A Push Performance Conversation with DJ Edwards

Welcome to The Baseball Awakening Podcast, where we dive into the raw, unfiltered, unsexy side of player development

Guest Bio:

DJ Edwards, owner of Push Performance in Englewood Colorado. Twitter and Instagram: @DJ_Edwards9

Summary:

On this episode, Host Geoff Rottmayer sits down with DJ Edwards

Show Notes: In this conversation, DJ talks about:

• How and why he got into the baseball strength and conditioning industry.
• Things he has learned that is different between the baseball demands vs a football demand.
• A brief look into his assessment process he uses on his athletes.
• A brief look into his program development.
• The most common finding he see in baseball players during his evaluation.
• The importance of breathing and how it transfers to the field.
• What Push Performance off-season programming and focus looks like.
• Recovery tools and how he uses them.
• A look into his pre-season and in-season programming.
• The science side of why it is important to maintain and keep lifting throughout the year, mainly in-season.
• and much more.

Website: www.baseballawakening.com

Facebook: Baseball Awakening Podcast

Twitter: Baseball Awakening Podcast

Instagram: The Baseball Awakening Podcast

Email Address: geoff@baseballawakening.com

Transcript:

Geoff Rottmayer: 00:00 On today’s show, I sit down with DJ Edwards, the owner of push for foreman. We were both kind of pressed for time during this conversation, but I think we still covered a lot in 45 minutes. I have a lot more I want to ask him. I would love to dive deeper into some of the things that we discussed. I’m gonna try and get them on again so that we can all learn more from him. But he had met the DJ Edwards. Welcome to another episode of the baseball awakening podcast where we dive into the raw unfiltered unsexy side of player development. Get ready for some knowledge bombs with your host, Jeff rot. Meyer

Intro: 00:40 Welcome to another eposide of The Baseball Awakening Podcast, where we dive into the raw, unfiltered, unsexy side of player development, and now your host, Geoff Rottmayer.

Geoff Rottmayer: 00:50 Welcome to The Baseball Awakening podcast. I’m Geoff Rottmayer. Today we are sitting down with DJ Edward over there at push performance in Inglewood, Colorado. DJ uses knowledge and corrective exercise. flexibility the building limitation and biomechanics to help his athletes get better. He worked with a handful of big leaguers and over hundreds of baseball players or cross all levels, all the nation and knowledgeable guy. You can find them on Twitter at DJ, DJ underscore Edward nine as well. And on Instagram at DJ underscore Edward nine. Be sure to give them a follow. So, mr DJ Edward, how are you sir?

DJ Edwards: 01:33 I am well

Geoff Rottmayer: 01:35 great. You know, I appreciate you coming on. I know you’re, you’re really busy right now in Arizona and you know, you’re doing some really cool stuff, so I really appreciate your time. So you are in the strength and conditioning industry, you know, specializing in the baseball side of things. Let’s start with the how and the why you got started into the baseball strength conditioning world.

DJ Edwards: 02:00 Yeah. So I started with a strength and conditioning as you know, in college I got a degree in exercise science and uh, you know, I was entering college 155 pounds. So I was noticing that my lap, his strength was, you know, picking a big tool and on the game that I was trying to play and you know, I wanted to serve the underserved population of baseball versus just getting a football program handed to me versus, you know, actually having applied to the sport itself. So, um, so a big, you know, um, market goal in that within, in the state of Colorado. Um, even in Arizona now, um, you know, for baseball specific strength and conditioning, uh, even though we do, do, you know, basic movement patterns, but you know, our RM pairs are our different systems apply to the baseball and allow us to transfer the field more.

Geoff Rottmayer: 02:56 Awesome. So, so when, whenever we talk about baseball, what are the things that you’ve learned that are different from, you know, a stay football player, you know, how, how, how are they different and why do the bait ball player knee stumped being a bit more Pacific?

DJ Edwards: 03:16 Yeah, I mean just, just the consciousness of, you know, the risk and reward of elbow, wrist, shoulder, all that kind of stuff in w in the weight room. Um, and baseball is such an asymmetrical sport where you’re rotational the same direction over and over and over. So you build a lot of deficiencies that way. Um, so it’s more of a rotary sport in that aspect of will football is more of a power, you know, development, uh, you know, hit hard sport. It is, you know, get big basket and strong is great in any sport, but there’s gotta be a reason to [inaudible] with that.

Geoff Rottmayer: 03:55 Absolutely. You know, listen, let’s, can you take us through some, uh, your, your programming if that’s okay. Okay. Um, let’s, let’s start with off season. What should one focus be during the off season when it come to strain?

DJ Edwards: 04:12 Yeah. Yeah. So day one, um, after after the season, our guys will come in, get their assessment done and then probably get their lift in. So everything we do is customized to the athlete. Uh, so everybody’s on their own 100% custom program based off the initial assessment. And then that assessment, we’ll touch base on static and dynamic movement, uh, pitch, shoulders, neck, elbows, wrists, all those kinds of things. Um, no, a first couple of weeks are kind of built on regeneration and rebuilding of the strength foundation. And then from there we’ll work on the strength speed continuum. It will work, absolute strength, strength, speed, speed, strength, and then just, uh, absolute speed when spring training’s coming around so we can get guys to peak at the right time.

Geoff Rottmayer: 04:58 Awesome. So, so this, this the staff process, can you, uh, can you take us through that and why is important, you know, what, what is your main focus when it comes to assessing baseball players?

DJ Edwards: 05:13 Yeah, so with the assessment process, we just want to check our boxes. Um, you know, you’re not assessing, you’re guessing. I believe in great cooks, said that. And I totally, totally believe that each guy should start with a blank canvas. Um, you know, not all two people move the thing. So not all, you know, both those guys don’t need the same program. So within that assessment, um, we’re gonna test impersonal angle, which is the rape case positioning, uh, where the diaphragm is. And then we’ll look at the hips, the shoulders, the a toe touch progression. Um, so on T spine rotation, extension, fluxion ankle mobility over at squat push up test. And maybe we’ll add, um, in velocity based training inside of this sentence for some of our seasoned guys that have been trained with us for awhile. Um, so it just kinda depends. Our assessments kind of go down some rabbit holes, but we’ll gather as much information from, you know, the team PT if possible. Um, what at gather as much information, you know, injury history from the athletes themselves. And then we’ll have our physical therapists look at the movement patterns of what he sees, all that kind of stuff. And then we’ll all build kind of a big integrated program to address those deficiencies, goals, needs and strengths.

Geoff Rottmayer: 06:33 Nice. So, so for the, for the baseball population, what is the most common finding?

DJ Edwards: 06:41 Oh man. I’m usually can watch to see how they, how the, by the way they walk in the room at they’re baseball player. You know, a lot of times they’re there, right handed thrower, they’re right there, right? Clavicle rights, scaffold into repeat, be depressed and there’ll be stuck in extension. Uh, so those are two things that we see a lot of lack of course stability. Um, Fiona, improper rotational patterns. Then some elbow extension loss or overhead fluxion losses. Cause we see a lot, a lot of,

Geoff Rottmayer: 07:08 right. Let’s talk about that whole shoulder hanging. You know, because you do see that all the time or baseball player. So for the people that are listening, can you kind of be exploring why that happened and then, and then why it’s important to work and try and fix that?

DJ Edwards: 07:27 Yeah, so obviously, you know, like I mentioned a little bit ago, you know, baseball is asymmetrical sports, so we’re repeating a pattern over and over again. Um, you know, and I believe a lot of the patterns can be fixed through breathing. So, you know, if they have improper breathing patterns, they’re using their secondary respiratory muscles and they’re, you know, trading stiffness in their traps, their pets, their laughs. There’s the radios, um, you know, all those muscles that they shouldn’t, they’re scaling. Um, they shouldn’t be breathing through essentially for their primary breathers and they create for tissue quality. And then they try and throw repeated patterns or swinging repeated patterns with that. Um, that’s a big reason why that happens. Um, so, you know, everything happens in the kinetic chain. So we want everything to be, you know, a congruent pattern where Rachel, except for us deliver force and, um, give force. So, um, we want to, you know, be sure that the kinematic chain is in sequence and everything is posturally in line to feel your joint placement dictates muscle function. So if the joint is malaligned, we’re never going to get maximum output for each, each muscle or we’re increased chance of injury.

Geoff Rottmayer: 08:40 Nice. You know, the, the, the whole breathing thing is a big thing. I, they kind of start to learn more about it and the value that there is to breathing properly. So, so my question is how do you coach this, you know, how do you bring awareness to a guy about their breathing pattern and then retrain that pattern? Because a lot of people do not breathe crackling.

DJ Edwards: 09:10 Yeah. Everybody doesn’t agree. Um, so that’s where we check the internal angle. So I say, uh, we kind of determined a breathing pattern there, uh, yet guides that are, have wide rib cages, narrow rib cages and the deviated ribcage. You see a lot of deviated ring Cajun, right handed throwers. The right, right side of the rib cage is flared out. Um, so that’s going to show us that their staff is going to be kind of sitting awkwardly on that what’s called a thorax or even favorite page. Um, so we want to address those, those deficiencies first and foremost, and that will show what breathing pattern they want. So we want to teach no matter what, no matter what we’re doing, we want to teach diaphragmatic breathing. But is it gonna be in a flex position? Is it going to be with in a 90 90 position? Is it going to be in a quadruped position? Is going to be supine, is it going to be prone? So it depends on the breathing, depends on way the rib cages, the way the athlete moves, um, kind of our go to with the 90 90 position with a pelvic tilt. So we’ll take that pelvis, get it, get it to rotate properly, kissing hamstrings on, um, and then get some diaphragm diaphragmatic breathing wall. Adding a reach or an overhead flection to the breathing pattern depends on what the guy needs.

Geoff Rottmayer: 10:29 Nice looking. Can you explain how the a better breathing pattern, how that transferred to the field?

DJ Edwards: 10:37 Yeah. For foursome first and foremost, it probably is going to help you slow down your heart rate, you know, to, to be a better, you know, better positioned to hit or on the mound act like you’d been there before versus a high elevated heart rate where you know, you’re gonna kinda Mason, you know, phone had mistake because your heart rate’s elevated and you had a bad pitch or you know, spike the ball, grip the ball too tight, whatever it may be. So that’s, that’s a big portion of it. But on the science side, um, just getting neutral is gonna be the biggest thing for us. How it transfers. A lot of times we want guys to get neutral and a lot of times we don’t want guides. Guys get neutral. Lot of times that rib player or their staff positioning or their extension or something like that will make them or what is allowed them to throw a hundred miles an hour. So we got to know why we’re fixing things and you know, if it even needs to be fixed or if it’s, you know, worth getting fixed or we just kind of build off of that foundation.

Geoff Rottmayer: 11:38 Yeah. Yeah. Nice. So can you use an example for a hitter?

DJ Edwards: 11:42 Absolutely. So anytime you do some diaphragmatic breathing, you’re going to decrease tension on the pelvic floor and you’re going to get good static or dynamic posture in the pelvis. And if the, if the Telus is anteriorly rotated or posteriorly rotated, whatever direction is going to kill rotation. So extension kills rotation. We want to get as neutral as possible inside, inside the body. So if, if he is stuck in make major extension, we see a lot of parts fractures, um, and the athlete rotating against that rotation using the spine a lot more versus a pelvic a lot more. So we want to see rotation through the pelvis versus the knees, ankles, or the bat. So you’re going to get rotation through those secondarily, but primarily you want to get that rotation to that, those hips.

Geoff Rottmayer: 12:33 Ah, yeah, this is, this is good stuff, man. So let’s, let’s progress through the, uh, the off season. Um, what is the, what’s the timeframe typically for you, your, the, your progress?

DJ Edwards: 12:46 Um, that’s going to be probably either early to mid September with our minor league guys too. Uh, late January, early February, um, or with our big league guys will be about right now. Some guys will start trickling into late January, um, before they report to their affiliate. Um, so, you know, it kind of depends on the guy. Some guys, you know, don’t report till third week in March, you know, halfway through spring training. If they’re, you know, in the AZL GCL or whatever it may be.

Geoff Rottmayer: 13:20 Okay. So about four or five, six months. Yep. At what point do you transition from D the recovery regeneration Bay that you were talking about earlier into, you know what, let me, let me, let me ask the first, um, talk a little bit more about that base. You know, what does the recovery and regeneration paid? What did that entail?

DJ Edwards: 13:48 Yeah, we’re gonna just essentially get the athletes moving better. That phase, you know, we’re going to add some loads, light and light loads to them, probably correct some deficiencies. So we see like that same examples since we’ve already mentioned it, the hit down the depress gap or down downwardly um, clavicle or whatever it may be. You know, we won’t deadlift the guy just because it’s gonna yank on that lag and pull it down even more. So we’ll fix that. And then that way when they’re strength days comes, you know, they were able to hit, you know, a trap bar, dead lift or Sumo desert for whatever it may be. Whatever’s programs for them where we’re at, we feel comfortable that he’s not an extension, he’s not gonna mess up his back, his ribcage flares better, you know. So just tracking those exes, all those deficiencies through cleaner patterns where my one split a lot. We’ll do some deceleration stuff, we’ll do some landing mechanics, we’ll do, um, some core stability, core control stuff, a lot of, uh, teaching the body repattern the body, how to move properly versus being, you know, say properly trapped dominant. We want to use more of our serratus, for example, we want to do this X, Y, Z and get them to move better in their next phases.

Geoff Rottmayer: 15:01 Very nice. And what, and what the goal, what the goal for a lot of your guys?

DJ Edwards: 15:07 Yeah, it depends. You know, we have some guys that need to gain weight. We got guys that need to lose weight. We got, um, guys that need to get stronger. We’ve got guys that need to be more powerful than you guys just to stay healthy. Um, you know, guys that are eight years, nine years into the big leagues, I need to just, you know, stay on the mound. You know, we got rehab guys. So it, it just depends on the guy. Every guy has their own needs, their own goals. Like I said earlier, we want to gather as much information from their PTs, their, their goals, their, you know, and then what we see to address and build a program. So a lot of the times this is going to be some basic tempo, tempo work, um, some isometric work. Um, so just getting them better and better positions, feeling those, those positions and building that strong foundation again.

Geoff Rottmayer: 15:59 Yeah, I’m nice. So let me ask this. Is there a thing as getting too strong or they’re stuck knowing it being strong enough?

DJ Edwards: 16:15 Um, to a point, but I mean, if a guy wants to go heavy, you know, we’re not gonna stop them. You know, we do a lot of velocity based training stuff that we’re kind of targeting the goals with meters per second on the bar versus loading up a ton, a ton of weight. We do crush weights in the first phases, um, with, with holds and ISOs and tempos, like I said before. But um, you know, I think as long as the weight is going to transfer or the strength is going to transfer the field, you know, why not continue to get stronger. Um, at some point, you know, is a 600 pound deadlift really going to matter if you’re already dead lifting 570 pounds, you know what I mean? So, um, you know, that’s just risk reward and see how, how the athletes moving at the same time, you know, as long as they’re transferring, as long as their, their speed numbers are increasing and Thursday and healthy, that’s, that’s the most important thing to us.

Geoff Rottmayer: 17:12 Right. Let’s say you got a guy, um, that they, certain frame, you know, he puts up great numbers comparatively. They’re like a check point or a benchmark on strain bursted what their drain should be for their size.

DJ Edwards: 17:33 Uh, yeah, I mean, I, I don’t think there’s a, there’s a predetermined terrain that we should follow. You know what I mean? Um, we have kind of body fat goals and strength and weight goals, but we don’t really have, you know, you need to be dead lifting 400 pounds, you know, to throw 90 miles an hour. Um, you know, we like to see guys do, you know, two times your body weight on dead lift, two times their body weight on reverse lunges, you know, an added, added weighted chin ups. Um, you know, stuff like that. But there’s no like benchmark where we’re going to say, all right, you need to, you need to hit 500 pounds this week, you know, on your exercise or whatever it may be.

Geoff Rottmayer: 18:19 Right. W what about a guy that you got that have the good strong base? When do you go into the specifics? The, the, the sports per snipping or is there a stuck thing of sports specific and if there is, what did this, what does this entail?

DJ Edwards: 18:42 Yeah, honestly, our, our, our strength program is super basic. We don’t really design sports-specific movement patterns. We’ll throw some med balls, we’ll just, some med ball slams and med ball tosses some arm care. Um, but after this specific, specific as we’re gonna get, we’re not going to, you know, put a bat in their hand at a bunch of bands too old or, you know, add some resistance swing. We’ll let our are hitting our hitting guy do that or let our throwing coordinators do, you know, work on the throwing patterns and they will communicate with them on, you know, what we see and what we need. But, um, ours, you know, we’re in a hinge or in a squat, we’re gonna do a push, we’re gonna do a pool and you know, we’re going to do some core stability, arm care and med ball throws. You know, it’s not gonna, it’s not nothing sexy, you know, but it’s, it’s how we deliver the program and it’s how the guys, you know, attack the program and it’s just the timing of the changes of the off season.

DJ Edwards: 19:42 It’s from phase to phase. So after the foundational days, we’ll probably bust that out for four to five weeks and then we’ll go into their strategy, our strength speak phase, where we’re adding a little bit more velocity in the bar where we’re going, you know, 0.7 meters per second. I’m adding philosophy based stuff, adding some, you know, hip extension jumps. Um, some, you know, son’s landing mechanics like I said before, into an accelerated pattern or some sprint work like today where our pro groups, um, back in Colorado, starting with our speed coach, doing their conditioning and their running pattern stuff. So we gave them a couple of weeks off. So I’ll put contacts. So they’re kind of just letting them put their, you know, ankles feel or letting their knees healed or hit steel, whatever it is, after just being on their feet. All, all, you know, for a hundred, 130 game season, 62 game season. So I’m slowly introducing, you know, reintroducing, you know, running mechanics and speed work and med ball work and all that stuff, uh, back into programs and about this time right now, like I said, today’s the first day that they’ll be doing that.

Geoff Rottmayer: 20:49 Nice. So how do you incorporate B training into the strength training, the strength training? Um, you know, the, the, the same day or the alternative days during the how?

DJ Edwards: 21:05 Um, it depends. Um, a couple of guys today we’ll be doing a lift in a, in a feed deck. Um, so we like to do a high low approach where not like what, you know, you’ve heard of a high, low approach before. But yeah, say guys throwing a bullpen that day, uh, we want them to lift that day because after their bullpen, because they’re doing allow their body to recover the next day. So if you go full pen lifts, then say long toss and then lifts, you’re not going to have any days off. So you need your CNS to recover. You need your body to be able to recover. So you want to manage your time where you’re having two high intense days or things in one day and then the zero or low intent days the next day where, you know, we’ll use some of our, some, some speed days will be a recovery day and then some days will be just a kick your ass day. Um, you know, or, or will be an actual accelerated day or decelerated day. We’re, we’re actually working on mechanics. So this, this depends on what the guys need and where they fall. You know, some guys aren’t participating in the speed works today, they’re just lifting. Um, you know, so that might be because they just got into town or they, you know, it’s kinda hard to keep everybody on the same schedule. But, um, our speed stuff is done as a group. We kind of build that camaraderie that way with as a group. Um, the elbow lists are done separately, um, at the same time. But you know, we’ll have myself and then a couple other coaches with our pro group and we’ll kind of manage them through their program teaching through their program. Um, Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, Pete work Tuesday, Thursday or even same day sometimes depends on this really depends on, on the athlete.

Geoff Rottmayer: 22:51 Nice thought. So on the market right now, there are several different, um, recovery tools that, that kind of measure, you know, one for recovery process. Do you guys use that? If so, how? How do you guys use them?

DJ Edwards: 23:07 Yeah, it’s definitely a big piece. Um, you know, I, I first and foremost believe that movement is, is recovery first and foremost. You know, increasing blood flow, sleep, nutrition, um, you know, all that kind of stuff, you know, and that’s just it. And then the recovery modalities like the, the hyper bolt guns, the, uh, soft tissue stuff, the grasped in the needles, whatever it may be is, you know, if is second to that, um, movement is, is number one. Um, sleeps, sleeps, number one, nutrition is number one, but then, you know, it’s a good time for those things or the recovery boots or recovery guns or whatever. After the, after he did your movement pattern after he restored rot loss range of motion after you, you know, you got your good eight hours of sleep, you drank your $200 in the water or whatever it may be. You know, that’s, that’s where those things come into play.

Geoff Rottmayer: 24:04 Yeah, yeah. No, nice. So the, what about when you got a high school guy and let’s say he comes in and the kid never been a program before, he’d never even really lifted before. What does his profit look like?

DJ Edwards: 24:20 So same thing, they’re going to show up, they’re going to do that same assessment. Um, we treat all that leads the same, essentially their timeline and it’s going to be a little bit different. Um, just because we’ll have, you know, hopefully four years with that high school athlete versus six months with the pro guy. So Ray, we’ll take a little bit more time, build it, build out his program where, you know, he’s building a good Soundation a lot of the times the high school kids need just basic strength and then you know, later on, even in in-season w we’re still working on basic strength. They’re not remotely closely even, you know, thinking about doing absolute speed work or speed strength work or whatever because they just can’t move properly. So yeah, a lot more difficult just to get them the new property just because the age and they’re going through puberty and all that kind of stuff. Right. So, you know, the cool, the cool thing is at that age they, they should just be able to look at the weight at the, at the squat rack and be able to gain weight just because they’re, because their testosterone so high. So if we can teach them, you know, to you know, pattern correctly, get them consistent in the weight wavering, all that kind of stuff. They’re sleeping, they’re drinking water, they’re doing all that. They’re going to see the results right away just based on where they’re at in their life versus the 27 year old man who’s trying to, you know, get up increases below from, you know, 96 97 to 98 99 people say stay in the big leagues is a little bit different story, you know. So, um, that’s, you know, the, the high school group is fun just because we’re with them for four years straight. We build good relationships with them, we see them, you know, throughout. And we have, gosh man, I don’t even know now we have quite a few pro guys that we started with in high school. So it’s pretty cool to see, you know, where they were and what they’re doing and where they’re at, how they’re moving, moving now, what they didn’t college or whatever it may be. And, you know, that’s just the, the consistency of from day one, just showing up every day, learning the patterns, you know, taking control of your nutrition, your sleep habits and all that kind of stuff.

Geoff Rottmayer: 26:27 And it’s tough to get kids to kind of buy into that. Um, no. Are you guys consistent with that? Do, do they, um, or are they there, was this something that they kind of build over time, you know, the whole documenting of, of what they’re eating and stuff.

DJ Edwards: 26:44 What’d you say? Sorry, I missed you.

Geoff Rottmayer: 26:47 Yeah. Getting the nutrition documented and, and understanding what it all is that, do you guys just kind of get that over time or what did you kind of seen?

DJ Edwards: 26:59 Uh, yes. I mean, the first day we’ll, our welcome email pretty much says, you know, fill out a food log for us, do this, do that. Um, they, if the athlete can’t fill out a three day food log, you know, they really don’t want it. And that kind of shows us right there, you know, so we’re not going to really dump a lot of time into that aspect if the kid can’t record what he’s eating for three days. So we can just basically go over it together. Um, you know, my wife is an RN and she does all of the nutritional stuff and she always, it’s super basic and there’s nothing sexy about it is, you know, it’s now with our pro guys and staying away from inflammatory foods with our high school guidance more, you know, adding more fats, more proteins in a good way.

DJ Edwards: 27:45 Whole nutrient dense foods versus, you know, chemically based packaged meals or whatever it may be. It’s not nothing crazy to that. And on the sleep side, no, we try to get guys on like those, those loop and monitors. A lot of our pro guys have them. We do, we do that. Um, so we will monitor that. Um, you know, some agents will buy those for their guys, um, which is nice and we’ll, we’re able to moderate it if that, um, such as like their HIV stuff and they’re stressed. And, you know, sleep patterns and all that kind of stuff. But, um, you know, on the, on the nutritional side, they gotta be committed. They gotta show that they’re committed right away by just creating a food blog and we’ll go over that with them, you know, first week or two weeks in. If they don’t do that, they don’t deliver that and they’re not gaining weight. And I say, well, where’s your food blog? You know, they kind of catch, you know, fish to the point where they need to step that up.

Geoff Rottmayer: 28:37 Nice. Let’s go with the, with the data that you get from the lube band or you know, whatever guys are using, do those data, do the a drive your approach on what they can and can’t do?

DJ Edwards: 28:52 Yeah, to an extent. To an extent it does. Um, no, a lot of kids can get, you know, kinda mind blocked with it. If they look at like, Oh my recovery is at 42% today, I can’t wit, you know, like, well how do you actually, how do you actually feel? You know, and I’ll put on, they’ll put on the philosophy base. You know, they’ll put on the, uh, Jim aware and do some speed work and their numbers are actually pretty good. So, you know, we look at the movement of the bars, probably true, most true readiness score because you know, if they’re moving weight faster than they did last week or slower than they did last week, we’ll see both, both spectrums, why they moving faster or why they moving slower. And it’s either, you know, because they didn’t sleep, they slept. Right. You know, our program’s working, our program’s not working. Uh, they only, you know, four glasses of water, but they had seven beers. You know what I mean? So, um, it really just depends on the moderating stuff. It really depends on the athlete and how they’re moving. Um, so like our readiness score, mainly it would be from just the velocity based stuff or even the jump, like how they’re jumping, how they’re landing, how they’re moving that day, how their body’s truly feeling versus reading, uh, the monitor. Right. We do, we do take that consideration though, obviously.

Geoff Rottmayer: 30:10 Yeah, sure, sure, sure. You know, let’s jump into a, let’s jump into preseason. Okay. What does that look like for you guys, man? And what, what is the focus?

DJ Edwards: 30:24 Yeah, so this was the time we’ll start increasing baseball activity. Um, so we’re, we’re going to decrease, go back and decreasing our rotary stuff like our med ball throws. Um, so anytime we add something, we got to take something away. Okay. So we, uh, you know, we noticed the workloads go up and swinging and we notice the workloads go up and hitting where notice workloads go up and sprinting, all that kind of stuff. We’re at this deal of more, so we were doing live that fast more often. So, um, obviously we’re building a lot more strength work. Um, but we’re, we’re still keeping that, that speed work components are our speeds and going to be moving faster in a weight room about 0.8 to one, 1.0 speed of the bars of all the bars that they’re, that they’re lifting. Um, so, you know, we want to, hopefully it’s that type of adult that built that foundational phase of strength where we’re gonna build off that throughout the season and keep them strong, keeping healthy. Um, some guys like to, you know, blow it out lifting wise still, um, once a week or you know, a couple times a month or whatever, maybe. But, um, you know, more often than not, it’s going to be a lot more fast, powerful person movements, less road, rotary work, more course stability work. Um, increased arm care, uh, increased, uh, PT, uh, sessions, all that kind of stuff. Just making sure they’re ready for, for, uh, the season.

Geoff Rottmayer: 31:51 Right in the end, season’s going to look a lot like that too, right?

DJ Edwards: 31:57 Yeah. In season going to look, the numbers are gonna look the exact same. Uh, we might increase sets and reps might be, uh, we’ll, we’ll take away some Essenture components, facility decrease soreness. Um, you know, so second reps will be anywhere from three to six to four sets, uh, wrestle being order from three reps to five reps. um, nothing, nothing too crazy. So it’s, uh, you know, just making sure they’re able to perform on the field every single day versus being too sore to even stepped foot on the mound.

Geoff Rottmayer: 32:29 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So what, what, um, and I know you’re pro guide don’t have that problem, but, but pretty young guys typically they don’t really get it. Um, so when they come, when, when it comes to in season and they tend to think that they don’t have the time or they don’t want to work too hard or do too much or whatever the case may be, you know, can you talk to, can you talk about the important, the in Steven training after you spent all off these and working hard?

DJ Edwards: 33:04 I mean, do you want me to be honest with you? I think it starts with the parents. Um, I think the parents make excuses for the kids not to get in. Um, they, they see them get, they get busy with school and practice and then they have to lift on top of that and, and all that. And then essentially they’re just not comparing their kids for the next level, you know, and the kids that do frame your year-round, you know, get those scholarships that the kids wanted that weren’t that stop training five months before that, you know. So, um, you know, you put in what you get, you know, you get what you put in. I truly believe that. Um, you know, not all the time, you know, hard work is rewarded, but most of the time it is. So, you know, I think it starts with the parents first and foremost. Um, you know, they’re supporting their kids there. You know, if they want their kid to be successful, they’ll say, all right, well you need to manage your time a little bit better. You know, we have kids in the past where they do like 168 hour work week where they just write down what they’re doing for 168 hours and they find out that they have way more free time that they ever thought and you know, or they’re just parents, their parents just don’t want them to lift during season, you know, so, um, excuses will fly. I mean, that’s, this how it is. I just excuse after excuse and we see, you know, unfortunately every facility sees all my friends, see kids stop trading and season and just, it just happens. You know, was consistency is just not there. For some kids, they just don’t want it. But in all honesty, we need those average people for us to be great. You know what I mean? So if they, if they want to be average and you know, that allows more, more space in the world for greatness. So if you, if you attack it like you want to be great, it’s going to be a little easier path because the average people are making it real easy on us.

Geoff Rottmayer: 34:53 Yeah, yeah. No, I get that man in me. It’s like that at my place too. So can you talk, can you talk a little bit about, you know, maybe from the science side of why it’s important you train and then you stop training. Why is it important from a science dye? Why is it important to keep, keep the training going?

DJ Edwards: 35:15 No, your body asks us these after 72 hours. So decrease in strength after 72 hours. So, you know, and then on the power side, your body stops after, you know, even I think it’s 36 hours or even less than that. So if you’re not training power, you’re not showing strength for the same maximum two hours, you’re starting to lose it. So imagine all those 72 hours time sizeable throughout the season where you’re not training strength because you don’t apparently had time, you’re going to, you know, decrease your strength, therefore you’re going to decrease the stability, therefore you’re to increase your chances of injury. So, um, you know, we want to be sure that these kids understand that, you know, if you go 72 hours without working out once in a while yet we do need de-load week. We knew we do need time off, we do need X, Y andZ , but at the same time you need to be doing something, you know, you throwing and you hitting isn’t good isn’t going to do it. You know, that’s the same patterns that got you heard the first place. But address, you know, why you got hurt or you know, hopefully decreased chance of injury. I increased in stability and increase in strength.

Geoff Rottmayer: 36:27 Yeah. That, that’s interesting. Um, man, I don’t think I knew that. So that’s interesting. So let, let, let, let, let, talk about Tommy John. Um, I talked to a guy last week and I learned a lot about that process and what I learned mainly was that it’s not the smooth process and everything’s going to feel great and everything goes well. Uh, just because you have the surgery, you know? So can you talk a little bit about the, the training side of the Tommy John recovery?

DJ Edwards: 37:02 Yeah, absolutely. It’s not the surgery that makes me throw harder to the rehab and they see throw harder, you know, so, you know, we need to, people need to realize that yes, if you want to throw harder and do the same rehab that you’re gonna be doing through TJ, right? You’re crushing, your legs are working, increase core stability. You know, you’re working on your scalp, you’re working on your cup, you’re working on your elbow, you’re working on all those little things that you should have been doing in the first place. You know, honestly, we cannot prevent somebody from getting UCL surgery, but we can, you know, kind of see precursors of it. If you’re throwing 98 miles an hour, it’s a matter of when it’s going to happen at this point. You know what I mean? Um, so you know, as long as you’re strong, as long as you’re, you know, focusing on proper movement efficiency, you know, you’re going to be set up for a little bit longer career than the guys that just kind of go out, have a soda, have a beer, you know, and with their buddies and don’t really get in a weight room.

DJ Edwards: 37:57 So, you know, it’s not like a semester before. It’s not the surgery, it’s the way you approached the rehab. Um, it’s, it’s how the rehab done. So it’s the, just the attention, the small detailed during that rehab process is actually allowing guys to have this assessed after surgery. And people need to understand too that the surgery is not a guaranteed, no guaranteed a 100% success rate, you know, so we only see these nowadays it’s pretty high. But you know, we only see these positive stories for all the negative stories of high school kids that are too weak or they get surgery again or whatever it may be.

Geoff Rottmayer: 38:35 Yeah. So, so one last question before I let you go. The younger guys who have the girl plate that open, can you explain to people why that isn’t such a big of a deal, that they’re kind of making it out to be, you know, on the, on the training side of things?

DJ Edwards: 38:54 Uh, that’s the time we want to attack it. You know, that’s when their growth plates are open. That means we can, you know, we’re gonna get a little bit more out of it. You know, we’ll be able to create some, some strength, um, from, just like I said from earlier is looking at the squat rack, you know, so, um, you know, as long as we’re creating what’s called end range stability and we’re creating joint stability, we’re going to be set, you know, um, it doesn’t really change too much, you know, with the, you know, with our 10 year olds, 11 year olds, we’ll load them up. You gotta think that these kids carry heavy backpack school every day in their bags. You know, they’re, they’re tearing their bat bag in the field, they’re swinging, they’re drilling, they’re doing all these Mack intense exercises. But you know, why are we only teaching them plyometrics when essentially you need to have strength and stability before you’re able to teach metrics.

DJ Edwards: 39:45 So it’s kind of a negative, kind of a negative, you know, perception where kids shouldn’t be lifting weights because they’re growing or because they’re a puberty or because whatever it may be. You know, I think those times were kind of changing finally. But yeah, I mean, I, I, I get emails where, you know, Hey, how can I get my nine year old involved in your strength program? It’s more like we’ll Cisco go, let them play sports and, you know, have fun and we can, you know, maybe address it next year when he’s 10, but like, you know what, let’s just, you know, the teach them how to squat the patient, how to do a pushup and then teach them how to play on the playground, on the monkey bars, you know? So that’s, that’s kinda where I look at it with that stuff.

Geoff Rottmayer: 40:30 Well, DJ, you know, I know you got a busy day. I got a busy day too, and hopefully, um, I can get you back on, you know, there’s some other stuff that love to talk about and I’d love to ask you, but I do appreciate you coming on and talking to, um, to my people.

DJ Edwards: 40:48 Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 4: 40:49 Thank you. Alright, thank you. Thank you.

Intro: 41:05 [inaudible].