Instagram story viewer> @prime_ab> Tagged
prime_ab(@prime_ab)'s profile avatar HD Profile

prime_ab

@prime_ab

undefined
POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED
One year of Prime Performance.⁠ ⁠ Over 200 athletes from across the country, college and professional signings, a Major League debut, World Baseball Classic representation, countless PRs, and plenty of milestones along the way.⁠ ⁠ We're incredibly grateful for every athlete, family, and coach who has been part of our first year.⁠ ⁠ Proud of what we've built, but even more excited about what's ahead. We're just getting started.⁠ ⁠ Your Prime Starts Here.
7
Download
Not every pitcher needs to gain weight, and body mass alone obviously doesn’t create velo.⁠ ⁠ But for significantly undersized athletes, adding usable mass can be one of the highest-leverage changes they make. For some athletes, improving the physical qualities behind the delivery may matter more than continuing to chase small mechanical changes.
0
Download
Force plate data shows that the lead leg block is one of the biggest determinants of how much energy transfers up the chain. But energy can’t be transferred if it isn’t created first. The early delivery gives the athlete a chance to build momentum down the slope, organize the body, and arrive at foot plant with something worth redirecting. But creating momentum is only half the job. The lead leg is what makes that energy usable. Once the front foot gets down, the lead leg has to accept force, slow and redirect the body, and give the pelvis something to rotate against. A good lead leg block doesn’t create all of the energy in the delivery, but it gives the energy created earlier somewhere productive to go. Without that, a lot of what was built down the mound just leaks out instead of moving up the chain.
17
Download
Back-leg depth is one of those things that gets coached like there’s a right answer, when in reality it’s just one of many stylistic strategies that can vary from athlete to athlete. Some pitchers are going to work from a deeper position into the back leg, while others will stay relatively tall. The position itself isn’t necessarily what we care about. What matters is what that position allows the athlete to do throughout the rest of the delivery.⁠ ⁠ For us, the goal is to find enough depth to maintain flexion through the rear hip while the body begins moving down the mound. That gives the athlete time to capture a linear move, build momentum, and delay hip extension until later in the sequence, when that energy can actually be transferred.⁠ ⁠ How an athlete accomplishes that can look very different depending on the athlete. A more terrestrial pitcher may naturally spend more time interacting with the ground, create more depth, and organize force over a longer window, while a more aerial athlete may operate from a shallower position, spend less time on the ground, and rely more heavily on elastic and reactive qualities to accomplish a similar task. Neither approach is inherently better.⁠ ⁠ There is no holy grail position that every pitcher needs to find. If the strategy allows the athlete to accomplish the goal and move efficiently into the next phase of the delivery, who cares what we call it or whether it fits someone else’s picture of what the back leg is supposed to look like?⁠ ⁠ The problem starts when we take a stylistic characteristic from one athlete and turn it into a universal mechanical goal for everyone else. Too shallow for a specific athlete and they may run out of the back leg early, while too much depth may put them in a position they can’t effectively move out of and slow down the linear phase they were trying to improve in the first place.⁠ ⁠ The goal is to find the amount of depth that fits the athlete, preserves their ability to move down the mound, and allows them to transition out of the back leg at the right time. That’s the difference between coaching a position and understanding what the position is actually there to accomplish.
0
Download
Too many times, pitchers come into the facility thinking their changeup needs to be 10+ mph off their fastball to be effective.⁠ ⁠ The reality is that for a lot of guys, chasing that big of a velo gap usually leads to them slowing the body down, changing intent, or making the pitch easier to see out of the hand.⁠ ⁠ For the majority of pitchers, the changeup is not always going to be their biggest swing-and-miss pitch. Finding a realistic velo differential and movement profile while still maintaining arm speed and intent is usually a better way to build it.⁠ ⁠ For Owen, the changeup already had enough shape separation, so it did not need to be an additional 10 mph off the fastball to be useful. The goal was to keep the intent the same, make a small grip adjustment, and throw it the same way.⁠ ⁠ Not a massive change, just a better feel for how the pitch needs to be thrown.⁠ ⁠ Also, shoutout again to @ethantome07 for getting behind the plate and allowing the phrase “throw it through his face” to be used in a controlled baseball environment. His bravery continues to be appreciated.
1
Download
Ethan Tome's transformation from this past spring to now.⁠ ⁠ When Ethan first came in for his assessment this spring, he was sitting 78-80 and topping out at 81. Today he's legitimately sitting in the mid-80s and starting to touch the upper 80s.⁠ ⁠ The first thing that stood out in his assessment bullpen was that Ethan looked like an athletic kid who was still undersized, and even at 170 pounds, it looked like there was more velocity in him than what he was actually showing at 78-81. So we knew something mechanically was holding him back too.⁠ ⁠ Once we got him on the force plate mound, it became obvious that Ethan wasn't utilizing linear momentum well, nor was he doing a great job at giving himself direction down the slope either. We built his drill work around both pieces. Upper half constraints helped him learn to stay behind the ball, and different roll-in variations layered in more linear momentum so he could learn to actually use it and time it up. Step-backs and a Bauer drill tied it together, teaching him to ride the slope, get a better linear move down the mound, transition into his lead leg, and stay behind the ball so it could keep his hand speed instead of getting around it.⁠ ⁠ Ethan also completely changed himself physically. He weighed in at 170.9 lbs at his assessment and is now up to 185.4, close to 15 pounds of good weight, and it showed up everywhere in his force plate numbers. His eccentric braking RFD relative to bodyweight jumped from 76.2 to 108.8 N/s/kg, a 43% increase, and his RSI modified went from 0.64 to 0.75 m/s, about a 17% jump. That kind of improvement in how well he brakes and reloads force is a big part of why the mechanical changes actually stuck and why the velo kept climbing.⁠ ⁠ Eccentric Braking RFD/BW: 76.2 N/s/kg → 108.8 N/s/kg (+42.8%)⁠ RSI Modified: 0.64 m/s → 0.75 m/s (+17.2%)⁠ Body Weight: 170.9 lbs → 185.4 lbs (+8.5%)⁠ ⁠ When Ethan first came to us, he didn't have a single college looking at him. Now, because of everything he's put into this transformation, he's earned the opportunity to continue his career at Keiser University.
4
Download
Delaying rotation heavily depends on how well a pitcher can maintain hip flexion and keep his center of mass shifted posteriorly before the pelvis and trunk begin turning toward the plate. How a pitcher achieves that varies based on how his body organizes coming out of the leg lift.⁠ ⁠ A common solution for many higher-level throwers is utilizing the lead leg to help with this. As they initiate their drop into hip flexion in the back leg, the lead leg kicks out rather than positioning it directly under or reaching toward the plate.⁠ ⁠ Kicking the lead leg out functions almost like a counterbalance, similar to a pistol squat, allowing the athlete to shift more mass posterior in the back leg and achieve more quality hip flexion and a deeper posterior weight shift over the rubber, for a longer duration.⁠ ⁠ The longer the athlete can maintain that flexed, posteriorly loaded position, the longer they can delay anterior pelvic tilt and hip extension that initiate trunk rotation.⁠ ⁠ Plenty of guys achieve the same posterior loading and delayed rotation without kicking the lead leg out aggressively. It's one strategy the body uses to solve the problem, not the only correct one.
1
Download
Logan Bell has been putting together a really solid start to the offseason as he prepares to throw at our Pro Day in January.⁠ ⁠ This bullpen was another good step forward. He sat 90.7 and touched an all-time PR of 92.4, edging past his previous best of 92.0.⁠ ⁠ Logan has been incredibly consistent with his work over the last few months and has genuinely been grinding every day he’s in the facility. There is still plenty of time between now and January, but the progress is starting to show up more and more each time he gets on the mound.⁠ ⁠ Excited to see where he can take it by Pro Day.
4
Download
I’ve talked before about using the leg lift to help create a posterior orientation of the pelvis at peak leg lift. But simply trying to “tuck” the pelvis doesn’t automatically put you in a better position.⁠ ⁠ One of the most common mistakes I see when pitchers work on this is creating posterior pelvic tilt without allowing the trunk and spine to flex with it.⁠ ⁠ Instead, the pelvis gets pushed underneath the body while the torso stays upright or extended. In a right-handed pitcher, this often shows up as the pelvis translating toward the 3B side while the head and upper trunk fall back toward the 1B side.⁠ ⁠ So while the athlete may technically be creating some posterior tilt, they’ve lost the relationship between the pelvis and ribcage that we were actually trying to create.⁠ ⁠ Now you have throwing-arm-side pelvic translation paired with glove-side lateral trunk flexion. The athlete is no longer stacked over the pelvis, their direction down the mound changes, and the orientation they will eventually rotate around has already been altered.⁠ ⁠ The posterior tuck we’re looking for should happen with some degree of spinal and trunk flexion. The pelvis organizes underneath the ribcage rather than simply being shoved underneath the body.⁠ ⁠ That position gives the athlete a better opportunity to move down the mound without getting into hip and spinal extension too early, which can help preserve space for rotation to occur later in the delivery.
0
Download
Not every command issue needs a mechanical solution. A lot of the time, the pitch itself is fine and the visual simply needs to be recalibrated.⁠ ⁠ Pitchers build an internal relationship between where they look, where they intend to start the pitch, and where the ball ultimately finishes. When a pitch is consistently missing in one direction, changing that visual can shift the starting line without asking the athlete to consciously manipulate the grip, release, or movement pattern.⁠ ⁠ This becomes especially useful with breaking balls. A pitcher who repeatedly yanks a slider glove side may not need to “stay through it,” hold onto it longer, or change the way the pitch is thrown. Starting the visual higher and farther arm side can give the pitch more room to develop and allow the body to solve the adjustment on its own.⁠ ⁠ The visual acts as a task constraint. It changes the athlete’s intent, and the movement begins to organize around that new target without filling their head with additional mechanical instructions.⁠ ⁠ There are obviously times when poor execution is coming from the grip, release, or delivery. But when the pitch shape is good and the miss is consistent, changing the visual is often the cleanest place to start.⁠
0
Download
There's plenty of differing opinions regarding stride length.⁠ ⁠ The old-school take is that a longer stride gets you down the mound better and creates more velocity. The newer take from some corners is that stride length doesn't matter at all. Neither one really gets it right.⁠ ⁠ What's actually happening before front foot strike is momentum getting created and organized. How aggressively someone moves their center of mass down the slope, how much forward velocity they build, how that momentum eventually gets accepted and redirected through the lead leg. Stride length is just the visible output of all of that. It's not the mechanism.⁠ ⁠ So telling someone to reach further with the front leg usually doesn't do what people think it does. You can get a bigger number without getting more momentum, better sequencing, or a cleaner transfer up the chain. You just stretched the distance out without fixing anything underneath it. Same problem, longer stride. And it's not just a longer-is-risky thing either. Push a guy's stride shorter or longer than what his own sequencing actually supports, in either direction, and you're going to disrupt the timing between his pelvis and trunk, not improve it.⁠ ⁠ That timing piece is also why there's no universal number to chase in the first place. Every player solves the problem of getting energy into the ball a little differently, and every player throws differently because of it. A smaller guy compensating for less mass might initiate his move down the mound aggressively and end up with a longer stride out of that. A bigger, more force-dominant guy might solve the same problem completely differently. Neither one is wrong. They're different answers to the same question.⁠ ⁠ I don't ever really look at stride length as something to chase or something to fix directly. I look at it more as an indicator, specific to that athlete, telling me what already happened in how he initiates his move down the mound and shifts his weight. The real question isn't how far he strides. It's whether he's creating momentum early, organizing and delaying the right pieces, and giving his lead leg something it can actually accept and redirect.
3
Download
More coil isn’t automatically better. Like most things in the delivery, it only matters if it helps the athlete create, store, and transfer energy more efficiently.⁠ ⁠ For some pitchers, more counter-rotation can help delay rotation and improve sequencing. For others, it can trap the pelvis, limit the move down the mound, and create compensations elsewhere.⁠ ⁠ The goal is not to chase a position. The goal is to find the strategy that helps the athlete move and transfer force best.
3
Download
back to up