Specificity of Training—Something Baseball Pitching Doesn’t Seem To Understand

Whenever a baseball pitcher is not doing what is “specific” to pitching at “game” conditions he is not doing what will make him the best baseball pitcher he can be. He is not working toward real improvement…no matter what his intensions

An example of those three things would be—flat ground throwing, long toss or throwing weighted baseballs. Or for high school or college pitchers…spending a lot of time doing baseball pitching drills.

Or in terms of pitching strength and conditioning the mentality is to train in the weight room…get bigger and stronger. However, that’s faulty thinking because the movements or the baseball pitching strength gained do not transfer to the mound.

So none of those things transfers to improvement in baseball pitching competition or the real game. You might consider those all as examples of “cross training” activities. And sports science has been proven that cross training does not help in building better overall skills for any particular sport.

Also baseball pitchers should not fall in love with pitching drills because they should mainly be used for beginners. Pitchers who have developed a basic pitching mechanics should make the needed adjustments within that delivery and then get to game speed throwing as quickly as possible. Doing drills can be disruptive in a simple two-phase motor skills such as pitching.

Why then do coaches encourage these activities? It is because they use “belief based” coaching instead of “evidence based.” The coaches believe that those activitities that are not very specific to pitching will help pitchers improve. However, none of those activities have been proven to help baseball pitchers improve no matter how long they have been used in baseball. Coaches will do and recommend what they believe to be true…not necessarily what has been proven.

Doing activities that are specific to what players do during competition is what has proven to work for all sports. It’s called the “Principle of Specificity.” But baseball seems to have ignored this training principle.

The absolute best thing a baseball pitcher can do is to work from a mound at game speed conditions with “game like” focus and intensity. Adjustments should be made mainly under those conditions. Any drills or partial practice should be kept to a minimum.

Baseball pitching is a skill just like golf. The more you perform that skill at full intensity using good mechanics the better you become. There is no other way to become better.