Reply to "A paper on weighted balls, long toss and tj"

@D6L posted:

We used long toss as a tool and not specifically for increasing velocity, we did not long toss year round, we used long toss ONLY when he was being idled for more than 10 days except from Feb to end of Mar when we long tossed every 4 or 5 days, in most cases until 15u he was shut down from end of September to end of Feb next year when we started throwing again, February through end of March we gradually increased the tempo, during the same time we would do pulldowns last 2 weeks in Mar and clocked him, as a youth this was a barometer to which we would go by the years end, for example; this Feb-Mar on a pull down he was clocked 92mph, this year he topped 92 on the mound, the year before that, he pull down 89mph and at the end of the season he hit 89 consistently, in the beginning of year he was hitting 84-86mph.    At 16u, he was able to get on mid top tier club team and at 17u he was able to get on top tier club team and this caused his season to be longer up to end of October.  He pretty much pitched once a week, it did help that he threw almost 75% strikes and at times he would go 3-0 and battle back to get the batter out or sometimes they would get a hit.  We were also fortunate with good college background coaches when he got older.

Pull down =  taking few steps and throwing as hard as you can to the fence, net, either run or walk and as long as the radar is going up or staying the same mph he kept throwing.

Long Toss  = light toss starting from home plate to 60 feet and light tossed upto 90 feet moving 5 LARGE adult steps back every 3 balls, (with this we were VERY careful, I adhere to him listening to his arm, some days we literately threw only 20 balls and some days were able to empty the bucket, we would also come back to 60 feet and I would let him pitch, fastball change and curve.

Most importantly we worked on hip to shoulder separation.

He is very athletic, he could have played football, basketball and track, he seems to have closing speed.  He can dunk now with both his hands on the ball.  thanks for reading the post and hope this helps.

Super helpful!  Thanks for sharing.  Your point about listening to the arm is so important and one of the things I'm constantly stressing with my '26.