Becoming a data driven program- Part 3: OnBaseU Movement Screen

Link to audio version- https://buff.ly/2ZKrq4H

This past summer I got the opportunity to attend the OnBaseU training in Houston. OnBaseU is the baseball specific branch off of TPI, both founded by Dr. Greg Rose. Dr. Rose is a pioneer in golf and OnBaseU was recently founded so that he can do the same in baseball.

Let me start by saying that I am not a strength and conditioning coach. I do have my minor in kinesiology, so I know enough to get by. By attending OnBaseU and getting certified, I wanted to be able to connect some body swing connections that have stumped me in the past. I won’t get into the specifics of each screen, but I will offer that it is extremely simple and they purposely use equipment that can be found at the field.

The Why

Dr. Rose mentions several times that there are two reasons why we should screen our players.

1. Is your body capable of what we’re asking it to do?
2. And if it’s not, is there a work around we can use?

Check out our podcast together at http://www.aotcpodcast.com/e/78-dr-greg-rose-co-founder-of-titleist-performance-institute-tpi-and-onbaseu/?token=308adac13ac250873634c8f00dce708d

This is where I think screens can be extremely helpful. We’re consistently asking players to make swing adjustments without taking into account how their body moves. We hear the term “loose mover” and “tight mover” thrown around a lot. Is this a guess? Do we know specifically where they’re loose or tight? Each player will have some “deficiencies” in different areas. And with baseball being a rotational sport, they probably will always have a few. For us, our two biggest deficiencies were ankle and hip mobility. So then the next question is, what can we do about it? I’ll answer this a little later.

The How

This is the daunting part of the task. With our 36 players this fall, how did we assess all of them? Step one was training our coaches on what to look for in each specific screen. Then we divided them up into thirds, so lines of 12 and in alphabetical order to make recording a little easier. We then had each player perform the task after running through exactly what we were looking for them to do. I may note that we did the screen as soon as we got to the indoor without warm up and we broke up the screens into 4 per day (12 total) and we made sure to group the ones that required chairs. It’s not easy, but it can be done. We then uploaded all of our data onto a google doc and we are bucketing each player into like groups of limiting factors with correctives to be done after the dynamic warm up. This a way for each player to have an individualized warm up and be able to work on correctives that are specific to their needs.

Here’s a look at what that sheet looks like.

The What

I mentioned earlier that there are a few things that each person will be deficient in and that we are bucketing them in areas of need. But what does that do for the swing?

Well, for one, we now know where each player is inefficient and we can work on it daily. But another thing to consider in how can we work around this?

Example

We have a player who spends a ton of time working on his swing. Good athlete and one of our better prospects on the mound. Last spring, he had what most consider a “pushy” or “steep” swing. The barrel comes in at a downward angle and he mishit or “cut” a lot of balls last year. He didn’t have the ability to consistently stay behind/through the ball and routinely popped up or hit the top of the ball. We tried a several things: changed his setup and grip a few times, attack angle with blast but nothing seems to click.

After attending the clinic, I put him through the “shoulder 46 test” which tests for shoulder external rotation.

He failed.

Now we can work on this daily as a correction, but in the present, we’ve moved his hands away from his body to create a little more space for his back elbow/forearm to work under without getting tied up.

More specifically, here’s the comparison I’m talking about. Notice (on the left) he’s able to enter the zone earlier with his back elbow now having the space to work under. On the right, he is getting tied up, which causes him to be pushy. This limited his bat speed and was also very steep to the zone which limited his plate coverage and adjustability.

*This was an area that he wanted to improve and has worked extremely hard to do so. He knows there are other areas of improvement, but I wanted to highlight the fact the he has worked his butt off to make some better movements.

Conclusion

If you are training hitters, it makes sense to understand what the body can and can’t do. We will have players that are deficient in areas that we could easily point out and some that aren't as easily noticed. There’s not a quick physical fix to any of these, but once we know how they move, it will help explain some aspects of why they swing the way they do. We’re also collaborating with our strength coach and together we are making sure each player knows and understands the correctives for their deficiencies. With most of our guys, they want to fix anything we deem wrong, so at the end of the day we’re working to find an efficient swing pattern or throwing pattern for them in the present day, not just in the future.

As I mentioned earlier, it definitely helped me with finding the root cause to some of our body/swing connections. There are other screens out there that are really good. I’m not certified in anything else and so I can’t speak to how easy they are to use. But I can say that OnBaseU offers a simple plan to go through and that can be done in the team setting.

Have a great week.

Jonathan