Ahead Of The Curve with Jonathan Gelnar

Mini Clinic Monday Episode 1: Batting Practice

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Contributors this week
@diamondbbclub
@codbra
@brose2344
@rweaver23
@Gawbage29
@HyattCraig
@jleroux33
@gmanoneone
@SHS_baseball
@NYFrank27
Alan McDougal
Resources
Cody Atkinson at UTRGV
Wes Brooks Episode- MBP
Craig Hyatt Episode
Trent Otis Team Stuff
Dan Heefner ABCA (both of them)
Nino Giarratano (San Francisco )
Offset BP Jason Ochart
CoachRodrigues2
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Bryan Conger- Head Baseball Coach, Tarleton State University (TX)

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Quotes
Whatever it is in life you are going to do, you need to be fully engaged in it
We post everything. Either on social media for motivation and celebration or in the locker room so that kids always know where they stand. They also get to learn their game and how it can benefit the team.
At the end of every season when we look back, we never say "man i wish we had taken one more round of BP" But I have said "If we could have reached one or two more young men, that would have made the difference.
The better our kids get at the "life skills" part, the better baseball players they're going to be.
When you grow as an individual, all those around you automatically grow too. When you become more, we all become more.
Baseball is what you do, its not who you are. Who you are is far more important than what you do
Resources
Optimize with Brian Johnson
 
Extreme Ownership- Jocko Willink
 
Periodization training for sport
 
Periodization theory and methodology of training
 
Patriot Reign 
12 rules for life
Contact
@bryanconger31
conger@tarleton.edu
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Eugene Bleecker- Founder and Director of Player Development for 108 Performance (CA)

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Quotes
There's a difference between kids who play baseball and baseball players
More than anything we believe in individuals. We believe that the only thing you can do wrong as a coach/trainer is to make everyone do the same thing. We need to figure out what the players need and not just what it is that we want to teach them.
If we make it more about our players and less about our programs, were going to get more out of them as individuals and as a results were going to win more games.
There's 5 guys on every team that if they think “swing up” they’re going to have a bad season. There's also 5 guys that if they think “swing down” they’re going to have a bad season. We’ve gotta figure out what each guys needs Its not about the best “cue” its about getting the best results.
I grew the most in my career when I stopped looking for what everyone did the same and started looking for what they did different.
Players will not always say what you say but they will do what you do. If you aren’t their first example in life on who you would want them to be, then you need to do some things differently. You have a huge impact on them, as a coach, on how they are going to act as a man later in life.
Resources
#Hittingtwitter
Open minded guys that you can share stuff with
Connor Dawson
Wes Johnson
Rick Strickland
Ryan Parker
Dustin Lind
And his google drive 
Steve Johnson (leg kick nation)
Trent Otis (ZBI Baseball)
Nonlinear Pedagogy
Contact
108@108performanceacademy.com
951-354-2589
Twitter
IG
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Josh Kesel- CEO/Director of Human Performance for P3 Performance, St. Louis

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Quotes
It's not just about putting time in the weight room and on the field, it's a lifestyle. You've gotta make sure your priorities are right in the kitchen, in the classroom and in the weight room.
With the data driven/technology driven way the game is going, we try and track everything.
Take your body weight and half it and that's how much water you should be drinking a day. Add 6-8 ounces of additional water for every 15-20 minutes of exercise
Theres alot of people that can put together a great program for someone. But I think it takes a special person to sit down and have a conversation to get a grown man/woman to buy in to what they're talking about. 
Being able to communicate to everyone from all types of different backgrounds defines you as a a coach. 
We mold our coaching to the players, not the other way around.
Resources
Conscious Coaching- Brett Bartholomew
New Functional Training for Sports-  Michael Boyle 
PRI
Driveline Baseball
Eric Cressey
Contact
Twitter
@j_kesel
@p3_stl
Instagran
@j_kesel
@p3_stl
Website 
http://www.p3stlouis.com/
Email
info@p3stlouis.com
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David Sharp- Head Baseball Coach, Huntsville HS (AL) and 12U Team USA

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Quotes 
We expect our players to be tough, to play hard, and to compete but also be leaders in our school and community. We care about them as people more than we care about them as players. 
Kids start throwing in January and then all summer, so we completely shut arms from August until fall break halfway through October. Then we start our long toss program. We’ve seen a huge benefit from doing this and it’s been tremendous for our program. 
If a kid comes into our program and they haven’t left as a better man, we haven’t done our job. 
Any rule that you put into place, you have to be willing to lose your best player. Consistency is a big deal to us. 
Nothing infuriates me more than wasted time at practice.  We play music, we have fun, and we don’t have 4 hour practices just to say we practiced for 4 hours. We’re going to be fast paced and get after it.
Resources 
Vanderbilt University
Energy leadership- Bruce Schneider
The mental game of baseball- Harvey Dorfman 
 
Contact
@davidsharp455
Facebook
IG d4sharp
D4sharp@gmail.com
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Jozef Frucek- Founder of the Fighting Monkey Baseball Practice

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Quotes
I love baseball but it's something I had never done in my life. That allowed me to look from the outside and get a fresh look on why I think the best players are getting injured so much and what could be improved in their training.
Diversity breeds immunity. Every great system also creates great deficiency. 
 
Most people think strength is always the answer. But we believe there are many things that come before strength. We first work with coordination, then when we get more organized we find a rhythm. Then that rhythm leads us to more kinetic potential and kinetic potential leads to power exploration. Power exploration then leads us to strength training.
 
We want baseball players bodies to work in one rhythmic unit spending less energy on moving and putting more energy on where to react properly and making the right decisions.  
 
My background is in art, and what is the most important thing in art? Staying creative. We need to always stay creative and find new alterations
We all need to improve our training methods. We're kind of sleeping there because we have good training methods. What blocks us just being good to getting better? We need to be pushed to look past what is obvious.
Resources
Fighting Monkey Baseball
Contact
https://fightingmonkey.net/
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Clay Van Hook- Assistant Baseball Coach, University of Oklahoma

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Quotes
What typically happens is players get into a game and the game speeds up. So what are we doing as coaches to help them slow the game down. A lot of times we preach that but we don’t teach it. We speed up practice so much that the game slows down. 
One thing that Coach Garrido and Coach Graham had in common that really resonated with me was that we got into this business to be teachers. To teach these young men to be better people, ballplayers, brothers, and husbands.
We typically have 3 objectives
First and foremost we’re going to work individually with each player and look at them as individuals
Next we’re going to work collectively (as a team)
Then we’re going to work competitively
We have to be well rounded. There’s so many different ways to win ballgames. We owe it to our players to give them different skills. At the end of the day if we have the chance to go to Omaha and we have to get a bunt down but the player can’t do it, if we haven’t given them the necessary skills to do that, thats on us. Same thing with a runner at third and less than 2 outs. 
We’re all in this together. At times, coaches want to build walls to separate themselves. Our goal should be to build relationships for 30 years.
I didn’t get into coaching to win baseball games. In reality are we defined by that? Yes. But I think its important to understand that when we take the result out of the equation, we start to grow as a coach and as a person.
Resources
Telephone (calling other coaches)
Fiction books
Contact
@clayvanhook
cvanhook@ou.edu 
 
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Jono Armold- MiLB Pitching Coach, Spokane Indians

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Quotes 
For the most part we understand how to make players better and progressing them on the field, but the next frontier in sports and player development is understanding individual human behavior
Great coaches have great discernment, They know when to push, when to pull, when to backoff, when to jump someone or when to let it simmer.
I can talk mechanics and game strategy all I want, but if the athlete isn’t taking it and owning it, then its just my words. Their not engaged. Coaching is an incredibly dynamic social activity. It varies from situation to situation.
Coaching isn’t just teaching, just psychology or just mentoring. Coaching is all of those.
Its in our nature to try and create friendships and relationships. When kids want to hang out with you or stand by you when you’re hitting fungo and talk to you. Thats a sign of a great relationship. When it becomes an issue is when we can’t hold them accountable. If we can discipline when we need to, then its an issue.
We need to be able to adjust our coaching strategies based on the environment, the athlete and the setting that you’re in
Resources
Slides (tools 1-5)
Conscious Coaching
Team of Teams
What to say when you talk to yourself
 Contact Info
@24jono
jarmold@texasrangers.com
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Josh Heenan- President of Advanced Therapy & Performance Integrated Medicine + Strength Coach

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Quotes
Our guys that are elite, whether thats pro/college, we can give them a 5 oz ball or a 14 oz ball, and they have the same arm mechanics every time. That allows us to see the repeatable mechanics.
I think its important to make this distinction. We are building athletes that happen to play baseball, we’re not building just baseball players
If we view our athlete their own unique being, then I think thats where we get really good results and really quickly.
If you dont have any movement restrictions and you can hit all of the metrics of the 90 MPH formula wit h quality form you are exponentially less likely for injury and exponentially more likely to throw 90 
I think as a coach we can all agree that 2 of our goals are, how can we keep everyone healthy and how can we win a ton of games. 
As far as in season lifts go, we lift heavy. We do a lot of 3x3. They get volume of work from playing, so we challenge them with power and get them out so they can go home and eat and recover.
Resources
Eric Cressey
Spin Rate Driveline
Local Strength coaches
Contact
@drheenan IG
@josh_heenan
joshheenan.com
www.Advancedtherapyperfromance.com
 
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Stephen Mackey- CEO and Founder of 2 Words Character Development Program

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Quotes
My coach in middle school said 4 words that changed my life and those 4 words were ‘Get on the line’. In that moment I found out what discipline was. Discipline is doing what we don’t want to do today, to get what we want tomorrow.
I liked to think I was special, but it was our coaching staff that was special. My coaches taught me how to make choices, they taught me responsibility, they taught me that what the statistics said didn’t have to become who I was unless I chose, and that mindset of taking responsiility changed everything for me.”
My life was changed by my high school coaches sand I want to help coaches do that for their athletes.”
There is so much power in giving a kid what they don’t don’t deserve. Give kids a second chance, but teach them what to do with that second chance. Sometimes coaches will give a kid a second chance, but don’t teach them what to do with that second chance. So what happens? The same thing they did the first time because they don’t know any different.”
Are you more about who you are or what you do? If you are so wrapped up in what you do, then what happens if that gets taken away?
Theres a lot of things in life that are optional if you want to be successful. Talent? Optional. The right family? Optional. The right school? Optional. Genetics? Optional. But the one thing that is required to be successful? Sacrifice. 
Resources
Tim Ferriss
The Unbeatable Mind- Mark Divine
Dave Campbell Podcast
Coach 360
ABCA Calls from the clubhouse
1% Better- Joe Ferraro
Plus 1 Podcast
Pastor Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast
Luke Norsworthy
Rick Warren
Contact
@mackeyspeaks
2words.tv
2words.tv/gameplan
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