Ryan is a pro level pitcher that both Mike (Kay) and I have worked with in the past. While Ryan is up in the North East for his offseason, myself and the boys at the Stable (@thestableharvard on IG) have been helping with his offseason prep before handing him back over to Mike in AZ.
We’ve been working on recapturing motion lost during the season and reducing the amount of ER orientation on his throwing side, which is something I’ve talked about extensively on this platform. I wanted to take the opportunity to show you guys some manual techniques I’ve been employing to help with this.
With the “collar bone pull“ we can pick on a few pieces of anatomy, and we should also appreciate that when employing something like this we’re influencing many regions of the body, not just the collarbone and muscles attaching to it, BUT focusing on the upper trap can be a useful perspective to execute the technique more effectively.
Trapezius is thought of as a “back muscle“ and covers a lot of real estate on the posterior thorax, but Upper Trap will have an often forgotten about attachment to the distal and superior end of the clavicle. This allows it to cover and exert pressure on the superior aspect of the rib cage and shoulder girdle, as well as create tension on the clavicle, scapula, cervical spine and occiput. With baseball players it can aid in pulling the collar bone in elevation and retraction and allow a magnification of ER via orientation of the shoulder girdle.
Ryan has a good example of this in his before picture (left hand side). His right collarbone is more elevated (more vertical angle relative to thorax, closer to cervical spine) and a general rotation of his lower cervical spine, and thorax to his right. The right hand picture shows reductions of these positions.
Hope this is helpful!
-Mike Campo
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