by Ben Brewster
Just over a year ago, I sent out a newsletter to our followers explaining that we were scouring the country for our first full-time coach. A lot has changed since that time period, and I wanted to take some time to fill you in on just how far we've come in the past year.
Here's an excerpt from my 2018 end-of-year newsletter:
“What we’ve found is that there is an enormous desire, on the athletes’ part, to be guided through their journey – often a very long and lonely one, by somebody who understands what that is like…Phase 1 of Tread Athletics is complete – to prove that remote training can be implemented effectively, build a loyal following of athletes and coaches, and to carve out a niche in the baseball world. Phase 2 begins. We plan to increase the amount of free content we put out…double to triple our athlete carrying capacity and massively grow our team-training offerings….The future is bright, and it begins with finding the next puzzle piece to fit into our mission.”
So did we find the coach we were looking for? And what are we up to in 2020? Here’s a recap of what happened this past year at Tread.
1. We found our first full-time coach
With a new coach it began to open up significantly more man-hours for building out the systems and processes to deploy our coaching at scale.
If this meant pulling all-night filming sessions to keep our video library up to date for our athletes, developing protocols and standards to hold our coaches to, building out systems for monitoring athlete satisfaction and streamlining the communication process between athletes and coaches, we did it.
We promise our athletes that we will give them 100%, and it’s imperative that we keep that promise even as we grow exponentially.
With this momentum, we brought on our second full time coach by June, and our third coach by October.
We kept our promise from 2018, and have more than tripled our available coaching slots for athletes, adding more than 200 brand new athletes to the Tread family in 2019.
2. We bolstered our free and paid offerings to athletes and coaches
One of the main projects for 2019 was re-doing our website. But the point wasn’t to slap some hi-res images on a landing page and pat ourselves on the back.
Our goal was to have a way to provide incredible value to anyone who sets foot on our site – and provide 98% of it for free.
This meant building out multiple brand new offerings that would guide athletes, parents or coaches depending on what they needed help with, including:
- A free metric analysis tool that ranks athletes’ velocity, strength and power numbers so they can have an idea of how they stack up.
- A free weight-gain program that walks athletes through 3 weeks of proper eating, training and tracking. Proving to them that they are capable of putting on quality mass with an actual plan.
- A free version of our team-training routine for coaches to easily implement detailed throwing and training routines with their athletes.
- A one-time mechanical analysis – this was a highly requested paid service for athletes which not only gives them a full breakdown of their deficiencies but ranks them on over 50 variables and provides a plan of attack to address their mobility and movement flaws.
A small snippet from our free Metric Analysis Tool
3. We had 11 players drafted this June
This included 6 one-on-one remote trainees and 5 team trainees who implemented our programming in 2019. We’ve now had 27 total athletes drafted since 2017 and coached 5 big leaguers.
It also includes 2nd rounder and then 19-year-old Antoine Kelly, who in 2018 touched low 90s sporadically with limited pitchability. Fast-forward to 2019 and he had gained over 30 lbs and held a 1.88 ERA with 112ks and 21 hits in 52.2 innings for the #1 JuCo in the country.
Oh, did we mention he also sat 95-98? That helped too, as he went on to sign for 7 figures this June.
Here’s what MLB had to say about him.
4. We pumped out tons of content, as promised
Here are some of the most viewed posts and videos from 2019
- The “Drift” – How to Shift Your Weight Like a Pro
- All About Tempo: Is It A Key To Unlocking Velocity?
- How to Sync the Arm into the Plane of Shoulder Rotation
- How Does Hip Anatomy Affect Your Ideal Mechanics?
- The 3 Types of “Muscling Up” and How it’s Hurting Your Velocity
- How to Fix a Pushing Arm Action – 7 Causes and Solutions
- How Does Marcus Stroman Throw Hard at 5'8″? A Mechanical Breakdown.
- Arm Action Transformation – Johnny Davis
Our Marcus Stroman analysis was one of our most viewed videos from 2019
5. We begin a monthly podcast
We decided that it makes more sense to dive deeper than a 10 second Instagram story when answering your questions, so we began to play around with a long form podcast format. Every month we collect questions from our Instagram and Twitter followers and answer as many as we can in an hour-long video podcast.
As long as you all keep submitting interesting questions, we’ll keep running this series as it has gotten great feedback over our first four episodes. You can view the most recent episode here.
Check out Q&A #4 to get a taste for this new series.
6. Bridge the Gap Seminar
In early August I spoke at 108 Performance’s Annual “Bridge the Gap” Seminar.
This was a pitching and hitting development event that featured speakers such as Core Velocity Belt inventor Lantz Wheeler, Perry Husband (developer of the Effective Velocity system) and Andy McKay (Seattle Mariners director of player development).
A photo from my presentation at Bridge the Gap 2019
I spoke on our philosophy here at Tread, diving deep on specifics related to strength training, nutrition and mechanical flaws. The presentation was well received – and it's clear that much of the information we've been working hard to get out there isn't falling on deaf ears among the baseball community.
7. Tread HQ became a reality
That’s right. We officially got the keys to our first ever facility this past November in Charlotte, North Carolina.
As anyone who knows us will tell you, we don’t take this opportunity lightly. This isn’t going to be some nets and a couple squat racks – we’re putting together the dream facility we wish we'd had earlier in our careers, with all of the gear, tech and equipment necessary to develop pitchers at an elite level (we'll release a full tour once the place is up and running in the next 6 weeks).
Tread HQ is coming, and it's going to be insane.
While we are staying a remote training company, this will allow us to begin incorporating in-person visits and assessments for our athletes in the coming year, and seriously consider organizing larger seminars, clinics or events in this space in the future.
Where are we headed for 2020?
Our company goals for 2020 are simple; continue to scale out our one-on-one remote coaching offering so that we can service as many athletes around the country (and world) as possible.
***We're currently on the hunt for our next full-time remote coach, so if you haven't yet applied, check out our careers page for more information.***
We are always keeping our eyes out for talented and passionate individuals who believe in what we're doing, so don't hesitate to apply and get on our radar.
I also wanted to take the time to thank our team – Coan, Denis, Garrison and Rob – for believing in the vision and kicking ass in 2019. Now it's time to up the ante in 2020.
What’s in store for my personal 2020 goals?
“Work hard in silence. Let success make your noise.”
I thought I’d briefly address this since it’s a recurring question we get any time old clips of my training and throwing make their way to our social media.
Since my 2017 elbow surgery, I’ve fought and clawed to get consistently healthy and moving in the proper patterns that have elicited success for me in the past. After tens of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours invested in therapy, rehab, education and more, I recently conceded that…
…a fundamental change needed to be made to my mechanics. (Did you really think I was going to say that I’ve retired? Fat chance.)
I’ve recently begun throwing full speed again, throwing 70%+ strikes in the mid 90’s on my first flat ground.
I still have a ways to go to reach many of the previous checkpoints I’ve established for myself, but I’ll detail the entire comeback in a video when I reach that level once again.
My 2020 goal is to once again sit 96-98 mph indoors, for >70% strikes, pain free, and ultimately be able to do that at a big league reliever’s weekly throwing workload. Adding in spikes and game adrenaline will be the final boost whenever I ultimately deem myself ready to showcase for big league teams (I have no timeline for doing so, so don’t bother asking).
Closing Thoughts
Are there any products, content or offerings you would like to see us add in 2020? Let us know in the comments or shoot us an email at contact@treadathletics.com with your suggestions. We take your feedback seriously and incorporate as much of it as possible into our planning.
As always, thanks for reading!
Here's to reaching your potential,
Ben
Athletes or coaches interested in remote one-on-one or team programming? Reach out via this application form.
