Hitting a wall

How many innings did you pitch this year? How long did you shut down for? Do you long toss? How many pitches per inning do you generally throw? If you have pitched through the regular season, summer and are continuing into the fall your arm WILL be getting tired.

Do a search on strength and conditioning thread on work outs for pitchers, core workouts, etc and look through them to help out. Being in good aerobic shape is a good thing but really won't help your pitching too much. Legs, core, long toss are where you should be starting. Break your run work out into 100 yrd sprints.

i pitched 40 innings in spring and 20 in summer i shut it down for a month. I usually throw 75-100 pitches on sundays. I do need to long toss more and do core and lower body more.

The regular season pitching load seems OK, however after shutting down for 4 weeks and then trying to pitch 75-100 pitches once a week seems a little aggressive. There is some disagreement on how long you should shut down, I have heard from experienced coaches that 4-6 weeks is OK, I personally prefer 8-12 weeks just to be safe.

I do know that when you shut down you “loose it” faster than you gain it back after you start working out. Don’t know why (maybe Jon Doyle can shed some light here) as it is the same for throwing as well as lifting, running, etc.

This means you should start back slowly and build up your arm strength and working back to build up your arm strength through conditioning and long toss. You should not lay off 4 weeks and think you can come back and throw 75-100 pitches, not a good idea.

Fall should be a time for you to work on new pitches, improving others, and your mechanics. My advice would be 3 innings max. We limit our kids to 2 innings.

Good luck!

quote:

I do know that when you shut down you “loose it” faster than you gain it back after you start working out. Don’t know why

You "lose it" faster than you "gain it" because when you're gaining, you're building. When you're losing, it's breaking down...

i just got more sleep and fixed a mechanical problem and i went 4ip 0 ER 0 BB 0H 4 K's as opposed to 6 walks in 2.2 IP last sunday

Do you just get tired overall (suggesting poor general conditioning) or do you feel fine physically and you lose your velocity?

My question would be about your mechanics. Do you drop your elbow and how is your alignment ? I see good pitchers who start wel and start lowering the elbows and faling off to the side trying to over power the ball. Not always about conditioning but you should max your conditioning and lots of long toss.
The BB make me think it is mechanics.
Did you have any arm pain ?

i think i figured the problem out i was flying open and dropping my elbow which isnt good for velocity or location. I was staying closed more and i was throwing 5-10 mph harder than the week before and maintained my velocity. I pitched 4 innings but could have gone 6 i think.

Sounds good.