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Extra.gif (8795 bytes)LATEST SETPRO NEWS

SETPRO vs. PITCHING.COM

Facts vs Opinions on explosive training for pitchers. See SETPRO PITCHING FORUM

Mark Johnson Update
KOSHIEN, May 3—Mark Johnson appears to be enjoying it here in Japan. Tonight he went 3 for 4 with 3 RBIs, including his third home run in as many days, to lift the Tigers over the old enemy. Responsible for all of Hanshin's runs and half their hits, he certainly carried the team tonight against Yomiuri's Balvino Galvez, who pitched reasonably well over 8 innings. But Galvez had no answer for Johnson, who seems to have staked out a spot just to the right of the scoreboard for his homers. The Hanshin pitchers did their job too, of course. Darrell May kept the Giants to 2 runs over 7 innings, getting out of some tight situations with some big pitches and excellent fielding - while rookie Fukuhara pitched a perfect 8th and Rivera the 9th for the save. May said after the game that his main concern tonight was getting the lefties out. He said that while the result tonight was good, he wasn't entirely happy with his pitching and still has a couple of things to work on. Johnson, who shared the post game "hero interview" with May, paid tribute to Galvez, saying he's a great pitcher. But he didn't disguise his delight at winning the game for the team. Asked about his home run, he said "It felt great ... once it went over, it's a great feeling - nothing better." In his obligatory message to the fans, Johnson said that it's incredible playing in front of 55,000 people. "Playing against the Giants I really get pumped up. I know you do too. So c'mon out again tomorrow night!" No need to ask. They'll be there!

KOSHIEN, May 5—Mark Johnson has done it again! In front of 55,000 screaming fans, he broke a 3-3 tie in the 6th inning by hitting his fourth consecutive homer - his 8th for the year - and giving the Tigers a two-game Golden Week sweep of the Giants. Earlier, Tsuyoshi Shinjo had gone deep for the first two Hanshin runs, while starter Yabu helped his own cause by driving in a run off a bloop single. Yabu pitched 8 1/3 hard-fought innings, giving up just three runs off seven scattered hits. Toyama then took over, got out the dangerous lefties with some great pitches, while Rivera got the last out for his third save. But the hero once again was Johnson. Interviewed after the game, he said he was feeling pretty good and seeing the ball well. He was asked whether he had ever hit four straight home runs. "Only in the minor leagues", he replied. "I once hit five straight - but never in the big leagues." And he added, "It's fun to play against the Giants." Especially if you win! Of course, now the least courageous pitchers probably won't want to give him anything to hit. In fact, in his second at-bat tonight Johnson was hit in the elbow by a wayward pitch, and he was intentionally walked in his next trip to the plate after the home run. But for the moment, he's hot, and the words "Johnson" and "Bass" are now beginning to be uttered together in hushed tones all over town. (From Michael Owen's Hanshin Tigers Website)

Email from Mark 2/24/99
Paul, Just wanted to drop you a line to fill you in on how things are going.  Let me just start by saying that the Japanese definitely do some things differently. Warm-ups go for an hour, which I really do not mind because I really need to stretch.  Fundamentals go all day. Every situation you can imagine you go over about five thousand times. Otherwise baseball is baseball.
Most of the Japanese players use a leg kick.  I have yet to really ask them why.
It may be a carry over from Oh.  Basically their swings are fundamentally sound. They really stress getting on top of the ball.
I have been doing my drills and medicine ball 2-3 times weekly.  My batspeed has remained fairly consistent and towards the highest range.  I am still doing double on the light.  Is that still correct?  I would be interested in your ideas on an inseason lifting program and was also wondering if you could e-mail me a few more shots of Garciaparra.  Also if you had a chance a couple of my swings from the last time you taped me.
I do not know if I got into this the last time I wrote you, but I think they are pretty happy.  They had to stop parking cars behind the stadium, because I was beating them up.  I feel strong and fast with the bat.
Hope all is well, and I will talk to you soon. Domo Arigoto,
MJ

Email from Mark 2/17/99:
Paul, Just a quick hello since it is costing me about a million yen a minute to be online. Training has been going well. My swing feels great and I think they have been impressed with the balls leaving the stadium. Had about six days off, but started on Monday with the medicine balls and Tuesday with the overload, underload. Since a large group of reporters follow our every move, there was lots of questions as to what I was actually doing. You may receive a bunch of orders from Japan. My bat speed was very good. 100-104 regular bat after practice all day. Rest must have helped. Drop me a line with any training advice as I will try to check my e-mail periodically. I will give you a call when I get a reasonable carrier and ISP. Talk to you soon. MJ

PS - How is your son's training going in Mexico?

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HITTERS, DO YOU WANT TO ADD 10-15 MPH TO YOUR SWING AND 60 FEET TO YOUR LONG BALL IN 30 DAYS? PITCHERS, DO YOU WANT TO ADD 6-10 MPH TO YOUR FASTBALL? COACHES,DO YOU WANT TO HAVE THE GREATEST SEASON EVER? PARENTS, DO YOU WANT TO GIVE YOUR CHILD THE BEST POSSIBLE BASEBALL EXPERIENCE?

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95% OF ALL PEOPLE PLAYING AND COACHING DO NOT UNDERSTAND TRAINING FOR POWER. Sad but true. Most players and coaches understand practice. They understand someting about weight training. They know very little about training for sports power. They know even less about the mechanics of power (how the body develops swing or throwing power). Most of the methods used to teach hitting and pitching are wrong. Most coaches rely on how they used to do it. Worse yet they make everything too complicated. The proper way (mechanics) to develop maximum swing or throwing power and control are easy to under stand. The problem is players do not spend enough time DOING it. You can watch all the videos and read all the books. But the only way to develop more power is doing it and doing it RIGHT. Players and coaches confuse practice and training.

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THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRAINING AND PRACTICE Practice is not the same as training. Baseball pratice stresses drills, repetition and timing. Baseball training is developing your maximum USEABLE power. Practice is to fine tune your timing and skills. Training (hitting, throwing and sprinting power) is developing your mechanics and power to work TOGETHER. Practice is then used to "fine tune" what training has developed. Training is also doing it right. Someone once said "practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect". The same is true about training.

BASEBALL PLAYERS DO NOT SWING AND THROW ENOUGH Do you average 150 QUALITY swings 4-5 times a week. Do you average 200 quality throws a week. If your answer is no, you are not even close to reaching your maximum baseball capability.

SMART POWER IS THE "FASTEST PROGRESS IN THE SHORTEST TIME WITH THE LEAST EFFORT". 30 years of sports training  research is now the most advanced training system possible, SMART POWER. You will see swing by swing and throw by throw improvements. Nine out of ten players see at least a 5 MPH improvement in their bat speed and a 3 MPH in thier throwing speed after the first training session.

SMART POWER WORKS FOR ALL AGES. A 9 year old using our training system has improved his swing speed 20 MPH in 4 weeks. A 16 year old 21 MPH in 3 weeks. A 45 year old 18 MPH in 2 weeks. These players worked hard every day and they worked SMART every day.

SMART POWER BASICS 85 out of 100 swings or throws you make are of little or no value. Every throw or swing needs to focus on Strength, Speed, Location or Mental training. Most players have no plan to make this happen.

STRENGTH Muscle is made up of fibers (like thin threads). There are two types of muscle fiber, fast and slow. Slow fibers take longer to develop strength (contract) than fast fibers. Fast and slow exist side by side in all of our muscles. The body always tries to use slow fibers. Slow fibers don’t use a much energy as the fast muscle fibers. Your body is always trying to use the smallest amout of energy . The body learned how to do this to survive. Slow fibers are the first ones the body tries to use. But hitting and trowining require fast fibers. That because power is strength and speed TOGETHER. But the body will fight to use its slow fibers. To get the fast fibers to turn on, you have to over load the body. Lifting weights, swinging hard, throwing hard, all force the body to use its fast fibers.

RANGE OF MOTION Remember that the body always trys to protect itself. When ever you move an arm or leg, only those mucle fibers needed are used. This means that every motion uses different muscle fibers. This is part of what’s called the "specificity principle". Incorrect or incomplete training is one of the biggest mistake players and coaches make. Training for maximum swing and throwing power requires exercises that duplicate as closely as possible hitting and throwing motions. Researchers call this sport specific training. This is why when you train you must try to duplicate the same motions as the event you are training for. If you do not use the same or similar motion, the muscle fibers needed for the event will not be fully trained. This is called range of motion. Swinging a bat has a different range of motion than throwing a baseball.

TO DEVELOP MAXIMUM SWING OR THROW SPEED REQUIRES STRENGTH AND SPEED. The muscles must contract rapidly. Researchers call this Rate of Force Development (RFD). To develop maximum RFD, your training exercises need to maximize mucle acceleration. Exercises that let the muscle accelerate all the way through range of motion are called "ballistic exercises". Ballistic training requires equipment and exercises specifically designed for hitting and throwing.

LOCATION AND MENTAL TRAINING BASEBALL POWER IS NOT JUST STRONG AND FAST MUSCLES. Baseball power is a combination of vision, brain and muscles working together. There's more to training than training the muscles. Muscle speed and the number of muscle fibers activated (recruitment) determine power. Muscle speed and muscle recruitment require sport specific mental training (training the muscles to work when you want them to work). SMART POWER TRAINING is designed specifically for developing maximum possible swing and throwing power in the shortest time.

SMART POWER BRINGS TOGETHER THE FOUR BUILDING BLOCKS OF SPORTS POWER Only SETPRO's training systems bring it all together. STRENGTH TRAINING, RANGE OF MOTION STRENGTH, STRENGTH to POWER CONVERSION, and SPORT SPECIFIC TRAINING.

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These building blocks are combined with FEEDBACK (swing by swing, throw by throw results) and PERIODIZATION (when and how much to train). Add to this training aides carefully selected to develop maxmum speed and strength. The result is a easy to understand and fun to use system that delivers tremendous results.

What is SETPRO? SETPRO designs and sells sport specific training products and systems. SETPRO had it's beginnings 32 years ago. At that time I was a college athlete dedicated to becoming the best.

I trained harder (at least I thought I did) than my team mates. I read everything I could find (which was not much compared to today's available information). Some training methods I tried worked, many did not!

Some very knowledgeable people around me. My college coach went on to become one of the worlds leading authorities on bio-mechanical analysis and founded one of the largest bio-mechanical analysis equipment companies in the world. My best friend, team mate, and class mate developed much of his computer software and went on to head US Olympic Committees bio-mechanics training center in Colorado Springs. I went on to spend over 20 years in industry developing computer measurement and control systems.

But my first love was/is sports training. Ten years ago I became chief engineer for Sports Technology Inc., developing computerized measurement and training products for golf. And five years ago I started SETPRO (Sports Engineering and Training Products).

SETPRO has concentrated on baseball and softball. We introduced the concept of sport specific training with feedback and simulation. Using this program, hitters develop their maximum power and quickness capabilities in the shortest possible time. Training results have been better than we could have possibly imagined. We are now at the point where where 93 out of 100 players can expect a minimum increase in bat speed of 10 MPH in 3 weeks.

We continue to develop new products and methods of training. We continue to research and develop more effective and eficient training methods and products. This web site will keep you up to date with the latest training information.

We have spent the last two years developing a sports specific training program for pitchers. This effort began with an extensive investigation of pitching mechanics. We analyzed the best of today's major league pitchers as well as some of the best from years past. We studied all of the available research on pitching mechanics and training of pitchers.We performed hundreds of hours of testing on pitchers of all ages. What we learned (and continue to learn) contradicts some of "pitching absolutes" that today's "gurus" are selling. These efforts resulted in a new way of looking at the pitching (and hitting) process. Our new system explains why different pitching styles are successful. Much of this information will become available on this web site over the next several months. So visit us often.

Training is still a long ways from being an exact science. There are general PRINCIPLES. No two athletes respond exactly the same way to the same training stimulus. Experience combined with the latest research is about the best we can do. It is important to keep an open mind and to have access to other professionals. I am fortunate to be associated with a number of people who possess a very high level of baseball and sports training knowledge (scouts, instructors, coaches, researchers and other manufacturers). As time goes on, you will get to meet them and they will expand their presence here.

SETPRO is not a mail order catalog house. SETPRO sells very specific sports training solutions. We only sell what we have tested and proven. We guarantee your satisfaction.

If you have questions, please contact us. People tell me once I get talking........ I can't stop!!!!

I hope you find your visit informative and enjoyable.

Paul Nyman

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Max Ratofor
resident physio-kineticist
(training specialist)
and web pilot extra-ordinary
tells it like he sees it

Part Two of Max's series begins what is destined to be a classic. Max shows how developing force at the rubber can mean velocity at release.

Part One of Max's block buster series covering some of the hottest training issues on the web. Max continues his series on training drills (explains why 2x4 drill can cause problems).

Max Speaks Out
"I can see the hip controversy is "never ending". Just don't get caught between a rock and a hard place"

Coming Soon
More on the kinetic chain and why high knee lift can translate to more velocity using Nolan Ryan as an example. And how SETPRO's SMART POWER PROGRAM developed four years ago for hitters and pitchers closely follows Vern Gambetta's training philosophies (did you know Vern used the example of throwing a weighted ball as the highest form of sport specific training for a pitcher?).

Max Speaks Out Index
Past Max Speaks Out Articles

Best of Max on the Internet
Some of Max's best posts on the internet. These posts cover some of the most important hitting and pitching training issues

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Who is Dr. Mike Marshall?
Meet Dr. Mike the only person we know who has a Phd and a Cy Young award. Dr. Mike will be giving his views on developing to your maximum capabilities.

The Power Behind the Pitch
Find out how Kris Benson (1st round draft pick 1997 added 10 MPH to his fastball

new.gif (1012 bytes)SETPRO ANNOUNCES NEW VISION PRODUCTS Don't be taken in by "general hand-eye" vision training programs. Vision training to hit a baseball  is specific to swinging a bat. It is not general hand-eye coordination.

new.gif (1012 bytes)BREAK THROUGH IN MEDICINE BALL TRAINING 95% of medicine ball training is done incorrectly or doing exercises that have little or no benefit. SETPRO shows you how it should be done

new.gif (1012 bytes) SETPRO News and Views "Baseball training, where are we and where are we going"

new.gif (1012 bytes)SETPRO CLASSROOM "How to Be All You Can Be" How to improve your possibilities of reaching your genetic potential (maximum capabilities).

new.gif (1012 bytes)"Training Program for the Major League Hitter".An on going training series featuring Mark Johnson of the California Angels.

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new.gif (1012 bytes)Coach Karl's  "POWER ZONE". Your hitting and pitching questions answered by former pro player now coach and pro scout Karl Schilling.
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new.gif (1012 bytes) "PROCUT CORNER" Your hitting and training questions answered by Tim Nolan, inventor and developer of the PROCUT and Procut Training System.

SETPRO SPECIAL REPORTS

new.gif (1012 bytes)Two Years in the making SETPRO ANNOUNCES A TOTALLY NEW CONCEPT IN ANALYZING AND TEACHING PITCHING MECHANICS AND TRAINING
new.gif (1012 bytes)SETPRO NEWS AND VIEWS: "GETTING READY  FOR Y2K......By the year 2000, baseball training methods will finally enter the 20th century....."

COMING SOON

Computer Analysis of Ken Griffey. Find out how Griffey develops power and control with perhaps the best swing in professional baseball.

Computer Analysis of Nolan Ryan's Pitching Mechanics. Does Nolan "push" or "pull or "drop and drive"? See for yourself.

Computer Analysis of Steve Avery. As part of out two year study we analyzed many pitchers to unlock the mysteries of pitching mechanics. SETPRO shows you what caused Steve to lose his fastball and how he can get it back again.