HSBN Partners With South Florida Rehab & Training Centers

Once upon a time Gabriel Carvajal was a promising young college pitcher for the University of Florida. The left-hander began to experience shoulder pain and soon found out that it was something so severe that it eventually led to the end of his playing career. Carvajal’s path found him becoming a medical professional, and several years ago he began to give back to the baseball community with his unique rehab approach.

Now, Carvajal and his staff at South Florida Rehab & Training Centers, have teamed with The High School Baseball Network with the Player Scout Profiles program in Miami-Dade. The partnership spans the rest of 2014, and 2015. Thanks to the generosity that Carvajal and his team is able to provide, many of Miami-Dade’s most promising stars will now have the same opportunities that he once had in front of him.

The sponsorship allows players to have entire profiles filled out for free, on a site that the colleges and pro scouts trust. With this program, players will be able to update their profiles with SAT and ACT scores, important information relating to their baseball skills, and contact information, which is vital to the recruiting process.

South Florida Rehab and Training Center provides rehabilitation services to local amateur and professional athletes alike, clients that include many pros such as Yan Gomes and Albert Pujols, and now they have found another way to lend a hand to the local high school baseball players.

“I come across so many players in Dade, and what they all have in common is that all have great passion for the sport,” Carvajal said. “When I heard about High School Baseball Network I did some research and I thought it would be a great opportunity to get involved with the baseball community, open new doors and meet more people. At the end of the day I am a member of this community and I am a health care provider. It just goes hand in hand. I am able to help the community and also to help my business. I love what I do but I also have to run a business and I have employees who depend on me, so I thought this was a win-win situation for everybody.”

When an athlete is injured he is facing a road ahead full of angst and uncertainty. It can be a frustrating and difficult time both physically and mentally. Gabriel garners trust from his clients because he can relate to those things, and as a former pitcher, he knows what it takes to get one ready to head back onto the field. To have somebody with the background that combines baseball and medical science together, his treatment is something special to offer the South Florida community.

Gabe originates from Cuba and has played baseball since he was a child growing up there. At age 12 he moved to San Antonio and evolved on the competitive Texas playing fields, earning a scholarship to UF by the end of his high school career. When he first began to experience shoulder pain that summer after he graduated high school, he kept quiet, and played through it, until he was no longer able to. Only then was it revealed that he had massive problems that required surgery.

“I came back, but it was never the same. I did not have the velocity I had before,” said Carvajal. “The rehab and the physical therapy was not like what we do today. The advances in surgical procedures are incredible. Kid’s now with a rotator cuff tear come back and sometimes can even throw harder; but that was not the case then. I went from throwing 91 miles per hour to throwing 83-84 miles per hour, and in college throwing 84 they will hit you. I hung around for another year but then baseball was over and I dedicated myself to academics. I was lucky my scholarship was honored, so baseball was good to me because it paid for most of my college.”

Carvajal’s path brought him to the University of Miami, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology and Exercise Science. As a graduate working out of a Miami hospital, he noticed that no local medical professionals were focused specifically on baseball injuries. While everyone else was centered on football players, Gabe created his own niche and began focusing his services towards helping baseball players work their way back.

There was an empty lot at the end of the hospital lot and Carvajal used that area for his clients to throw, once they reached that far in the process. He still has a lefty’s catcher mitt and he would catch them and communicate through the process with them. For a pitcher, having their therapy handled by someone who also knows the specifics of a pitcher’s needs is simply invaluable.

“I can have a very good physical therapist work with these guys, and take them to a point where they are ready to start throwing. But they don’t know what throwing means,” he explained. “Am I throwing on flat ground? How many feet am I throwing? Is there a protocol that we are using? So I provide all that, and I begin their throwing program with them. I am lucky enough that I get to see them from beginning to end.”

Many of Miami’s best surgeons often will wait on a second opinion from Carvajal before they will schedule an MRI or make a prognosis on some young man’s injury. Gabe admits this is a very humbling honor, and he is fortunate to have such a great working relationship with so many qualified and talented medical professionals.

It is a family environment at South Florida Rehab and Training Center, and the fact that Gabe’s wife, Yolanda, serves as the glue of the staff, only helps add to this element. While Gabe works with the patients to become educated and rehabilitated, Yolanda helps them with the emotional factors that come following a major sports injury. Coming back from an injury can be such a dark and difficult one, with a light so far away like at the end of a tunnel.

“It’s the best experience in the world when you see child come in with no confidence and then leave with confidence, and believe in themselves,” Yolanda said. “I think one of the strongest words in this world is believe. You have to believe in yourself. When I see them come in and they are so frustrated I tell them to take deep breaths, to think, and slow down. Take away all the negative energy around you and think positively and believe in yourself. The end result everything is put together and you will see the light at the end. You will be throwing that right pitch full of light. What we do is not just getting them better, it is an overall thing that they need mentally, physically, and emotionally. Baseball is that, and it is composed of all of those things. I say baseball is God’s game.”

When a player arrives at the South Florida Rehab & Training Center, they don’t know what to expect. Often they are concerned Carbajal will try to change them into a totally new athlete. Yet what he does is work on education, basic elements of stretching, and preparing proper mechanics that typically led to the injury to begin with. They also work to educate and communicate with the player’s family, so they are also comfortable to know what to do through the treatment.

“When our son needed therapy we were glad that we chose Gabe. He received excellent care and was back playing before we knew it,” said Rudy and Miriam Diaz, parents of Gulliver Prep’s Brent Diaz. “His knowledge and experience in treating baseball players at the highest levels is unparalleled. Choosing the wrong therapist can result in longer recovery times and increased frustration. If you want to get treated correctly the first time and be back on the field in the shortest period of time, we recommend Gabe and his therapists.”

Carvajal has worked with professional athletes and he admits it is exciting to help someone whose livelihood depends on it, but he says it is also just as gratifying to help a young athlete who is full of potential and has his whole life in front of him. The kids are getting started trying to make their future and the pros are trying to stay pros. What they do have in common is for the most part they come here with some sort of injury and they have to get them back from that. Everybody wants to play and sometimes it’s hard, especially for someone young who may not have that gift of patience. Gabe tells his patients about his life story, and how overusing a lot of the body parts in today’s year-round baseball landscape may be leading to serious injuries.

“I tell them my life story and how I don’t want that to happen to you,” Gabe said. “It was a lack of education, nobody taught me how to stretch and there were not really studies on such things like that. We have more research and knowledge now than back then. We didn’t keep track of the number of throws like they do now. I was a good pitcher for the standards of the time so I was used a lot and that led to the trouble as a contributing factor to me getting injured. Listen to our bodies and listen to the science out there so it doesn’t happen again.”

Part of the therapy that Carvajal provides involves a pitching program championed by former MLB Pitching Coach Tom House. Tom House’s approach to throwing and mechanics is an approach to keeping the whole body healthy. It combines proper warming up, is about whole body warm ups and stretching and balance coordination, and then the actual throwing program. It uses a sequence of activities and visual cueing, where it places body parts in the correct anatomical positions.

After seeing an HBO special about it a few years ago, Carvajal reached out to Tom House and the relationship led to Gabe incorporating Tom House’s approach into his services.

“This program incorporates a lot of new thinking,” said Gabe. “Tom House has done a great job of changing people’s minds. He has guys like Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Barry Zito and Tim Lincecum working with him. When you have guys of that caliber working with you then you know that what he is doing works. The same goes to what we do here in our facility. The job we are doing works and it’s keeping our athletes healthy.”

Gabe admits it did make it easier having a background in baseball, because did not have to learn how to be a pitcher, nor how to teach someone else how to pitch. It combined his past experiences with new experiences and new philosophies. Since South Florida Rehab and Training Center implemented this throwing program three years ago, of every kid that has done their full six-week program sequence, not one has been hurt.

“My experience with South Florida Rehab and Training Center has been truly amazing,” said Izzy Martinez, the father of high school player and Carvajal patient Anthony Martinez. “My son Anthony and our family are definitely planning to continuing our relationship with them on the long-term basis, especially now that Anthony is continuing his baseball career at the college level.”

Thanks to Carvajal, Gonzalez, and South Florida Rehab and Training Center every baseball player in Miami-Dade County now has the same chances to be discovered by college scouts.

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