CaCO3Girl posted:SultanofSwat posted:'Strength' doesn't make you throw faster.
More mass + technique = velocity
You can hit 90 at 145 pounds.
While I believe 145# person can throw 90 I question about strength not making you throw faster.
Force equals mass times acceleration, and you can accelerate faster with stronger muscles right? No seriously, I'm asking.
Given that the mass is constant in baseball and further given that the mass in question (5.25 oz average) is not particularly large, that does leave us with acceleration. The best point to measure acceleration would be at the point of the ball itself.
Jumping around, one might ask why do pitchers work on their lower half? Why do they work on their core? Why do they work on their stride and hip turn? In talking to dads with young kids, I like to use the analogy of "snapping" the beach towel that we did as kids (always fun when we drew blood). There was always that big kid that couldn't quite get his towel folded just right or couldn't sequence his whip action while little Johnny perfected both and was most dangerous. The acceleration at the point of the ball upon release depends on maybe 100 actions up until that point - some major, many minor. At 10 years of age, there will be kids who do struggle with the mass of the baseball, therefore oftentimes the bigger kids are "better" pitchers as they have more arm strength. Once arm strength become "sufficient" (wide range maybe 12-15 yo) then mechanics largely take over and will dictate which pitchers will throw with the most velocity. There will always be some kids who keep up just throwing with their arms, but they simply have great arms.
Bringing this back to "strength", a level of strength well above "sufficient" will serve a pitcher well as will developing all the muscles used in the pitching motion to this level. The comment about bodybuilders is the extreme where strength training (or more appropriately bodybuilding) actually decreases one's ability to accelerate using certain muscles as muscle mass and muscle tightness work against the pitcher. I guess my question would be how does a pitcher determine their level of optimum strength of the various parts of the body. Lastly, does some additional strength (above "optimum" level for velocity) aid in preventing injury.