Thread: Weighted Balls?

Would like to hear what everybody has to say about weighted balls. I personally am a little nervous about using them with my students. Alot of parents ask me when are you going to use them and I tell them I am a bit nervous about stress on the rotator cuff. If you are in favor of using them please feel free to provide program used and what age you would suggest using them.

I have a routine for pitching speed that Marc published and he incorporated them into that. It uses the overload/underload principle to increase speed. It would be good to hear his input, but I believe long toss is a safer alternative. My coaching experience is at the younger levels, so I'll leave it to others to address the usage at high school/college, etc.

I too love long toss. I suggest Jaeger's protocol. As to weighted balls, baseballs weigh one thing, softballs another and the rocks we threw as kids were all different weights. Nothing magical about the weight of a softball so throwing different weights isn't necessarily a problem.

In all the years I was instructing, neither I nor parents of pitchers saw any additional increase in speed by using weighted balls. They saw a little speed increase but nothing more than normal growth for a year would explain.

Some feel they do a great job but I never saw that.

Hal

Mills and Rushall wrote a book, "The Science and Art of Pitching". They reviewed the various scientific studies on the subject, and concluded that weighted ball training is worthless.

There are some instructors that use it. It is always part of a larger training program, so there is a question as to whether weighted ball training does anything.

The problem I see with weighted ball drills is that it takes time away from doing something that is proven to work. Practice time is too precious to waste on doing things that *might* be beneficial.

I certainly appreciate the imput. Long is something we do alot at my academy and I throw alot of long myself as a men's fastpitch pitcher. I definately believe in long and how it makes you use your legs more. I am not sold on the weighted balls and probably never will be. You are right sluggers it does waste my lesson time. The last parent that suggested the weighted balls to me was told to try it away from lessons.

I love parents that have never thrown a ball underhanded in their life telling a person who actually did it how to improve.

There is a simple drill to increase speed, which you are probably already doing. Call it a plyometric drill to enhance fast-twitch muscle performance, and perhaps you can shut the parents up.

The pitcher gets open with her pitching arm relaxed and hanging in front of her. She raises the ball counter-clockwise (opposite the direction of the throwing motion and following the same arm path as a pitch) to the two o'clock position. Her arm is wrapped over her head. When she gets to the 2 o'clock position, she pauses, and then reverses motion and throws as hard as possible with a full follow-through of the arm and body. The movement to the two-o'clock position is quick, but not "crazy quick".

What makes this plyometric is that there is a rapid muscle lengthening movement followed by explosive contraction of the muscles.

This works.

I think the Edge weighted gloves work better. We use them to hit an throw and you can adjust the weight.

Originally Posted by sluggers

I love parents that have never thrown a ball underhanded in their life telling a person who actually did it how to improve.
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Speaking of windmill, Ernie Parker was the one who recommended long toss to me to increase speed. Finish with the same pull down protocol recommended by Jaeger for overhand long toss. If someone doesn't want to google it up, I'll give a brief run down if asked.

Originally Posted by Mark H

Speaking of windmill, Ernie Parker was the one who recommended long toss to me to increase speed. Finish with the same pull down protocol recommended by Jaeger for overhand long toss. If someone doesn't want to google it up, I'll give a brief run down if asked.

Would like a run down of the pull down protocol