What is the black band on Spencer Strider’s arm? How a workload monitor helps him

This is perfect for Strider, a purposeful pitcher who digs into all the information available and loves to know how to do something and exactly why he’s doing it.

Strider believes this device was developed with rehab processes in mind. He began using it in September of last year, when he began throwing plyo balls — a weighted ball often used for warm-up and recovery purposes. He’s continued wearing the workload monitor since, and it’s recently aided in his recovery from a Grade 1 right hamstring strain.

We’ll get to that.

First, here’s a general overview, in layman’s terms, of why this workload monitor would be so helpful during a rehab process from, say, the internal brace elbow procedure — which Strider underwent last April.

“When you have these expected, planned increases in workload over a course of a rehab process — obviously, you’re going from 60 feet to 70 feet and 90 feet — making sure that you’re working toward pitching in a game, expecting what that’s like from an output standpoint, intensity standpoint, that the floor is coming up more so than the ceiling is not jumping up too much, you’re not exceeding your ceiling,” Strider said. “I think one of the biggest issues with a rehab program is you spend so much time at a low intensity, and all of the sudden, you’ve got to throw a bullpen, you’ve got to throw a live (batting practice session), and sometimes guys don’t make that jump. It’s difficult to know if they’re increasing their intensity enough, so this can help tell you definitely where you’re at on that path.”

In even simpler terms: The technology helps pitchers not to overthrow or underthrow, either in the quantity of throws or intensity behind them. The workload monitor helps pitchers keep their work output at a reasonable, consistent scale so they can better perform and reduce risk of injury.

Before Thursday’s game against the Reds – which the Braves won, 5-4, in 11 innings – Strider, still on the injured list, met with local media to discuss his bullpen session on Wednesday and his next steps. He’ll throw another bullpen session on Saturday in Pittsburgh, and if it goes well, the Braves will decide what he’ll do — a rehab start or a big-league start — from there.

On April 21, Strider strained his right hamstring while playing catch at Truist Park. The injury, a shock to him, came when he had made only one start after returning from the internal brace procedure that sidelined him for a year. Two days after injuring his hamstring, he received a platelet-poor plasma (PPP) injection.

“Almost immediately, the day after, started feeling way better,” Strider said. “Within a week, I was pretty much symptom-free.”

And during the entire time, he kept his arm in shape, which could set him up to not need a rehab start before rejoining the big-league rotation. At first, Strider threw from his knee. Then, he progressed through the other steps, from playing catch to long tossing to completing a bullpen session.

The helper in all of this: his workload monitor.

How does it work?

Well, Strider pulls up an app on his phone — it says PULSE Throw in the corner. Think of a fitness-tracking app like the one Fitbit or another tracker would use. This is similar.

There’s one big number displaying Strider’s daily workload. Another number shows his acute-to-chronic workload ratio — which, in the simplest terms, measures the seven-day workload (acute) against a workload from a span of multiple weeks (chronic). It’s used to quantify training stress.

At the bottom of the screen are measurements for the torque, arm speed and arm angle for every throw he’s made. Sometimes, the device picks up things that aren’t throws — like arm movements or something random. But the monitor helps Strider track everything. On Wednesday, he threw a bullpen and had measurements on all 126 throws he made that day, from the warm-up to the bullpen session.

The Braves’ physical therapists recommended the workload monitor to Strider last year. They had seen it benefit other rehab processes. They spoke highly of it. So, he tried it. It helped him then. Now, it’s helping him accurately measure his workload so when he’s back on a major-league mound, he’ll be giving his best because he’ll have the most to give.

Strider is always looking for innovations and enhancements, whether it be to his routine or something else. The workload monitor has informed him in helpful ways.

“A perfect example is I used to take the day after I pitched off from throwing entirely,” Strider said. “That actually makes it way harder to get your workload floor where it needs to be for your side day, and then the impacts of your side day are now more significant because you didn’t throw for a whole day. And so the idea is to try to eliminate these huge peaks and valleys and at least get somewhat more of a linear flow into these high workloads and lower workloads. I think it’s been extremely beneficial in terms of editing that previous routine.

And there’s another concrete example.

“Like the day before (a start),” he said. “You usually take the day before light; you don’t want to feel sore or something on your start day. Well, if you throw too little, then you are putting yourself at injury risk because now you’re experiencing a huge spike in workload. Yeah, you don’t want to overthrow. But you want to throw enough.”

Using the device allowed Strider to safely keep his arm going while recovering from the hamstring strain. It helped him keep his intensity where it needed to be while his hamstring healed. And with the help of the workload monitor, which quantified his build-up, he feels ready to start in the majors whenever the Braves decide he’s ready. He can come off the injured list whenever.

When will that be?

“That’s hard for me to say,” Strider said. “In my perfect world, we wouldn’t be throwing another bullpen. It’s probably a good thing that I’m not making the decision. I, of course, feel bad taking another five minutes, let alone another week or two weeks, but I need to let the long-term vision and the people who are more capable of making that plan have that control and just do what I can within those parameters on a daily basis.”

The bullpen on Saturday comes first.

“Well, we’re gonna get through that first, then we’ll see where we’re gonna go,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said before Thursday’s game. “How he gets through that, how he feels the next day. Usually, once they start the steps toward getting back, it’s just going to be how they get through the next event and how they feel the following day.”

Over the last two weeks, Strider has found ways to try to improve while on the injured list. During his rehab process after elbow surgery, he had to slowly build up. But when he strained his hamstring, he was already fully built up. He threw 97 pitches in his start in Toronto.

He hasn’t started a game for the Braves since then, but he’s used the time wisely. He made it count for something.

“It was kind of a beneficial opportunity to have my arm built up all the way to actually get to work on some stuff,” he said. “The rehab process, your throws are obviously extremely limited and regimented. You spend so much time at a lower intensity (that) there’s not that opportunity that you’re fully built up, you can work on stuff without preparing for a bullpen, (live batting practice), whatever it may be. To have essentially two weeks to work on my upper-half timing and arm path and some different stuff, with quite a bit of quantity of throws each day at a high intensity, was a good opportunity. Felt like I made some progress there. Definitely saw some benefits in that in my bullpen (Wednesday). I feel really good about where I’m at, feel healthy. It’s just being smart and listening to the experts and not getting too ahead of myself.”

And with Strider, you always have to ask about what he discovered about a certain situation. He’s so intelligent and so analytical about everything, from his process to his routine to his intentions to his mechanics. On and off the field, he does everything with a purpose.

The question here: Did he try to figure out why such a random injury — a hamstring strain while simply playing catch — happened to someone who puts in more work in the weight room and on his physical fitness than anyone?

“Of course, yeah. I’m still trying to understand why it might’ve happened,” Strider said. “I think that’s essential. And now, we’re athletes. It’s a sport. I could’ve very well caught my cleat funny and — I mean, there’s just no telling. You’re susceptible to that kind of stuff at any moment. So, you have to keep that in perspective and not overanalyze or over-critique yourself. It would be insane to now say, ‘Well, I can’t do any lower-body lifting,’ or, ‘I should never run.’ That doesn’t make any sense. I was safely doing those things before. It’s tough, but I think the process of trying to understand why helps improve routine and that kind of stuff.

“If you can’t come to a definitive answer as to why it happened, it’s perfectly acceptable to say, ‘You know what, as well as I’m capable of understanding, this is a freak thing, and I’ve got to be able to not live in fear of this, but also understand that I couldn’t be preventative toward something that I didn’t know was a risk.’ I didn’t know I was at risk of straining my (hamstring) beyond any part of my body. Yeah, I don’t think there needs to be some insane adjustment. I’m going to be cognizant of it — that’s really all that I can do.”

Strider will never have the perfect answer for some things.

But with the PULSE Throw workload monitor, he can track his throwing — and everything about it — better than ever.