This week was the setback of all setbacks.
I was lucky that during my playing days I never experienced any injury that couldn’t have been directly associated with fatigue from throwing 130 pitches 4 days after throwing 120 pitches. Such is life.
But after getting outside to throw last Wednesday I immediately felt discomfort in my shoulder and specifically, what I self-diagnosed, as my AC joint. Woke up Thursday unable to lift anything, Friday and Saturday weren’t much better.
I didn’t feel like I was over throwing the long toss at the time—I felt fine and even set a couple new highs—but the lingering effects I’ll be honest do have me spooked.
I’ve spent the last few days mostly stretching and running to at least get some body movement, but man, how deflating. I was feeling good.
I think what this shows is two fold:
1. A full arm care routine every day is required. I’ll be honest some days I skip some parts if I feel like I’m getting looser easier. Can’t do that. Can’t take shortcuts.
2. Can’t push it on the long toss no matter how good it feels at the time. I didn’t use to feel this way about getting throwing in; always felt that you get in what you can when you can. But being able to get in the other parts of the workout are just as important in the early goings as getting in solid long toss sessions.
I do have some “wins”, however. Even though the shoulder pain caused a setback for Week 11, Week 10 still produced three new highs in the throwing drills.
On the standing drill I hit 65mph, a 10mph increase over my starting measurement. You can tell my flexibility is coming back a my turn is getting more pronounced, and I’m better able to keep my hips open to maintain hip/shoulder separation.
On the torque drills I’m starting to feel better linear slide before rotation. I’ve also had a lazy hip rotation, so it’s good to feel some force from my lower half so early in this process.
For the step behinds you can clearly tell the power created via momentum is still causing balance issues because once I get into my gather, momentum slow does down in order to get my feet under me. I don’t think this is a problem with arm strength, this is just a problem with no longer being an athlete.
It wasn’t a wasted week because records were set, but I need to do a better job of completing the daily maintenance work to make sure any discomfort doesn’t knock me out from throwing five or more days.
Week 10 Testing Numbers
| Nov. 14 2021 | Day 25 |
| Core Taps | |
| Side-to-Side | 43 |
| Diagonal R | 32 |
| Diagonal L | 28 |
| Can Opener | n/a |
| 4 Square | n/a |
| Med Ball Throws | |
| 1 knee | – |
| Overhead | 27 |
| Torque R | n/a |
| Torque L | n/a |
| Windmill R | 28 |
| Windmill L | 29 |
| SIM R | 30 |
| SIM L | 28 |
| WALK R | 28 |
| WALK L | 28 |
| Backwards | 25 |
| Running | n/a |
| Crow Hop | n/a |
| Throwing | |
| Double Knee | 58 |
| Standing | 62 |
| Torque | 71 |
| Step Behind | 74 |
| Turn & Burn | n/a |
| Crow Hop | n/a |
| Figure 8 | n/a |
| Whips | 68 |
| Nov. 17 2021 | Day 26 |
| Double Knee | 61 |
| Standing | 65 |
| Torque | 74 |
| Step Behind | 77 |
| Turn & Burn | 74 |
| Crow Hop | n/a |
| Figure 8 | n/a |
| Whips | n/a |
| Nov. 19 2021 | Day 27 |
| Core Taps | |
| Side-to-Side | 42 |
| Diagonal R | 32 |
| Diagonal L | 30 |
| Can Opener | 30 |
| 4 Square | 34 |
Current MPH Gains On Throws
| Throwing | Starting | Current | Difference |
| Double Knee | 45 | 62 | +17mph |
| Standing | 55 | 65 | +10mph |
| Torque | 62 | 74 | +12mph |
| Step Behinds | 72 | 77 | +5mph |
| Turn & Burns | 75 | 75 | — |
Week 10 Throwing
