Nutrition: The Building Blocks for Success

Nutrition: The Building Blocks for Success

In the previous post, we went over the direction we want to go in our development journey. This week, we are going over the foundation of development, which is nutrition. A highly valued but little cared about development aspect: most don't realize that most of our battles are won or lost in the kitchen. In America, we do not have access to food problems; we have a relationship with food problems. Most of what we put in our body hurts our development. My mentor, Tom House, always used the analogy of two Ferrari's. Ferrari #1 put all the high-end oil and gas and kept up on maintenance, while Ferrari #2 just put in whatever it could find. Ferrari #2 will outperform all the Honda Civics on the road, but when it comes head-to-head with Ferrari #1, it will lose. Ferrari #1 has better nutrition, or at least as food applies to a car. The same would apply to the human body.

Since I moved back into youth baseball, it is apparent that most players will take the extra swings and ground balls, throw their bullpen, and do whatever the coach asks. They still don't make the progress they expect or hope to make. It is not a work ethic issue. It is a nutrient issue. If you don't believe me, here is a published research study showing how mal/poor nutrition can impact the Central Nervous System (CNS) development. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0079612308600588

If our CNS is not developing to its maximum capability, why would we improve from the training we are doing? The CNS is fundamental in movement, and proficiency in a skill-based game like baseball and nutrition is fundamental in developing the CNS.

There are also great studies on baseball players in professional baseball and their body compositions. You can find that article here: https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/Fulltext/2009/11000/Development_of_a_Baseball_Specific_Battery_of.00001.aspx

In a summary of the article, professional baseball players have high lean body mass. As they progress to higher levels, they see a rise in overall body fat %, but it is also important to note that MLB players still have a higher lean mass than minor league players. We can gather from this article that our athletes must strive to have high body mass with as much lean mass as possible. MLB players run faster, jump with more power, change direction better, and are more physical than the minor league players. But we will discuss that in more depth in a future post.  

So, I bring up that information to give you some jumping-off points to research why nutrition is essential. We need to build high body weight that contains large amounts of lean mass. If we are not putting the correct fuel into our body, we will not develop that aspect in our physical development or our CNS. Nutrition allows us to combine the nervous system (movement) with body composition to produce the most force and speed that we possibly can.  

If you are looking for one specific place to look for nutrition, I cannot recommend enough the ArmCare.Com course MLB Performance and Recovery Habits Course, which will cover many aspects of food. You can find the link to that course here: https://armcare.com/products/2429064

and use the discount code throwfuzz15 to give you 15% off that course. 

Also, if you are looking for just general weight-building nutrition, I recommend the following items:

Muscle Milk Protein: https://amzn.to/3OKJBi7

Athete Cook Book: https://amzn.to/3wli7sW

Nutritional Bar: https://amzn.to/3uFXJSV