Down Time

Sorry Before I get a lot of comments.... THROWING!

I would shut him down and give him 6 weeks to ramp back up to his tryout. He will not be in mid season form and will take another 4 weeks of game type throwing to get in full pitching shape. He should have an active workout plan during this time.

ASMI has a great book, "Conditioning Program for Baseball Pitchers" that is very reasonable that goes over the rest and workouts that you can use and adapt to your situation.

I believe that a pitcher should "throw" the day after he pitches a game and play catch every day if possible

As BOF said, every situation will be different.

What intensity will he be throwing in come the "cages"? Is he going live? How long is he going? Is it just side work? This will all play into how long it should be.

In my opinion, he should at least take three weeks off.

Stu

quote:

Originally posted by TRhit:
I believe that a pitcher should "throw" the day after he pitches a game and play catch every day if possible

What does this have to do with how much time to give the arm rest in the offseason?

I think that would mean to throw lightly each and every day during the offseason, maybe from 60'-90'. I do not think mine has gone more than a week or so totally down for the last 10 years.

Usually our downtime would be between Jupiter and January. But he would always hit and throw during those weeks as well, just a more casual schedule.

To clarify: 2013. HS tryouts start March 1 however coaches look at the kids in the cages to get a feel "prior to" tryouts.

Cage time consists of BP for pitchers. Pitchers also have 30 to 45 full ups from a mound 2x a week.

Dilemma is he was invited to an indoor showcase in Mid December. This is why the main reason for the post.

TPM

Throwing , playing catch, is not pitching--in my book if a pitcher is not pitching and just playinmg catch then he is taking time off

I think your venom is clouding your thinking--

I prefer a day of rest after pitching. I realize that some people throw lightly the day after pitching and that it does work for them.

Personally I think that a day of rest is better simply to allow the muscles to rebuild a bit more and in case there is some inflammation that could be aggravated by throwing the next day. JMO.

I don't like long breaks unless there's some serious damage been done like what typically happens after a full mlb season.

quote:

Originally posted by TRhit:
TPM

Throwing , playing catch, is not pitching--in my book if a pitcher is not pitching and just playinmg catch then he is taking time off

I think your venom is clouding your thinking--

Actually Floridafan did a better job of explaining what you meant than you did.

quote:

Originally posted by CADad:
I prefer a day of rest after pitching. I realize that some people throw lightly the day after pitching and that it does work for them.

Personally I think that a day of rest is better simply to allow the muscles to rebuild a bit more and in case there is some inflammation that could be aggravated by throwing the next day. JMO.

I don't like long breaks unless there's some serious damage been done like what typically happens after a full mlb season.

Every pitcher is a little different on this...the issue is when the team's "day off" is....for example if i'm a HS Coach and a kid pitches Friday, I have practice Saturday and Sunday is an off-day, i'd have him throw Saturday with some supervision and take Sunday off....If a kid pitched Saturday, then Sunday is his off-day.

Do you differentiate between pitching and throwing?

bsballfan,
I don't have a hard over opinion on this one. Just a preference and an opinion so I agree that it varies from player to player.

TRhit,
Big difference between pitching and light throwing of course. I definitely wouldn't want to see a player pitch again the day after pitching more than a couple easy innings at the very most.

I'd prefer not to see a pitcher do light throwing the day after pitching a significant amount but everyone is different and it may work better for some pitchers to throw the day after pitching.