I am 5'8, 120 pound outfielder who needs to get a stronger arm. Any advise or drills that can be done would be great. The biggest obstacle facing me is I live in Minnesota so I cant play catch every day.
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Another question. If I build my arm up with long toss until winter and then only throw twice a week during the winter months, will my arm strength diminish?
Thanks for the link! My son's college coach is one that subscribes to the 120 foot rule and as a result, my son's velocity has actually decreased. He worked very hard the last few years with long toss and had improved significantly from year to year throughout high school. Obviously, he is quite frustrated this year and this article validates what he told me about what he thought was contributing to his decline. He'll be getting back to long toss to prepare for the Summer season.
The OP is an outfielder, long toss will help him throw farther and improve accuracy and may strenghten the arm but this is not the only thing he should do.
I implemented a 6-Week Long Toss Throwing Program in the summer of 2010 with 12 of our HS athletes and have been implementing this program ever since. Below is the link to the program I used with our athletes. The average velocity increase was 4.8 MPH. Actually had one athlete increase 11 MPH which doesn't happen often . If you have any questions or if the link doesn't work let me know.
Thanks!
Austin
Long toss, long toss, long toss, and make sure you/he throws year around. There is no off-season when it comes to throwing a baseball.
My son started doing long toss early on in high school and he continues to do so in college. In his Freshman year at college I was curious as to whether he was still doing it and so asked him about it. I was surprised by his response as he said he was indeed continuing it and was throwing from foul pole to foul pole. My initial reaction was that he was pulling my leg about the distance, but sure enough, he was throwing foul pole to foul pole in his long toss routine. (oh, and to date he hasn't had any arm problems . . . not that it's JUST because of the long toss routine, but I believe it helps a lot.)
Truman,
Awesome to hear that! Long Toss goes a long way when done properly with the correct progressions and correct throwing patterns!
Well, I live in Minnesota and it is challenging to keep your arm active but it can be done. My son (2016) plays football, basketball, and baseball. During the fall (football season) he plays in a basketball workout league (pre-basketball tryouts) as well as fall baseball. Him and I get together after football practice or on weekends to work on long toss until the snow sticks. He then takes the rest of fall off from throwing, starting up again in December. During the off season he will work on grips (he pitches), ball transfer, and other things he can work on inside, and periodically we'll go to the Y and do some light throwing - it's a good time to try new techniques. From December on, he has weekly time at a local dome to get some baseball work in (fielding, throwing, shorter long toss) gradually increasing the intensity until tryouts (March). By then he's participating in pitch-hit-catch games in a batting tunnel and is up to throwing 45-60 pitches in an outing. Of course, participating in three sports, he's always lifting, doing SAQ training, and working on skills for his other sports.
Tried the Link after signing in it still isn't loading.
For those in bad weather areas you can use sand filled baseball from Oates. I am not sure if they have a program on their site but Wolforth has one. My son used these in the off season and his college gives him a routine where he throws them against a wall. (brick, block or concrete of course   This would be perfect if you have a basement with a solid wall to throw against.
I like Jaeger's long toss and BWBK and Backwards chaining drills from the website that cannot be mentioned.
It worked thanks!
Just finished this article on Throwing Patterns using the "Water Bottle" Drill. Throwing patterns need to be cleaned up before a Long Toss Program is implemented.
Throwing Patters: The "L" Drill vs High Level Throwing
Austin, I would love to get some specifics on your post throwing protocol as to the type of ROM exercises. Feel free to PM me or contact me by email. Thanks