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Should I
use weighted balls to improve velocity?
It seems that
question has been coming up more and more often.
The answer is
simple......
It depends.
Don't ya just love
that answer?
Well, my good friend,
business partner and elite athlete trainer, Sean
Cochran and I have talked about this many times.
What we've come up
with is it really depends on your motivation and how
you use them. As a pure throwing device, it is
another resistance tool such as medicine balls,
resistance bands, weights and the like. Any of these
fitness tools can be used correctly of incorrectly
and do you good or do damage to you. You need to be
careful and have a specific plan and complete it
under supervision, especially for the younger, less
physically developed players.
Our recommendation,
as a general rule of thumb, is to not throw a ball
more than 20% more than the ball you use to compete
with. That means no more than a 6 oz ball. Why?
Well, the heavier you go, the better chance you
change your throwing mechanics, and the better
chance for injury.
For those of use in
the Great Northwest, the ball often weighs 6 oz with
the games we play in the rain during spring!
Most pitchers I see
when they first come to our academy certainly don't
have the strength or the efficient mechanics to
handle any more weight. I would never put these
athletes into a program throwing a weighted ball at
any distance before I would help them improve their
mechanics and conditioning. Throwing heavy balls
requires a pitcher to have very good mechanics and
the conditioning to handle it.
My suggestion...spend
the time learning and implementing a great overall
conditioning program like we do at our BioForce
Baseball Academy, and improve your mechanics and
you'll see some great improvements in your overall
pitching, throwing and velocity.
With that said, some
heavier weighted balls can be used in some throwing
improvement and strengthening drills. At our
academy, for our more advanced athletes, we use some
heavier weighted balls with some of our drills. Some
of our drills isolate throwing specific movements
without using the lower body. We are transferring
much less energy and not throwing these balls at any
distance per say. We bounce them against a wall at a
very short distance to help strengthen the arm in a
very specific throwing movement.
We also don't do this
during the competitive season. We use these drills
mostly in the off season when athletes are working
on gaining strength. During the competitive season,
ball players should focus on maintaining strength.
Speaking of that, for
those of you in our area, we will be announcing our
new Fall Elite Pitching Program later this week.
Until then, keep
getting stronger and better!
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