I got a sophomore pitcher who also plays football. In our school we have a PE class just for athletes and our football and baseball teams lift togehter because of logistics.

My pitcher went to his private pitching coach on Wednesday and threw 40 pitches. Thursday is when we lift in school. He has a showcase on Saturday. His private coach told him not to lift today. I didn't think there will be a problem with it.

I told him the pitching the night before and lifting today will not hurt him. Also, the lifting won't affect his performance at the showcase Saturday because he will have Friday to recover.

I did tell him to not get real heavy today with the weights to help ensure he won't get wore out.

I just want to make sure what I did and told him is accurate. This is a big strong kid. He is about 6'2 and 190 lbs. He plays quarterback for a very bad football team so he gets hit quite a bit but he just shrugs it off. He went to a showcase before Christmas and threw 86 mph.

This kid has a future in baseball and I want to make sure I don't do something that's going to hurt it. I feel that I have a good understanding of weightlifting and conditioning but there is a lot I need to learn. I want to make sure that I am not wrong on this and hurt my players in the future.

Any help be great - thanks.

I also told him that after lifting the absolute best thing to do is to stretch. I also made sure that he stretched really well after lifting today.

Hopefully you get some more opinions to chime in here.
1st of all, he is a sophmore. I wouldn't think that he would actually hurt himself in this situation, but he may throw slower. I would think it would depend on his normal recovery from the lifting that he does. If he was a junior and it was the only showcase he was going to be able to attend or attend with "that special coach from the school I want to attend", well I probably wouldn't have him lift. So talk with him and see how it went and go from there.
Also, if he doesn't know - make sure his hydration, nutrition, and rest are good consistently.

Tim Robertson

I guess I'll post here what I told coach on a PM...

"Hey Coach,

He should be ok as long as he is not out of his routine at all. If he always lifts on Thursday, or two days before he throws, then it wont hinder him at all.

If he is not used to it, then yes it may hinder him. But as you mentioned he took it easy and if hes a tough kid he will be fine. Most of it is mental make-up anyway. I'd be more worried about him over-trying than being tired. He is 16, prob has unlimited energy anyway.

Let me know how he does."

From what I know, there is no harm in lifting the day after a BP session or after an outing for a starting pitcher on 5 day rotation. Not sure if it is suggested for a pitcher going to one showcase or camp to pitch.

This is where it gets tricky. This is how many hS pitchers get hurt before spring season. Their workouts should depend upon their pitching schedule. This time of year is usually the preperation phase for pitchers, completely different from how you prepare when pitching in season. Unless the player was working with a trainer who may know what is best, I would be careful. Also, you should make it easy on the player so he will not be torn between you or his instructor. That would be letting him either listen to one or the other in their advice.

JMO.

Thank all of you for your replies. I was getting worried that I wasn't going to get any.

This is all part of a normal routine he has. He lifts on Monday and Thursday at school for about 35 minutes. The workouts are mainly big muscle work - bench press, squat, dead lift and a few small muscle stuff. I'm in there helping supervise with my baseball players and I have yet to think any lift they were doing would be harmful. He throws every Wednesday with his instructor about 40 pitches. So really the showcase is the only thing that is different in this week.

To me this comes down to the two schools of thought that I have seen over the years.

1) The school that is like what Leo Mazzone teaches. Use it or lose it. His guys throw more to keep in shape. That was probably a horrible explanation of it but I hope you understand what I am saying.

2) The other school is what I have seen in a lot of amateur circles. Your arm only has a set number of pitches in it so you need to be careful. These guys tend to stay away from exercises that are not baseball specific. I hope this makes sense as well.

This kid is big and strong and that is why I felt he would be fine. I got a lefty who is about 5'10 and 140 lbs after he gets out of the pool. I doubt I would have let him lift in this situation.

I would contact Coach May, he is pretty much into specific training for different positions.
In college and pro ball your program is designed around the position you play, it is not really a one size fits all which is usually found in the HS gym room.

Coach2709 -
It would be good to post how this kid is doing next week, how he things went at the showcase as far as his physical condition (was fine - threw hard, was tired the mph was off a bit,etc.) and also down the road, but then again so many other things can factor in. Training is as much art as it is science.
Personally I would agree with Mazzone from what I have read. My only disagreement may be in application - I think that throwing more has to be worked into.
We read so much about pitch counts and tearing kids arms up, etc. This is not some machine, it is a living being with capabilities for repair and increase. We wouldn't say that a person only has so many steps to take in life, so you need to limit your walking/running now would we? If that is true then we shouldn't exercise? Would you tell the swimmer that the shoulder only has so many rotations left in it so limit the number of laps you swim? Oh and is Nolan Ryan part cat? - I mean that I've read of 259 pitches thrown in a game - did he have more lives in his arm than the normal person? I think that if we looked closer at Ryan's life we would see someone who progressively pitched more and more so that this 259 pitches in a game did not tear him up. I would also tend to think that he (fireballer that he was) would not have thrown 259 - 100 mph pitches in that game. He probably cruised at a lower speed and stepped on the gas a little when needed.
I think too that when we have a pitcher we need to teach him (make sure he understands) that you can increase the number of pitches and the intensity (translating to mph) of the pitches slowly, but you can't do both at the same time and you can't have drastic increases with either one.
So here you have a kid pitching and say he's been throwing 80 pitches for you starting once a week after several months of the season. The trouble would be that you are in a game now and the kid has thrown 70 pitches and he's finished his 4th inning and the score is tied and darn you need this win over this team. So you send him back out and now his count is 85 pitches after 5 innings of work and the scored is still tied 2-2. Do you send him back out? Your next option is a sophmore lefty who you just brought up from the JV squad as several other pitchers are hurt and now you find this kid had just thrown 3 innings and 50 pitches 3 days ago. So you send your starter back out and after 6 innings and 95 pitches the score is still tied. You now bat and after 6 and 1/2 innings you are ahead 4-2, so because you need this game so bad (oh, and that sophmore lefty throws 75 mph and the ump ain't calling the corners this game) you send your starter out one more time after a pep talk and you win the game. Now the kid finished with 115 pitches and now next week he's in a similar situation and hey can he give me 115 more this time? Can he come into a tight game on Monday after 3 days rest and give me a few innings, 50 pitches and then we need him for his Thur. game again, etc. It's the dramatic increase that's the problem, not the pitch count. And as I said so many other factors - late night trying to get a paper done and only got 4 hours sleep, eating junk food - not enough nutrition, not drinking enough water on a regular basis.
The other situation which may be harder to tell, that pitcher starts that game you need and you have been emphasizing the importance of this game to your team and this pitcher gets wound up and figures that when this batter and then this all district player, and then an all state player gets up to bat - I got to strike them out. I've been blowing 90 when I step on the gas, I need to step a little harder for this batter, then this batter, then this batter - it's colder than I thought it would be so I didn't wear my sweatshirt under my uniform and/or our at bat against the other team went longer than I thought it would and I didn't toss any to keep my arm/body warm and loose, etc. and you do a lot more with your body than you're used too. I also think that many kids come up (at least the ones I know) throwing hard at one speed for their fast ball and if they try to step on the gas too much for too many times in that special outing that's a big increase too - that might be the playoffs, trying out for that travel team, doing a showcase, etc.
Things to think about.

Tim Robertson

Tim I think that is a great post. While I am by no means an expert I do believe from years of observation that you can pretty much train your body to do almost anything. I don't believe in the your arm only has so many pitches in it theorty. Maybe I am in some sort of minorty who has heard that. In fact when discussing this theory with someone one day I used your example of limited number of steps.

What I teach is during the pre season we slowly build up our pitch total. We start the first week with drill work and long tossing. Then we continue this stuff while adding in pitches. We don't start breaking pitches (slider, curve) until they have been built up to around 35 - 45 pitches. By the time the season starts (we have 6 weeks of pre season) our guys are around 80 pitches. For the first week of the season we cap them at 80 and pull them when they reach it. We have lost some games becasue of it but our guys are strong by the end of the season. We usually have guys be able to throw around 95 - 105 in a 7 inning game.

We watch and talk to our guys during the game and listen to what the catcher says about his velocity and location. If it starts going down we get them out. Our guys don't pick up a ball the next day after at least 50 some pitches - depends on the kid. They either sit or DH - they don't take IF / OF or anything that involves a ball. They do end up doing quite a bit of distance running though. The second day if they play a position we let them throw but limit them to a distance of around 115 feet or so. Third day we cut them loose if they feel like it. Since we don't play everyday our starters have about 6 days "rest" between starts.

When our guys do showcases we teach them to stay away from "max effort" because it pretty much shows that you are pretty close to your ceiling. We want them to come out and throw 95% or so to show their MPH. The last couple of throws we do tell them to turn it loose more but to make sure their mechanics don't break down. We also make sure they don't turn into missle launchers and knock down planes when they long toss. We want it to be reasonably high off the ground but not high enough to hit planes.

My guy had his showcase today and he did just fine. He pitched first and topped out at 86 MPH which is where he was last month. He average at 83 MPH overall. His slider had a pretty nice bite to it but I have seen it better.

Then he went to 40 yard sprint and he was probably a little faster than normal but he ran with the second fastest guy there. The competition made him get up and go a little bit.

Then he went to IF work (he also plays 3B). He was one of the better guys to go. His throws to 1B were on a line and accurate. He moved well around to get to the ball.

His last thing was hitting and he hit some ropes. He is still learning to hit the other way and that is where he did the worst.

Overall I think he made a good impression today.

Thanks for your replies and I just want to make sure I am not making mistakes with my guys in the weight room.