Hey everyone. I was wondering, I’m a pitcher in baseball and im 12 years old. I weigh 134 Ilbs, i am 5’4 and i want to get my pitching strength up so i pitch faster, i also want to be able to swing my bat so i have more power in my swing. At my house i have very little weights and i have bands. What equipment should i buy and what would be a good routine for me to start?
Thanks!
First question, how did a 12 yearold find t-mag, haha, anyways, work on bring up your core. This includes your abs, serratus, transverse abominals, and low-back. Start by just doing the regular stuff people without weights would. Bodyweight squats, single leg squats, lunges, lots of ab movements, like twist, situps, leg raises, and pushups and chinups. Pitching is largely a movement that generates power from your tendons, so also work on reactive stength, with medicine ball throws of all sorts. Overhead, forward, backward, side ways, all that good stuff. And try to get a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. That is all you could need at your age, with a child’s metabolism.
What about rotator cuff excersizes? And how many days per week would be good to start off? Thanks!
RVD
I am a baseball coach at the American Legion Level. Along with working your core, I would highly reccomend playing long toss as much as possible. Try and get further away every day make sure you are throwing the ball on a line and not a moon ball. If you want to do rotator exercises get some tubing or very light bands and do external rotations as part of your warm up. Once you get older if you want to stay with pitching get your legs big and strong, look at Mark Prior and Roger Clemens they both have huge legs and rear ends. The legs are the key to developing power on the mound. PM Me if you need any help.
At your age
GPP, GPP, GPP
and some general strengthening exercises (bench, row, squat, deadlift) focus on form first. don’t worry about the weight
If you want, coach davies GPP article is a good read. It’s ten dollars, I liked it. he does a great job with his gpp progressions. Even those who dislike his training style compliment his gpp progressions.
So, learn the basic movements first and do tons of gpp.
[quote]nhiron wrote:
If you want to do rotator exercises get some tubing or very light bands and do external rotations as part of your warm up. [/quote]
There are several rotator cuff articles in the t-mag archives that will help more than simply some external rotations with tubing. If you are going to throw a lot, pre-hab rotator cuff work is essential. check the archives.
Legion coach-
why are the legs the key to developing power on the mound? by which I assume you mean velocity.
For every Clemens or Prior, there is a Pedro, Randy Johnson (check out those chicken legs), Roy Oswalt etc.
How can they throw so hard without big legs and big butt?
Major Dan,
Randy Johnson and Roy Oswalt both use their hips and shoulders to propel their backside and arm towards the plate generating velocity is all I meant. I just used Clemens and Prior as examples
First off the suggestion to incorporate GPP and the learning the form basic movements is a great idea.
However, the more important issue for me is making sure that his mechanics as far as throwing and hitting are being properly taught. If this is the case, then as his natural strength levels increase he will be in a prime situation to take advantage of them. Along with these new training techniques.
I played professionally for seven years and did private instruction for 3 years and it always amazed me that people think it is always a matter of strength when fact is it is more likely due to mechanical flaws.
So my suggestion is to add the recomendations that you have been given above but also try to find someone you know and trust or find a location that offers lessons to help with your throwing and hitting techniques as well.
Good luck and see you in the SHOW!!
Thanks a lot for all the advice, i’m real excited on starting my program, and I really hope I stay motivated and stick with it…
i was fortunate enough to pitch 4 years in a very successful college program and had tremendous coaches and trainers.
for your age i’d stick to the basics. concentrate on developing nice fluid mechanics first and foremost. as for conditioning…long tossing, cuff exercises with bands and light dumbells, running poles, developing a stretching regimen and icing that wing is where you should start.
pick up “nolan ryan’s pitchers bible” at the bookstore. it will definately help you with everything mentioned above.
Work on building a proper foundation first that means focus on GPP, and strength training . Do not specialize in baseball yet your too young (if you don?t heed my warning you?ll never be as good as the non specialized athletes) wait to at least high school level to specialize in one sport. Another tip do not static stretch at your age it can cause undo stress and maybe even alter your biomechanics, dynamic stretching is fine to do after training. One last tip don?t follow the pros workouts there to advanced for you and will easily overtrain you, I know because I train a lots of pros. Hope that Helps.
