Across America, kids dream of playing baseball at the next level. Johnny might be a crafty lefty with a good curveball, and Timmy may be a lengthy righty who throws somewhat hard, but college coaches overlook them because they just simply aren’t explosive athletes who can make that little white pearl move fast enough. From a trainer’s perspective, the question is: How do we develop these kids into athletes who not only know how to pitch but can also take over a game at any given moment? The co-founders of “The Soulthrowers,” Brooks Hall and Seth Blair, have an unorthodox answer to this question and it just might be right.
TYPICAL PITCHING DEVELOPMENT COMPARED TO THE SOULTHROWERS
Tread Athletics is the juggernaut of pitching development. They have taken the country by storm with online videos, Instagram stories, and interviews with top MLB pitchers that they train. The architect of the organization, Ben Brewster, attended the University of Maryland and played baseball there as a walk-on. His compelling story is part of why Tread has had the privilege of training hundreds of collegiate and professional pitchers. Courtesy of Tread’s website, Brewster states, “I struggled to hit 73 miles-per-hour weighing 155 lbs. My goal of pitching in college seemed like a pipe dream at times.”
As Brewster was able to turn himself into a fuel-throwing machine, he mentions that it was likely because he put on so much muscle mass. Brewster claims, “Few coaches understand how to deal with hardgainers.” Hardgainers are simply athletes that have immense trouble putting on muscle mass. A hardgainer may not be able to put up 225 pounds when asked to bench press, but they can surely be an elite pitcher as long as they move quickly and efficiently down the mound. The Soulthrower’s are one of the few online pitching programs that recognize this and they train their athletes accordingly.
If you were to base a ball’s velocity solely on the physics equation, mass times acceleration equals force, adding muscle mass to one’s body would enhance velocity development. And while in many cases it does, Brooks Hall believes youth athletes shouldn’t be worried about their weight. During one of Hall’s frequent Q and A sessions, a player asked him, “What can I do to gain weight?” Hall sarcastically responded, “Try throwing with 40 pounds strapped to your torso and see how that feels.”
WOULD MICHAEL JACKSON HAVE BEEN A GREAT THROWER?
The Soulthrowers strongly stand by the notion that if a dancer and a bodybuilder were the same mass, the dancer would throw harder. This is because the dancer is the better athlete. It is not necessarily about how much mass you have, it is about how fast you can move that mass.
Professional athletes (like Hall and Blair) relate the baseball throw to a dance move. Even though these two things might seem completely unrelated to the average person, they both trace back to athleticism. The more athletic dancer is going to be able to outperform a dancer that isn’t in control of their body in space. The same holds true in throwing.
The Soulthrowers believe that what defines an athlete is the amount of effort it takes to get their body to perform a movement. It is a matter of letting the mind go, and letting the body take over.
Blair states, “I asked some of my friends in the big leagues about what they feel when they perform their best throws.”
They all have the same answer: “Nothing.”
This theory is how the Soulthrowers came up with the “dance move” philosophy. When someone is dancing, they allow their body to take over, not feeling any pressure while being in complete control of their movements. Dancers are a unique kind of athlete — every time they perform, they have fun while being forced to stay loose and free with their movements. If a thrower learns to let their mind let go like a dancer, pitchers can make the jump from good to great, and great to dominant.
According to an article published by Harvard Medical School, “Dancing and The Brain,” dancing and practices similar to dancing such as “Tai Chi” are more beneficial to an athlete’s mind and body connection than traditional weight training and stretching. The article states, “After six months, those who practiced tai chi twice weekly were physically stronger and had better balance compared with those who did either weight training or stretching.” The Soulthrowers implement cartwheels and handstands into their program, along with the constant reminder that “Moving like a dancer will make you throw faster.” This allows their athletes to throw with more freedom and ultimately find their identity on the mound.
So the short answer is “yes.” As long as Michael Jackson put in enough work into perfecting the craft, he could throw a ball very hard. If Michael’s innate athleticism and comfort in his own body allowed him to be one of the most impressive dancers in his time, it surely would have transferred to throwing if he decided to go that route.
MORE THAN AN ATHLETE
What makes the Soulthrowers philosophy distinct, is that Hall and Blair view the delivery as more than just a motion. Both of the former pros believe that in order to help someone succeed in the art of pitching, they need to get to know the kid first. Hall and Blair ask questions like: “How do they perform in school? Are they comfortable around classmates? What type of a learner are they?” Notably, these types of questions are absent from the programs of major corporations like Tread.
THE PHILOSOPHY/PROCESS
The Soulthrowers typically take in-depth assessments of a trainee’s mobility, range of motion, baseline strength, and of course, their throw. After each athlete is assessed, they take a unique approach depending on the athlete’s notable strengths and weaknesses. Hall and Blair condemn the cookie-cutter approach that is so widely used in athletic training. While you can apply a coat of paint to a Honda Civic to make it look enticing on the outside, you need to swap out the engine in order to give your Civic the capabilities of a race car. The standardized weightlifting programs give your Civic the paint job, while training daily to improve your explosiveness and mentality will turn you from a Civic into a Ferrari. In other words, the way in which major corporations go about pitching development enhances youth athletes to make external fixes, but they have little to no focus on the internal changes that need to be made for optimal performance.
The cookie-cutter approach, which is solely based on mechanics, does not account for each athlete’s individual needs. Similarly to batting, where every player has a different stance, every pitcher adds their own specific flair to their throw that separates them from the rest.
Take some of the greatest pitchers of all time for example. Nolan Ryan, one of the hardest throwers ever, had an incredibly high leg kick. Randy Johnson on the other hand, barely lifted his leg off the ground. However, Johnson was able to throw fastballs that were consistently in the triple digits because he had understood what kind of dance move made his body move the fastest.
WORKING OUT AS A SOULTHROWER
Static movements such as “benching,” “squatting,” and “rowing,” are what so many young athletes focus on in terms of baseball development. Unfortunately, doing things like perfecting one’s form and gaining an understanding of their movement down the mound is what young athletes neglect in their training. Part of the Soulthrowers program is to ensure that athletes are moving more like butter than like cardboard.
The centerpiece of training as a Soulthrower is the lunge. It is an exercise that improves sequencing, strength throughout the lower body, and balance. There are multiple variations of lunges which involve jumping, scissoring one’s legs (front leg goes back and back leg goes forward), and certain isometric holds. If an athlete’s back caves in on a simple lunge hold, Hall and Blair will not assign the athlete a more demanding lunge movement like a “Russian Jump Lunge” until that hold is done with the correct posture. While this procedure is frustrating for the athlete, it is not only for their benefit athletically, but for their safety as well.
THE THROW
Building off of the Soulthrower’s approach to athletic movements, their approach to the throw is quite similar. Blair strongly believes that the first step to throwing hard is to be able to throw with conviction consistently without pain. As pain is becoming more and more common among throwers, the Soulthrowers assign throwing routines based on how each individual athlete feels on a given day, rather than giving throwing assignments in advance. The daily communication that Hall and Blair stress is what allows the Soulthrowers to prosper. With that being said, once an athlete has a healthy arm, drills such as “wall ball,” “the cut-off and relay throw,” and “butt and knee throws” are implemented.
Wall ball is the second pillar of the program. It consists of repeatedly fielding the baseball like a shortstop and accurately throwing it into a wall with high intent, forcing the pitcher to be an athlete instead of moving statically. The “cut off and relay throw” is designed to enhance separation which is proven to benefit velocity, arm health, and accuracy. Lastly, “butt and knee throws” are pretty self-explanatory, yet their benefits deserve in-depth analysis. The idea of these throws is to eliminate the lower half (as they are performed seated and on one knee) so while evaluating the throw, Hall and Blair can evaluate how efficient the lower half is compared to the upper half. If a pitcher is consistently in the low 90s on the mound, and when they sit on their butt they are throwing 55-57 mph, Hall and Blair understand that the pitcher possesses an elite lower half and their upper half is likely lacking. However, if the pitcher possesses an 83 mph fastball on the mound, but their butt throw is 63 mph, that tells them that the athlete has a lot of potential and they need to work on their lower half.
WHERE WILL THE SOULTHROWERS BE IN TEN YEARS?
The Soulthrowers by no means intend to become one of the major training corporations in the game of baseball. That is simply not their goal — rather, they wish to one day open a “baseball school.” “During my playing career I didn’t know I would ever have the opportunity to help kids learn to love the game. I get emotional realizing that I am doing just that,” Blair said. Corporations like Tread Athletics might be rolling in the dough, but their objective is far different from the Soulthrowers. Sure, everybody dreams of becoming wealthy while doing what they love, but for Hall and Blair, their focus is on making a real connection with their athletes and creating lasting relationships so the game of baseball can grow.
“During my playing career I didn’t know I would ever have the opportunity to help kids learn to love the game. I get emotional realizing that I am doing just that,” said Seth Blair, one of the co-founders of “The Soulthrowers.”