Weight Lifting & Pitching

Even if it is true (and I have always suspected as much), he's benching 300 lbs. Sounds like that ship has sailed. Regardless, the bright side is he benches 300 lbs.!

Now to be more serious. I don't have my pitchers weight lift at all. I haven't seen anyhting that convinces me it helps in any way. Whether or not it can get to the point of hurting, I don't know. I would suspect that there is some point of diminished returns, though.

I'm not an expert, but your concern is appropriate.

A pitcher who pursues an inappropriate stength training program can reduce upper body mobility, which can lead to decreased velocity and increased injury risk (as he pitches with greater effort).

My recommendation is to lift under the supervision of a competent trainer who understands pitchers.

Not an expert but if you Google around you'll see plenty of folks to say that they are  experts who believe that pitchers should not do a regular bench press. They should use body weight or dumbbells to get the same work in.  When my son injured his shoulder his physical therapist said to use dumbbells, and showed him how.

My son is in the process of re-shaping his body after building up lots of counter-productive upper body muscle mass.  I'm not sure what his new regimen does with upper body, but he no longer does any bench press, pull ups, or heavy overhead lifting.

All the hard stuff is aimed at the lower body and core. 

Just to add my .02....make sure you encourage him to mix a very good stretching routine on top of the lifting to help maintain flexibility.  There are some very good ones, including using ropes, easily found on the internet

I would recommend you google Eric Cressey.  There is a website for his facilities (Mass and FL) as well as his blog.  Both #9 and #7 are pitchers and both work out at Cressey Performance.  I believe weight training is beneficial, but it should be specific to their position as well as their body type, needs for areas of improvement, etc.

When he was rehabbing from elbow tendonitis my son worked with a PT (actually a DPT).  One of the things he wanted my son to do was to avoid bench presses and overhead lifts.  He feels there is too much chance of overstressing the elbows and shoulders.  He had a bunch of different exercises to do instead that work the same muscle groups.

Another thing he preached was that my son should be working on building strong, fast and flexible muscles - not big, slow, tight muscles.

You absolutely need to lift as a pitcher to get better. You absolutely should not do chest and arm exercises. Erik Cressey is the best place to go for information. My son was 185 as a freshmen, now a Senior at 220, (college) and he has done very little chest or arm work. The right program will make you better, the wrong one will make you worse. 

All good insight.  I will look into this more.  He loves to workout, so we just need to find the right one.

Gym rats are usually the most dedicated and hard working, and therefore improve the most.

Two more places for ideas and inspiration.(P3 is an amazing place, have him look at this site to better understand what he should be working on)

http://www.gymjones.com/

http://www.p3.md/

Thanks!  We'll check it out...

Ehhh.... Mark Twight is not for the light-hearted. Don't scare the newbies off, BOF.

(I love Twight. But he's... hardcore.)

Cressey is a must-follow for sure and probably the subject matter expert.

C'mon man...we all know pitchers don't need "beach bodies". J/K

Great info, my son concentrated on pitcher specific and core work, lots of bands, cables, dumb bells, core, core and core work. Box jumps as well. He made a nice jump last fall into spring and is hooked on the results of the hard work. I hear Yoga is great as well, but i cant seem to convince him to wear those pants........

Ryno has gone to Yoga a few times with his gf.  He has been told he has tight hips, so we would like to see him do more yoga this winter.  I just can't afford everything right now.  

You don't have to go to a class to do Yoga, and actually there is something now called mobility exercises that are more directed toward mobility specifically. I know there is a website called Mobility WOD. The term WOD comes from Work Out of the Day. (from cross fit but now used universally)

http://www.mobilitywod.com/

All of this was where the "foam roller" type work came from, I know my son has lacrosse balls he uses to loosen up his back and lower back, two of them are taped together. He also has a foam roller at his apt that he uses. He has also incorporated a mobility WOD into his workout routines. 

Kyle, I agree with you on Twight, but if an athlete would be as dedicated to their craft as Twight they would greatly exceed anything they thought possible, Amazing, (and very intense) program.