“Off-season” throwing routine - stay sharp or just rest?

[AComet09]

My daughter is 12 and she does pitching lessons 1 time per week, but other than that, we have taken 6 weeks off from softball. Instead, she is playing middle school basketball - gets her in shape and mentally divorced from softball. They need the break both mentally and physically. We will start doing speed/agility, hitting lessons, and team workouts in January.

 

[FB Fool]

Our tournament season ends this weekend 12/11 and begins mid February. Hard to have much down time. Ill give mine 3-4 weeks then its back to long toss and tee work.

 

[Towny9]

Our tournament season ends this weekend 12/11 and begins mid February. Hard to have much down time. Ill give mine 3-4 weeks then its back to long toss and tee work.

That seems a tad excessive

 

[FB Fool]

Yea it’s a lot but we only have team practice once a week. However I think that’s why more polished athletes come from the South. More live reps year round. I grew up and played ball up North and only got about 7 months without it being too cold.

 

[HunterMO]

3-6 weeks would be amazing. I have NEVER seen a student take time off that hasn't come back faster, fresher and often showing better mechanics than where we left off at full motion.

DD took 6 weeks off this year. We’ve never gone dark for that long. But she really needed time to heal and was going through PT to fix knee pain. They’ve cleared her to practice/play again and so we’ve started working her back. Multiple times I’ve had to slow her down because she says she feels stronger and more ready to go.

 

[Gambler Bob]

My daughter is 13 years old (2026). We finished up Nov 15th, she won't touch a softball until early January. She will be off for 6 weeks. We also take about 3-4 weeks off between summer and fall seasons. She pitched about 190 innings last year.

Keep in mind you are not only resting your arm and shoulder. Pitchers over use a lot of other muscles when they are pitching, back muscles, leg muscles etc. Their is also a lot of wear and tear on a pitchers knees and hips from the impact of pitching.

She also plays school and travel basketball this time of year.

 

[jsoftballcoach]

My daughter is 13 years old (2026). We finished up Nov 15th, she won't touch a softball until early January. She will be off for 6 weeks. We also take about 3-4 weeks off between summer and fall seasons. She pitched about 190 innings last year.

Keep in mind you are not only resting your arm and shoulder. Pitchers over use a lot of other muscles when they are pitching, back muscles, leg muscles etc. Their is also a lot of wear and tear on a pitchers knees and hips from the impact of pitching..

This is what we do also, my DD is a 2022 and threw the same amount of innings. She has 2 tourneys in late January, then more rest until HS. Rest has always been a good thing.


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[Towny9]

Since rest seems to be the consensus, I would like to pose a question to the group just as some food for thought. What part of the season do you think most throwing related injuries occur? The beginning, the middle, or the end? I know what the data says and it’s pretty interesting/revealing, but curious to hear when this group thinks.

 

[_MIA_]

DD's team takes off from Mid Nov to Mid Jan. She’ll take 1 to 1.5 weeks off from doing any softball 3 or 4 times a year (usually around Xmas when we typically travel,after Spring/Summer season and after Fall season). Other than that in the "off-season" (when her team is off) she will probably do some sort of hitting 3 or 4 times a week, some fielding twice a week and throw (she is an IF) about once a week.

Right now she is too young to be playing school basketball (cannot play MS till 7th grade here) but she plays AAU basketball pretty much from Nov till July which involves one or two practices a week and about 2 tournaments a month. She also plays basketball on her own in the driveway a few times a week usually. Once she starts playing school basketball there will be less time to do softball stuff during the school season but we will try and squeeze sessions in when she can.

 

[Tazman]

Since rest seems to be the consensus, I would like to pose a question to the group just as some food for thought. What part of the season do you think most throwing related injuries occur? The beginning, the middle, or the end? I know what the data says and it’s pretty interesting/revealing, but curious to hear when this group thinks.

Intuitively I would think late season. Everything I've read in the data says early in the season due to lack of prep for high workloads. In God we trust, all others bring data.