Baseball Showcases: A Great Way to Waste Money and Get Injured | Eric Cressey | High Performance Training, Personal Training

Baseball Showcases: A Great Way to Waste Money and Get Injured | Eric Cressey | High Performance Training, Personal Training A good time of the year to re-post this article. Must read for all baseball parents.

Movement Proficiency: A Reserve of Movement Competency

   It is important to build your training around a foundation of movement competency. This then serves as a reserve or cushion upon which your sport movements can operate.
  In other words, if your reservoir of movement is vast then the movements within your particular sport can be done well and safely.
  If, on the other hand, you have very limited movement proficiency then it is highly likely that at some point your sport will put a demand on you that your movement competency simply can't handle which will lead to injury.
   This injury event can be due to long term repetitive trauma (overuse injury like shin splints for a runner or shoulder "soreness" for a throwing athlete) or it could be due to a traumatic, one time event (ACL injury).
  The point of training is to make you more resilient from such insults. There is no training program that can absolutely guarantee that you won't get hurt. On the other hand, if your training program injures you that is an absolute, inexcusable mistake. If you do it to yourself, shame on you and use some common sense. If you are training with a coach and they do it to you, fire them.
  So bottom line is your training should enable you to move through a variety of movements through full ranges of motion with no pain. If it doesn't then it should at least be heading you in that direction.
  If it isn't doing that then time to re-evaluate and choose a different path.

Train hard and train smart!
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Is Your Training Building Resiliency?!?

  First, you may ask is, "What is resiliency?"
   Good question! :0
   I would define resiliency as the ability to withstand whatever life throws at you, be it everyday or in sport, without undue harm or injury.
  If you are getting hurt while training that is a cardinal sin. That should never, and I repeat, never happen.
  If it does then you are doing something terribly wrong. Here are some of the common reasons people don't build resiliency with their training.

• Poor technique and/or movement skills
• Too much load (that can be weight, range of motion, speed or combination thereof)
• Progressing too quickly; trying more advanced/challenging exercises that you are simply not ready for yet.
• Too much volume--this is especially prevalent in this era of Insanity, P90X, Crossfit and the like where there seems to be a "no pain, no gain" attitude. Don't confuse how "tough" a training session is with how effective it is especially in the long run.
• "Training through pain"" that is sheer and utter BS....period. If it hurts you shouldn't be doing it no questions asked. Now you have to be able to distinguish between muscular discomfort and joint/muscle pain but you get the gist.
• Training is too one sided, not comprehensive or well rounded. In a good training program the following qualities should be addressed: strength, mobility, balance, coordination, power, agility, conditioning/endurance, etal. If you get too focused on one aspect, i.e. strength, at the expense of others you will not build true resiliency and not be prepared for the rigors of life let alone sport. 
• Making training a competition. Training should be means to an end however you define that end. In rare exceptions should training become a competition i.e. military fitness training/law enforcement where you life may depend on it but even that has limits. 
• Not valuing the importance of recovery/rest. After a certain point, in the beginning of one's training life when one is young, careful thought should be given to how to integrate regular and consistent recovery into one's training program. This is easier said than done. 
• Not getting enough high quality sleep. Though this could be considered recovery, and it is, I think it merits a separate category because of it's importance. If you aren't sleeping well you are much more accident prone and injury prone. 
• Poor nutrition/hydration habits. Again, this could be considered part of recovery but it is so vital to avoiding injury that it should be given special consideration. If you want your body to be a high performing "machine" then you must use high quality fuel...plain and simple.                                                                                                                                        
• I hope these 10 tips give you some guidance on how to structure your own training for success.   
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