Lewisburg Man Makes it to the Big Leagues
J. C. Tilton
After grabbing your attention I do have to admit that he will not be shagging fly balls under the lights or sending baseballs in to deep right field. However his new job is to make the Reds hit the ball farther, run faster, and throw harder. TCN graduate Mark Daughterly is now a strength coach for the Cincinnati Reds. After being a strength coach for the Red's local farm team, the Dayton Dragons, Mark has been called up to Cincinnati to continue his successful work with the major leagues by Matt Krause the strength and conditioning coordinator for the Reds.
He graduated from TCN in 1996, while there he was a 3 sport athlete himself. Participating in football, wrestling, and of course baseball. Next he enrolled in the University of Cincinnati's Sport's Medicine program. But when he found out about Exercise Physiology major offered at UC, he found it more to his liking and switched to that program. He is now certified nationally in Strength and Conditioning.
Mark was asked to compare the conditioning of 20-30 years ago with what is being done now. Sort of a comparison between old school and new school training equipment. I remarked that at the old Twin Valley North High School in the late 70's the first weights we had were several stations with stacks of weights - a universal machine. Then at Ohio Northern University they had Nautilus machines for our football strength program. He stated that free weights are emphasized now, along with some pulley systems. The Reds are using Hammer Strength brand equipment - designed to simulate real life movement. The idea being to work the body as a whole: “For an athlete, the body has to be trained together. While those older style machines are safer to use, it doesn't carry over into sports. The workout they give you is two dimensional.” He added that, “while they are safer to use, they may actually cause more injuries on the field since the different parts of the body aren't working together as they should be in normal exercise. ”
Mark's job with the Reds involves evaluating the players and designing programs tailored to each individual. I asked if there were different programs for the different positions - say infield versus outfield, or even pitchers; “Certainly, the outfielders run more so we have to emphasize running in their workouts. The infielders need more agility. The ability to start and stop quickly. They are great natural athletes or they wouldn't be in the big leagues, but we try to improve their performance. Maybe work on a players abdominals or back to get a better swing. Then after we get into the season, we try to do maintenance. The pitchers we do some work with, but we allow the sports medicine specialist to work with their arms.”
During the off season Mark continues to stay busy. His ‘on' season is from February 1 to October 31. But over the winter he continues to train. His clients are mainly high school athletes and ordinary folks who just want to stay shape along with the occasional college athlete. I asked if his clientele picked up since he added his position with the Reds to his resume - “It certainly doesn't hurt.” Comments: email: Chris Tilton
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