Wolforth shared some of the drills that he uses at the academy which specifically address the mental toughness development of his pitchers.

“We will do competitive bullpens in which you compete with the guy next to you. Kind of like dueling bullpens. We will do a series of fastball, curveball, changeups, where the fastball has to be to the extension side, then the breaking ball has to be in for a strike, then the changeup has to be in for a strike. We will have team A and team B compete against each other with some extra conditioning on the line. We play that the first team to ten points wins. The first guy from each team will throw a fastball, if it is a quality pitch, the next guy on our team will throw the curveball. If that is a quality pitch, the next guy will throw the change. If that is a quality pitch the next guy will throw the fastball again. If someone missed the pitch the next guy gets to throw it. It is very much like the basketball game pig but for pitchers. The nice thing is that the pitcher never knows what pitch they will be throwing until they toe the rubber because the previous pitchers pitch dictates what the next guy throws. It is very game like.”

“The competitiveness of the game builds in the game like pressure and the pitcher also has the time to process their pitch in between pitchers and think about what has just happened. They don’t have much time to get frustrated with a bad pitch and we view frustration as a focus on the problem. Once they start thinking of the solution, the problem goes away. They don’t have time to focus on the problem. Much like in a game, they have to make minor adjustments and then get back on the bump and deliver.”

“We also let the guys talk trash to each other to try and simulate what they might get in a game from the other team or from hostile fans. Some nights we don’t let them make any sounds or talk at all. We can also have the catchers squeeze them to death to simulate the tight umpire and that gives us a chance to really see how the pitcher will respond to a tight ump in a game. We can then coach them on how they should respond. There is a lot of variation with this drill and a nice thing to is that we can go through 6 pitchers bullpens in about the time it takes to do two or three, and it is much more focused and competitive. We will also chart and track how long it takes them to get to their ten points and we can evaluate them that way as well so that the pitcher walks away from the bullpen with solid objective information. You might have lost the game, but you went from taking 25 pitches to get your 10 points, to only needing 14 pitches. That also reemphasized the process over the outcome because in this game, you can only control what you do. We call that the process.”

“One of the nice things that happens is when our pitchers start to lose control and blow up during some of these competitive drills, our older and more mature pitchers will go over, put there arm around the guy and tell him ‘hey, here is what is happening’. When they hear it from a peer it is much more meaningful than when it comes from me or another coach. And I think that happens in great college and high school programs.”

“We are also big on gathering objective information. We feel that you can’t improve unless you know where you currently are and have something to compare your performances against. The pitcher can see with the radar gun or with charting that there is accountability to what we do, and we feel that they respond much better to objective data than subjective data, or us telling them, ‘hey that was a good pen today’. They want us to prove it to them with the numbers and the facts.”

Wolforth emphasizes the process over the outcome with his pitchers. He stressed that because the pitcher has complete control of the process he should spend the majority of his time focusing on that which he can control. He also indicated that like a good physical skill, the mental game takes a while to develop and is something that we are always working on.

“The mental game is just like going into the weight room and doing the bench press. You wouldn’t go into the weight room, bench for 15 hours and expect to walk out being a lot stronger and feeling confident that you have a great bench press. The mental game is a process. You might be weak at first like you would in a bench press, but if you can work the process and stick with it, you will build a foundation and get stronger, just like you would if you lifted consistently over a longer period of time.”

“A lot of times the mental toughness gets to be a story in of itself. People will start to think of mental toughness as something that you have or you don’t and I don’t think that is true. I think that mental toughness is something that you are always growing in. It is something that you need to build. For example Roger Clemens and my 8 year old son can both improve their mental game today. Too often we label people as being mentally weak. I think we all have a mental game and some of us are further down the path of developing those skills than others.”

“I don’t view it as here is your diploma and you have graduated from the mental game. It is something that you are always working on and some days you have better days than others, just like with physical skills. I find that those pitchers and coaches, who think they are at the top of their class, probably will find out that they are in the wrong class. The mental game is a lifelong process and mental skills are skills that athletes will use well beyond their baseball careers.”

“I hear the traditional pitching coach platitudes of ‘get ahead, just throw strikes, relax’, all the time, but they are very empty in terms of direction. They are not much help to a pitcher. It would be like me telling you that the secret of the stock market is to buy low and sell high, or that the secret to a good marriage is communication. It is true, but very empty. What athletes need is specifics on how to do it.”

“I had a coach come to me once at the mound and say ‘Ron, your falling behind hitters, your leaving the ball up, and you are not getting your curveball over for strikes, and this will be your last hitter if you can’t do it.’ What he said was just about as helpful as a drunken guy in the stands yelling ‘Hey Wolforth, you got to throw strikes’. I said to myself, I knew that already. What I needed, and not necessarily at that time during the game, but more so during the previous practices and preparation up to the game was how I could have made those in game adjustments, based off of my awareness and the feedback that I was getting from the game.”

Coaches are often quick on giving mechanical advice or to label a pitcher, but rarely give the pitcher the skills necessary to have the awareness of what is going on, or the ability to deal with pressure packed situations. One of the things that Wolforth recommends is that coaches first spend the time to get a better understanding of who their pitcher are as people and what there pitching instructional background has been.

“I think that the first thing coaches need to learn to do, and it comes right from Stephen Covey’s 7-habits of highly effective people is ‘Seek first to understand, then to be understood. So often pitching coaches want to make a quick fix on a guy with mechanics, but they need to do a better job drawing out the information from the pitcher about what they feel and are experiencing while they are pitching. A pitcher might be leaving the ball up because they are rushing, so we make a mechanical fix to keep them back, but the reason the ball is up is because the pitcher is mentally in fast forward. They are putting too much pressure on themselves and trying to do to much. Too often we use labels that a kid is easily rattled or gets frustrated easily, or is a chocker, but have we taught them how to respond correctly and to be in-control of themselves in those situations?”

“Often when a pitcher makes a move to a higher level, high school to college, or college to pro, the new pitching coach will recommend mechanical adjustments the first day. Rather than trying to find out what the pitcher does well and working with them to get better with in their own pitching style. Seeking to understand means that you have to honor the pitchers past, and you have to understand what they have done and who they have worked with. That doesn’t mean that you can’t make changes, but we have to know where a pitcher is coming from and what they have been taught in the past.”

Many times we as coaches fall into the rut of trying to teach all our pitchers the same way mechanically. We teach them what we feel to be the best mechanical approach. Wolforth feels that this cookie cutter approach can often hurt more than help pitchers.

“If I told Andy Pettit that he needed to look more like Roger Clemens at the foot strike position on video because Roger has 7 Cy-Young awards, that would not work for Andy. If you watch a big league game, many pitchers do not throw the same. Pitchers have their own individual style. We as coaches have to do a better job working with them in their style.”

Pitchers often need more work on their pre-pitch routine and ability to stay emotionally in control of themselves than they do mechanical work to help them stay mechanically consistent. Wolforth explains how he teaches his pitchers to pitch from inside out, not from the outside in.

“Pitchers need routine because if they don’t have it, they are at risk of having the circumstances around them dictate how they respond, rather than controlling themselves within the context of the surrounding environment. You have to pitch from inside out because the outside is full of circumstances outside of your control. The chances of things going not well in a game are 100%. If you are thinking about being perfect, that is rarely going to happen. What you need to do is have a routine that allows you to stay within yourself and allows you to stay on track. A routine that allows the chaos going on around you to just be. We need to effect the things that we can control and let the things that we can not go away. That is far easier said than done, believe me.”

Game like practice is critical to preparing pitchers for the ever-changing game environment and Wolforth offers some interesting drills on how to make your bullpens more game like.

“Typically baseball practices are very routine, predictable and stale, while games are the complete opposite. Pitchers often develop practice habits or routines that allow them to get comfortable. Then when they get into a game, they develop an anxiety because it is so different from the consistent and predictable practice environment that they are used to. The pitcher needs to lean that if they can stick to their inner routine, they will be able to handle all the other stuff that is going on around them. At our facility in Houston, we will have pitchers go through their routines as we try to create havoc for them so that they don’t know what is coming. This makes their practice more game like.”

Wolforth feels that a mentally tough pitcher is someone who can make adjustments during a game from pitch to pitch.

“We believe that the determining factor in whither a pitcher will be successful or unsuccessful is simply in his ability to adjust. What does adjustment mean? It means that you have to be emotionally and mentally stable enough to recognize what just happened and then what your adjustments need to be. You also have to be in the present moment. You can’t be in the past or the future, you have to be in the moment. You also have to practice adjusting. The environment whither it be the weather, the umpire, the strike zone, or the field conditions can change from pitch to pitch and you have to be able to make those subtle adjustments to keep you on track. It is like driving down the road and recognizing that you are drifting into the other lane. The bad drivers jerk the wheel to get the car back where it needs to be. Good drivers are always looking down the road and making small, constant minor adjustments to keep them on track. There are a whole bunch of people with great stuff in this game that will never make it because they can not make adjustments on the fly in game time from pitch to pitch and that is a skill that needs to be developed like a good pick play or a curveball.”

Wolforth also stressed that the mental game and the physical game are interwoven and should be viewed as one and the same, not two separate types of practice.

“I am a big fan of Ken Ravizza and have followed his stuff for a long time, and we believe that the mental game can not be separate from the physical game. You have to be working on it all the time. If you ask any of our pitchers they will tell you that the mental game is interwoven into what we do and that any time they throw a baseball they are always working on their mental game.

First Round Mental Training

90 MPH Club

Ron Wolforth

Pitching Coach Ron Wolforth Discusses Mental Toughness Training For Pitchers

Ron Wolforth, director of Pitching Central, a Houston Texas based pitching development facility has developed a total pitching development program called “The Athletic Pitcher.” Wolforth shared how he teaches the metal aspects of pitching performance, and works with pitchers at his pitching boot camp to produce more mentally tough and competitive pitchers.

Wolforth was slightly below average college pitcher who stood about 5’9”, and threw in the range of 86-89 MPH. The driving force behind what he does today in his work with pitchers was motivated by his own personal experience that left him wondering how someone who threw pretty hard, had great attitude and work ethic, did not have more success than he did in college?

“You always here coaches and players in TV interviews after games say ‘We won because we wanted it.’, while no one wanted it more than I did in college. So I started to ask myself, why was I an underachiever? Through my experience I realized that work ethic and intelligence are important factors in pitching success, but not the sole ingredient in determining who will be a successful pitcher. So I started to search out why my performance was not as good as it could have been, and why so many pitcher fall short of their potential”

When pitchers fall short of success, it is often said that they just didn’t have enough talent. Wolforth believes that using a lack of talent is often a coaches excuse for a lack of coaching ability.

“People will often throw out the T-word in reference to someone who falls short of what they are capable, ‘They just didn’t have the talent’, and I can agree with that to a degree, but to me that is too easy of an answer, I am not satisfied with the completeness of that answer, there is just not enough substance behind it.”

Many times when you have a pitcher or a player that wants to be very successful, works extremely hard and is intelligent, the biggest obstacle for these athletes is often getting out of their own way.

“I truly believe that there are two things that can make a tremendous difference for a pitcher, and that is developing awareness and perspective. If you have awareness and perspective you can then start to develop what a lot of coaches would call “metal toughness” or “mental tenacity”. What I mean by awareness is, ‘what exactly is happening at that moment’. What I did for the most part in college, and a lot of players will do this, is try to please the coaches in what they expected me to do, rather than having an awareness of what was happening on the mound. Awareness is knowing if I am throwing it high or low, am I getting behind early in the count, can I not put hitters away? What is the reason I am not successful? Being constantly aware of what is happening at the present moment is critical because it allows you to make necessary adjustments.”
One of the issues that Wolforth had to overcome, as many pitchers do, is that often his coaches expected that he knew what was happening, that he knew why he could not locate his pitches, and he knew what he needed to work on to get better. Many times, athletes do not know what it is they need to work on to improve and are subsequently written off as mental midgets or someone that ‘just doesn’t have it’. As coaches we need to constantly be communicating with our pitchers about what they need to do to be successful and what they need to do to improve.

FIRST ROUND MENTAL COACHING

90 MPH Club

Ron Wolforth

Habit 1 – Be Proactive
Great players take responsibility for everything that happens in their career. They take responsibility for their time and for making sure that every day they are working towards their goals. When you are proactive, you take control of your time and you stay in green lights. When you start acting reactive you fall into red and yellow lights.

Habit 2 – Begin With The End In Mind
Know what you want to accomplish. Have a DETAILED daily plan to take you closer to the overall goal. Remember, yard by yard it is hard, inch by inch it is a synch. Today + Today + Today = Your Career. Get the most out of today, live in the present moment, and the end results that you wish will take care of themselves, ONE DAY AT A TIME.

Habit 3 – Put First Things First
You must put YOURSELF first. Fighters can get consumed by things outside of their control, media, fans and people looking to get a piece of your action if YOU let them. Put your training and your health above public appearances, interviews and social engagements. When you put first things first, you prioritize and can feel good about saying NO.

Habit 4 – Think Win–Win
You’re only as good as your training partners! So manage your relationships well. Don’t beat on your partners so bad that they never want to train with you again. Instead think win-win. Make sure you show that you care about their MMA game and that you will help them to get better. That way when you show up to the gym you will always have someone to train with. Likewise if your training with fighters better then you, make your situation win-win by always giving them 100%, being on time for practice, having a good attitude… etc.

Having a win-win environment with your MMA training partners makes your team more efficient, provides a more positive place to train, causes less feuds and creates partners that want to see you improve instead of secretly jealous teammates that wan to see you fail.

Habit 5 – Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood
Empty your cup young grasshopper. No one wants to train with a fighter that thinks he knows it all. Some fighters egos are so delicate that they think they’re always right. These type fighters never listen and are always the first to have the answer. In the world of MMA there are so many different styles and approaches, it seems that we all believe to have the perfect training formula or martial art style.

There is something to learn from everybody and from every style. So empty your cup first before every class so that others may pour there knowledge into your cup. Don’t make the mistake thinking you know it all or you’ll miss out on learning new things…. Seek first to listen (opening your mind to new things) and then to be heard (sharing what you have learned along the way).

Habit 6 – Synergize
2+2=5 or more. When you synergize you surround yourself with others who believe in you and help to make you better. Synergy happens when you are in green lights and are with training partners and coaches that take you to a place you can not get to by yourself. Together we are stronger than when we stand as individuals.

Habit 7 – Sharpen The Saw
Sharpening the saw means continuing to refine and rejuvenate your greatest tool… YOU. Getting adequate rest and relaxation., having an understanding of nutrition and how you can eat to win is an area that fighters need to tap into. Having consistent sleep patterns, consistent eating schedules and consistent thoughts leads to consistent performance.

Habit 8 – From Effectiveness To Greatness
Greatness is learning how to have a consistent routine that you can follow on a daily basis. It is learning from your mistakes and getting better everyday. Greatness is becoming a student of yourself and knowing what you need to do to fight your best fight. It is knowing how to get from yellow and red back to green as quickly as possible.

Adapted from the “7 Habits” Series by Steven Covey

First Round Mental Training - 90 MPH Club

FIRST ROUND MENTAL COACHING - 90 MPH CLUB

UC Irvine’s Glenn Swanson Tosses No-Hitter Over Toreros

The University of California, Irvine’s Glenn Swanson (San Diego/Morse HS) didn’t try to do anything differently when he took the mound April 25, 2006, for a Tuesday spot start against the University of San Diego. As a matter of fact, he didn’t feel all that good to begin with.
“I have actually been sick for about a week,” the southpaw said, “I didn’t feel all that great before the game either, but once I put my spikes on, that all goes out the window. The only think I think about is pounding the zone and trying to find a way to help the team win.”
Swanson did more than help find a way to win, he single-handedly lead the Anteaters to a 7-0 win, pitching the game of his life, a 9 inning, no-hitter with 14 strike outs while yielding one walk on only 89 pitches.

“I didn’t try to do anything special, I just stuck to my routine and kept the good thoughts going that if I could continually pound the zone, we would have the best chance of winning the game. I just stuck to my routine and deep breath before each pitch and used my cue words for each pitch like our Peak Performance Coach Brian Cain had worked with us on. I was totally focused on taking it one pitch at a time, and luckily we got the desired end result.”
Coming off of a Big West Conference loss three days earlier to UC Santa Barbara in which Swanson entered the game in the 9th inning with the lead, Coach Dave Serrano was just looking for his fifth year senior to get some innings in before turning it over to the rest of the Anteaters staff.

“My intention was to have Swanny go for 3-4 innings,” Serrano said “His pitch count was low and he was throwing strikes so we stuck with him. Swanny is one of the hardest working guys I have had the privilege of coaching. He has had to overcome a lot of adversity in his five years here at UCI. I don’t know if I have ever seen a team pull for a guy like we do for him, that is because he is such a great teammate, and the guys all have great respect and admiration for him.”

Swanson’s amazing feat was UCI’s first no-hitter since April 27, 1974, when Tad Davis led the Anteaters to an 18-0 win over Southern Utah. The only other no-hitter in the program’s history was recorded March 3, 1970 against Cal Tech as Dave Wollos pitched UCI to an 8-0 victory. It was the first no-hitter tossed by a Big West school since a combined effort by Cal Poly in 2003 when the Mustangs defeated Southern Utah 7-0. Pacific’s D.J. Houlton hurled the Big West’s last complete-game no-hit effort in 2001, an 8-0 triumph over UC Riverside.
Swanson, who had strung together 14 hitless innings in two starts, retired the first five batters in a start the following Sunday vs. UC Davis before giving up hit in the second. However, Swanson managed to hold the Aggies scoreless until the fifth when they finally pushed across a run, ending his stretch of scoreless innings at 17.2.

“I have been going out there and just pitching my game,” Swanson said. “It doesn’t matter who is in the box, who we are playing, what the score is, or the magnitude of the game. My job as a pitcher is to pound the mitt. That is all I can control. Once the ball leaves my hand, I can’t control what happens, if the umpire makes a bad call, if I give up a hit, or if a teammate makes an error. If I pound the mitt consistently, I am giving myself and the team the best chance for success, and that is all I can do. Working with Brian Cain on the mental game and coming to grips with this understanding that I have to control what I can control and let everything else take care of it self has really helped me.”

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