July 14, 2025 • 37 mins
How much is too much for youth pitchers?
In Episode 62, we’re digging into the messy middle of youth softball and baseball development. From pitch count guidelines to the physical toll of puberty, this episode is for every parent, coach, and young athlete navigating the early stages of competitive sports.
We break down:
Why pitch counts matter—but aren’t the full answer
What puberty does to mechanics, mindset, and injury risk
The challenge of teaching proper pitching skills without the right resources
Why movement variability and power are essential for long-term development
How collaboration between coaches, parents, and governing bodies can help protect young athletes
Whether you're raising a young pitcher or coaching one, this is the conversation that needs to happen.
🎧 Listen now on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
#softball #pitchcounts #youthsports #puberty #softballcoaching #ogxpodcast #athletedevelopment
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
All right, it's back for anotherepisode today.
I thought we would branch off a conversation I had this week.
It was actually with someone whoruns a youth baseball program
and he was talking about sort ofsome pull he had from parents of
starting softball programs. I think a couple interesting
points of the conversation was that the age group he mostly
(00:25):
works with is like 4. She's really a big asterisk 4/4
to 12. And there has been pushed back.
And this is not where we're probably going to go with this
conversation, but of just havinglike Coed programs and some
desire to have like a separate softball program.
And so him and I talked a lot about a lot of things.
(00:45):
And so maybe a separate conversation of like why we
might feel the need to separate them at 4.
Probably not, but that's different conversation,
different day. But we were talking a little bit
about sort of like, what is actually different about
baseball, softball. Why would you need to start
pulling athletes out to be able to prepare for softball?
His daughter is very young, I think he said six or seven.
(01:05):
And she's playing T-ball, just baseball.
And she's, you know, getting good.
The ball is actually her size atthat age with baseball.
It's just an interesting point. So she can really learn
overhand. And it took us into a
conversation really that got around pitching because the big
differentiator at that age when you're just talking about the
scales, like get out of the ideaof the ball is different and
(01:27):
some of the rules are different and all of those things.
But the actual skills you're trying to learn to keep getting
better at softball, the actual only skills that are different
is under him pitching. So we talked a little bit about
the difficulties of that. And I think it was just an
interesting conversation becauseit got into things like pitch
counts and why that may or may not be something that is
(01:49):
possible in supple. How we might teach more people
underhands to prep the conversations we're having all
the way at the collegiate level of like, OK, now we get to this
place and we don't have enough pictures.
Like, what the heck are we supposed to do now?
I had a interesting sort of likethought that in my son's
Baseball League, there's a girl that still plays 9 U Baseball,
(02:09):
and she's legitimately, if not the best athlete in the whole
league, like top five, but she doesn't know how to underhand
throw. And so if she did make the
transition to softball at some point, you have now arguably
probably what will be one of thebetter athletes that goes into
the softball space who doesn't know how to pitch, which is much
different than when you're looking at baseball.
(02:30):
A lot of times, sort of like inverse at the younger ages that
the best athletes are also the best pitchers.
So anyways, that was sort of theconversation.
So maybe first, Ashley, I'm going to kick it to you.
We have talked about pitch counts before because people
have asked us like our thoughts on pitch counts.
Maybe just some thoughts on and and bridging into kind of
(02:50):
pitcher development of like why pitch counts are are good or bad
idea, like what some of the difficulties that we sort of
foresee would happen if we triedto do pitch counts in that
conversation. I mean, pitch counts would be
great. There are it's a really good
place to start. I mean, I think that's reality
that any negatives against pitchcounts are that it's just not
enough. You don't just say, oh, here's
(03:12):
the pitch counts and then that'senough.
One, are people following it? One, I just wrote something
about this in our OGX community yesterday where we were having
athletes come on, come on like Monday, Tuesdays, like maybe
three years ago. And they're like, oh, I'm so
sore. And we're like, OK, I'm just
going to assume you through. We tally up your pitches from
(03:32):
the weekend and it's, you know, 3432 pitches from the weekend.
And they're like, actually, no, I didn't.
There's five pitches on my team.There's four pitches on my team.
I actually didn't throw that much.
And then we started getting intolike, oh, because it's travel
ball and there's eight games a day.
They warmed up before everyone and before everyone, they threw
79 pitches. You know, so it's just like,
wow. So there's this world in pitch
(03:54):
count is like, does it get followed?
Like who's regulating that? And then also it only counts for
the pitches you legitimately throw in the game.
So we know that it's not enough,but it's a freaking place to
start. I mean, we don't have anything.
So we have pitchers that come, you know, out of games and
they're like, oh, I touted up mypitches and I threw 600 pitches
(04:16):
today, you know, like it's like wild or it's a winter And I
threw, you know, it's it was literally a January winter
tournament. I have not pitched in the game
since in months. And I tallied my pitches and it
was 342. It it's just wild.
So I mean, I definitely think it'd be, it would be great
because the reality is what we because so few people can pitch
(04:40):
when they're younger. This is how these two
conversations come together because so few people can pitch
and can pitch in a way that produces something decent
because it's a really hard skill.
It is the most physically complicated movement in the
game. The task itself, I get it when
we joked around about what's harder hitting or pitching, you
know, you're talking about whichtask is harder, but the movement
(05:03):
complexity of it. So very few young kids with
underdeveloped bodies can actually do such a physically
complicated movement. So there's a small pool of
people who can do it and so you just throw them a shit ton.
And so the, the, what we realized was happening because
way back in the day when we got our hands on some wearable
sensors and some buff light data, some tech, we're like,
(05:26):
let's measure this stuff for everybody regardless of the age.
And we're like, wow, like they're all exactly the same.
Basically, their bodies cannot do it appropriately, so they
don't actually produce anything on ball flight.
So what we realize is to get thejob done, they start just
lowering their ceiling. They start getting stuck in
these patterns that are the bestthey can do for now, but they
(05:50):
start getting stuck in them, which really lowers their
ceiling. When they're older, they don't
actually produce anything on theball because those patterns
actually aren't very good. Their hands are too small.
You know, it's like, so they just kind of get stuck in this
world of, oh, I was good when I was 11 and 12, but I kind of
stayed that good throughout. Really difficult to be able to
grow out of that. So, you know, that's that's why
(06:10):
pitch counts would be really a great place to start because
it's like you can't have 3 pitchers, you can't have two
high school, you can't freaking have one because there's
legitimately going to be a rule that says at pitch count X,
someone else has to throw. So you're going to have no other
choice but to then start, you know, developing and start
(06:31):
teaching probably double the amount of athletes at least, if
not triple the amount of athletes.
You know, in a, in a world wherewe're designing things that are
a little bit more ideal, we might say just teach everyone on
the team to be able to do it andthen start to decide.
But this way you would start to you would be forced to grow the
number of pitchers. And that in and of itself, it's
(06:53):
not only really great for the game, but it actually is more
likely to feed better pitchers in the long run.
Because now those pitchers who were good early on, those
pitchers probably are the pitchers that are going to be
good later in life. Except they get stuck, maybe
it's injury, but they get stuck in these patterns and stuck in
these ways that are very difficult to undo just three,
(07:15):
4-5 years down the line. So that's really the issue at
hand. And it's like, you know what, I
always think who's the guy? And that's not nice, but I'm
going to assume it's a guy who'sthe guy that came up with the
phrase. It's a natural motion.
Like, I hate that guy, you know,like who did that to us because.
Well, I had a conversation with a parent this week.
(07:36):
I had a conversation with a parent this week and they said
something about, you know, fortunately a lot of our
conversations with pitchers are around pain.
And she was like, not as bad as baseball, though.
I'm like, not true. That's made-up you just we just
aren't hearing UCL conversations.
It's literally the difference isthat yes, the softball injuries
for the most part outside of ACLand things like that aren't
things that take you out for twoyears, a year and a half.
(07:59):
Like yes, it's not so from. That standpoint college game, I
think it was last year, it was not this last season that just
passed, but the season before that and with the announcers was
like, well, because it's a natural motion and I I like.
Can't like it's gas. Like that.
And I was like, stop repeating shit that sabotages yourself.
(08:20):
Like absolutely, yes. Yeah.
Oh my gosh. If you ever say that in an
announcement, I want you to knowthat is one of the most harmful
things that you could ever say to an audience of parents,
coaches and young softball players.
Never say that. Never say that it is not true.
And you're just repeating shit that's not true.
Yeah, we, I think the pitch count thing is interesting
(08:42):
because it it's like, duh, like that would be an easy start.
Except one of the things I said to the person I was talking to
was if you said, OK, starting next season at every level, all
the governing, this would never happen.
But all the governing bodies agree to put in the same pitch
counts, like it would be catastrophic for self right now.
(09:04):
And so I think the reality is it's not the same as baseball.
So the implementation of pitch counts is.
We've run out of people, right like.
Absolutely. The teams that don't fold like
there's just no chance. There are no pitchers for that.
So I think, I think or they'd have to forfeit after day one or
you know, they just no one wouldfollow it.
I think in reality no one would follow it because it just.
(09:26):
Broken in that way. And so I think the the
implementation of it would have to be over the course of a few
years and starting kind of at the younger ages where OK,
starting next season, the tenurehas these pitch counts.
The year after that 12 years, the pitch counts.
You know, it's like the slow progression of we're going to
build it up. And so it puts the pressure on
(09:48):
the younger ages to do that. The problem also though, is, is
that when you do that and what and really what I was talking to
this guy about was what is the program then we would implement
as peep dads who have no idea how to teach under him pitching.
If if it becomes our responsibility at this 8U10U age
group to teach the whole team topitch.
(10:10):
How do we do that? You know, they might do it in a
way that's not great overhand, but the generally everyone can
go out there and play overhand, catch the people and generally
get the ideas of like a couple things they might say to a
baseball pitcher that will help them.
Generally, it might be wrong, but they have a sense of
something and in softball, it's just like for the most part, the
(10:31):
coaches have no sense of like I don't I couldn't even do that.
So like I can't demonstrate it. I can't nothing like and so I
think it it becomes so importantthat we think through some of
these younger age, something like a plyo program, which is
what we talked about, something that's very easily adoptable for
those teams. So just say like this is part of
your practice. You warm up by playing underhand
(10:53):
catch. You warm up with this, you know,
plyo program, everyone does it. So you start to teach it.
It's so layered because even then when you implement
something like that, then it's like, you know, it's so layered.
Yeah, my son plays baseball in Little League, which I've talked
about before. It's wreck.
They don't practice. It's not part of the structure
(11:13):
of anything. They just play games.
They he had one practice of thisteam at 9.
You Rick 9 you wreck. And so yes, all of the kids got
opportunities to pitch, but likeunless you then took your 9 year
old to pitching instruction or you had time to really go
constantly in the backyard and do things.
(11:33):
And what's so interesting about and I like, I think it was like
the solo one that I recorded a while ago where I just like
talked about you think. But what's so interesting is
like, oh, obviously just go havetime to play catch with your kid
in the backyard. That's what you do.
Except even my son who's in nothing has something on Monday
and something on Tuesday and something on Wednesday and
homework on Thursday. And it's like I we don't have
(11:54):
time to just go play catch that easily in the backyard to make
sure he can know how to pitch and so.
Chris, I think another layer you're missing here is like we
wrote this shit like 3-4 years ago because we were like OK,
once we realized we were idiots and collected bio mechanics data
on 10 year olds and it was like like basically the the software
all spit off the same thing, like unstable as hell.
(12:16):
Like that's the output you know?All idiots have to start
somewhere. All idiots have to start
somewhere. That's great.
Way to go, guys. So anyway, once we realized,
once we got out of that phase ofcollecting data to show the
like, this is not what we shouldbe doing, then we're like, Oh,
well, then let's design these programs.
Josh and I, he was, it was like when he first started, we had
(12:37):
our hands in this together, but we wrote this together.
Here is a like intro to pitching.
When someone calls and they're not ready, they're not at the
age where what we do is appropriate for them.
Let's tell them to start with a plan like this on their own.
And then we're like, you know what?
We'll also offer it inside of OGX and teach it sometimes on
the weekends. People hated that.
(12:58):
You know who loved it? Josh's daughter, Josh is one of
our own pitching coach because Josh's daughter had never thrown
a soft pitch, a softball ball pitching wise in her life.
The first day she went to do that program, the ball went like
behind her. Everyone was ducking.
It was out of control. That kid, it's like a couple
years later, she just smokes it now.
Now she's still young, so you know, who knows?
But he knew that like education behind it.
(13:21):
But the reality was, for the parents, it wasn't sexy enough.
They were like, what has to be in the team setting?
Yeah, it has to be at the team study.
I could also, but they all wanted to go to the less.
And I don't judge because it's all they know.
But they were like, yeah, but you're never taught teaching her
a curve. You're never teaching her a
drop. You're never teaching her like
that's that's not what you want right now.
(13:42):
And they're like, it's interesting because they're
like, well, we'll trust you whenyou get to be 16.
But for now, you know, so it's like it's interesting.
We just pulled the plug on it because I'm like, honestly, I
know it's important, but it's inaddition to what we do and it
something like this is going to take.
So. Much education because the
(14:03):
culture of pitching and in our game we have told people that
the skill is identical at 810 and 18 and 22 and it is not
remotely the same skill. It doesn't even become that
skill as we know until probably the early, it's probably 14.
And so you just want to be prepping underneath for the
actual skill later down the line.
(14:25):
But no one knows that. And so the amount of education
it would take is extensive. And we were just like, we can't
be who we are and be that. But it's interesting.
It's not hard. It's not hard to to write.
And you're like, oh, we could never come up with the program
to teach someone pitching. Like, yes, we can.
I have some of my former collegeteammates call me all the time.
I've got a daughter, she's 8. She wants to learn how to
(14:46):
pitching, how to pitch. What the hell do I do?
I'm like, oh, let me just send you this real quick.
And then it's like, do that. And they're like, oh, because
they're doing it with them. They're like, oh, this is
excellent. Like, yeah, that part's not
hard, but it's the fight againstall the other stuff.
Your mention of, of age 14, I think a major talking point in
this conversation is the pubertytransition.
(15:08):
And I think from it's difficult at 12 you and 14 you because of
the, you know, the span of ages that that could happen for each
kid. But honestly, one of the reasons
that I, I am a huge advocate forpitch counts, particularly AT10U
and 12U is exactly what we've talked about.
It's not called a workload conversation.
It's future workload, but it it at least diversifies who can
(15:31):
pitch because the, the skills ofstriking a ball with an object
and throwing overhand are fundamental skills that kids
should and can learn on their own.
Now, is it good? That is a not that's not the
conversation, but it is at even a non baseball or softball
player at some point will know how to throw a ball overhand, I
(15:52):
hope. Right.
And those are fundamental skills.
Softball pitching is not it is not a skill that you just like
your body could potentially figure it out.
And so the the pitch counts at the younger ages, in my opinion,
are just exposing, you know, athletes to a complicated skill,
but in a nice controlled environment, you're diversifying
who can figure it out. And I think one of the most
(16:14):
important points of education isthe puberty transition.
It's we also lose kids in this washout of we hear it all the
time. You know, I, I'm eleven years
old and all of a sudden, you know, I can't hit the broadside
of the barn. And then you ask, have you had a
growth spurt? And they're like, oh, yeah,
she's, you know, she shot up 8 inches in the last six months.
And I'm like, in what world could you expect a young athlete
(16:37):
grooming at that rate to be ableto do the same thing over and
over again? So we've talked about pitching
as opposed to puberty concept, which is why that that age of 14
is about when it starts to be something that you can
influence, manipulate, train. But pre puberty, and I even
think in this, if you are a, youknow, quote, UN quote, early
bloomer, 1011 years old, you still need to take a pre puberty
(17:01):
approach to pitching because that's what's going to preserve
you for the long run. And so we have to monitor that.
We have to have education aroundit.
We have to have coaches who recognize it, parents who
recognize that talking about their kid going through a growth
spurt and getting to their firstperiod is a huge deal, not just
developmentally, but biologically, biomechanically.
(17:23):
And pitchers take the brunt of it because the motion's so
complicated. It is the most, you know, And
when you when I talk to a parentand I say, you know, hey, this
is what she's got going on and like it, it's not always a dad.
Sometimes it is a mom. And they're like, oh, yeah, that
that makes tons of sense, right?They just don't think of that.
We just think of this like, natural biological process.
But it really jacks kids up. For sure.
(17:45):
And you know, there's like it's there for a lot of reasons are
which we talk about. It's one the hips expand, which
make rotating more difficult. We're airborne when we rotate,
when we have to rotate, we got to go One Direction and back in
the other direction quickly. The levers are growing, but also
chest size. I have watched multiple
athletes. I think we wildly underestimate
(18:06):
this game. You know, it's a dream of mine
someday for us to get into the sports bra business and to like
collaborate. I'm not kidding because I'm
like, it is so misunderstood theway that chest size, it's not
just impacts deceleration, but in pitching because we have to
rotate aggressively in One Direction, stop and then
(18:26):
aggressively while in the air goin the other direction.
The difficulty that we see in pitchers who have large your
chess, the ability to do that and that sports bras, as we
always talk about, are designed to like keep their chests in
check from an up down jumping standpoint, but not necessarily
side to side. And the nature of changing
(18:48):
direction is wild. And the and pitchers don't do it
well. And all the time when we're
studying bio mechanics, athleteswho are older and they're built
in a way, and this is just their, this is just their
biology. It's their genetic makeup,
right. And, and you're, and we're
seeing like, OK, now all of a sudden rotation is just a
disaster and the control of it is a disaster.
Who even knows? Like we've given recommendations
(19:10):
to our athletes, like you absolutely need a better sports
bra. Who even knows that there's
actually one out there on the market that's good enough,
right? But then I, we have seen many of
times that pitchers have legitimately just stopped.
They've become terrible during Puerty because basically their
biggest, the most significant body change is their chest size
and they're trying to navigate it and what that does to their
(19:31):
arm path. Their anterior core is a mess.
And when they're up in, you know, in the air when they're
overhead I should say, then all of a sudden their arm paths like
a huge thing that we see with athletes when they're a major
change that happens for them in that growth spurt is like a
substantial change in their chest size.
The arm path issue, because of the anterior core, it is a mess.
(19:55):
So in reality, athletes, young athletes who you know, like who
are doing something, who are going through changes where
that's likely to derail them because how significant those
changes are, are more likely to have success later in pitching.
If they just waited, They just waited and stabilized and
learned their bodies and then were stable and had a struggle.
(20:16):
Anterior core, basically the change stopped like slowed down
and then they worked on the skill.
They didn't have a shot, but they get derailed because of
that. Because that transition is so
difficult and there's just obviously we know there is no
research out there about the like changing chess size and its
relationship to pitching. We hardly had any research on
pitching. We don't even have a return to
(20:37):
throw program right before we wrote 1.
So I think like we know that this is the future, but it's a
huge problem and I don't think enough people pay attention to
it generally because of course you're going to see athletes out
there who are grown and have a different shapes and sizes.
But it's that change during puberty that just is a nice
nightmare, and it's definitely enough to just completely derail
(20:57):
someone and they never pitch again.
Well, or you get the other extreme of it, which we see a
ton too, which is like they didn't have that much change
during puberty and actually now they're just throwing 58.
They threw 58, four and now theythrew 58 still.
And it's really hard to overcomebecause they didn't get the
benefits of not necessarily chest size, but a bunch of
height that came from puberty. Some, you know, they they aren't
(21:21):
that's they were 54 before puberty and they're 54 now and
they throw 58 and they threw 58 after.
And they're like, I was getting so much better and now I'm not.
And so I was actually thinking when you were like, the athletic
kids are probably the ones who still will be good.
I'm like, no, that's actually not.
I mean, I that probably probablydisagree with there are what we
see is like there might be the standout kids, of course, who
(21:43):
are just there's that top kid that just like was good forever.
But what we know is like Kat Osterman didn't get good till
1213. She talks about it, that build
of the lanky kid who like and there's if they can be in the
right setting, they have such amazing potential when they can
start to understand their limbs and feel into it.
But a lot of times those kids don't make it because they our
(22:07):
system is not designed for that patients and I think pitch
counts are all about they really.
It is so interesting. It's like, yes, they're about
workload, but workload becomes less relevant.
You're not going to ride a kid that's getting hit if you have
other options like so I, I thinkworkload at the older ages
(22:29):
becomes less relevant. Like you don't I, I don't want
to say never because you, you definitely do still see this,
but at the like, I look at the top ten travel ball, you know,
18 new teams right now, It's pretty unlikely that you're
going to go to the field and seethe same kid throw every inning.
They have the benefit of having grabbed the top five to seven
(22:50):
pitchers and they have decent Staffs.
Now, they might get to a point at the end of the year where
you're like, this is pushing like, OK, now we have this one
kid who just is above those other kids and we're writing her
a lot. And there are plenty of
instances where people make poorjudgments and just write one
kid. So I'm not saying that, but but
it happens less and less actually at the top age for or
(23:12):
at the top level of the teams that get the benefit of pulling
many, many pitchers. You see it much more at this
like tears under that where I have one kid because it starts
the funnel starts to get narrower and narrower of options
of pitchers when I'm at the 18 new level.
And so the only way that team that's making the decision throw
(23:32):
this one good kid that stands out because that's all they have
access to probably doesn't make that decision actually if they
just have more pitchers. So I think if the the target at
the younger ages becomes much more around, like maybe we don't
need to do pitch counts across the board.
We can just watch how it goes. I think parents are starting to
get educated enough that like, Idon't want my kid going to the
(23:57):
next level hurt or I'm going into recruiting somewhere and I
pitched so much in high school and I'm throwing low Velo and
I'm not getting looked at. Like I think people are starting
to see what's happening as a result of those things.
But coaches don't have options. And so the the focus has to be
on this lower level of how do weget more pitchers to go up?
And it it does have to be this really targeted effort.
(24:17):
It is going to have to be a big thing that we also come together
and talk about it because it's just not as simple of like just
throw more pictures because thatdoesn't.
Work. No, they don't exist.
They don't. Yeah, they don't exist.
They don't know how to throw. They they don't.
I think for parents who might belistening to this too, the
predictor for future success is whether or not you can get out
(24:42):
of puberty and maintain movementvariability, which we've had,
which we've had topics on, right, which whether or not you
have movement variability, meaning you're not just stuck in
one way of doing things. And if you produce power, right,
I mean, that's athleticism. Athleticism is that you can
produce power. If you're slow as hell, you
could be strong as hell and slowas hell.
(25:03):
Let's be clear. And we've got athletes like that
and they're like, I, I don't throw hard.
Why? I'm so strong.
Like, yes, because we've established you are strong as
hell and slow as hell. Now, doesn't mean there's not
space out there for teachers whoare throwing off speed.
So it's like lean in Sally, because that's what you are, you
know? But the reality is athleticism
is about this combination of movements, variability and the
(25:24):
ability to produce power. It is not about the skill of
pitching. Like going to a pitching coach
who's teaching you the mechanicsof pitching when you were young
is ridiculous. Like, you are more likely if you
just generally understand the skill, can step in, can do it.
It's more relaxed and you are focused more on like I would
like my kid to be a pitcher. Keep her an athlete.
(25:46):
It's like keep her an athlete and just make sure she knows the
skill. That's what we're talking about.
She knows how to do it. If you asked her to go in and
throw to two batters, 3 batters,she could do it.
She's been taught it. She knows how to do it.
Are the pitches breaking? Are they changing speed?
No, and no one cares. That's all a chapter of a
different for a different time. It's just keep her an athlete
(26:09):
and really monitor like is this,does your kid produce any power?
And if she doesn't hasn't been able to see, then you're
probably you still could be a good pitcher, but you've got to
be able to obviously you're going to lean into a little bit
more of like this all speed track.
But I think it's just for for parents who want have this dream
of their kid being a pitcher, then they think that like the
(26:29):
sooner they started and the morethat she's good early, it's just
not right. It's just not right.
What I would add to that, you know, Ash, besides like, you
know, your movement variability,your movement quality and
powers, like your health. I mean, it's it's almost a tale
as old as time at this point where you know, if I talk to and
it's particularly pitchers whereI talk to, you know, a pitcher
(26:50):
family, whatever, where she's had back pain, a stress
fracture, scapular dyskinesis, bicep pain and she's barely out
of puberty. Like that's a one.
The stress fracture concept, especially in the landing leg,
is absolutely a combination of rapid growth and way too much
(27:10):
workload and the body being unable to keep up with that.
Other challenges around the arm are simply an inefficiencies of
trunk stability. And it's like we have to be, I
think any parent listening, if your kid is having pain and they
haven't reached puberty or they're just on the other side
of puberty, that's a warning sign.
There's a warning sign there that your, your body's telling
(27:33):
you this motion right now is toohard for me.
It doesn't mean it's going to behard for me forever.
I'm going to be in pain forever.But you got to put the brakes on
for a second, right? And and I think that there is
this this really sort of insidious nature of back pain
and, you know, this normalization of arm soreness
that we pay attention to it morewhen, you know, the athlete is
(27:56):
older. We're like, oh, you know, that's
going to impact your ability to throw on Saturday.
But we're like the 12 you kid, like you're fine.
Just do some PT. It's like, no, no, no, that's
not. She probably doesn't even tell
anyone. Right, well, and it's so
interesting because when my son say like my arm hurts from OK
like 3 weeks ago and as long as I don't know it doesn't matter.
(28:19):
A month or two ago my son's we went with her dad on the bike
ride. It was like 8 miles.
They're just like when the bike ride the next day my youngest
son had like like really bad neck pain and like literally
like couldn't move his neck as you get sometimes as like an
older person. I was so like alarmed by it cuz
I kept saying and Laura, I like asked you like this doesn't seem
(28:40):
normal. This is a 7 year old like what's
happening? So I was like so freaked out by
it. Now it went away after like 2
days and it was fine. But I think that level of like
alarmist nature in 7 to 12 year olds is appropriate.
You are not supposed to have a young, young athlete come.
It's fine if they're a little whatever, you know, like I just
did something a little more thanI used to or that was just like
(29:02):
literally we remembered that he was carrying like a camelback
like light backpack and just waslike too much, you know?
But it was too much. Like, that's the point, right?
It was like that actually was too much.
These are not. They are not producing enough
force or doing enough. Sort of like that's it.
They're not many adults. Right.
(29:23):
They're not producing the force that soreness and recovery in
that way should be something that we need to take into
consideration. They just shouldn't be doing it
at that volume. The reason they are sore at that
level is because they cannot rotate and so the breakdowns
they're having or. Put the brakes on.
They can't decelerate. They can't put the brakes on.
(29:44):
So where they try to dissipate energy at the end of the motion,
it's in their neck, it's in their shoulder.
It's they have knee pain, they start having lower back pain.
It's like these are not. Pitching was made for, at 12
years old, someone of my stature, literally someone who
is small, who is, you know, who's just like the athletes who
are tall and lean. They don't have the anterior
(30:04):
core. These are the lumbar stress
fractures we see at 13 years oldbecause they don't the anterior
core and then the athletes who end up being larger and because
of that change in chest size andit's too dramatic at that time,
it's the same thing now their arm path gets funky and all of
that. It's so it's like the two
categories who are most likely to have the builds to be great
(30:26):
in the long run are the ones that are more likely to struggle
when they are young until that time is over.
You take someone who's small in stature, you know, it's just
like really average type body type.
This is what Krista's saying, man.
We are the state champions at 12.
You like basically that pitcher because they're coordinated.
(30:47):
They feel where their body is inspace.
Nothing changes that drasticallyfor them.
Like there's a high level of athleticism and proprioception.
Great. But then you still probably like
you, you throw within 4 mph of when you were 12 to when you're
20, right? Like it's pretty much the same.
So that's what I'm talking about.
It's like that. That's the world that we're in,
rather than having some patientsand some recognition vision for
(31:09):
like actually the athletes we just described are the ones that
are more likely to produce lateron.
So if we had a freaking system to let them all do it, you would
give them more of an opportunityto be like, no, take a little
time off. You still know how to pitch.
We're still practicing it, but you don't need to be in the
Games as much because those other athletes are, you know?
I just think this is, I think that this has to be as we are
(31:33):
trying to grow the game and we're having conversations and
we have Athletes Unlimited and aUSL growth and we have the, you
know, conversations around Alliance and PGF and U Triple SA
and and USA Softball as the Olympics.
We're back in the Olympics and there are all these governing
bodies and invested interest whoshould this like?
(31:55):
To me, there is not. Yes, get the games on ESPN.
Yes, you know, sell out the stadiums at the professional
level. That's the business's job to
keep trying to push and right under that should be an urgency
of how do we start having the right conversation about growing
pitchers at the young ages because this is unique to our
sport. It is super complex for all the
(32:17):
reasons we said. People don't know how to teach
it. There aren't resources around
the young ages that are appropriate that aren't just
this like, yeah, I'll give you aresource.
Come pay me to do a 30 minute lesson with your kid over and
over. There aren't team based
resources because that's really what let's I was saying to you
earlier. Like people would have been fine
with our PLIO program for the younger ages if it was
(32:37):
implemented in a team setting. And like, OK, maybe they still
do go on Tuesdays to their lesson.
They really feel like they need that or they want the extra
resource, but. You're like, newsflash, take
that money, roll down your window, let that shit out of the
window, and then roll it back up.
Literally. How does that feel?
Yeah, yeah. But at least then they have this
(32:57):
base in the team setting of getting sort of reps and and
everyone gets an opportunity, even if you maybe don't want to
go pay for lessons or whatever it looks like.
And so this to me is like one ofthe most urgent conversations in
our game because when you talk about why teams might be
dwindling at younger ages and why there aren't enough, and
(33:19):
then we have like slight uptick in participation again coming
out of COVID. But like, it's not as rapid of
growth at the youth level for what our game is growing at the
top. Like we're not keeping up with
that pace at the youth level because it's hard to put teams
together when you don't have enough pitchers.
It is all centered on the pitchers.
Like it has to be. Obviously, if you do not have
(33:40):
pitchers, you cannot play the game.
And it is not simple enough thatyou just go pick up random
people who pitch. They don't exist.
So you, when you're talking about being able to grow our
game, growing the number of pitchers and the way we develop
pitchers is has to be at the very, very top.
And every interested party should want to be in that room
(34:00):
having a conversation, should becollaborating because it's not
going to get done if we don't. This isn't as simple as slapping
for all the things you talked about.
It's not as simple as slapping pitch counts on.
It's not as simple as like having workload conversations at
the older ages or at the collegiate level.
It's not as simple as it's not even as simple as saying like,
hey, we just need to develop more pictures.
(34:21):
And even if everyone was like, great, I am on board and every
single 10 and 12 you coach across the country was like, got
it. We're on board as you already
said. Then you have a bunch of dads
who don't even know how to do that motion.
They've never done that motion. They're like, I can't really
even just like easily just toss underhands.
So it's like we, we haven't built this setup for teaching
(34:42):
that in a way that makes sense or having structure that teaches
that in a way that makes sense. And so, you know, we have to
start, OK, what's the first step?
What's the next step going to be?
And it's going to require collaboration.
And I, I can't imagine why people wouldn't want to be in
that room. We have to know this is an
issue. Like we, we absolutely have to
know this issue. The collegiate coaches know it's
an issue. I would imagine you're seeing at
(35:03):
the professional level that it'sstarting to be an issue of who's
available in that pool. The professional game is going
to keep growing and growing, so we're going to want to expand
how many pitchers we have in that.
We want top pitchers to stay healthy that long.
Like, you know, it all starts with how many people are playing
at the younger ages. So to me, the conversation is
really about, we don't have the exact answers, but it's about
developing more pictures. It's about protecting workload,
(35:25):
putting parameters in place so that people are incentivized and
aligned to for more pictures andnot writing their best kids.
And the only way you're going toeven begin that conversation is
to get the right people in the room and everyone's around this
idea of growth and collaboration.
And so I think like that has to happen.
It's just like, I don't even that's there's a lot of the
things we could talk about. There's the NCAA rule.
(35:48):
Everyone's all. Right, so here we go, back in
the youth space. Krista says.
It has to happen, damn it. OK, just sign me up for some
shit they don't even know about.Probably, yeah.
But anyway, so if anyone's listening to this that's in any
of those organizations or has contacts in that tell them to
kind of pitch stock, we can get a room together and we can all
start talking about it because it's a great space.
(36:09):
That's true. That would be a.
Good spin off conversation. Not a main talk, but we talked
about like like having these like, you know, spin off for
people that are in person especially that would probably
be a good one that the youth level and like some of the
issues. Because even though most of the
coaches that go to pitch talk are collegiate level, the more
like Trisha's always been great at this.
She's always pushing that like, wait, this is a problem?
(36:31):
And like coaches have daughters,you know what I mean?
So like they have invested interest personally also not
just related to their job. So I think that would be a good
idea at pitch talk. As a, as a bit of a selfish
plug, but I did a podcast with the NFCA back in February,
beginning of the winter with Joanna Lane, specifically about
puberty. So listeners, if you don't
(36:51):
already listen to the NFCA podcast, there's a plug there.
But we had about an hour long conversation about kind of this
concept, but really related around puberty and some of the
things that we're we're really missing in this coaching
conversation. All right, well, anyone that
wants to show up, you know my number, I'm sure.
So text me and we'll talk about pitching development.
(37:11):
Let's fill the room. Fill the room.
Need you to like and subscribe and review the podcast so that
we can keep making it every weekfor you, and maybe even drop
what topic you'd like us to talkabout or rant about or whatever
we do every week.
All right, it's back for anotherepisode today.
I thought we would branch off a conversation I had this week.
It was actually with someone whoruns a youth baseball program
and he was talking about sort ofsome pull he had from parents of
starting softball programs. I think a couple interesting
points of the conversation was that the age group he mostly
(00:25):
works with is like 4. She's really a big asterisk 4/4
to 12. And there has been pushed back.
And this is not where we're probably going to go with this
conversation, but of just havinglike Coed programs and some
desire to have like a separate softball program.
And so him and I talked a lot about a lot of things.
(00:45):
And so maybe a separate conversation of like why we
might feel the need to separate them at 4.
Probably not, but that's different conversation,
different day. But we were talking a little bit
about sort of like, what is actually different about
baseball, softball. Why would you need to start
pulling athletes out to be able to prepare for softball?
His daughter is very young, I think he said six or seven.
(01:05):
And she's playing T-ball, just baseball.
And she's, you know, getting good.
The ball is actually her size atthat age with baseball.
It's just an interesting point. So she can really learn
overhand. And it took us into a
conversation really that got around pitching because the big
differentiator at that age when you're just talking about the
scales, like get out of the ideaof the ball is different and
(01:27):
some of the rules are different and all of those things.
But the actual skills you're trying to learn to keep getting
better at softball, the actual only skills that are different
is under him pitching. So we talked a little bit about
the difficulties of that. And I think it was just an
interesting conversation becauseit got into things like pitch
counts and why that may or may not be something that is
(01:49):
possible in supple. How we might teach more people
underhands to prep the conversations we're having all
the way at the collegiate level of like, OK, now we get to this
place and we don't have enough pictures.
Like, what the heck are we supposed to do now?
I had a interesting sort of likethought that in my son's
Baseball League, there's a girl that still plays 9 U Baseball,
(02:09):
and she's legitimately, if not the best athlete in the whole
league, like top five, but she doesn't know how to underhand
throw. And so if she did make the
transition to softball at some point, you have now arguably
probably what will be one of thebetter athletes that goes into
the softball space who doesn't know how to pitch, which is much
different than when you're looking at baseball.
(02:30):
A lot of times, sort of like inverse at the younger ages that
the best athletes are also the best pitchers.
So anyways, that was sort of theconversation.
So maybe first, Ashley, I'm going to kick it to you.
We have talked about pitch counts before because people
have asked us like our thoughts on pitch counts.
Maybe just some thoughts on and and bridging into kind of
(02:50):
pitcher development of like why pitch counts are are good or bad
idea, like what some of the difficulties that we sort of
foresee would happen if we triedto do pitch counts in that
conversation. I mean, pitch counts would be
great. There are it's a really good
place to start. I mean, I think that's reality
that any negatives against pitchcounts are that it's just not
enough. You don't just say, oh, here's
(03:12):
the pitch counts and then that'senough.
One, are people following it? One, I just wrote something
about this in our OGX community yesterday where we were having
athletes come on, come on like Monday, Tuesdays, like maybe
three years ago. And they're like, oh, I'm so
sore. And we're like, OK, I'm just
going to assume you through. We tally up your pitches from
(03:32):
the weekend and it's, you know, 3432 pitches from the weekend.
And they're like, actually, no, I didn't.
There's five pitches on my team.There's four pitches on my team.
I actually didn't throw that much.
And then we started getting intolike, oh, because it's travel
ball and there's eight games a day.
They warmed up before everyone and before everyone, they threw
79 pitches. You know, so it's just like,
wow. So there's this world in pitch
(03:54):
count is like, does it get followed?
Like who's regulating that? And then also it only counts for
the pitches you legitimately throw in the game.
So we know that it's not enough,but it's a freaking place to
start. I mean, we don't have anything.
So we have pitchers that come, you know, out of games and
they're like, oh, I touted up mypitches and I threw 600 pitches
(04:16):
today, you know, like it's like wild or it's a winter And I
threw, you know, it's it was literally a January winter
tournament. I have not pitched in the game
since in months. And I tallied my pitches and it
was 342. It it's just wild.
So I mean, I definitely think it'd be, it would be great
because the reality is what we because so few people can pitch
(04:40):
when they're younger. This is how these two
conversations come together because so few people can pitch
and can pitch in a way that produces something decent
because it's a really hard skill.
It is the most physically complicated movement in the
game. The task itself, I get it when
we joked around about what's harder hitting or pitching, you
know, you're talking about whichtask is harder, but the movement
(05:03):
complexity of it. So very few young kids with
underdeveloped bodies can actually do such a physically
complicated movement. So there's a small pool of
people who can do it and so you just throw them a shit ton.
And so the, the, what we realized was happening because
way back in the day when we got our hands on some wearable
sensors and some buff light data, some tech, we're like,
(05:26):
let's measure this stuff for everybody regardless of the age.
And we're like, wow, like they're all exactly the same.
Basically, their bodies cannot do it appropriately, so they
don't actually produce anything on ball flight.
So what we realize is to get thejob done, they start just
lowering their ceiling. They start getting stuck in
these patterns that are the bestthey can do for now, but they
(05:50):
start getting stuck in them, which really lowers their
ceiling. When they're older, they don't
actually produce anything on theball because those patterns
actually aren't very good. Their hands are too small.
You know, it's like, so they just kind of get stuck in this
world of, oh, I was good when I was 11 and 12, but I kind of
stayed that good throughout. Really difficult to be able to
grow out of that. So, you know, that's that's why
(06:10):
pitch counts would be really a great place to start because
it's like you can't have 3 pitchers, you can't have two
high school, you can't freaking have one because there's
legitimately going to be a rule that says at pitch count X,
someone else has to throw. So you're going to have no other
choice but to then start, you know, developing and start
(06:31):
teaching probably double the amount of athletes at least, if
not triple the amount of athletes.
You know, in a, in a world wherewe're designing things that are
a little bit more ideal, we might say just teach everyone on
the team to be able to do it andthen start to decide.
But this way you would start to you would be forced to grow the
number of pitchers. And that in and of itself, it's
(06:53):
not only really great for the game, but it actually is more
likely to feed better pitchers in the long run.
Because now those pitchers who were good early on, those
pitchers probably are the pitchers that are going to be
good later in life. Except they get stuck, maybe
it's injury, but they get stuck in these patterns and stuck in
these ways that are very difficult to undo just three,
(07:15):
4-5 years down the line. So that's really the issue at
hand. And it's like, you know what, I
always think who's the guy? And that's not nice, but I'm
going to assume it's a guy who'sthe guy that came up with the
phrase. It's a natural motion.
Like, I hate that guy, you know,like who did that to us because.
Well, I had a conversation with a parent this week.
(07:36):
I had a conversation with a parent this week and they said
something about, you know, fortunately a lot of our
conversations with pitchers are around pain.
And she was like, not as bad as baseball, though.
I'm like, not true. That's made-up you just we just
aren't hearing UCL conversations.
It's literally the difference isthat yes, the softball injuries
for the most part outside of ACLand things like that aren't
things that take you out for twoyears, a year and a half.
(07:59):
Like yes, it's not so from. That standpoint college game, I
think it was last year, it was not this last season that just
passed, but the season before that and with the announcers was
like, well, because it's a natural motion and I I like.
Can't like it's gas. Like that.
And I was like, stop repeating shit that sabotages yourself.
(08:20):
Like absolutely, yes. Yeah.
Oh my gosh. If you ever say that in an
announcement, I want you to knowthat is one of the most harmful
things that you could ever say to an audience of parents,
coaches and young softball players.
Never say that. Never say that it is not true.
And you're just repeating shit that's not true.
Yeah, we, I think the pitch count thing is interesting
(08:42):
because it it's like, duh, like that would be an easy start.
Except one of the things I said to the person I was talking to
was if you said, OK, starting next season at every level, all
the governing, this would never happen.
But all the governing bodies agree to put in the same pitch
counts, like it would be catastrophic for self right now.
(09:04):
And so I think the reality is it's not the same as baseball.
So the implementation of pitch counts is.
We've run out of people, right like.
Absolutely. The teams that don't fold like
there's just no chance. There are no pitchers for that.
So I think, I think or they'd have to forfeit after day one or
you know, they just no one wouldfollow it.
I think in reality no one would follow it because it just.
(09:26):
Broken in that way. And so I think the the
implementation of it would have to be over the course of a few
years and starting kind of at the younger ages where OK,
starting next season, the tenurehas these pitch counts.
The year after that 12 years, the pitch counts.
You know, it's like the slow progression of we're going to
build it up. And so it puts the pressure on
(09:48):
the younger ages to do that. The problem also though, is, is
that when you do that and what and really what I was talking to
this guy about was what is the program then we would implement
as peep dads who have no idea how to teach under him pitching.
If if it becomes our responsibility at this 8U10U age
group to teach the whole team topitch.
(10:10):
How do we do that? You know, they might do it in a
way that's not great overhand, but the generally everyone can
go out there and play overhand, catch the people and generally
get the ideas of like a couple things they might say to a
baseball pitcher that will help them.
Generally, it might be wrong, but they have a sense of
something and in softball, it's just like for the most part, the
(10:31):
coaches have no sense of like I don't I couldn't even do that.
So like I can't demonstrate it. I can't nothing like and so I
think it it becomes so importantthat we think through some of
these younger age, something like a plyo program, which is
what we talked about, something that's very easily adoptable for
those teams. So just say like this is part of
your practice. You warm up by playing underhand
(10:53):
catch. You warm up with this, you know,
plyo program, everyone does it. So you start to teach it.
It's so layered because even then when you implement
something like that, then it's like, you know, it's so layered.
Yeah, my son plays baseball in Little League, which I've talked
about before. It's wreck.
They don't practice. It's not part of the structure
(11:13):
of anything. They just play games.
They he had one practice of thisteam at 9.
You Rick 9 you wreck. And so yes, all of the kids got
opportunities to pitch, but likeunless you then took your 9 year
old to pitching instruction or you had time to really go
constantly in the backyard and do things.
(11:33):
And what's so interesting about and I like, I think it was like
the solo one that I recorded a while ago where I just like
talked about you think. But what's so interesting is
like, oh, obviously just go havetime to play catch with your kid
in the backyard. That's what you do.
Except even my son who's in nothing has something on Monday
and something on Tuesday and something on Wednesday and
homework on Thursday. And it's like I we don't have
(11:54):
time to just go play catch that easily in the backyard to make
sure he can know how to pitch and so.
Chris, I think another layer you're missing here is like we
wrote this shit like 3-4 years ago because we were like OK,
once we realized we were idiots and collected bio mechanics data
on 10 year olds and it was like like basically the the software
all spit off the same thing, like unstable as hell.
(12:16):
Like that's the output you know?All idiots have to start
somewhere. All idiots have to start
somewhere. That's great.
Way to go, guys. So anyway, once we realized,
once we got out of that phase ofcollecting data to show the
like, this is not what we shouldbe doing, then we're like, Oh,
well, then let's design these programs.
Josh and I, he was, it was like when he first started, we had
(12:37):
our hands in this together, but we wrote this together.
Here is a like intro to pitching.
When someone calls and they're not ready, they're not at the
age where what we do is appropriate for them.
Let's tell them to start with a plan like this on their own.
And then we're like, you know what?
We'll also offer it inside of OGX and teach it sometimes on
the weekends. People hated that.
(12:58):
You know who loved it? Josh's daughter, Josh is one of
our own pitching coach because Josh's daughter had never thrown
a soft pitch, a softball ball pitching wise in her life.
The first day she went to do that program, the ball went like
behind her. Everyone was ducking.
It was out of control. That kid, it's like a couple
years later, she just smokes it now.
Now she's still young, so you know, who knows?
But he knew that like education behind it.
(13:21):
But the reality was, for the parents, it wasn't sexy enough.
They were like, what has to be in the team setting?
Yeah, it has to be at the team study.
I could also, but they all wanted to go to the less.
And I don't judge because it's all they know.
But they were like, yeah, but you're never taught teaching her
a curve. You're never teaching her a
drop. You're never teaching her like
that's that's not what you want right now.
(13:42):
And they're like, it's interesting because they're
like, well, we'll trust you whenyou get to be 16.
But for now, you know, so it's like it's interesting.
We just pulled the plug on it because I'm like, honestly, I
know it's important, but it's inaddition to what we do and it
something like this is going to take.
So. Much education because the
(14:03):
culture of pitching and in our game we have told people that
the skill is identical at 810 and 18 and 22 and it is not
remotely the same skill. It doesn't even become that
skill as we know until probably the early, it's probably 14.
And so you just want to be prepping underneath for the
actual skill later down the line.
(14:25):
But no one knows that. And so the amount of education
it would take is extensive. And we were just like, we can't
be who we are and be that. But it's interesting.
It's not hard. It's not hard to to write.
And you're like, oh, we could never come up with the program
to teach someone pitching. Like, yes, we can.
I have some of my former collegeteammates call me all the time.
I've got a daughter, she's 8. She wants to learn how to
(14:46):
pitching, how to pitch. What the hell do I do?
I'm like, oh, let me just send you this real quick.
And then it's like, do that. And they're like, oh, because
they're doing it with them. They're like, oh, this is
excellent. Like, yeah, that part's not
hard, but it's the fight againstall the other stuff.
Your mention of, of age 14, I think a major talking point in
this conversation is the pubertytransition.
(15:08):
And I think from it's difficult at 12 you and 14 you because of
the, you know, the span of ages that that could happen for each
kid. But honestly, one of the reasons
that I, I am a huge advocate forpitch counts, particularly AT10U
and 12U is exactly what we've talked about.
It's not called a workload conversation.
It's future workload, but it it at least diversifies who can
(15:31):
pitch because the, the skills ofstriking a ball with an object
and throwing overhand are fundamental skills that kids
should and can learn on their own.
Now, is it good? That is a not that's not the
conversation, but it is at even a non baseball or softball
player at some point will know how to throw a ball overhand, I
(15:52):
hope. Right.
And those are fundamental skills.
Softball pitching is not it is not a skill that you just like
your body could potentially figure it out.
And so the the pitch counts at the younger ages, in my opinion,
are just exposing, you know, athletes to a complicated skill,
but in a nice controlled environment, you're diversifying
who can figure it out. And I think one of the most
(16:14):
important points of education isthe puberty transition.
It's we also lose kids in this washout of we hear it all the
time. You know, I, I'm eleven years
old and all of a sudden, you know, I can't hit the broadside
of the barn. And then you ask, have you had a
growth spurt? And they're like, oh, yeah,
she's, you know, she shot up 8 inches in the last six months.
And I'm like, in what world could you expect a young athlete
(16:37):
grooming at that rate to be ableto do the same thing over and
over again? So we've talked about pitching
as opposed to puberty concept, which is why that that age of 14
is about when it starts to be something that you can
influence, manipulate, train. But pre puberty, and I even
think in this, if you are a, youknow, quote, UN quote, early
bloomer, 1011 years old, you still need to take a pre puberty
(17:01):
approach to pitching because that's what's going to preserve
you for the long run. And so we have to monitor that.
We have to have education aroundit.
We have to have coaches who recognize it, parents who
recognize that talking about their kid going through a growth
spurt and getting to their firstperiod is a huge deal, not just
developmentally, but biologically, biomechanically.
(17:23):
And pitchers take the brunt of it because the motion's so
complicated. It is the most, you know, And
when you when I talk to a parentand I say, you know, hey, this
is what she's got going on and like it, it's not always a dad.
Sometimes it is a mom. And they're like, oh, yeah, that
that makes tons of sense, right?They just don't think of that.
We just think of this like, natural biological process.
But it really jacks kids up. For sure.
(17:45):
And you know, there's like it's there for a lot of reasons are
which we talk about. It's one the hips expand, which
make rotating more difficult. We're airborne when we rotate,
when we have to rotate, we got to go One Direction and back in
the other direction quickly. The levers are growing, but also
chest size. I have watched multiple
athletes. I think we wildly underestimate
(18:06):
this game. You know, it's a dream of mine
someday for us to get into the sports bra business and to like
collaborate. I'm not kidding because I'm
like, it is so misunderstood theway that chest size, it's not
just impacts deceleration, but in pitching because we have to
rotate aggressively in One Direction, stop and then
(18:26):
aggressively while in the air goin the other direction.
The difficulty that we see in pitchers who have large your
chess, the ability to do that and that sports bras, as we
always talk about, are designed to like keep their chests in
check from an up down jumping standpoint, but not necessarily
side to side. And the nature of changing
(18:48):
direction is wild. And the and pitchers don't do it
well. And all the time when we're
studying bio mechanics, athleteswho are older and they're built
in a way, and this is just their, this is just their
biology. It's their genetic makeup,
right. And, and you're, and we're
seeing like, OK, now all of a sudden rotation is just a
disaster and the control of it is a disaster.
Who even knows? Like we've given recommendations
(19:10):
to our athletes, like you absolutely need a better sports
bra. Who even knows that there's
actually one out there on the market that's good enough,
right? But then I, we have seen many of
times that pitchers have legitimately just stopped.
They've become terrible during Puerty because basically their
biggest, the most significant body change is their chest size
and they're trying to navigate it and what that does to their
(19:31):
arm path. Their anterior core is a mess.
And when they're up in, you know, in the air when they're
overhead I should say, then all of a sudden their arm paths like
a huge thing that we see with athletes when they're a major
change that happens for them in that growth spurt is like a
substantial change in their chest size.
The arm path issue, because of the anterior core, it is a mess.
(19:55):
So in reality, athletes, young athletes who you know, like who
are doing something, who are going through changes where
that's likely to derail them because how significant those
changes are, are more likely to have success later in pitching.
If they just waited, They just waited and stabilized and
learned their bodies and then were stable and had a struggle.
(20:16):
Anterior core, basically the change stopped like slowed down
and then they worked on the skill.
They didn't have a shot, but they get derailed because of
that. Because that transition is so
difficult and there's just obviously we know there is no
research out there about the like changing chess size and its
relationship to pitching. We hardly had any research on
pitching. We don't even have a return to
(20:37):
throw program right before we wrote 1.
So I think like we know that this is the future, but it's a
huge problem and I don't think enough people pay attention to
it generally because of course you're going to see athletes out
there who are grown and have a different shapes and sizes.
But it's that change during puberty that just is a nice
nightmare, and it's definitely enough to just completely derail
(20:57):
someone and they never pitch again.
Well, or you get the other extreme of it, which we see a
ton too, which is like they didn't have that much change
during puberty and actually now they're just throwing 58.
They threw 58, four and now theythrew 58 still.
And it's really hard to overcomebecause they didn't get the
benefits of not necessarily chest size, but a bunch of
height that came from puberty. Some, you know, they they aren't
(21:21):
that's they were 54 before puberty and they're 54 now and
they throw 58 and they threw 58 after.
And they're like, I was getting so much better and now I'm not.
And so I was actually thinking when you were like, the athletic
kids are probably the ones who still will be good.
I'm like, no, that's actually not.
I mean, I that probably probablydisagree with there are what we
see is like there might be the standout kids, of course, who
(21:43):
are just there's that top kid that just like was good forever.
But what we know is like Kat Osterman didn't get good till
1213. She talks about it, that build
of the lanky kid who like and there's if they can be in the
right setting, they have such amazing potential when they can
start to understand their limbs and feel into it.
But a lot of times those kids don't make it because they our
(22:07):
system is not designed for that patients and I think pitch
counts are all about they really.
It is so interesting. It's like, yes, they're about
workload, but workload becomes less relevant.
You're not going to ride a kid that's getting hit if you have
other options like so I, I thinkworkload at the older ages
(22:29):
becomes less relevant. Like you don't I, I don't want
to say never because you, you definitely do still see this,
but at the like, I look at the top ten travel ball, you know,
18 new teams right now, It's pretty unlikely that you're
going to go to the field and seethe same kid throw every inning.
They have the benefit of having grabbed the top five to seven
(22:50):
pitchers and they have decent Staffs.
Now, they might get to a point at the end of the year where
you're like, this is pushing like, OK, now we have this one
kid who just is above those other kids and we're writing her
a lot. And there are plenty of
instances where people make poorjudgments and just write one
kid. So I'm not saying that, but but
it happens less and less actually at the top age for or
(23:12):
at the top level of the teams that get the benefit of pulling
many, many pitchers. You see it much more at this
like tears under that where I have one kid because it starts
the funnel starts to get narrower and narrower of options
of pitchers when I'm at the 18 new level.
And so the only way that team that's making the decision throw
(23:32):
this one good kid that stands out because that's all they have
access to probably doesn't make that decision actually if they
just have more pitchers. So I think if the the target at
the younger ages becomes much more around, like maybe we don't
need to do pitch counts across the board.
We can just watch how it goes. I think parents are starting to
get educated enough that like, Idon't want my kid going to the
(23:57):
next level hurt or I'm going into recruiting somewhere and I
pitched so much in high school and I'm throwing low Velo and
I'm not getting looked at. Like I think people are starting
to see what's happening as a result of those things.
But coaches don't have options. And so the the focus has to be
on this lower level of how do weget more pitchers to go up?
And it it does have to be this really targeted effort.
(24:17):
It is going to have to be a big thing that we also come together
and talk about it because it's just not as simple of like just
throw more pictures because thatdoesn't.
Work. No, they don't exist.
They don't. Yeah, they don't exist.
They don't know how to throw. They they don't.
I think for parents who might belistening to this too, the
predictor for future success is whether or not you can get out
(24:42):
of puberty and maintain movementvariability, which we've had,
which we've had topics on, right, which whether or not you
have movement variability, meaning you're not just stuck in
one way of doing things. And if you produce power, right,
I mean, that's athleticism. Athleticism is that you can
produce power. If you're slow as hell, you
could be strong as hell and slowas hell.
(25:03):
Let's be clear. And we've got athletes like that
and they're like, I, I don't throw hard.
Why? I'm so strong.
Like, yes, because we've established you are strong as
hell and slow as hell. Now, doesn't mean there's not
space out there for teachers whoare throwing off speed.
So it's like lean in Sally, because that's what you are, you
know? But the reality is athleticism
is about this combination of movements, variability and the
(25:24):
ability to produce power. It is not about the skill of
pitching. Like going to a pitching coach
who's teaching you the mechanicsof pitching when you were young
is ridiculous. Like, you are more likely if you
just generally understand the skill, can step in, can do it.
It's more relaxed and you are focused more on like I would
like my kid to be a pitcher. Keep her an athlete.
(25:46):
It's like keep her an athlete and just make sure she knows the
skill. That's what we're talking about.
She knows how to do it. If you asked her to go in and
throw to two batters, 3 batters,she could do it.
She's been taught it. She knows how to do it.
Are the pitches breaking? Are they changing speed?
No, and no one cares. That's all a chapter of a
different for a different time. It's just keep her an athlete
(26:09):
and really monitor like is this,does your kid produce any power?
And if she doesn't hasn't been able to see, then you're
probably you still could be a good pitcher, but you've got to
be able to obviously you're going to lean into a little bit
more of like this all speed track.
But I think it's just for for parents who want have this dream
of their kid being a pitcher, then they think that like the
(26:29):
sooner they started and the morethat she's good early, it's just
not right. It's just not right.
What I would add to that, you know, Ash, besides like, you
know, your movement variability,your movement quality and
powers, like your health. I mean, it's it's almost a tale
as old as time at this point where you know, if I talk to and
it's particularly pitchers whereI talk to, you know, a pitcher
(26:50):
family, whatever, where she's had back pain, a stress
fracture, scapular dyskinesis, bicep pain and she's barely out
of puberty. Like that's a one.
The stress fracture concept, especially in the landing leg,
is absolutely a combination of rapid growth and way too much
(27:10):
workload and the body being unable to keep up with that.
Other challenges around the arm are simply an inefficiencies of
trunk stability. And it's like we have to be, I
think any parent listening, if your kid is having pain and they
haven't reached puberty or they're just on the other side
of puberty, that's a warning sign.
There's a warning sign there that your, your body's telling
(27:33):
you this motion right now is toohard for me.
It doesn't mean it's going to behard for me forever.
I'm going to be in pain forever.But you got to put the brakes on
for a second, right? And and I think that there is
this this really sort of insidious nature of back pain
and, you know, this normalization of arm soreness
that we pay attention to it morewhen, you know, the athlete is
(27:56):
older. We're like, oh, you know, that's
going to impact your ability to throw on Saturday.
But we're like the 12 you kid, like you're fine.
Just do some PT. It's like, no, no, no, that's
not. She probably doesn't even tell
anyone. Right, well, and it's so
interesting because when my son say like my arm hurts from OK
like 3 weeks ago and as long as I don't know it doesn't matter.
(28:19):
A month or two ago my son's we went with her dad on the bike
ride. It was like 8 miles.
They're just like when the bike ride the next day my youngest
son had like like really bad neck pain and like literally
like couldn't move his neck as you get sometimes as like an
older person. I was so like alarmed by it cuz
I kept saying and Laura, I like asked you like this doesn't seem
(28:40):
normal. This is a 7 year old like what's
happening? So I was like so freaked out by
it. Now it went away after like 2
days and it was fine. But I think that level of like
alarmist nature in 7 to 12 year olds is appropriate.
You are not supposed to have a young, young athlete come.
It's fine if they're a little whatever, you know, like I just
did something a little more thanI used to or that was just like
(29:02):
literally we remembered that he was carrying like a camelback
like light backpack and just waslike too much, you know?
But it was too much. Like, that's the point, right?
It was like that actually was too much.
These are not. They are not producing enough
force or doing enough. Sort of like that's it.
They're not many adults. Right.
(29:23):
They're not producing the force that soreness and recovery in
that way should be something that we need to take into
consideration. They just shouldn't be doing it
at that volume. The reason they are sore at that
level is because they cannot rotate and so the breakdowns
they're having or. Put the brakes on.
They can't decelerate. They can't put the brakes on.
(29:44):
So where they try to dissipate energy at the end of the motion,
it's in their neck, it's in their shoulder.
It's they have knee pain, they start having lower back pain.
It's like these are not. Pitching was made for, at 12
years old, someone of my stature, literally someone who
is small, who is, you know, who's just like the athletes who
are tall and lean. They don't have the anterior
(30:04):
core. These are the lumbar stress
fractures we see at 13 years oldbecause they don't the anterior
core and then the athletes who end up being larger and because
of that change in chest size andit's too dramatic at that time,
it's the same thing now their arm path gets funky and all of
that. It's so it's like the two
categories who are most likely to have the builds to be great
(30:26):
in the long run are the ones that are more likely to struggle
when they are young until that time is over.
You take someone who's small in stature, you know, it's just
like really average type body type.
This is what Krista's saying, man.
We are the state champions at 12.
You like basically that pitcher because they're coordinated.
(30:47):
They feel where their body is inspace.
Nothing changes that drasticallyfor them.
Like there's a high level of athleticism and proprioception.
Great. But then you still probably like
you, you throw within 4 mph of when you were 12 to when you're
20, right? Like it's pretty much the same.
So that's what I'm talking about.
It's like that. That's the world that we're in,
rather than having some patientsand some recognition vision for
(31:09):
like actually the athletes we just described are the ones that
are more likely to produce lateron.
So if we had a freaking system to let them all do it, you would
give them more of an opportunityto be like, no, take a little
time off. You still know how to pitch.
We're still practicing it, but you don't need to be in the
Games as much because those other athletes are, you know?
I just think this is, I think that this has to be as we are
(31:33):
trying to grow the game and we're having conversations and
we have Athletes Unlimited and aUSL growth and we have the, you
know, conversations around Alliance and PGF and U Triple SA
and and USA Softball as the Olympics.
We're back in the Olympics and there are all these governing
bodies and invested interest whoshould this like?
(31:55):
To me, there is not. Yes, get the games on ESPN.
Yes, you know, sell out the stadiums at the professional
level. That's the business's job to
keep trying to push and right under that should be an urgency
of how do we start having the right conversation about growing
pitchers at the young ages because this is unique to our
sport. It is super complex for all the
(32:17):
reasons we said. People don't know how to teach
it. There aren't resources around
the young ages that are appropriate that aren't just
this like, yeah, I'll give you aresource.
Come pay me to do a 30 minute lesson with your kid over and
over. There aren't team based
resources because that's really what let's I was saying to you
earlier. Like people would have been fine
with our PLIO program for the younger ages if it was
(32:37):
implemented in a team setting. And like, OK, maybe they still
do go on Tuesdays to their lesson.
They really feel like they need that or they want the extra
resource, but. You're like, newsflash, take
that money, roll down your window, let that shit out of the
window, and then roll it back up.
Literally. How does that feel?
Yeah, yeah. But at least then they have this
(32:57):
base in the team setting of getting sort of reps and and
everyone gets an opportunity, even if you maybe don't want to
go pay for lessons or whatever it looks like.
And so this to me is like one ofthe most urgent conversations in
our game because when you talk about why teams might be
dwindling at younger ages and why there aren't enough, and
(33:19):
then we have like slight uptick in participation again coming
out of COVID. But like, it's not as rapid of
growth at the youth level for what our game is growing at the
top. Like we're not keeping up with
that pace at the youth level because it's hard to put teams
together when you don't have enough pitchers.
It is all centered on the pitchers.
Like it has to be. Obviously, if you do not have
(33:40):
pitchers, you cannot play the game.
And it is not simple enough thatyou just go pick up random
people who pitch. They don't exist.
So you, when you're talking about being able to grow our
game, growing the number of pitchers and the way we develop
pitchers is has to be at the very, very top.
And every interested party should want to be in that room
(34:00):
having a conversation, should becollaborating because it's not
going to get done if we don't. This isn't as simple as slapping
for all the things you talked about.
It's not as simple as slapping pitch counts on.
It's not as simple as like having workload conversations at
the older ages or at the collegiate level.
It's not as simple as it's not even as simple as saying like,
hey, we just need to develop more pictures.
(34:21):
And even if everyone was like, great, I am on board and every
single 10 and 12 you coach across the country was like, got
it. We're on board as you already
said. Then you have a bunch of dads
who don't even know how to do that motion.
They've never done that motion. They're like, I can't really
even just like easily just toss underhands.
So it's like we, we haven't built this setup for teaching
(34:42):
that in a way that makes sense or having structure that teaches
that in a way that makes sense. And so, you know, we have to
start, OK, what's the first step?
What's the next step going to be?
And it's going to require collaboration.
And I, I can't imagine why people wouldn't want to be in
that room. We have to know this is an
issue. Like we, we absolutely have to
know this issue. The collegiate coaches know it's
an issue. I would imagine you're seeing at
(35:03):
the professional level that it'sstarting to be an issue of who's
available in that pool. The professional game is going
to keep growing and growing, so we're going to want to expand
how many pitchers we have in that.
We want top pitchers to stay healthy that long.
Like, you know, it all starts with how many people are playing
at the younger ages. So to me, the conversation is
really about, we don't have the exact answers, but it's about
developing more pictures. It's about protecting workload,
(35:25):
putting parameters in place so that people are incentivized and
aligned to for more pictures andnot writing their best kids.
And the only way you're going toeven begin that conversation is
to get the right people in the room and everyone's around this
idea of growth and collaboration.
And so I think like that has to happen.
It's just like, I don't even that's there's a lot of the
things we could talk about. There's the NCAA rule.
(35:48):
Everyone's all. Right, so here we go, back in
the youth space. Krista says.
It has to happen, damn it. OK, just sign me up for some
shit they don't even know about.Probably, yeah.
But anyway, so if anyone's listening to this that's in any
of those organizations or has contacts in that tell them to
kind of pitch stock, we can get a room together and we can all
start talking about it because it's a great space.
(36:09):
That's true. That would be a.
Good spin off conversation. Not a main talk, but we talked
about like like having these like, you know, spin off for
people that are in person especially that would probably
be a good one that the youth level and like some of the
issues. Because even though most of the
coaches that go to pitch talk are collegiate level, the more
like Trisha's always been great at this.
She's always pushing that like, wait, this is a problem?
(36:31):
And like coaches have daughters,you know what I mean?
So like they have invested interest personally also not
just related to their job. So I think that would be a good
idea at pitch talk. As a, as a bit of a selfish
plug, but I did a podcast with the NFCA back in February,
beginning of the winter with Joanna Lane, specifically about
puberty. So listeners, if you don't
(36:51):
already listen to the NFCA podcast, there's a plug there.
But we had about an hour long conversation about kind of this
concept, but really related around puberty and some of the
things that we're we're really missing in this coaching
conversation. All right, well, anyone that
wants to show up, you know my number, I'm sure.
So text me and we'll talk about pitching development.
(37:11):
Let's fill the room. Fill the room.
Need you to like and subscribe and review the podcast so that
we can keep making it every weekfor you, and maybe even drop
what topic you'd like us to talkabout or rant about or whatever
we do every week.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.