Throwing Program

Expert Discussion Strength Training
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  1. Ok so for a pitcher everyone says to follow a javelin throwers program. But a lot of people say pitchers need not do anything real stressful on the shoulders such as bench press, and are not advocates of the oly lifts.

  2. Yet in all the Javelin throwers programs, they advocate bench pressing and heavy oly lifting.

  3. So does that mean that oly lifts and bench pressing should be included? I thought that with pitching, snatching, jerking, and benching would put too much stress on the shoulder joint.

  4. So in sticking with that idealology, and with Charlie’s train opposite end of the spectrum of the specific sport need(speed with the pitching), one would again train maximum strength. But how does one get this training in without the stress to the shoulder joint?

  5. My thoughts on this were since training of the deaccelerators were of the upmost importance considerable time should b spent on them, this isnt a heavy stress on the shoulder joint I think(rear delt raises, external rotations, rows, face pulls, different kinds of curls etc…and with an accentuated eccentrics as their main responsibility is eccentric in nature) and as for the throwing motion hitting the triceps and lats real hard(dumbbell bench press with palms facing each other, heavy extensions, heavy pressdowns, heavy barbell or dumbbell pull overs, delt raises, etc…)

  6. Does this sound good for a throwers program? Of course power conversion would occur with pitching.

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With my baseball pitchers we do both ME and DE squats. Alot of work on the posterior chain(glute/ham, pull through, hypers. Lots and lots of chinups. Powerball snatch throws, med ball throws:between the legs and lighter(2-3lbs) over head MB throws into the wall, standing, on one knee and running up with a crow hop. I even use the gun on these and check the velocity. One of my high school guys, who worked his tail off and was very dilligent about training, increased his fast ball 4-5MPH and had a great senior season.

I have not used the OL’s with any pitchers yet, but in the enyclopedia of weightlifting, it talks about former pitcher Steve Bedrosian using the olympic lifts late in his career after surgery and he actually threw harder than he ever had prior to surgery.