How good posture equals good baseball performance

From our friends at Crossover Symmetry, here’s a very quick primer on posture and the role it plays in athletic performance.

The things we do in our modern-day lifestyles — whether it’s hunching over our desks at school or slouching on the sofa in front of the TV — can lead to poor shoulder posture. We roll our shoulders forward, and that can lead to problems down the road in sports.

That’s especially true in baseball, where the shoulder and rotator cuff are so important.

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Proper shoulder positioning allows your shoulder girdle to perform to its potential. With shoulder muscles able to properly elongate and contract, you’ll get the most velocity on your throws, and you’ll have the most control.

But poor posture equals poor performance. Bad posture is linked with shoulder tightness in baseball players, and tight muscles are inefficient muscles. That means your throws won’t have that “oomph” behind them, and at worst, you can injure your shoulders.

So how do you avoid it?

First, stop slouching. Second, regularly stretch and perform mobility exercises on your shoulders and upper back. The primer includes a few examples to get you started.

It doesn’t take much. If you’re feeling tight, just add in 5 minutes of shoulder stretching a day, and you should see some improvement in your shoulder mobility.

Stretching is most effective when your shoulders and upper back are already warm (so, after practice is a good time for position players. Pitchers could do it after some light throwing.)

Taking those simple steps will help keep your posture good and your performance high.

Related: Keep your shoulders in top condition with a pair of Crossover Symmetry Cross Cords.

Got a case of ‘Dead Arm’? Here’s how to ressurrect it

The area in question

Ever have this happen?

You’re feeling healthy — plenty of energy — but when it comes time to pitch or throw, you can’t get any snap on the ball. There might be pain, or there might not. It might feel like your shoulder is catching on something, or it might not.

The big thing is that you just can’t throw like normal.

(Blue Jays) starter Mark Buehrle said, “There are times where you haven’t thrown in five days but you feel like you’ve thrown for 12 days in a row. I guess that’s what I think of when I hear about dead arm.

(From MLB.com)

If that describes you, you might have dead arm.

Dead arm is common for pitchers, but anyone can get it. It usually crops up early in the season — because players spend months away from the field and suddenly start throwing during early-season conditioning.

Once you back off the conditioning and start playing games, that extra stress on your shoulder capsule can cause it to flare up.

For Seattle starter Ryan Rowland-Smith and many other Major League pitchers, it’s mostly a Spring Training thing.

“You’re coming off an offseason where you have your own throwing program,” Rowland-Smith says.

“All of a sudden you get to camp and you’re throwing to bases, doing extra stuff. You’re on your legs all day, and that’s when you get that dead arm. You’re in the heat, with day games after day games. You’re up early in the morning. All those things factor into it.”

If you come down with a case of the dead arm, there’s not much you can do besides rest, stretch and slowly start working back into it.

In this case, prevention is best. And our friends at Crossover Symmetry have passed along some extra info and three tips for beating Dead Arm. Those tips are:

• Stretch. Regularly stretch the muscles and connective tissues in your shoulder. Most importantly, stretch the ligaments in the back of your shoulder joint by pulling your arm across your chest, pulling your bicep near your neck. If you don’t like doing it in your warm-up (it can affect how some pitchers pitch), it can be done after your workout/game/practice. Just make sure you are still warm when you’re doing it.
• Strengthen. Another contributor to dead arm is muscle imbalances. If your rotator cuff and scapular stabilizers are too weak to counterbalance the pull on your shoulders from your chest — or if your posture is bad — you can be susceptible to impingements and Dead Arm. You can strengthen these muscles with weight training or by using Crossover Symmetry.
• Rest. Ice your shoulder when necessary, pay attention to your pitch count, get enough sleep and make the most of your rest time.

Related: Strengthen your shoulders with a pair of crossover cords.

Which bat hit the most home runs in the 2012 Little League World Series?

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It might come as no surprise that players swinging Easton bats accounted for 65 of the 72 home runs hit in this year’s Little League World Series.

Check out the graphic above for more stats.

Easton bats accounted for 90.28% of all home runs this year. Players swinging the Easton XL1 hit 43 home runs — far more than any other bat — and four home runs came off of Easton’s S1. The other 9.72% came from DeMarini bats.

Aside from bats, every single catcher in the tournament wore Easton youth catcher’s gear, and every player used an Easton batting helmet. More than 90% of players in the tournament used Easton batting gloves and shoes.

You can check out our entire selection of Easton gear — including the new 2013 Power Brigade series — at Baseball Express.

Related: Save big on the Easton 2012 Power Brigade Bats.

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Who’s swinging what in the 2012 College World Series

All eyes will be on Omaha this weekend as the 2012 College World Series gets underway.

The field is set, and some of the usual suspects are back again. The SEC leads the way with three teams, including South Carolina, gunning for its third consecutive national championship.

Now that we know who’s in, what are they swinging? Here’s a look at the baseball bats that all eight teams will be using.

UCLA, Arkansas, Florida — Easton

These three teams use the Easton Power Brigade Series.

Easton designed the Power Brigade with the idea that not all batters bat alike — some are power hitters, some are contact hitters, some fall somewhere in the middle. The Power Brigade is a series of eight bats, each balanced and weighted to compliment a certain hitting style, just like wood bats in the pros.

Florida State, Arizona — Louisville Slugger

The Wildcats and ‘Noles use Louisville Slugger’s 2012 lineup, which includes the Exogrid, Omaha and Z-1000.

The Exogrid is famous for it’s ultra-stiff composite handle, designed in a shock-absorbing grid pattern with an stiffness-enhancing internal sleeve. The Z-1000 is tuned for maximum barrel flex, and the Omaha is a familiar name around the CWS as it’s the latest in a long line of wildly successful Omaha bats for Lousiville Slugger.

South Carolina, Kent State — Rawlings

The Golden Flashes and the two-time defending champ Gamecocks swing Rawlings, specifically Rawlings’ 5150 BBCOR Baseball Bat.

The 5150 has spent a year in the game, and it’s a crowd favorite. It has a 4.3/5 rating at Baseball Express, one of our top baseball bats. The Velo features a longer barrel and a stiff handle.

Stony Brook — DeMarini

Stony Brook is the lone College World Series team using DeMarini, whose 2012-2013 lineup of baseball bats includes some familiar names.

The Voodoo is designed with some pretty awesome barrel graphics and a TR3 composite handle for faster bat speed. The CF5 pulls that technology into the barrel, creating a fully two-piece TR3 composite bat. Vexxum utilizes DeMarini’s X10 alloy for maximum power with minimal bat weight.

How do they stack up?

Let’s have a little fun and compare some of the season statistics in home runs…

Florida’s insane home run total for the season puts Easton in front.

1. EASTON (UF 75 HR in 65 games; UCLA 23 in 61; UA 38 in 64) — 0.71 HR per game
2. RAWLINGS (USC 41 in 62; KSU 43 in 64) — 0.66 HR per game
3. DEMARINI (SB 37 in 65) — 0.56 HR per game
4. LOUISVILLE SLUGGER (FSU 43 in 63; UA 20 in 60) — 0.51 HR per game

Related: Shop our entire selection of BBCOR certified baseball bats.