HS/College Baseball Pitching Coach Has No Success With Weighted Baseballs

Here is an email I got yesterday from a long time client about his experience using weighted baseballs to improve throwing velocity. Why did he even try them? Probably because the online claims seemed convincing. But what seems too good to be true usually is not.

If I had gotten behind this weighted baseball movement a long time ago, I can tell you I could have sold a truckload of those programs and justified every one of them. But as I have said before I never felt that they made since and…we have to sleep at night too. I believe we will be able to prove in the near future that the studies that have been done on weighted balls improving velocity are all confounded…meaning the conclusions of the studies were not supported by what actually occured during the study and the studies were poorly done. We are working hard on that right now. And yes, all the studies. It appears that some of those studies should never have made it through review…and that does happen at times with scientific literature but not very often.

There will always be those who use belief based instruction rather than evidence based. I have yet to see an explanation backed up by a sports science principle as to why weighted balls should work to improve throwing velocity.

You will hear ideas that say the body will organize itself in such a way to recruit more muscles when it realizes that it is throwing a heavier baseball and then when the pitcher throws a regular baseball the body will remember the intention of throwing the heavier baseball. Where is the scientific literature in sports science to support that nonsense?

I will stand behind one idea. There is no magic to produce more throwing velocity for baseball pitchers. Not weighted baseballs, not weight room strength training and not long toss. Long toss would probably fit under the heading of cross training or just another way to help train the entire body. But long toss and throwing from a pitching mound are two entirely different activities.

The question that coaches, parents and players must continuously ask is—will this particular activity that I am doing or will do contribute to me being a better pitcher? I don’t believe that long toss will.

The only thing that is the same in both activities is the baseball. The mechanics are totally different and will be understood by the body as being different.

If you want to throw long then train to long toss. If you want to throw the ball with maximum velocity do it using good mechanics throwing from a mound at game intensity. Anything less will not contribute much to increasing throwing velocity. That goes under the sports science heading of The Principle of Specificity. See sports science studies below. Hi Dick,

Long time customer here, giving you some feedback. I have been using your program since the mid 90′s at both the high school and college D-3 level.

I have also tried other programs and training tools as well, and have incorporated them into your program and most times removed them after trying them.

What our pitchers have received from using your program is very sound mechanics with the ability in the vast majority of instances, to throw strikes to different areas of the strike zone with fastballs and changeups. I would estimate that about 50-60% of our high school pitchers move on and pitch in college with alot of them getting full or partial scholarships. I thank you for your and ginny’s hard work and care and dedication to the betterment of pitchers everywhere.

I have also tried the weighted ball system that now seems to be in fashion. I received all the different weighted balls and precise instructions on how and how often and at what distances to utilize them. We followed the directions and worked very hard with this system of throwing the weighted balls. We have a fairly prestigious program and utilize the gun, and videos etc to improve our pitchers and I can tell you from experience that an off-season of throwing the weighted balls DID NOT increase the velocity of my pitchers. We followed the directions precisely and my kids were very very dedicated to the program as they are to all including yours. I used this program and also had phone conversations with supplier of these balls as well as the author of a well known book which advocates and instructs on the use of these balls.

Again, the predicted increase in velocity just wasn’t evident. In all fairness I was a bit concerned in the beginning about the injury factor that might present itself with throwing these weighted balls and kept a sharp eye peeled for any signs of pain or injury, but that did not happen either. In fact none of my pitchers had sore arms that spring, as they usually don’t anyway, weighted balls or not. So I can say thru experience that, at least for our pitchers, there was no injury using the weighted balls but there was no increase in velocity or pitching performance either.

We have since stopped using these balls since I saw no statistical reason to keep using them and I could better use this time for more beneficial training, and working on command and developing the change etc etc.

Again thanks to you and ginny for helping the pitchers and coaches be the best they can be. Also, thank you for keeping your eyes and ears open to more proven ways of improving our pitchers even if they are somewhat new and not in the mainstream of “we’ve always done it that way”. Isn’t it a the law of nature that things either grow/change or atrophy/die?

I know the many pitchers i’ve had who got most of their college educations paid for, and the chance to play college baseball appreciate what you have done even if they don’t know it was you and ginny who have blessed them.

Mike

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STRENGTH AND POWER TRAINING IN YOUNG MALE BASEBALL PLAYERS DOES NOT IMPROVE FUNCTIONAL PERFORMANCE

Hetzler, R. K., DeRenne, C., Buxton, B. P., Ho, K. W., Chai, D. X., & Seichi, G. (1997). Effects of 12 weeks of strength training on anaerobic power in prepubescent male athletes. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 11, 174-181.

Two groups of 10 prepubescent and pubescent male baseball players trained three times per week for 12 weeks using a variety of general free-weight and machine exercises designed for both strength and power acquisition. One group was experienced in strength training while the other comprised novices. A comparable control group (N = 10) did not perform the training program but did participate in all other non-experimental activities.

For the experienced, novice, and control groups respectively, the following gains were recorded: leg press—41%, 40%, and 14%; and bench press—23%, 18%, and 0%. Both training groups were significantly better than the control group. Similarly, the two training groups improved in vertical jump. However, the control group improved to a significantly greater degree in peak and mean anaerobic power and the 40-yard dash.

The training regime improved the training activities but did not transfer to functional performance measures. One could argue that the training actually caused anaerobic power and 40-yd dash measures to decrease, particularly in the experienced strength-training group.

The metabolic changes in training groups did not transfer changes in energy potential to dynamic cycling, supporting the principle of specificity. In particular, the high force/low velocity aspects of the training did not transfer to high velocity activities.

Implication.

Strength and power exercises in pubescent males improved training exercises but produced worse performances in functional strength and power activities than in a non-training comparable group. Performance benefits from such training for this class of athlete are unlikely.

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TRAINING SPECIFICITY—NO BENEFITS OF UNDER- AND OVERLOAD STIMULI

Movement training is very specific. Effects gained from other “like” activities do not transfer or benefit target actions. Much training time could be wasted performing activities which do not transfer.

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.)