No Increase In Baseball Pitching Velocity From Weight Training By 17 Year Old Pitcher

Mr. Mills,

I am a 17 year old pitcher from New England who just read your article on pitchers in the weight room and I have been lifting for years and yet it has only kept me in shape but has not transformed into pitching velocity. If not the weight room then what?,

Thank you for your time, G. L

gmail.com
GL,

You are just one of thousands of high school and college pitchers who get the same results and don’t know why.

Since pitching is not a strength movement or activity…it makes little sense to try to get stronger in certain muscle groups. Instead you should be doing exercises that are functional and specific for strengthening the movements in pitching…instead of certain muscle groups. You want to train your body to be explosive.

Weight training should only be used in the offseason for about a month to help the pitcher get ready to do explosive and functional training. Any more than a month of weight training is wasted time because the strength increases that are gained cannot be used.

So the question that must be asked is…how much strength do I need to pitch? Or how much of all that strength that I am trying to gain is enough. And the answer is you do not need much strength because you are trying to move a very light object…a 5 oz baseball not a 50 lb medicine ball or a 300 lb lineman.

Remember this…the faster your body moves the less strength it can use. The strongest you will ever need to be is when you are trying to move something that is immovable. For example, have you ever tried to help someone push a car. When you first try to get it moving is the strongest you will ever have to be…but as soon as you get it moving you need much less strength because now you are using speed and momentum to get it going faster. Once that car is moving you don’t have to push as hard do you so you don’t need as much strength.

Pitching is the same. As you start to move from your back leg to your front leg the faster you go the less strength you can use.

Weight training also only builds certain muscle groups and because it is performed slowly the body understands how to be slow…rather than explosive. If you train slow you will not be able to perform explosive movements…like pitching.

Pitching velocity is the result of the sum of forces of the pitcher’s body—legs, hips, and trunk which together deliver the arm. The faster the pitcher can move these parts with proper timing then the potentially faster he will be able to throw. Be explosive coming off the back leg using proper timing and good mechanics. That can end up as more velocity if done properly.

Bench press, heavy leg workouts—squats, leg press, leg extensioin, leg curl etc will not help a pitcher move his body faster. And that is the only possible way a pitcher will be able to increase his arm speed.

You can’t get velocity in the weight room.

Hope that answers your question,

If you are interested…you can read about our Power Conditioning For Pitchers program on my website www.pitching.nexcess.net. Just click on Conditioning Program. And if you want explosive mechanics get my Free Report at www.pitching.nexcess.net

Dick Mills

If you have questions on this post or 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.)