Many baseball players, especially pitchers and catchers, who want to develop their throwing arm strength will consider using weighted baseballs as a training aid. Conversely, as a parent or coach, you want to make sure that the health of your player's arm is not jeopardized and damaged. Youth coaches can use weighted baseball to develop every player on the teams arm without incurring either short term or long term damage and, in fact, it has worked better than the traditional "long toss" method previously used. Here is what I did and how this technique is worked it into practice.
Traditional "Long Toss" Experience
Before using weighted baseballs for overload and underload training, I would have the players warm-up and then take one step backwards after every throw until the baseball bounced one time before it reached their partner. This is the traditional long toss method. The problem I found was that invariably players would warm-up with their friends and not players of equal arm strength. So as they continued to take steps backward, the player with the weaker arm would overthrow with bad mechanics to keep himself from being embarrassed by having the ball bounce twice before it reach his partner. This was causing the player with a weaker arm to reinforce and develop bad throwing mechanics. Additionally, after a couple days of practice, usually just as the season started, these players would develop sore elbows and shoulders.
I setout on a quest to find a better way and discovered the benefits of using underweight and overweight baseball.
Is Using Underweight and Overweight Baseballs Safe
In the last few years, several studies have concluded that not only is throwing underweight and overweight baseballs safe, but that when used correctly they do actually increase a players throwing velocity. One example study published in the April 2000 issue of American Journal of Sports Medicine[1] had this to say:
The purpose of this review is to determine how throwing overweight and underweight baseballs affects baseball throwing velocity and accuracy. Two studies examined how a warm-up with overweight baseballs affected throwing velocity and accuracy of 5oz regulation baseballs. ... Data from these training studies strongly support the practice of training with overweight and underweight baseballs to increase throwing velocity of regulation baseballs. Since no injuries were reported throughout the training studies, throwing overweight and underweight baseballs may not be more stressful to the throwing arm compared to throwing regulation baseballs.
This study and others below lead me to develop a warm-up routine that used both underweight and overweight baseballs as part of the team's regular warm-up. The recommended ideal weight for conditioning and performance enhancing is to use underload and overload baseballs that are +/- 20% the weight of baseball. A regulation baseball weights 5 oz. This restricts the weighted baseball's from 4 oz to 6 oz, which being conservative when dealing with a player's health is well within most coaches comfort level.
Warm-Up Baseball Drill
After the players have initially warmed up their throwing arms at the beginning of practice, they move into the weighted ball drill. The players line up on the third baseline with their partners near the base path between first and second (about 70 feet apart) and do the following with good throwing mechanics and a crow hop, if necessary.
- Ten throws with the heavy baseball (6oz) at 75% of maximum effort
- Ten throws with the light baseball (4oz) at 100% maximum effort
- Ten throws with a regulation baseball (5oz)
- Repeat steps 1 to 3 three more times (total of 4 repetitions)
- After completing the 4 repetitions, take a quick break or a light jog to give the players a moment to refresh their throwing arm.
After a three practices, instead of increasing the ball weight, the team would increase the number of throws per ball from 10 to 20 up to 30. After the team reaches 30 throws, then we would increase the distance the players throw from 70 feet to 90 feet and then to about 110 feet (a little less than the distance from home to second). With each increase in distance, we would restart back at 10 throws per stage. If you practice two or three times per week, the players throwing velocity will be noticeable faster after one month (or about 10 practices).
Younger teams that play on the smaller 60 foot base path fields should reduce the throwing distances to 50 feet, 70 feet, and 90 feet while keeping the number of repetitions the same. This will allow the younger players to maintain good throwing mechanics and still receive the velocity benefits.
For off-season training, the intensity of this drill can be increased since the players will not also be throwing during regular infield and outfield practice. For off-season training the number of throws can be increased in increments of 10 up to 50 heavy ball, regulation ball, and light ball throws. Additionally, you may consider increasing the distance to around 130 feet (distance between home and second) as long as the players can maintain proper throwing mechanics.
How Does This Work
The heavy ball and light ball develop throwing velocity in two different ways. The overweight ball develops arm strength while the underweight ball develops arm speed.
Whether it is weight training or strength and conditioning, a player's strength and endurance cannot be increased unless the muscles are stressed beyond their normal workload. To increase the workload, increase the frequency, duration, and intensity of the exercise program. To effectively and safely increase throwing velocity, intensity is increase by using +/- 20% regulation ball weight, duration is increased gradually by increasing the number of throws and the distance, and the frequency is increased by the number of days of throwing workouts.
Summary
Underweight and overweight baseballs are typically not sold at the standard retail sporting outlets but can be purchased from Amazon (weighted baseballs search).
By using underweight and overweight baseballs in the manner this post described, the players are able to increase there throwing velocity. Safety is a key concern of any coach. By keeping the variation of the ball weight within +/- 20% of a regulation baseball and gradually building up frequency and duration, a coach can closely monitor players for proper throwing form and development.
Sources:
[1] Effects of Throwing Overweight and Underweight Baseballs on Throwing Velocity and Accuracy, American Journal of Sports Medicine, Volume 29, Number 4, April 2000 , pp. 259-272(14) by Escamilla, Fleisig, Barrentine, Andrews, Speer
[2] Effects of Under- and Overweighted Implement Training on Pitching Velocity, The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: Vol. 8, No. 4, November 1994, pp. 247–250 by DeRenne, Hetzler, Ho
[3] Effects of General, Special, and Specific Resistance Training on Throwing Velocity in Baseball, The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: Vol. 15, No. 1, 2001, pp. 148–156 by DeRenne, Ho, Murphy
[4] Power Baseball by Dr. Coop DeRenne and Dr. Tom House, 1993
[5] The Winning Pitcher by Dr. Tom House, 1988
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