Training With Rubber Tubing & Bands

Tubing made of rubber or similar materials is often used by baseball and softball players for strength work, usually for “smaller” muscles such as those that are associated with the rotator cuff.
While tubing and bands are generally considered to be safe for use by players of any age, they are not without potential problems. The thing people need to remember is that these are tools for resistance training, just like free weights (barbells/dumbbells). Tubing comes in different levels of difficulty or resistance, usually denoted by their color, and develops muscles like any other type of resistance training.

Personally, I prefer free weights to tubing, or anything like tubing, primarily because of the more consistent (but not perfect) force curve produced with weights.

What this means is that the resistance is more uniform throughout the range of motion (start to finish). With tubing, depending on the movement performed, there is little or no resistance at the start of the exercise and considerably more at the end. So, with tubing, certain points in the range of motion will receive more resistance than others.

The thing to keep in mind when training with tubing is this: it is a strength training tool just like free weights. Depending on how it’s used, it can stimulate muscle tissue and produce muscle growth just like weights. It will not make a muscle “longer” or more flexible in the process. So, tubing offers no advantage in terms of muscle development, particularly for younger players, than using free weights.

I mention this because I often hear coaches recommending tubing over free weights for young players, as if it is somehow “safer” or better for youngsters. I suppose if you were to drop a piece of rubber tubing on your foot, it will hurt much less than if you were to drop a 5 lb dumbbell on it!

Yet training with tubing does requires caution. Among the hazards is that old, improperly-cared-for tubing can snap and break during use. While this usually results in a painful snap on some area of the body, there are reports of serious eye injuries resulting from broken tubing. So, I recommend doing what I do: wear a pair of safety goggles while training with tubing. Eyes are hard to replace!

How Does Tubing Work?

Muscles do one thing: they contract. They do not flex – this is what joints do, amongst other actions. So, when a muscle is stimulated by tubing or weights, it will grow. Training with tubing doesn’t somehow produce muscle growth that is preferable over the growth produced by weights.

If you want a muscle to be less “bulky” and “short,” other factors must also come into play. Among these are how the resistance program is designed, and especially, the presence (or lack of) flexibility work. Otherwise, muscle growth stimulated by tubing or weights will be pretty much the same.

Another consideration when using tubing is that it should be used in a manner that is actually beneficial to throwers. For example, a common method of training with tubing is to place the arm at the throwing release point and pulling forward (internal shoulder rotation), as illustrated:

Figure 1, Internal Rotation Work with Tubing

This type of movement is done by some with the thought that training the arm against resistance will somehow “strengthen” it for throwing, thereby enabling a player to throw harder. However, this is not true.

This training movement is exactly the opposite of what an overhand thrower does, and has the potential of slowing down a throwing arm, resulting in decreased throwing velocity. Consider that when a thrower’s arm moves forward in its throwing range of motion to the release point, the only resistance is from the ball in the hand. After ball release, the arm continues to move forward without resistance.

The movement used in Figure 3 is similar to what swimmers do with the crawl stroke, which I also do not recommend for ball players. Among my concerns is that most baseball coaches know little about swimming stroke mechanics or about properly designing a swimming workout for ball players.

An even greater consideration is the potential for throwers to develop an impingement in their shoulders by swimming. Bottom line: ball players should not do any type of serious swimming training. If you want to jump in the water and cool off, great. Just do your conditioning on land!

A simple yet effective way to train the external rotator muscles/decelerators is shown here, using a small weight. Tubing could also be used for this movement in place of the weight:

Keep in mind that an exercise doesn’t have to exactly mimic a sports movement to be of benefit. With strength and conditioning, we are training the muscles and tendons used by a particular movement, not the movement mechanics. Just be sure your exercise doesn’t work in opposition to your sports movement!

Bottom line: training with tubing for ball players is but one part of an overall strength and conditioning program. It is not required for players of a particular age or ability level, but, properly performed, can be a helpful part of a resistance training regimen.


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Has The Time Come For A MLB Combine?

Imagine you’re a baseball GM. Albert Pujols and Babe Ruth are available. Which of these two do you pick to build your team around?

It is interesting to me how the various professional leagues go about evaluating prospects for their draft days. Perhaps there is something for baseball, and MLB in particular, to learn from the NFL and their scouting combine approach.

Given the expense associated with the high “washout” rate for baseball draftees (above 50%) you’d think MLB would be interested in improving what is essentially a "crap shoot" of a system.

The NFL scouting combine has grown in scope and significance from its early days, allowing personnel directors to evaluate upcoming prospects in a standardized setting. Its origins have evolved from the National, Blesto and Quadra Scouting services in 1977, to the media frenzy it has become today.

In 1985 all 28 NFL teams decided they would participate in future National Invitational Camps with the goal of sharing costs for the medical examinations of draft eligible players. They also use this setting to evaluate prospects in a variety of tests, which include the following:

• 40 yard dash

• Bench press

• Vertical jump

• Broad jump (standing long jump)

• 20-yard shuttle

• three-cone drill

• 60-yard shuttle

• Position-specific drills

• Interviews

• Physical measurements

• Injury evaluation

• Drug screen

• The Cybex test

• The Wonderlic Test

Approximately 335 total athletes are selected to attend each year, by invitation only. Participants are determined annually by a Selection Committee. The directors of both National and BLESTO scouting services are joined by members of various NFL player personnel departments to form the committee.

The participating NFL executives can rotate on a yearly basis, and remain anonymous. ALL eligible players are reviewed and voted on by the committee members. Each athlete receiving the necessary number of votes, by position, is then extended an invitation.

The closest MLB has come to this "combine" concept occurred almost 100 years ago. In 1921, Popular Science Monthly published the results of a study they performed on Babe Ruth.

According to Marcus Elliot, MD of the Peak Performance Project in Santa Barbara, CA:

“… the Babe Ruth testing was more appropriate and more intensive than anything any professional team is doing now.”

As reported in the September 2006 issue of GQ, these experiments were replicated on the St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols. The results are very interesting.

These are the original tests the Babe went through, which Pujols performed at Washington University in St. Louis in the spring of 2006:

· Bat speed: Swinging a 54 oz bat, the Babe clocked in at 75 mph. Pujols, swinging a 31.5 oz bat, was at 86.99 mph.

· Letter cross-out: Pujols was given a sheet of jumbled text and told to cross out all the A’s as rapidly as possible. According to the author, the test was not “well normed” in Ruth’s day, making comparison’s with Pujols impossible. Pujols’ results indicated he possessed “extraordinary binocularity,” a key visual attribute for hitters.

· Pegboard: This test assesses fine motor control and speed. It involves inserting as quickly as possible 25 steel pegs into holes punched in a plain metal box. Ruth’s score was off the charts; Pujols’ was considered high average.

· Digit/symbol substitution: Involves converting weird symbols into numbers, as many as possible in one minute. Both Ruth & Pujols made average scores. On a separate part of the test, in which one simply copies the symbols, Pujols score was off the charts.

· Finger tapping: with your dominant index finger, you depress a tapper as many times as possible in 10 seconds. Both Ruth and Pujols scored in the 99th percentile.

There is a lot of valuable testing being done by various experts that is largely ignored by MLB. Still, might we someday see a MLB combine, similar to the NFL’s, which measures attributes such as the above? Surely it would benefit pro and college baseball to have a standardized setting in which medical and performance evaluations can be made.

Why might this not happen? Well, for one thing, it would take a good pile of $$. Yet to me, this concept appears to be a business waiting to happen. Top players could be invited, as with the NFL combine. They could choose to participate or not. When a particular player declines to participate, another can be selected. This would likely give players an opportunity to be "discovered" that they might not otherwise have.

Regardless, the structure would be fairly easy to develop. MLB and maybe the NCAA could assume the costs of the operation; participants could pay a modest fee. Or, the creators of the combine would collect their data and charge MLB and college teams for access to it.

Medical and relevant performance tests for ball players would be administered, just like the NFL combine. The baseball combine could continue to monitor the careers of participants, which would help determine the reliability and predictive value of the data collected.

Here’s my suggested list of what a MLB Combine might use in their player evaluations. I’m sure there are other useful tests that could be included:

• Most/all of the above Ruth/Pujols tests

• A test that measures emotional maturity

• Running speed, straight-line and on the base paths

• Throwing velocity, all positions

• Bat speed for all hitters

• Agility and quickness tests for IF and OF

• Visual acuity/depth perception

• Tests to measure body-core strength

• A drug screen

Can a greater number of prospects be identified this way, with more objective testing? Of course. This doesn’t mean that scouts are no longer needed. With the above information, scouts could have more objective tools at their disposal for player evaluation.

Developing a data base of norms for these tests could usher in Money Ball, Part 2. Each team would define the attributes most important to them, much as they do now, and select prospects accordingly

In any case, it would appear that you would do well in choosing either Pujols or Ruth!

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