it beneficial.

Improve Body Mobility and Remove Restrictions

The first thing we going to do is remove restrictions. We are going try to make you move better. The better you move, the better you are going to perform. The more fluid you are, the better you are going to move – they are equally related. The neuro-muscular patterns and then the strengthening all work hand-in-hand in different combinations.

So somebody comes in, we don’t do the same thing every time. It’s what do you want to work on? What do you need to work on? I’m stiff in my shoulder, my lower back is not moving so good and I’m stiff in my hip. So we try and remove all that stuff and then add a layer of strength on top.

A body builder is going to lift weights and they’re looking for hypotrophy. They’re just looking to be big and strong. Big chest, big everything. They’re going to lift a certain way for that. There’s no function involved it’s just getting big and strong. A cross-fit person is going to do things their way to be a better cross-fitter.

Working on Core Strength

That’s what I’m looking to do. Get people quicker through where they need to be quicker, get them core strength, get them explosive. Now with a 10-year-old we’re going to go about that differently than with 15-year-old. With a 15-year-old we’re going savage beast crazy, With a 10-year-old, we’re just trying to get the patterns down and the coordination, because they’ll grow into getting stronger. But if they’re fluid and smooth at 10, you build on it build on it, build on it.

Invite Dr. Friedman to Speak

Interested in learning more about how Friedman Spine & Physical Therapy can improve the performance of your team members? To schedule a presentation or demonstration to your team leaders, contact Dr. Friedman by emailing him at pr@friedmanrehab.com, or calling his office at (908) 686-4400.