Baseball Pitchers Off Season Training—Don’t Waste It In The Weight Room
Thousands upon thousands of high school and college pitchers will waste thousands upon thousands of hours doing offseason weight room training in an effort to get "bigger and stronger" to apparently throw harder. They believe that baseball pitching strength and conditioning should be mostly about gaining more strength.
But isn't it amazing that there is absolutely no evidence that getting stronger in the weight room will transfer to baseball pitchers throwing harder from the mound. None! Nada! Zero! But there is lots of evidence that baseball pitchers doing slow training in the weight room will interfer and reduce baseball pitching velocity in an activity and sport like baseball pitching that requires explosiveness or the ability to move the body quickly.
Prior to about the early nineties baseball pitchers at all levels did very little weight training. It was about the same when I played pro ball back in the late sixties early seventies. We threw and ran sprints and did some ab work or basic calisthenics. But I cannot remember anyone doing weight training.
Do baseball pitchers throw with more velocity now because they weight train. There is no evidence that they do. And all those baseball pitchers prior to weight training I believe could match most of the power pitchers of today.
How did they get their baseball pitching velocity? The old fashioned way. They threw from the mound a lot…maybe much more than baseball pitchers do today.
You might be thinking that I am just old school and haven't gotten on board about the temendous benefit of baseball weight training. Actually, the opposite is true. I have studied this issue until I am blue in the face. So hasn't my wife Ginny who is a certified strength trainer by the American College Of Sport Medicine. We have consulted with sports scientist who have studied this issue of strength training in sports for years and until they are blue in the face. And the conclusion is that there is no evidence that working in the weight room to develop more baseball pitching strength will improve pitching velocity or baseball pitching performance.
Some say that Hall Of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan did weight training. The fact is that when Nolan Ryan got to the big leagues in 1997 he was throwing nearly 100 mph hour plus and he did no baseball weight training until at least 15 years later. His raw baseball pitching velocity then could not have come from any weight training because he did not do it until years later. His velocity came from his explosive body from throwing explosively a lot of the time.
We also did little long toss which I consider to be as non-specific to pitching as you can get.
Does any other sport have anything comparable to long toss for pitchers…to improve their pitching? None that I know of. It might be a good way to warm-up or just get some throwing in or as part of an overall offseason baseball pitcher's conditioning program but by itself there is no reason why it would work to produce more velocity. How could it? Because it builds arm strength? But pitching is not about arm strength but about arm speed.
Baseball pitchers develop arm speed by using good mechanics throwing from a mound at game intensity a lot of the time. Mush more time than coaches have pitchers throwing from a mound today.
What is basegball pitching velocity the result of anyway? It is the result of explosiveness of the body which means it is the result of putting as many muscles on stretch as quickly as possible. Velocity comes as the result of the entire body summing up all its forces to finally deliver the arm at high speed. The arm by itself could not throw the ball very far or very fast without using the rest of the body's forces all added together.
That is the only possible way to throw harder. It can be achieved by making adjustments in mechanics and/or by teaching the pitcher's body to be more explosive.
You cannot get either of those from weight training because weight training is about building general body strength but how…slowly and much too slowly. But not explosively.
Weight room training teaches a pitcher to be slow…rather than explosive.
So today, all across the country thousands of pitchers will waste time and effort in the weight room because coaches have not educated themselves and because strength coaches apparently do not understand how a pitcher needs to train. Strength coaches apparently believe that more strength can be transferred to any activity to improve performance. But sports science has disproven that theory time and time again. For example sports science has actually proven that football lineman do not improve performance by working their lower body in the weight room. Imagine! The weight room might make them bigger but it will not necessarily improve their movement skills.
These baseball strength coaches believe that more strength is needed for better performance or to prevent injury. But injury prevention has also not been proven from more weight training. And these unfounded beliefs are killing their pitcher's ability to become better pitchers. And to throw harder with better control from the mound to get hitters out.
If you think education is expensive…try ignorance on for size.
If you have questions on any phase of pitching—mechanics, strength and conditioning, mental training, strategy send those questions to dickmills@gmail.com and I will answer them here.
If you want an explosive body and explosive mechanics you need to get my Free Report at www.pitching.nexcess.net. We won't waste your time. We show you what works and what has been proven to work. I show you a comparison between two high school pitchers and a major league pitcher who throws mid to upper nineties. Find out why you do not have "explosive mechanics" that produce more velocity.
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