Jarad Vollkommer
Catching Up With Long Island Strong Baseball Academy on Their 10 Year Anniversary
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” -Ferris Buehler LI Strong Baseball Academy has made great strides in their near decade long run as a program. During their organizational tryout on Monday, I was in attendance as nearly 70 players were on hand at Center Moriches HS. I caught up with co-owner Jarad Vollkommer to discuss their growth and the video is below. Caught up with Jarad Vollkommer at LI Strong Baseball Academy’s tryouts as they approach their 10th year as a program pic.twitter.com/URIzmSFu8K — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) August 17, 2023 I also spoke with Douglas Podesta who’s son, Matthew, is a standout catcher at Sachem North HS. He is entering his third year with the program and here̵...
Developing the Entire Throwing Motion
by Jarad Vollkommer, CSCS If you want to throw hard, you have to train hard often, and train SMART often. Training smart includes knowing that the pitching motion requires full body activity, therefore it is important to train your entire body and not only focus on your throwing shoulder. Don’t get me wrong, to be successful in the game of baseball, you do no need a few things as a pitcher: a lot of external rotation in your throwing shoulder, decent core stability when in the overhead position, great thoracic rotation in respect to hip mobility, single leg strength in multiple planes of motion, and tree trunks for legs (just to name a few). Pitching is such an interesting movement to study because it is so technical. One small movement gone the wrong way and you miss the plate by a few in...
Catching Up With the Long Island Strong
Today I went down the 365 Athletics to watch the LI Strong’s organizational workout for the 14u and 18u team. The Strong, run by Cristian Lynch and Jarad Vollkommer, are an up-and-coming program. Their college team was very impressive this summer, featuring some notable impact players such as Liam Pulsipher, Brad Sakellarides, Johnny Dougherty, Ryan Brewer, Jose Matos and Andrew Smith. The 2021 team is especially strong led by a rotation of Adelphi-commit Jacob Pedersen, Queens-commit Dom LoFroscia and Felician-commit Jack Turner. The offense is led by three Manhattanville-commits; Danny Deutsch, Joe McDonald and Joe LaPorta as well as USC-Sumter-commit Joe Dwyer. Two Longwood infielders, Preston Gerena and Mason Mehling are two talented players as well. The team is coming off a sea...
SSK To Partner With LI Strong
When Gary Kucich was looking to expand the brand of SSK Baseball, he did the smart thing–he looked at the youngest, brightest stars in the Major Leagues and was able to ink them to deals to wear their gloves. Their list of MLB players reads like an All-Star roster with players like Ronald Acuna Jr, Javier Baez, Fernando Tatis Jr, Bo Bichette, Robinson Cano and Noah Syndergaard. “The brand in the past year has really been recognizable by everybody because of our social media and–of course–our great players,” said Kucich. “We have some of the best young players in baseball. Those players, along with our social media, has really helped elevate the brand and we’re no longer ‘who’s SSK?’ people really recognize SSK and when they buy ou...
Proper Core Training for a Baseball Player
The first question that will most likely pop into your head after reading the title is, “well, what is your core?”. Or, it could be “isn’t your core just your abs?” The answers to these questions are pivotal in understanding my concept of training the baseball core. I personally think some of the biggest issues I see in young baseball players are: lack of core control lack of core strength lack of core stability If you have a problem in all three areas of control, strength, and stability, then you are asking for issues. Every athletic movement initiates from the hips, and energy is translated through the core. If you lack core control strength or stability, you can see that some energy created will be lost as heat due to the inability to properly transfer force to the limbs. Before getting...
