VSP Spotlight: Jessica Tejera

This week’s VSP spotlight is Jessica Tejera! Jess is a senior at The Ursuline School & a SS for Connecticut Impact 18u Premier softball team. 

Coming off a scorching hot junior season. Jess entered VSP with a targeted goal in mind. To increase her rotational power capacity: allowing for higher exit velocity & throwing velocity. Thus, allowing her to yield more powerful results at the dish and in the field. 

Although Jess is an exceptional overall athlete, when diving into her initial assessment, a couple of inefficiencies were found to explain possible energy/power leaks in her movements. 

Strength & Stability Ratios:

Compared to her speed, acceleration, & agility scores, which ranked in the 91st, 97th, & 84th percentiles respectively, her stability & strength scores ranked in the 65th & 52nd percentiles. Now… Why is this important?

Power = Force X Velocity

We know Jess had the velocity component down… she can move FAST! However, where she was trying to generate force from was coming from the wrong places. 

When you load and rotate in the swing, you ideally want to load into your glutes (posterior chain) & not your quads (anterior chain), unless certain mobility restrictions don’t allow for that. 

For Jess, she scored 20% over the average for girls her age in our belt squat force test (anterior chain) and scored 33% under the average for girls her age in our mid-thigh pull test (posterior chain). 

So, she was able to generate a lot of force into the ground… but not using the muscles she needs when loading and rotating in her swing. This finding allowed us to be very specific in Jess’s programming – in which she did significant work on improving the strength and force production of her posterior chain. 

Now… Why is stability important?

Having the stability within each individual leg & the core allows for the ability to control such powerful movements. Without that control, Jess would pull off with her torso or spin out with her feet causing an inefficient transfer of energy from her rotation to the ball. This also became a focus for us – implementing tons of stability work and complimenting that with rotational exercises to have it transfer to sport specific movements. 

Has her summer training yielded any progress…?

Take a look for yourself!!

In her first few tournaments this summer, Jess was on fire. Hitting 4 HR, 12 doubles, 5 triples, & 16 singles. All while maintaining a .544 AVG and swiping 27 steals. 

It’s obvious how Jess’s targeted training has increased her ability to produce extra base hits while maintaining all of her other elite characteristics. As for how it has impacted her game? Let’s hear it from her:

“I feel like my game has improved a ton since training at VSP. My exit velocity & throwing velocity feel stronger and I’m able to translate my increased strength into different areas in my game.” 

With Jess’s senior year commencing, and a hopeful college commitment looming, we are super proud of the hard work she put in this summer. We are looking forward to her continued determination and success on and off the field!

Keep it up!

Written by: Jake Lebovitch – Sports Performance Coach & Liaison to Athletes