Part 2: 10,000 More Hours to Mastering Your Game
/I am excited to bring you Part 2 of Paige Cassady’s outstanding presentation at the 2022 NFCA convention in San Antonio, Texas this past December. If you tune into my blog on a weekly basis, you might remember Part 1 from two weeks ago when we dove into this Texas Tech pitching coach’s philosophies on the most important “physical” aspects of pitching. Today I will get to take you through her mental game approach that she uses with her college pitching staff.
At convention, Coach Cassady’s presentation spent at least half of the time discussing the mental side of pitching. I was so excited to dive into this portion of the game with Coach Cassady because this is always the most fascinating piece of the “successful pitcher” puzzle to me. Two pitchers with virtually the same “stuff” can have two totally different outcomes to their careers based on mindset. One might be extremely successful, adorned in accolades and team championships, while the other has a career that turns out to be very average. And it all comes down to the difference in the way that each pitcher thinks.
Isn’t that “mind-blowing”?
Therefore, it was imperative for me to learn more about this part of the game, as I want all of our Practice Pro pitchers to have an advantage over their peers by building a strong and healthy mindset. Aren’t you excited to discover which of the following techniques will resonate with you the most? Let’s dive in!
For starters, Coach Cassady said some really interesting things that I could relate to as both a former pitcher myself and as your current coach at Practice-Pro pitching school. One piece of the mental game that made sense to me as both a competitor and a coach dealt with the type of training environment that is created in practice. Paige believes that there needs to be a training environment set every day with a priority in brain stimulation. That means that your practices should include external motivation, competitive challenges, and high standards of expectation to perform or complete a “reach-task.”
These are all of the reasons that I have developed pitching school instead of giving individual lessons. The environment we train in should inspire us in many different ways to “keep us going” in our brains. Pitching school does that for me, and I sure hope it does that for you too. From a varied drills approach to the different focuses on spot, spin, and speed to the journal writing and goal setting, Coach Cassady is doing the same things at her Power 5 Division I Collegiate Program as we are doing here at Practice Pro. So never be discouraged at a difficult lesson. Use it as an opportunity to create resilience in your mindset.
That brings me to one of my favorite concepts that Coach Cassady presented: the 40% rule.
The Navy Seals shared with us this incredible reality of the brain that they have dubbed “the 40% rule.” Their findings showed that our bodies only physically reach 40% of our maximum threshold of any physical endeavor. And the reason for that is because our minds actually tell us to stop as we approach that 40% exertion mark. Wow. That means we have so much more to give when we feel like the end of our rope is near.
This knowledge has empowered me in a way that I hope it also empowers you. Whether it is the stress or pressure that we feel during a competitive drill, game, or test OR the pain and exhaustion of a grueling workout, the ability to remind ourselves that we have 60% more juice in the tank than what our brains are signaling to us is an advantage that I intend to utilize. Just knowing that 60% more exists in a reserve tank that we must be brave enough to unlock can give us the perseverance to continue on through the “hard” so that we don’t quit before the finish line. That end goal that might seem impossibly far away is often more within our reach than we ever considered or believed.
This brings me to another mental game benefit that Paige discussed: the power of awareness. Just knowing that our brains stop us at 40% allows us to feel a sense of safety to continue past our perceived threshold. Knowledge is power, they say. Therefore, awareness is the key to perseverance.
So what if we were aware that our bodies were giving off a stress response? If we could recognize that stress was beginning to take hold of our bodies, could we actively combat it? The answer is yes. Through breathing and release/reset routines, our minds can reverse a stress response. So how do we get cued into a stress response beginning to creep its way into our bodies? It is called a MUSE headband. You may have seen these on Olympic athletes and not have even known what they were. But Muse headbands play music while you are working out, and when a stress response begins, the headband turns up the volume of whatever song you are listening to. Therefore that quick trigger can help us to breathe or adjust our focus to combat the response. Awareness gives us the tools to reverse stress and turn that music down. Awareness allows us to take action. I know I will be purchasing one of those headbands for my own training soon.
In keeping with this concept of awareness, can our abilities grow more acute when senses are stripped from us? Can we add through subtraction? At first thought, this seems counterintuitive. But that is exactly the benefit of a concept called Prioperceptive Effectiveness. Coach Cassady helps her pitchers with issues mastering “the touch” needed to throw a consistent changeup through Prioperceptive Effectiveness training. She blindfolds her pitchers (thus taking away one of the two main senses that control our ability to perform as a pitcher: sight and touch). In taking away “sight,” you are stuck with “feel” alone. When you can’t see an outcome, you must visualize in your mind and “feel” in actuality. Coach Cassady has her players describe what they are feeling when they throw a pitch. This helps them to master the “touch” of a pitch like a changeup. Your brain will tell your body what to do in the absence of sight. Our bodies are wired to strengthen other “senses” when something is taken away. Therefore, our “feel” is heightened in the absence of “sight.” How cool is that? Are you ready to be blindfolded? Sounds like fun to me!
The last mental game advantage that I will touch on from Coach Cassady’s presentation dealt with the creation and implementation of ROUTINES. She discussed game day routines such as food, music, and warm up. She dove into pre-pitch routines with breathing. She even gave merit to having a dugout routine so you are not waiting to get back out there between innings (when your own team is on offense) with anxiety. Where do you stand, who is your cheer buddy, how do you decompress through 2 outs, and how do you regain focus when the inning is preparing to turn over again? Coach Cassady emphasized that all elite athletes have specific and repeatable routines (habits of their own creation) so that a sense of familiarity is ever-present. It is controllable in every game, in every kind of weather, against any type of opponent. So what is your routine going to be that can help you gain that controlled mindset on game day?
I hope Coach Cassady’s mental game tips helped you as much as they helped me. For further study (if you find the “power of the mind” to be as fascinating as I do), check out two television series that Paige recommended: LIMITLESS on Disney+ and Enhanced on ESPN+
I can’t wait to start on both!
