Hard Throws

[Bucketrider]

Just went to my first college softball combine. I noticed that they were "gunning" throws from second to third and ss to first. I always knew that it was important to have a good strong throw. Now my question is, other than conditioning and strength training, are there drills to help the girls with their throwing speed? Thanks for the input.

 

[softballdad97]

Go to Jaeger Sports and check out the video. We have modified the throwing distances by 66-75% and are just now trying to gradually introduce this into our throwing regimen. Check it out and let us know your thoughts on this, anyone else weigh in on this? Trying to figure what part of practice to introduce this, during warm- up's before other drills, or at the end to finish and then let the arm rest before the next practice. Any thoughts from the experts on this forum?

 

[Amy in AZ.]

Alan Jaeger will talk to you on the phone, too. It surprised me when he phoned to answer my question, rather than reply by e-mail.

I work OH throw, right after warm ups. It takes a lot of individual work at home to develop pop in the OH throw.

I judge an athlete almost entirely on their OH throw.The rest can be coached. Something like 75% of all errors are due to bad throws, even in MLB.

 

[Bucketrider]

Thank you both. One additional question as I await the store opening, with a pitcher, is this counter-productive? Her TB coach only wants her "lobbing" the ball over to first while in the circle. My DD is however a multi-positional player and wants to improve on all her skills.

 

[Amy in AZ.]

It isn't going to hurt her to slow down her throw to first. She needs to have some idea how fast the batter is. But, she is generally only 40 ft. and less from the base. Also, no matter if it is 1st or 2nd covering the base,sometimes, the toss is underhand. Every pitcher needs to make a warm up throw to first base, every inning and I rarely see that.

 

[StacieM]

Here's the thing...while it's great to have a nice strong arm, it's not always necessary to GUN the ball. Players also need to learn how to throw quick, not just hard. Sometimes quick with less pace is better - easier to catch, gets there just as fast (sometimes even faster) results in more "sure" outs. So while it's a great idea to work with your daughter to increase her throwing power, it's not to use all the time. It's more excellent for her to increase her arm strength, but now how and when to use both hard throws, quick throws, and "easy to catch" throws.

Even when talking to Crystl Bustos she said there was only one time when she was playing SS for the National Team when she threw as hard as she could to 1st (because the play required it). Other than that, she did not throw the ball her hardest ALL the time.

Doing so uses up extra energy, puts additional and unnecessary strain on your arm which can lessen your longevity (be it over the course of a demanding college season or over the course of a career), and can also make the play harder on the person receiving the ball...especially if you're one of those players who pumps and really winds up just to make an infield throw.

I've seen this happen so often with "hot shot-strong armed" players. They get the ball quick at 3rd and have all day to throw, so they take an extra shuffle, pump the ball, then fire it as hard as they possibly can to first. Why? Because it looks cool? Because they look like a hot shot? Meanwhile their 1b drops an extra ball or to a game that tips off their because it's not the "easiest" ball to catch since fielder hung on to it extra long then decided to gun it which gives 1b less time to see the ball coming to them and many 3bs who do this have some kind of tails on the ball that only gets worse the harder they throw. So now you just tripled the level of difficulty on a simple routine play so you could look cool? That typically doesn't help your team get more outs.

Then these players get sooooo used to going through all that extra motion time consuming motion that when a play comes where they have to be quick, it's uncomfortable for them and feels like pressure since their "normal" routine is shuffle, shuffle, pump, big wind up, gun. You don't have time for all that on the tougher pressure plays. I prefer to make a more efficient motion your "norm" then if you get a ball where you really do have lots of time and want to take a little extra time (by being more deliberate in your normal motion vs adding all kinds of unnecessary action) while still making the play easy for 1b, that's fine every now and then. I just don't like seeing players making that their "normal" mode. Makes the tough, quick, pressure plays too "different" from "normal" which makes them less likely to make those plays consistently. JMHO

In answer to the OP question...core training has helped my girls increase their throwing power tremendously! This is especially true for my oldest daughter who is small and always had a weaker arm than most girls her age. She's going to be 15 and is still just 5'0" and almost 100lbs. She's obviously not going to out-power most girls, but core training has really helped her build her overall athleticism and functional strength so that she can keep up and have a throw is no longer obviously weaker than girls her age. In fact, now, there now some players that she does throw harder than even though they have more size than her.

 

[rowdy]

Do a lot of throwing in practice. We do long toss at the beginning to close our warm up. We also have a few drills we do early in the season to build some strength, we also time every drill so that we can train on the quantity of the throws along with the quality. Timing the throws builds in a reason to throw all balls with velocity.

 

[coachtucc]

OH throw?? what does that mean?? can't mean Overhead??

 

[Greenmonsters]

OH throw?? what does that mean?? can't mean Overhead??

OH = overHAND