Pitcher And Catcher Throwing Arm Drill : Internal Rotation
Pitcher and catcher, each with a stretch band , stand, elbows at sides and shoulder out. Each player grips the stretch band handle while the other end is fixed to a fence or a heavy, stationary object.
Pitcher and catcher each pull their arms across their bodies while keeping their elbows at the sides. Then contract the stretch band. Repeat 10 times.
The difference between this routine and the previous is, in this one, the shoulder is out from the body. In the previous, ninth routine, the shoulder is in its normal inside position.
Other exercises the pitcher and catcher can do prior to game time includes wrist extension and wrist flexing exercises. Holding a weight of 5 pounds or less, they lift it with their wrists, count to five and then lower it to starting position. These exercises not only build strength, they also loosen the wrists and help to prevent injury during the game.
Principles Of Strength And Conditioning In Baseball Players
The baseball-specific performance enhancement and injury prevention process is directed by a data-driven approach to assess and expose an athletes biomechanical needs, as they relate to asymmetry and joint mechanics , which leads to the development of a customized program.
Along with the goals of each athlete, the kinematic and kinetic variables that influence the dynamic athletic qualities of each position are used to determine the most optimal evidence-based methods. These variables include the attributes that ensure optimal lumbopelvic control and mobility throughout functional movements , developing force and velocity to improve an athletes ballistic push-off performance during linear and rotational movements , the ability to transfer force from proximal to distal throughout the kinetic chain , and the implementation and manipulation of each training variable through periodization schemes.
Programming should also consider the injury risk factors associated with each position as pitchers exhibit shoulder and elbow injuries while position players are susceptible to hamstring injuries .
Learn Strength And Conditioning Concepts For Baseball Pitchers
Steven Ellis ATTENTION PARENTS:age-appropriate and safe for kids 7-14
Let’s talk about pitching workouts for pitchers…
Parents ask me this question all the time:
“Should my son lift weights?”
If lifting weights means strength training and your son is a baseball pitcher around 10 or older, research from the Mayo Clinic says, Yes.
Youth pitching workouts not only can improve baseball performance but they can help prevent injuries as well.
Now this doesn’t mean youth pitchers should go out and start lifting heavy weights.
Of course, they shouldn’t.
But some light resistance training that includes body weight exercises, jump rope, resistance bands, medicine balls and lightweight dumbbells with a special emphasis on proper technique and safetythat’s the type of youth pitching workout that can help build functional strength and increase velocity.
So how do you start a strength training program for young pitchers?
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Goal: Laying A Foundation
Finally, we need a basic routine for those just starting out. It should be simple, but feature time-proven exercises that have helped generations of lifters lay a solid foundation for a great back.
Beginners are best served by hard work on just a handful of productive exercises. Avoid the temptation to go heavier and sacrifice form in a misguided attempt to accelerate progress. If you jump the gun and increase the weight too soon, you may be able to move the weight, but you won’t be recruiting the target muscles properly.
More often than not, trying to move too much weight too soon ends in injury. Master your form and strive to cultivate a mind-muscle connection. The back is the most difficult area to achieve this connection in, so take your time and concentrate on each rep.
Do this workout routine just as it’s listed. Avoid the temptation to add more exercises or sets, and steer clear of any advanced intensity techniques such as dropsets, supersets, or forced reps. There will be ample time for all that later. For now, master the basics and work on feeling your lats contract and stretch with every rep.
Overhead Med Ball Throw
Performed by: Justin Verlander
Why he does it: The source of Verlanders heat-seeking fastballshes regularly clocked in triple digits on the radar gunare exercises such as the Overhead Med Ball Throw, which reinforces the concept of pushing through the ground to generate the force needed to increase the velocity of his pitches.
How to do it:
- Assume athletic stance, holding med ball in front
- Lower into squat, then explode through hips, knees and ankles to throw med ball as high as possible
- Run to med ball, pick it up and repeat
Sets/Reps: 2×10
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How We Use Vbt Today
Autoregulation
Autoregulation, with VBT, is a way of monitoring athletes workloads by monitoring the velocities of their lifts. These velocities should be monitored during workouts, and from workout to workout, to make sure overtraining does not occur.
During workouts, we select a weight based off of the speed for that daylets say 0.8-0.9 m/sec, which is considered a strength-speed day based on the chart above. The workout officially starts after the athlete has added enough weight to reach the chosen speed. The athlete does a maximum of 12 sets of 2 reps on the minute, or until he drops below the designated speedwhichever comes first. Once one of those occurs, the athletes workout will then be over. This makes sure that the athlete is only working the speed trait that we want and that the athlete does not become overtrained. This is a great way to monitor workload especially when participating in a high-intensity throwing program.
If the athlete has two reps, one at .78 and one at .81, then the workout will continue if the target velocity was .8-.9. The athlete needs to have two consecutive reps below 90% of 0.8 for the workout to end. The athlete would then end his workout if there were two reps below 0.72 m/sec. Some reps can just be a bad technically, so we want to see that athlete has two bad technical reps for the workout to end.
External Cue vs External Focus/Competition
- Did I move more weight faster then last week?
- Did I move more weight at the same speed?
Pitcher And Catcher Throwing Arm Drill : External Rotation
The next two exercises are specifically for the pitcher and catcher, whose arms are worked almost constantly throughout the game. These exercises are designed to work out the major muscles necessary for pitching and throwing.
Stand near a fence to attach a stretch band. Both pitcher and catcher can stand by each other to do this drill, each with their own stretch band. If only one is available, they can take turns.
The pitcher and catchers arms are crooked 90 degrees and holds the stretch band by the handle. Pull out the arm keeping the elbow fixed at the side, at the 90 degree angle. Contract the stretch band slowly to starting position. Repeat ten times.
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Don’t Do Barbell Bench Presses
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Do body weight push-ups instead. Push-ups are a great closed-chain exercise. To complete the entire movement, your entire body must remain stable. Barbell bench presses lock the shoulders in a susceptible position. This is a good enough reason to leave them out of your training program. Push-ups are a much safer option for working these joints and muscles.
How The Pelvic Clock Helps Baseball Players:
Nearly 12 % of all baseball injuries are sustained by the spine and core muscles. Think about the high speed involved in swinging a bat, and its not hard to see how this can trigger muscle spasms, disc herniation or even a stress fracture in the lumbar vertebrae .
An untrained core and poor body mechanics only increase the risk of injury. If youre a baseball player, then it is essential to build your core muscles and to reinforce a neutral spine position.
The Pelvic Clock® workout gives your body everything it needs:
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Strengthens deep core muscles surrounding damaged vertebrae
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Prevents or stops painful muscle spasms
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Maintains healthy movement in the lumbar spine
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Backward Lunge With A Twist
Why you should do it: This decreases the risk of injury in the lower back while stressing the hip flexors, which will give you more rotational ability each time you throw the ball.
How to do it: Step back with your left leg into a lunge. Lean back slightly and reach your left arm to the sky as you twist your torso over your front leg. Step into the next lunge and repeat for 10 reps, then do 10 on the other side.
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Baseball Exercises For Pitchers
Pitchers, youre up! Here are a few great exercises that you can do that are specific for your role in baseball. Keep in mind that you can also partake in the exercises above as well. There are other exercises that you can do, with a friend or by yourself. Make sure that you have the proper equipment for these exercises.
Good Back Workouts To Add To Your Fitness Routine
If you cant remember the last time you added any new, really good back workouts to your fitness program, nows the time to fix that. In the gym, strong back muscles are important for a number of exercises, and outside of the gym, a strong back will help with everything from picking up heavy groceries to maintaining proper posture all day long. Chances are youre already getting in some good back-strengthening work with your regular routines , but its not a bad idea to make sure youre targeting those important muscles on the reg if you want to get stronger overall.
Simply put, good back workouts set you up for healthy, functional movement patterns. And, luckily, weve got you covered with some excellent options.
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Ytw For Shoulder Stability
This will increase strength in the shoulders and work each of the deltoid muscles in the front, rear, and middle deltoids.
How to do this exercise: This is broken up into three sections, do each movement for three sets of fifteen reps, making sure to rest in between each set.
- For the Y, lean over an exercise ball with your torso and hips. Keep your legs straight back, with your arms extended toward the ground, make a Y-shape, creating a 45-degree angle with your body to the ground. With your palms facing each other, raise your arms to your head and then back down to your starting position.
- For the T, start in the previously mentioned starting position, but with your arms extended out to your sides to create a T-shape. Repeat the same raising and lowering motion for the Y.
- For the W, start in the previously mentioned starting position, but with your elbows bent in a 90-degree angle and your fist facing forward. Repeat the same raising and lowering motion for the Y.
How Often Should You Work Your Back Muscles
Most core stability exercises also work your deep back musclesyou actually engage those back muscles every time you do a movement that requires stabilizing your spine . But you might also want to do targeted back workouts to strengthen and build the more superficial muscles, like the lats and traps.
Similarly to targeted strength work for any other major muscle group, aim to do a back-specific workout about two times a week, with at least two days of recovery between workouts. Thats the minimum you need to do to see changes in strength and muscle. Realistically, it might make more sense to do upper- and lower-body days, or even full-body days, versus specific days dedicated to just back exercises. Just make sure youre giving any muscles involved 48 hours of rest between two challenging strength workouts so that they can recover and build back stronger.
With that in mind, many of the back workouts weve highlighted below hit the major muscles of the back while also working the shoulders, arms, and other parts of the core, making them solid upper-body workouts that emphasize pulling movements to really strengthen the muscles on the back of the torso.
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Don’t Do The Leg Press Machine
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Do deadlifts instead. Leg press machines are not nearly as effective as the deadlift, which is awesome.
The deadlift, when done correctly, works your entire body. This alone should be enough reason to do them.
Specifically, the deadlift engages your hamstrings, glutes, erectors, rhomboids and posterior shoulder musclesall top priority for pitchers.
In order to continually throw a baseball at high speed, pitchers need a tremendously strong lower body. This helps them develop the necessary torque in their hips needed for the pitching motion.
Once their lower body develops this power, a stable core helps transfer it up and into their arm for the throw. Strong and stable posterior muscles protect a pitcher from injury.
Pitchers Upper Back And Scap Workouts
Beyond the shoulder strengthening exercises described above that every pitcher should be doing, upper body training for a pitcher should focus on pulling motions that strengthen the upper back and scap, which is the area between the shoulder blades.
These exercises, such as bent over rows and pull-ups, can be done with an emphasis on squeezing the shoulder blades together, back and down.
Strengthening the upper back through rows will cause the muscles necessary to decelerate the arm to become stronger.
As a result of building strength through rows, the pitcher’s body will allow the arm to reach faster speeds as it is more capable of safely decelerating after release.
Remember, faster arm speed means faster pitching velocity.
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Don’t Do Overhead Presses
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Do horizontal rowing exercises instead. For a pitcher, a weak and unstable scapula is like launching a cannon out of a canoe. It won’t work.
Upper-body stability problems are tyrants among pitchers, but this is exactly what you risk when you perform a technically sound Overhead Press.
Instead, you should perform rowing exercises. They help to strengthen the decelerator muscles you use when throwing.
The Five Tool Workout By Men’s Fitness
Men’s Fitness has done a great job of putting together a complete five tool baseball workout.
Here’s how they broke their exercises down – click here for all the specifics.
- Arm Strength = Long Toss
- Hitting for Average = Single leg/Single arm rows coupled with kneeling cable chops
- Hitting for Power = Squats, Squat Jumps , and Rotational Medicine Ball Throws
- “Tool 6/Secret Weapon” = Nutrition*
*While nutrition is incredibly important, I would argue that the sixth tool is actually the batter’s eye/plate discipline. But this is a topic for a later date.
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The 3 Best Baseball Stretches
Stretching is one of the most under-utilized techniques for improving athletic performance, preventing sports injury and properly rehabilitating sprain and strain injury. Dont make the mistake of thinking that something as simple as stretching wont be effective.
Below are 3 of the best stretches for baseball obviously there are a lot more, but these are a great place to start. Please make special note of the instructions with each stretch, and if you currently have any chronic or recurring muscle or joint pain please take extra care when performing the stretches below, or consult with your physician or physical therapist before performing any of the following stretches.
Instructions: Slowly move into the stretch position until you feel a tension of about 7 out of 10. If you feel pain or discomfort youve pushed the stretch too far back out of the stretch immediately. Hold the stretch position for 20 to 30 seconds while relaxing and breathing deeply. Come out of the stretch carefully and perform the stretch on the opposite side if necessary. Repeat 2 or 3 times.
Lying Knee Roll-over Stretch: While lying on your back, bend your knees and let them fall to one side. Keep your arms out to the side and let your back and hips rotate with your knees.
Elbow-out Shoulder and Rotator Stretch: Stand with your hand behind the middle of your back and your elbow pointing out. Reach over with your other hand and gently pull your elbow forward.
Sports Illustrated’s 10 Key Weight Training Exercises For Mlb
This is really a gem of an article right here. The writer, Sarah Toland, went right to the source and spoke with Major League trainers to get some of their most unique, and beneficial, exercises. A lot of it is really out of the box.
Here are just a few quotes from the trainers regarding the exercises they are teaching…
This is primarily a back exercise, but because youre using an unstable device, it activates your glutes and core, and youre working on posture all at the same time, says McDaniel.
Were very core based, says Kochan of the Giants strength program. Any time we can stabilize the spine, we do, because baseball is an asymmetrical sport.
Its especially good for pitchers because it mimics letting go of the baseball as close to the plate as possible, he says. According to the Dodgers strength coach, the exercise also stimulates some of the same mechanics used in running. Guys can get very knee-dominant when running, and this teaches them to drive from the hip, he says
to read the entire article…
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