New toy for Christmas

Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch

Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.

Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
Not sure if I've mentioned it here before, but next Winter try hard to take a break from pitching. Our first year we worked hard on pitching over the off-season and it paid off. But that meant that she had been pitching continuously for well over a year. This year we enforced a very strict 8 weeks of zero pitching and will do so going forward.

1. I've seen amazing pitchers have multiple surgeries by age 14. Not sure they'll have a future career
2. Pitchers still need to be able to field and hit, at least at younger ages. You can focus on those more while her arm rests
3. I've seen evidence (though it's not hugely scientific) that they do better at pitching after these types of breaks

You seem to be following a similar path to what we did, but you're one year (in both age and progress). She's looking good, and of course no one wants to see her injure her arm.

I'll report back about my DD's progress after the long break. We're doing conditioning, fielding, hitting, team practices start tomorrow. But another 2 weeks until I'll let her pitch.
 
Oct 26, 2019
1,375
113
Not sure if I've mentioned it here before, but next Winter try hard to take a break from pitching. Our first year we worked hard on pitching over the off-season and it paid off. But that meant that she had been pitching continuously for well over a year. This year we enforced a very strict 8 weeks of zero pitching and will do so going forward.

1. I've seen amazing pitchers have multiple surgeries by age 14. Not sure they'll have a future career
2. Pitchers still need to be able to field and hit, at least at younger ages. You can focus on those more while her arm rests
3. I've seen evidence (though it's not hugely scientific) that they do better at pitching after these types of breaks

You seem to be following a similar path to what we did, but you're one year (in both age and progress). She's looking good, and of course no one wants to see her injure her arm.

I'll report back about my DD's progress after the long break. We're doing conditioning, fielding, hitting, team practices start tomorrow. But another 2 weeks until I'll let her pitch.
Just make sure that if you have shut down all underhand throwing for eight weeks that you slowly ramp back up in both volume and intensity when you return. With any good program whether it be throwing, running, lifting, etc. there are deload periods built in. The deload periods are great times to work on overall conditioning with both sides of the body to help with some of the asymmetries that softball creates...Or my preference to play another sport like basketball or swimming.

This winter my DD has not pitched, but instead we have worked on the IR drills during this time. She is still resting the arm with such a light load, but still working on an area of need.
 
Feb 10, 2018
496
93
NoVA
Great work. Your DD looks very good, esp for her age. Looks like you all are building a strong mechanical foundation. Will pay dividends later. Wish I could get my DD (14U) to gain a mph/month. LOL.

ETA: I might have missed it, but what camera set up/app are you using that synchs to the Pocket Radar?
 
Nov 22, 2019
297
43
Not sure if I've mentioned it here before, but next Winter try hard to take a break from pitching. Our first year we worked hard on pitching over the off-season and it paid off. But that meant that she had been pitching continuously for well over a year. This year we enforced a very strict 8 weeks of zero pitching and will do so going forward.

1. I've seen amazing pitchers have multiple surgeries by age 14. Not sure they'll have a future career
2. Pitchers still need to be able to field and hit, at least at younger ages. You can focus on those more while her arm rests
3. I've seen evidence (though it's not hugely scientific) that they do better at pitching after these types of breaks

You seem to be following a similar path to what we did, but you're one year (in both age and progress). She's looking good, and of course no one wants to see her injure her arm.

I'll report back about my DD's progress after the long break. We're doing conditioning, fielding, hitting, team practices start tomorrow. But another 2 weeks until I'll let her pitch.

My DD recently had a 30 day break but next season I’ll look to extend it. I’ll also have her take a week off a few weeks before the spring season starts.

I wish I new the ideal amount of time off 4-6-8 weeks.
 
Nov 22, 2019
297
43
Great work. Your DD looks very good, esp for her age. Looks like you all are building a strong mechanical foundation. Will pay dividends later. Wish I could get my DD (14U) to gain a mph/month. LOL.

ETA: I might have missed it, but what camera set up/app are you using that synchs to the Pocket Radar?

It’s the smart coach version of Pocket Radar, so it’s their own app. The nicest thing about the app is that it auto edits, so the camera can just keep running and you get these nice organized clips of each pitch.
 
Last edited:
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
Just make sure that if you have shut down all underhand throwing for eight weeks that you slowly ramp back up in both volume and intensity when you return. With any good program whether it be throwing, running, lifting, etc. there are deload periods built in. The deload periods are great times to work on overall conditioning with both sides of the body to help with some of the asymmetries that softball creates...Or my preference to play another sport like basketball or swimming.

This winter my DD has not pitched, but instead we have worked on the IR drills during this time. She is still resting the arm with such a light load, but still working on an area of need.

Fine, fine point. We are staying active and working on her running/speed as well as hitting.

But yes, our plan to start up is probably 3-4 sessions of very light work, and working on spins in her room at night. Gonna ramp up really slow. Of course we'd hate for her arm to be injured ever and her miss games, but I also don't want a daughter who can't lift her arm over her head when she's 40 years old.
 
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
My DD recently had a 30 day break but next season I’ll look to extend it. I’ll also have her take a week off a few weeks before the spring season starts.

I wish I new the ideal amount of time off 4-6-8 weeks.

Agreed. Not sure what the magic number is. Which is why we're going with 8. So we'll start up in Feb, and first tourney is early March. More than enough time to get game ready.
 
Oct 26, 2019
1,375
113
Fine, fine point. We are staying active and working on her running/speed as well as hitting.

But yes, our plan to start up is probably 3-4 sessions of very light work, and working on spins in her room at night. Gonna ramp up really slow. Of course we'd hate for her arm to be injured ever and her miss games, but I also don't want a daughter who can't lift her arm over her head when she's 40 years old.
Totally agree. I know from coaching baseball most injuries of the arm that I saw with pitchers occurred on Labor Day weekend. A lot of the pitchers pitched in the spring and summer and then took August off. Then they would go out the first weekend of the fall and throw six innings and end up on the table for the rest of the fall. This was attributed to taking August off and thenGoing fullbore out of the gate to start the fall
 
Last edited:

Forum statistics

Threads
42,830
Messages
679,475
Members
21,445
Latest member
Bmac81802
Top