He does what he does because he does what he does.

When Dick Vermeil was head coach of the Chiefs, I remember a reporter asking him once about the work ethic of Priest Holmes and how he could finish games much stronger than his opponents.

Holmes was notoriously a very hard worker, and extremely well-conditioned. He’d stay after practice for more reps, spend hours in the weight room, and it would never affect him on the field on gameday. So, when the reporter asked Vermeil how he was able to finish games so effectively, Vermeil’s answer was succinct and telling:

“He does what he does because he does what he does.”

The meaning of the response was quite clear. Priest Holmes was such a beast on gameday – never tiring with even more touches – because of the amount of work he put in during the week. He didn’t take days off. He didn’t take rest days. He pushed himself, daily.

One of the tenants of the Athletic Pitcher Program designed by Ron Wolforth (the “ah-ha” program that started me on my throwing journey in 2006) was “throw hard by throwing hard”. You can’t expect your body to perform at peak levels if you never perform at peak levels. You need to stress your limits, every day, if you intend on pushing your ceiling higher and higher.

One of the examples Wolforth provided as to why throwers should train and throw every day was track athletes. During the week of a meet, track runners, particularly sprinters, don’t take rest days. They still run. They still push themselves. They know that if you’re not stressing your limits every day, you cannot expect to be better than your very best when it comes time to perform.

I think when I started 90 By 40 I took the wrong approach. It is now time to course correct. I will admit there is a bit of fear of injuring my arm by pressing the velocity too much too soon, but that shouldn’t preclude me from doing the arm-care/pre-hab arm strengthening routine every day, instead of simply on the days that I’m testing.

The drills designed to incorporate body sequencing and arm strength are so low in peak velocity because my conditioning (both body and arm) is so poor that by minute 50 and throws 40+ I’m too completely worn out to give full effort. I’m getting the results I’m getting because I’m putting in the (lack of work) I’m putting in.

A fun realization to come to 4 weeks into this. On to the testing:

I added a new drill this week–one med ball drill and one throwing drill, a standing crow hop. My sequencing movements are so bad that when I attempted a running overhead med ball throw, I nearly fell over. Fun! I figure the best route to take from here would be to start from the ending of those drills, and at least slowly reteach my body to decelerate after releasing an object post full body movements, rather than jump feet first into the real thing.

One encouraging thing? 58 mph on a double knee throwing drill. I do feel my arm is getting stronger, but as mentioned above, my conditioning is terrible. My shoulder can’t take the 30 to 45 minutes of throwing it used to. Duh.

But, at least there’s signs of pure arm strength improvement. Brick by brick.

Here’s the vids:

58mph Double Knee – new high

66mph Torque

65mph Standing Crow