High School Pitcher Wants To Know How To Develop More Baseball Pitching Velocity

by Dick Mills on December 27, 2004

Here's an email that I got from a high school baseball pitcher who seems to believe as many do that baseball pitching velocity is developed from arm strength or building strength of specific muscle groups from weight training.

If high school coaches did their homework then their pitchers would be on a specific program designed to build not only explosive movements that are functional to pitching but would also focus on mechanical skills designed to efficiently transfer those explosive movements into arm speed.

Mr Mills

Well hey, my question is, u say speed of movement of the body makes u throw harder, well what helps u to build that up, like make that stronger??

Because i read its about the explosiveness of the body and makes the arm speed quick, i was just wondering are there n e workouts to build that up, like any weight lifting machines or woorkouts, and also anything that u can do in the room, on the feild, a park, just stuff u dont need to have like a machine. well yea, i hope u can help me out.

I am a pitcher in californa and im in high school ( junior ) and i really want to build arm speed and throw harder, because there are 2 other left handed pitchers on the team and i am also left handed and i want people to notice me too because we all grow up playing vs each other now were on the same team and i dont want to be drownded out by them, so if u can help, i would really like that. THANK YOU !

ANDREW O.

Andrew and all high school/college pitchers,

Developing some general strength is fine for a limited time (four or five weeks) during the offseason just before you begin focusing on building explosive strength of movement and flexibility. Any more weight room training will not transfer to baseball pitching velocity since baseball pitching is not a strength activity but is more of a speed of movement activity or how quickly you can put muscles on stretch.

So the answer is to develop full body explosive movements that are specifically most functional to baseball pitching and then to understand how those explosive movements can be transferred to the pitching delivery while throwing from a mound.

In our program we address both. Functional/explosive training in our program—Conditioning The Pitcher For Power which you can read about on my website www.pitching.nexcess.net and for developing explosive mechanics you can read about our Explosive Pitching DVD program by getting my Free Report which will also show freeze frame photos of why high school pitchers lose velocity by comparing one to a major league pitcher who throws mid nineties.

If you have questions about this blog post or 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 how to recognize exactly what is holding back most pitchers…find the problem—fix the problem. I show you a comparison between two high school pitchers and a major league pitcher who throws mid to upper nineties. You will see the biggest problem that reduces velocity in the majority of pitchers.

(If you are a high school or college coach, ask for our special Free Coach's Report.)