Most people agree that long tossing and working out will help you gain arm strength. When talking to a friend, he told me that I could gain arm strength by just resting. He said that the arm is just like muscles, that continually doing the same exercise will make it harder to gain strength or MPH in this case. Do you agree that giving my arm a month rest from throwing will help get it stronger?

I am still working out with legs,core,and rotator cuff

IMO it won't. The more you yhrow the stronger your arm gets. Of course rest is needed but, people are to afraid to throw too much just because of fatigue. Thats why high school throwing velocity keeps getting worse.

You want to tell me what muscle gets stronger by just resting it?

Answer: None

Sorry but your friend has no idea. Unless there is an injury to the tissues it should be recovered in 3-5 days tops.

In short, NO.

Unless you are going through a rare explosive growth spurt, you won't gain arm strength sitting on your couch.

Muscles get stronger thru "recovery" and not "rest." And in order to have recovery, you first had to place an overload on the muscle. So there has to be some work involved and then the muscle will become stronger after the recovery period.

In addition to long toss, and workouts with elastic bands (external/internal rotation, etc), what are some good weight training exercises to help a player develop a stronger throwing arm? Am I correct in assuming that mass-building sets are not necessarily beneficial for this?

woody,
other than what u already mentioned and some basic weightlifing exercises. I would say exercsies like hang cleans, dumbbell snatches, and upper body plyometrics will not only make ur arm stronger but make you more explosive

Build your strength from the inside out. Don't forget a great core program, plyometrics and mechanical training. As for weight training, concentrate on the legs and seek symmetry.

Maxx, I do not know if you have had training in Physiology but it sort of sounds like you have. The Exercise Science people my son sees says rest is equally important as the workout. Seems to have worked for him. I think they use the term "rest" because they want to include a full nights sleep. The Physiologist he sees gave him a whole body test and told him where he was too weak or too strong. I guess he was saying a balanced body throws/pitches the best. One of the Exercise Science guys he sees is having him do a bunch of different(I say different because some of the exercises are new to me) exercises getting him in touch with his catagory "C" muscles. In one year he has gone from 83 to 96. This isn't to say he has arrived because there is a whole lot more to pitching than mph. I saw his 96 go out at over a hundo. Can we say "Location, Location, Location". I guess I am saying is get a Qualified Plan from a qualified person who gives case specific testing and get to work.

InTheMit, sound like your son is seeing some good people.

I would agree that rest=sleep, and recovery is the period of time between the initial overload and the next scheduled overload. That recovery period CAN and SHOULD include sleep. In my previous post, I was trying to explain to the original poster that growth and gains occur during that recovery period, not during his so-called rest, which by his definition was doing absolutely nothing, hence no overload.

Care to share what exercises are helping him "get in touch" with his category C muscles?

My son is in his senior year and competing for the draft picks. I don't think it would be prudent at this time to say too much. Furthermore, I am NOT a Physiologist of any sort and I really don't know what they are called. I just know what we have been through the last five years and what is going on now is working - better than I could have imagined. I will say this. He has three coaches. One for form and concentration. One for whole body analysis- physiologist, and one for exercising - Exercise Science coach. Since seeing these people great things have been happening. I firmly believe something would be missing if one of the three were missing. I definitely don't believe I would be so familiar with Tommy John if he had all three of these fella's years ago.
Even though I have learned much from these people, I would never give advice on specific exercises because I am not educated to do so. But I do recommend seeing formally educated people in sports medicine. I feel strongly about that and firmly believe it. Another thing before I forget, my son hasn't had a sore arm for a long time now that I think about it - this is also a big change. One more thing before I go, the physiologist and exercise science people are expensive....but worth every penny spent because they are keeping the DREAM ALIVE.

what type of lifts would help you gain arm strength?Do resistance bands help?If so,what type of routine

I do a drill where I have a 15lbs weight in my hand,parallel,and essentially go through a throwing motion,only using my forearm,which keeps my shoulder straight.Trying to figure out the "proper name" for this lift

nevermind just ran a search and got some good info

Here is a link to some arm strengthening exercises:

http://www.maxxtraining.com/jobes.htm

Also, remember, lower body strength and core strength can help with arm strength since that is where the movement is initiated.

So are some of you saying that a pitcher should not have down time throughout the calendar year? Professional pitchers have an off-season. Why is that?

More and more power arms from the high school ranks are coming from areas where they don't play year-round baseball. Washington is a great example as in New Jersey. More and more power arms from the sunbelt states are breaking down. These are the same states that play all year with high school, travel stuff, scout ball, etc. You can't tell me there is not a direct correlation.

thanks maxx