Intro to this site!

Hi Everyone! I just thought i might be able to help out a few of the boys and girls in the Cronulla Baseball Club, both juniors and seniors, with some advice on baseball. The information on the site will be primarily of an evidence based approach, with information from some of the leaders in the game of baseball and the health science team behind them. Hopefully we will all learn a little from this site, and i'll try and use as many videos as possible so there is no much reading involved.

What you will find on this site

At this stage the information on throwing/pitching will be based on several pitching coaches and information from the National Pitching Association in America with the leader of the NPA and long time Major League pitching coach and player, Tom House, as well as many others.

The injury prevention and rehabilitation aspect of baseball will be based on the research from the famous Dr. James Andrews and his research team. He has long been regarded as the leader in orthopaedic surgery for the shoulder and elbow of the baseball player. If you happen to live in America for at least a couple of weeks during baseball season you will be sure to see his name at the bottom of the screen on ESPN when a baseball player is on his way to see him, which is never good news.

Two researchers and physiotherapist’s work along with Dr. Andrews, Kevin Wilk who is a Physiotherapy rehabilitation consultant for the Tampa Bay Rays MLB team and Mike Reinold who is a physiotherapist for the Boston Red Sox MLB team. I have been lucky enough to have taken courses under these guys and will be basing the information on prevention/conditioning of the shoulder from their research. I will also post information on the latest sports and physiotherapy journal articles as they get published.

Another aspect of the baseball player is the general conditioning and strengthening for both off-season and in-season workouts. The information will be again from multiple sources, but one will be from Mark Verstegen, Author of the famous collection of books including “Core Performance”. Mark Verstegen has been one of the leader’s in the field of strength training and conditioning and is the founder of three “Performance Institute” gyms (great website to look at) in America that host several of baseball's greatest players during the off-season to provide players with the best balance in flexibility, power, speed, and agility. I strongly recommend that anyone remotely interested in their health, regardless of being a baseball player or not, to buy his main book "Core Performance". It is currently selling for only $13 US on Amazon.com. It is honestly one of the best books i have ever bought including all the expensive physiotherapy books I've purchased. The book is shown below and the link is attached to Amazon.com. Although i wish i did, I have no monetary benefit with the sales of this this book. You will also notice many of the video's on this site will be from Mark Verstegen's website. Most of his exercises are current with the evidence, with only a few modifications needed.

Please feel free to comment on any subject and ask as many questions as you like. If i don't have the answer for you i usually will be able to find out from one the super smart guys listed above. Also please propose a post topic that you would like to discuss, the more interaction the better. I have information that i plan on posting for at least the next few months about once a week, but i will check it regularly for questions or comments. The site is new, so bare with me as there might be a few errors along the way. Just let me know if you do find something that isn't working properly or if there a few spelling mistakes so i can fix them ASAP.

Thanks and enjoy.

Nick Pontifex