This week we had on Julian Gonalez who recently got hired by the Orioles as Hitting Coach in the Dominican Republic. In this episode we had very emergent discussion where we explored the psychological side of the game through an ecological lens. This led us to explore how breathing and arousal regulation play into performance and how can we incorporate them into our training environments.

Resources discussed in this podcast were:

The Mental Keys to Hitting by H.A Dorfman

The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey

The Way of Baseball: Finding Stillness at 95mph by Shawn Green

Launch Angle Rope Calculator from Robert Lund - Iowa Hawkeyes Assistant Baseball Coach

In this week's episode, we had Caleb Abney back on with Garrett to have an emergent discussion while watching the Brewers vs Braves NLDS Game 4 in which we discuss some of the practical applications of an Ecological Approach in the context of watching a playoff game. A time-stamped outline of the topics we cover in this episode is listed below for your convenience.

00:00 | Introduction 

03:04 | Intro Music 

03:22 | Start of the Episode: Game Commentators 

05:26 | Giants v Dodgers Gavin Lux 107 EV Flyball Out to End the Game 

11:33 | Open Jersey 

12:08 | Christian Yelich 

16:22 | Helping Yipped up Players 

18:12 | SlowMo Video, Favorite Camera Angle, and Developing Adjustable Hitters 

29:26 | Scoring the Runner from 3rd with Less than 2 Outs 

33:16 | Using Live Game footage to Podcast 

33:45 | How to Recreate Top-end Pitching in Practice 

37:15 | Mixed BP as a Warm-up from an EcoD perspective 

48:14| Abney's offensive philosophy 

55:15 | Scrimmaging vs Creating Slices of the Game 

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This week we had on Max Bay to discuss some of his Twitter threads analyzing baseball. We discussed the pitching metrics he came up with Stuff+, Location+, and Pitching+ and their implications. We also discussed how to get started doing data analysis with baseball data using R. Other topics we covered were can you teach command?, Command vs control, what can spray angle tell us?, and much more. 

If you're not already, make sure to follow Max @Choice_Fielder

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In this episode, we had recurring guest of the show, Caleb Abney, back on to discuss one of his tweets on creating challenging practice environments that generated a lot of discussion and engagement on Twitter. In this conversation, we covered the art of coaching, how to introduce challenging task design, information scaling with using a pitching machine, thoughts and cognitions, as well as how the interaction of coach, player, team dynamics play into skill performance and development. Additionally, we recorded a video version of this episode! If you'd like to watch it please check out and subscribe to our Youtube channel linked below.

If you're not already, make sure to follow Caleb on Twitter: @Cabney18

Twitter Post Referenced: https://twitter.com/Cabney18/status/1418310283982950409

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In this episode, we have another emergent discussion that we record back in June after our spring seasons had ended. The discussion started with a reflection on our previous episode with Ted Monnich on how flow states can fit within an Ecological Approach to skilled behavior. We also explored the ecological concept of affordances and the role of thoughts and cognition play within the perception of affordances. We wrap up our conversation discussing the power of narrative to facilitate buy-in when presenting new information, especially data. 

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In this episode, we have on Ted Monnich a sport psychology consultant who is currently getting his PhD studying flow state. Our discussion was around flow state and what things coaches and athletes can do to help facilitate getting into flow on the field. We also touched on how to deal with performance anxiety, group flow, how this could fit within an ecological approach to movement skill, and more.

Book Recommendations

The Mind within the Brain: https://amzn.to/3r9plcj

The Performance Cortex: https://amzn.to/3r8QAnj

The Champion's Comeback: https://amzn.to/3uMczmg

Stealing Fire: https://amzn.to/3raCGRv

The Rise of Superman: https://amzn.to/2NJiZ51

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In this episode, we had George Zirkel Pitching Coordinator at MSI Baseball in PA, back on the podcast to discuss workload management. We had an emergent discussion where we also explored the potential limitations of an Ecological approach, co-designing training plans with athletes, player relationships, the importance of intrinsic motivation, purposeful catch play, the role of visualization in practice, Motus, weighted balls, and much more. Buckle up for this in-depth conversation with George Zirkel!

Twitter: @George_Zirkel

This week we have another emergent discussion from a month ago around a couple of hitting articles as well as a blog post written by one of the hosts of the show. Topics of discussion, the highest form of technique, pitching machines limitations, representative strike-ball percentages in batting practice, fostering competitive mindset, failure is a part of growth, and more.  

Articles mentioned in this podcast with links *Below* 

The Physics of Batting Practice by David Kagan 

https://tht.fangraphs.com/the-physics-of-batting-practice/ 

A Novel Idea in the Majors: Using Batting Practice to Get Better by Joe Lemire 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/sports/batting-practice.html 

What is the highest form of technique? by Garrett Boyum 

https://emergentmvmt.com/what-is-the-highest-form-of-technique/ 

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This week we start our discussion by looking at an article written by Ethan Moore titled "Three Things We Could Learn From Swing Timing Analysis" which evolved into a conversation of how motor learning concepts can be applied to the analysis in this article.

Author's twitter: @Moore_Stats

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