Lifting after pitching

My opinion is yes lifting when sore is bad. Your joints lack stabilizing muscles during this time. Your also increasing your chance of muscle fiber tears. Inside of the elbow soreness is bad because thats a ligament/tendon injury and takes longer to heal since those areas lack blood flow.

Blue, are you asking because you are being made to do this lifting by a coach, trainer, or parent? Or are you asking because you want to do this lifting?

Either way it is not safe for you to lift after pitching as you say "to the point of soreness". That means that you have tore down basically all of your major and minor muscles in your arm, shoulder, bicep, and elbow. You can tell this simply by the lactic acid that has built up. It's extremely important that you run poles or sprints after you pitch. Lay off the upper body lifting for a min. 3-4 days to allow the tissue and muscle to rebuild. Work on your lower body or core.

My pitcher is sitting here and I asked the question. He has always been required to run and bench press (college and pro ball) on recovery day (the day after one pitches), depending on how much he threw and if he is sore.

Everyone is different and this should be discussed with a trainer and never pitch to the point of being sore.

well its just normal soreness from pitching nothing major or an injury. I pitched today 7 innings can i do upper body tuesday even if i am a little bit sore? I am not required by anybody to lift i just want to get a little stronger and get my muscles in shape.

Bmountain- wait til soreness is gone... it is sore because of damage done.... no reason to run a 10K on monday and then do a good leg workout with weights on tuesday... even if you are not targeting the muscles that are sore the will play a secondary role....

more is not better...

If its general muscle soreness, I have my pitchers lift. Lifting and blood flow will increase recovery.

If its pain don't do anything and see a doc.

In the Chicago Cubs organization, we lifted upper body (lightweight tubing, scap, bi's and tri's, chest, shrugs, lats, wrists, etc.), ran, and did core on the day after we pitched.

So yes, even if you're a little sore, which is generally natural, it is perfectly acceptable to lift the day after pitching.

I guess "lift" needs to be defined....

I can not imagine anyone wanting to do a quality back/bi's/tri's/chest/shoulders workout the day after pitching say 80-110 pitches...

"lifting" as in light weight just to get blood flow to sore muscles, sure...

We go pretty hard after pitching, but we never do boydpart workouts anyway and stick to full body routines in-season focusing on compound complexes with a large emphasis on shoulder, eblow and hip satbility to counteract stress from pitching.