im 17 and a catcher for my local high school baseball team, but during the season the throws to second and the corners slowly die down. what can i do to help bring the speed back up??

Since you are a catcher, it could be a combination of overall conditioning and arm strength. Make sure you are well conditioned prior to season start and then, if possible, get in two/three days a week of circuit type lifting. POP time in catching has as much to do with technique as it does with arm strength.

As far as long toss this is somewhat dependent on you. My son is a pitcher and he will long toss nearly every day. Day after pitching will only be light throwing, and then two days after he is back into his routine. You have to go with your body and some days he works harder than others.

You can see what kind of responses you get here and then repost this in the catching section.

My pop Time is 1.8 to second and a 1.25 to the corners. its just the speed slowin down.

BOF, how is your son doing on his long-tossing program? Is he getting some results?

BUM thanks for asking:

I will post this here instead of a PM so others can see the trade off's that a HS player has to make sometimes.

To your question, he is struggling to get in the LT work 2-3x per week, so I would say he is just keeping his conditioning up.

His biggest issue is his pitching mechanics. He has been working with a coach from his scout team to get them fixed prior to the season start - so this has been his primary focus point. He has always had this glove side flaw in his throwing and his leg strength in the past did not allow him to really address it. He is physically capable of dealing with it now, so this is what he is focusing on. He pitches 2 innings on Sunday and then gets a lesson one other day, so those are the 2 "for sure" days and he fills in one other. He really focuses on the glove side during these sessions, not maxing out just yet. A number of coaches have said that there is at least 4 MPH lost in his delivery inefficiencies and we are working on fixing this first, and once and for all. After this is squared away he will get back to a more focused LT routine…. probably after Thanksgiving.

He has a very demanding academic schedule this quarter (Jr yr) and is taking an evening class at the JC two nights a week, and he is also getting ready for the SAT tests so he literally has no time other than school, baseball, homework, (and some sleep).

He will get back to a more rigorous LT routine, but we felt it was more important to fix the mechanics first, so he was not reinforcing bad mechanics. (the old practice makes permanent argument)

I’ll PM you later in the week.