quote:Originally posted by TPM:quote:Originally posted by Gingerbread Man:
Yea, we should just baby our pitchers. Not buying into it. Sorry.
Placing a pitcher on a solid conditioning, nutritional and work out program, long toss as well (where you spend more time doing that than just playing to get better) is not babying pitchers. It's preparing them for what is to come later on. You think these guys throw harder because someone just told them to throw harder? You ever wonder why some HS, college and pro players spend endless hours in the gym? They don't do it because they learn more about throwing better pitches.
You changed things you have posted before, you have stated when your son is having trouble on the mound you have told him to throw harder, now it's just the end of a BP session, not understanding which it is? No problem with telling them to end a session with a little more push, their last one of two pitches, but again, that's not what you have posted in teh past.
BTW, babies learn to crawl before the walk, right?
There are many aspects to being a complete pitcher both mentally and physically. You know that as well as me or anyone else who has a son who pitches. I just get the feeling sometimes that I post information and people want to critique it thinking that is "only" what I teach. What I was getting at is that "besides" all of the other performance conditioning, pitchers have to actually try to throw harder if they are going to ever throw harder. Many advocate a long toss program where they work themselves further and further and harder and harder gradually. The main purpose of the long toss program is to gradually build up the strength from conditioning to throw harder and more consistantly at that harder velocity.
So, when I say- "if you want to throw harder, you have to practice throwing harder", it means that besides all the other conditioning they should be doing as pitchers, they need to apply the mentality of actually thinking about and trying to "throw harder" when they practice pitching/throwing.