athletes

Those of you who are familiar with the Texas Baseball Ranch know the success it has had helping athletes make incredible gains in velocity—of course, Oates Specialties equipment aids these athletes in reaching their goals. Coach Ron Wolforth has adopted a mantra whereby he believes that every single athlete that walks through the Texas Baseball Ranch’s doors (actually, it’s a gate) can reach the 90 mile-per-hour threshold. This is quite the opposite from the old world baseball people that believe you either have it or you don’t—essentially, you either have been blessed with the genetics to throw harder than the rest of society or you haven't. I (obviously) think that the latter thought process is simply a coping mechanism as a way for people to try and make up for their shortcomings—whether it’s a coach that can’t help his players increase their velocities or a player who isn’t willing to work hard enough or isn’t willing to learn enough in order to improve his velocity. Continue reading →

I was recently on the road and had an opportunity to catch up on some of Coach Ron and Jill Wolforth’s audio CDs that Inner Circle members receive once a month on a variety of topics. I highly recommend becoming an Inner Circle member for those of you wanting to stay up to date on Coach Wolforth’s philosophies and to hear him and Jill discuss some of the most cutting edge topics in the game. The topic of this blog comes from one of Coach Wolforth’s discussions on his Inner Circle audio CDs. Continue reading →

People often try to categorize athletes into two types. There are the talented “freaks” born with endless natural ability that never seem to have to work very hard to perform amazing feats. And then there are the rest of us. Those who didn’t throw 90+ mph as a sophomore in high school or blast 400+ foot home runs at 16 years of age. Fortunately, those people are wrong. There is another group of athletes too: those athletes who work their butts off to improve and over time become elite athletes. The people who try to categorize athletes into just the first two groups I mentioned above often take the approach that throwing 90+ mph is simply a God-given ability that can’t be taught. At some point, I’ll address just how wrong that type of thinking is and why that philosophy is really just a crutch. This post, however, primarily addresses those athletes who have worked hard to reach their athletic goals, although it also has some use to those fortunate athletes who are supremely talented from a very young age too. Continue reading →

Coach Ron Wolforth at the Texas Baseball Ranch has established what he considers to be the “Big 6” for his athletes at the Ranch. The “Big 6” are the 6 elements Coach Wolforth believes are most critical for a pitcher to master in order to be exceptional. In my last blog I discussed the first critical element out of the 6—pain. Pain must be eliminated before an athlete can push himself harder on a consistent basis and make improvements, such as better velocity and command. Pain is a giant hurdle to any athlete’s ability to be successful. But once the pain is diminished, and eventually extinguished, a pitcher has other aspects of his game that need to be targeted and improved. The remaining 5 elements that athletes who train at the Texas Baseball Ranch focus on are: throwing 66% of off-speed pitches for strikes; fastball velocity at 3-5 mph faster than competitive peer group; Improving recovery time between outings; Improving the mind set; and having personal integrity. Continue reading →

As soon as you begin research involving sports training or innovative new training regimens it is common to read about what the training does for your neuromuscular pathways. I had a basic idea as to what this means but I knew that I was uninformed of the science behind it and I figured others might be as well. So I decided to devote an article to this important topic. Continue reading →

On several occasions I talked about improving flexibility, mobility, and stability in athletes. While I believe these are the most important areas for athletes to concentrate on in order to stay healthy and improve performance there is another aspect of training that I have not talked about much—power. Power is important to athletes in all sports but the reason I...

Objective measurement. Those two words are extremely important if you are seeking to enhance your skill and ability in any sport. What do I mean by them exactly? I'm talking about athletes measuring and recording everything they do. This idea is certainly nothing new in regards to athletics. For decades coaches have been timing 40 yard dashes, recording the amount players are able to lift in the weight room, and all sports keep statistics. However, this is only brushing the surface of what I mean by measuring.What I am referring to is measuring more than just an athlete's performance in games, or a player's speed or strength once every few months. I mean keeping a daily recording of any and all activities an athlete does in preparation for their sport. How do you measure all of the different activities an athlete does in practice and workouts? Its not as difficult as you might think. Continue reading →

I want to stay on the theme of athleticism and explosiveness and address what is killing many athletes' ability to become athletic. It often boils down to the fact that too many coaches are "over coaching" their players. This is something that has been happened in baseball for many years now. Coaches are breaking pitching and hitting mechanics into many tiny parts and teaching each of these micro positions individually hoping the athlete can piece them together to create an athletic, explosive 90 mph fastball or a screaming 400 foot line drive. This is not the right way to go about producing it. Continue reading →