VSP Spotlight – Iona Prep’s Cash Milsom
This week’s VSP athlete spotlight shines on Iona Prep junior Cash Milsom. Cash came to VSP following the end of his sophomore season with Iona Prep baseball. His goals? Become a college recruitable prospect by getting stronger, more powerful, & increasing his speed. With 4 months of consistent training, we saw fantastic improvements & the results on the diamond speak for themselves.
Let’s dive into it!
Strength
With our baseball players, we like to see their posterior chain strength equal or surpass their anterior chain strength. The reason being, the posterior chain glute muscles are larger than the anterior chain quad muscles. Therefore, these are the muscles that should be used when generating and expressing force throughout the sport specific hinge movements such as swinging, throwing, & pitching.
For Cash, we saw the opposite.
His Belt Squat ISO = 473 LBS. His MTP ISO = 299 LBS.
This gave us an initial objective of maintaining his anterior lower body strength but improving his posterior lower body strength.
By focusing on mainly hinge based strength movements & supplementing them with squat based strength movements, we were able to see a nice increase in his MTP ISO = 333 LBS with no excessive spike or dip in his Belt Squat ISO = 479 LBS.
These improvements in posterior chain lower body strength have helped Cash increase how much force he is able to generate & express in his swing & throw. The result… increased velocity on the mound, across the diamond, & exit velocity at the plate.
Power
Once you increase an athlete’s force production capacity the next piece of the puzzle is increasing their power.
By pairing strength based movements with ballistic plyometric movements we were able to work on Cash’s ability to produce force in a short amount of time. Thus, helping his ability to explode through his swing & his throw.
When we did his retest, we saw improvements in all of our major lower body power tests.
Vertical Jump improved. Broad Jump improved. RSI improved. Triple Jump improved.
The results speak for themselves. Increased power. Within these tested movements, his swing, & his throw.
Now… How did these strength & power gains affect his speed?
Speed & COD
In just 4 months, were we able to increase Cash’s strength, power, & speed?
You bet!
By working on proper sprinting mechanics & pairing that with his newfound strength & power, we saw great improvements in Cash’s ability to accelerate, his top speed, & his COD.
We were able to decrease his 10 YD Dash from 1.69 to 1.59 & we were able to increase his top speed from 14 MPH to 18 MPH.
How did this help Cash in terms of becoming more recruitable? How about a 60 – YD Dash PR of 7.2 at a Perfect Game Showcase!
In terms of COD, his 30 YD Shuttle went from 6.41 to 5.28 & his Pro Agility went from 4.8 R & 4.67 L to 4.59 R & 4.44 L. These differences will make quite the difference in terms of changing direction when running the bases and playing the field.
Overall
Overall, in the past 4 months, Cash has become a way more well rounded athlete & a much more college recruitable prospect. His strength has improved, his power production has improved & his speed has improved. Resulting in: his throwing velocity improved, his pitching velocity improved, his exit velocity improved, & his 60 YD dash time improved.
Now… what has all of this compiled into?
An 8.5 Perfect Game Grade!
For anyone who doesn’t know, the description of a perfect game grade of 8 is “Potential draft pick and/or excellent college prospect.” & the description of a perfect game grade 9 is “Potential top 10 round pick and/or highest level college prospect.”
And Cash… finds himself right in the middle! Some pretty high praise for the rising junior.
We are excited to see how Cash progresses throughout the winter & applies it to his junior season at Iona Prep.
Written By:
Jake Lebovitch – Assistant Director of Performance & Content Manager