Pitching Tips: Amazing Relief from Pain
“I’d say about a 7,” said the college pitcher.
I’d asked him how he’d rate the pain in his shoulder every time he threw a ball.
“Sometimes more like a 4. So 4 to 7.”
A few minutes later it was down to a 1.
Instead of going to surgery, he ended up having a successful season
How?
……………….
“It feels like a knife stabbing me in the back,” said the high school catcher/pitcher, “at least a 7.”
A few minutes later it was down to a 0.
How?
……………….
I’ll teach you in my teleseminar on Tuesday night.
I’m not saying this works all the time like this.
I’m not promising I’ll fix your arm problem.
I’m not saying “everything you’ve been told about arm health is wrong” or some outrageous marketing claim like that.
I am saying that I’ve had enough players have results like the above to make it nearly criminal for me to not make it available for you to try.
Given the response I’ve had to my quick announcement the other day, lots of people are up for giving it a go.
It can’t hurt.
It could transform a career.
Click here now and print out a reminder, and ask a question or give me your “arm story.”
———————-
EVENT: Recovering From Arm Injury
Faster — FREE DATE & TIME: Tuesday, July 29th at 9:00pm Eastern FORMAT: Simulcast! (Attend via Phone or Webcast — it’s your choice) TO ATTEND THIS EVENT, CLICK THIS LINK NOW…
———————-
I’ll work with a small number of pre-selected volunteers on the call, chosen from people who put their story in.
Again, I’m not a pitching expert offering pitching tips.
I don’t know the physiology and mechanics nearly as well as many others out there.
But I do know a lot about emotions. I know they play a much bigger role than most people have any clue.
What happens to an arm injury or soreness or stiffness after the emotional component is neutralized?
Perhaps you’ll find out.
Pitching Tips: Relief from Arm Pain
Pull Your Head Out: Baseball Training for The Mind
“I’m pulling my shoulder out.”
That’s the way the baseball coaching session started.
A conversation that left me laughing.
I’d just asked the player why he felt he wasn’t hitting the way he wanted.
He’d been working with my Confidence Conditioning baseball training techniques and said he was very confident each AB and was getting better results, but that things “hadn’t really fully come around yet.”
Normal coaching here would be: “Keep your shoulder in.”
“Keep your head down.”
“Drive through the ball.”
“Think line drive the other way.” (my favorite choice of these).
But I said: “Why?”
“I dunno, I’m just lifting it out, like I’m trying to generate power with my shoulders.”
“Why are you trying to generate power with your shoulders?”
“I’m trying to hit it hard.”
“Why?”
“I guess I’m feeling pressure to perform.”
“From who?”
“Myself.”
“Like ‘I must succeed?’”
“Yes.”
As we dug deeper he revealed that he must succeed in order to feel he deserved to be on the team, and that he must succeed or all the time and money spent on his baseball would be a waste.
And he has an older sibling that was a successful player — it did lurk in the back of his mind that he needed to live up to that…
And he said it just want’ right to enjoy playing unless you are successful.
So he should be perfect.
Sheesh.
He was putting pressure on himself because he had his self-worth tied to his performance.
Perform perfectly = I’m worthy of continuing on the planet.
Perform less than perfectly = I’m not worthy of continuing on the planet.
Note: He didn’t think these things consciously. But those were the underlying mechanisms to his…..
…. pulling his shoulder.
So we tapped to clear these thoughts and free him to have fun. Then we tapped on the shoulder and his hips to get him using them more.
We’ll see how the results come out, but he sure felt worlds better after the call.
I laughed all the way through this conversation (writing it down like this does it no justice), not because I thought his thinking was funny, but because humans are so funny.
His thinking made perfect sense — from his unconscious perspective.
It just cracks me up that we get stuck on silly thoughts and they run our lives without our knowing it.
“I don’t deserve to have fun unless I’m highly successful.”
That’s ridiculous.
Rest assured you too, like me and this player, have silly thoughts running our lives.
Left unexamined, we will continue to get the results we are currently getting.
You can work your strength and conditioning and technique all you want, but you will not out perform the beliefs you have in your head about yourself.
And finally, I need to hammer the fact that the shoulder pulling was an effect, not a cause.
It was a symptom, not the disease.
Telling him to “Keep your shoulder in” would feed the fire already burning in his mind.
Tom
Dr. Tom Hanson
www.HansonsGym.com
p.s. My Breakthrough! Program takes you through a process to uncover and replace the beliefs now holding you back.
Erase and replace.
Click here now to upgrade your beliefs:
http://www.hansonsgym.com/site.php/subs/subscription_plans
See also: www.BaseballConfidence.com/Products.html
“Who Said THIS?”
“Hello again, it’s time to play one of my favorite baseball coaching games…
Who Said This?”
The rules are simple… guess who said THIS!?
————–
“My confidence really isn’t there right now. It’s kind of in the back of your head right before you throw it, you feel like you don’t want to throw a certain pitch in a certain location. And I just can’t think like that. I’ve got to get that out of my head, I guess.”
————–
That’s a good guess, Mr. Pitcher. You can’t think like that and pitch great at any level.
But what level is this guy?
A. Fearic Frank, a 12-year old getting ready for Cooperstown
B. Wayne Whiner, a high schooler
C. Mal Hal, a college pitcher
D. Scott Tochange, a big league All-star
It could be any of those, of course.
Players at all levels wrestle with the same mental game challenges.
Pitchers need to trust their stuff. Commit to a spot/target and let it fly.
Anyone can do it alone in their back yard. But when the pressure is on it’s much tougher.
The more trained you are, the mentally tougher you are, the easier it is to focus and trust.
That’s why good coaches drill their players as much as they do on mechanics and fundamentals: so that their technique holds up under pressure.
But the challenge of “pressure” is psycho-emotional, not physical. So why don’t more coaches drill their players more on the mental and emotional aspects?
Typically they don’t know how. Their coach didn’t so they don’t.
But more and more coaches are seeing it and are investing in mental game drills.
Way to go.
Doing so will not prevent players from thinking thoughts like the guy above.
But they will will make them MUCH less frequent, last much less time, and be much less difficult to change.
The answer: D. Scott Kazmir, Tampa Rays, 2008 All-star.
(That ‘scott to change if the Rays want to win the division.)
Happens to the best of them. Don’t feel bad if it happens to you.
Feel bad if you don’t do anything about it.
Sincerely,
Tom
Dr. Tom Hanson
www.HansonsGym.com
p.s. Do something about it at
http://www.baseballconfidence.com/Products.html
For you Youth Coaches and Parents, watch the videos at http://www.baseballconfidence.com/Little_League_Baseball.html
p.p.s. I can’t resist commenting on Kazmir’s use of the word “you.” Go back and read the quote out loud as it is, then go back and read it again replacing the “you” and “your” with “I.” Like this…
“My confidence really isn’t there right now. It’s kind of in the back of my head right before I throw it, I feel like I don’t want to throw a certain pitch in a certain location. And I just can’t think like that. I’ve got to get that out of my head, I guess.”
What do you notice about how the statements *feel* to you while you say them?
More baseball coaching on that another time, but it has to do with taking personal responsibility.
Take it yourself here:
http://www.baseballconfidence.com/Products.html
