Professional baseball KIA pitchers get faster when they only go to the Futures League (second division). KIA fans call it the “Son Seung-rak Academy Effect” after Son Seung-rak (41, photo), the head coach of the second division.

Closer Jung Hae-young (22) is a case in point. Jung Hae-young went down to the second division after hitting an average of 138.7 kilometers per hour on May 28 against LG in Gwangju. In the match against Jamsil LG on the 2nd, when he played in the first division game in 35 days, the average speed of the fast ball rose to 145.4km per hour. The maximum speed was 147.2 kilometers per hour.

Choi Ji-min (20), a second-year professional left-handed pitcher who was named to the Hangzhou Asian Games national team, is also a scholarship student at Son Seung-rak Academy. Choi Ji-min went down to the second division on June 10 last year after his average fastball speed was 139.1 kilometers per hour. When he returned to the first division four months later, the ball was faster at an average of 143.4 kilometers per hour, and this year, he threw an average of 145.3 kilometers per hour.

The secret of Son Seung-rak Academy’s success is ‘strengthening muscle strength’. Coach Son, who retired with 271 saves (second in history), 메이저놀이터 추천 said, “When I was a player, I suddenly lost my ball speed and asked pitching coaches for advice. Every time, I’ve always been told to change my pitching posture,” he said. “Only after training as a leader at the Los Angeles Dodgers in the U.S. Major League Baseball last year, I realized how important muscle strength and rest are for athletes. “In Korea, when skills fall, they are told to change the form of technology, but in the United States, the basic muscle strength is the most important,” he said.

Coach Son, who was known as an “athlete who studies hard” with an average grade of 3.5 or higher when he was a student at Yeungnam University, first analyzes the current condition when a pitcher comes down from the first division to decide which muscles to strengthen and how to strengthen. Jung Hae-young said, “After watching the pitching video, they pointed out that I mainly used hip muscles last year (with good results), but this season I am using thigh muscles.” “As I focused on training to strengthen my hip muscles, I regained my good old self,” he said with a smile, “Of course, the intensity of the training was more than I imagined.”

Coach Son is not alone in making such a decision. Coach Son holds a meeting at 8 a.m. every day with coaches from each field. Coach Son said, “When you teach pitchers, you don’t only need pitching coaches. “We need to find the best way for each player by referring not only to battery coaches but also to the perspectives of training coaches and batting coaches,” he stressed. “I’m proud to be able to tell my juniors the answers that I couldn’t get when I was a player amid the support of the head of Shim Jae-hak, who has the same team management philosophy as me. “I hope the players grow well in the second division and help the first division,” he said.