I need to know how to throw harder. I am 13 and I throw 68 mph, ya I know its already hard but w/e. Mostly cuz i wana get in better shape. ( Don’t worry I’m very accurate 
) Anyways just wanted to get some good info. thanks!
You want to throw harder? Alright!
First, try to get at least 2 (and try for 3) pitching sessions (100% intensity while videotaping with the goal to improve), as pitching is a two-phase motor skill.
Out of 7 days, it’s as many (I’d say at least 2, try for 3) as you can. The Japanese throw 100+ pitch bullpens, Korean youths pitch over 200. They’re able to do that in games as well.
I’d recommend doing it Mon/Wed/Fri or Tue/Thur/Saturday. It depends on the individual, it’s what’s known as the Principle of Individuality. Some people need 48 hours (IE. Throw on Tuesday at 6 PM, Thursday at 6 PM would be 48 hours), while some need 72 hours. Some can throw back to back. It depends on how you’re feeling. I can’t tell you, only you know.
I will give you some advice. Do you stretch before you play baseball/pitch/work out?
"Stretching reduces the strength-endurance capability of a pitcher (Kokkonen, Nelson, & Arnall, 2001).
Excessive stretching in warm-ups inhibits strength performance (Kokkonen & Nelson, 1996) and force production (Behm, Button, & Butt, 2001; Evetovich, Nauman, Conley, & Todd, 2003; Fry, McLellan, Weiss, & Rosato, 2003).
Stretching routines should be moderate to minimal and cease at least one hour before the game (Fowles & Sale, 1997).
Stretching reduces throwing velocity (Noffal, Knudson, & Brown, 2004).
Stretching does not prevent injuries (Herbert & Gabriel, 2002; Wilkinson & Williams, 2003).
Some researchers have said that no stretching should be performed at all before explosive activities (Young & Behm, 2003)."
Not only in pitchers mind you, it decreases speed, power, and force production. In exercises, in sprints, etc…
What you want to do is a dynamic warm up:
High knees
Butt kickers
Side shuffles (feet nearly touch in between each rep)
Backwards running
Lunges (get low)
Karaokes
Arm Swing, circles
Running, sprints
Push ups
Or, if you live close enough, take a 10 minute hot shower. The goal is to raise the body temperature 1 – 1 1/2ºC, enough where a light sweat breaks out on the back of your hands, upper lip, and forehead.
Now since you’re 13, you probably just want some simple answers instead of the science behind everything, so..
To increase velocity, a great way to do it is to increase your speed of movement and your momentum.
From 31.5 of The Science and Art of Baseball Pitching: "As has been pointed out earlier, once the arm is cocked to throw, the arm movement propelling the ball is not powered by muscular contraction (Jobe, Tibone, Perry, & Moynes, 1983). Propulsion comes from elastic energy stored in the appropriate structures. As a tangential explanation, this is why weight training of any form will not increase arm throwing velocity; because arm-throw velocity is not caused by the muscular movements trained by using weights. Finally, after the ball release when the arm segments have to slow down to prevent injury, high levels of muscular contractions take place to slow the join movements and absorb the kinetic energy in the high-velocity limb movement.
A basic rule in the stretch-shortening (elastic energy) cycle is, the faster the structures about a joint are put on stretch, the faster will be the ensuing release movement. If one wanted to jump high from a standing position, a quick leg dip will result in a higher jump than would a slow dip. The quicker a movement is, the greater is the amount of kinetic energy it forms. The greater the amount of kinetic energy, the greater is the amount of elastic energy that can be developed."
Now just incase I lost you there, it’s saying the quicker you move (which shows up in stride length), with good momentum and no hesitation, the faster you’ll throw.
As soon as you lift your leg (the one closest to the plate) up, make a strong lunge, push or leg drive into a longer stride. (You want to move leading with your front hip)
The main focus is to move your body faster toward the plate, which will equate into a longer stride. I suggest looking at this video of Sandy Koufax. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm8oHYRS6hA
No hesitation in his delivery, a stride length of what looks to be close to his height if not even further out. It was the same with Nolan Ryan as well. It will put your body in a better position to throw the ball, thus less chance for injury and better control.
Also, look at 0:31 and 0:43 of that video. Do you see him taking a step directly back? That adds more momentum because you’re putting your body at a greater distance from the plate. More momentum = more velocity.
Also
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hAviGQNvJrE
87 MPH with a 133% stride length. Talk about speed of movement (though you want to focus moving towards the plate, not up and towards the plate like he did [which he's working on]).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77TE0xvG8Ds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZF8VUvumXw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4WuWu1scBY
Look at his speed of movement. He’s not a huge weightlifter, but he moves explosively. 92 MPH. That is speed of movement and momentum right there. That is how you increase your velocity the most.
Stride length is a result of speed of movement and momentum.
If you’re lacking in them, your stride length will be short. If not, it should be around 100% or more.
What I suggest you do is as your leg reaches its highest point (which should be about waist-high. The reason is because as it goes higher than that, speed of movement is sacraficed.) Push hard (think of trying to push the rubber towards second base) while leading with your front hip. That will increase your speed of movement, which will increase your stride length.
If you want to get better (velocity, control, able to throw more pitches), you’re going to have to throw in blocked sets – with rest in between – so as not to fatigue, and to also go over what you need to work on during the next block in order to improve.
You’ll want to throw 5-6 of the same pitch in the same location (and it’d be nice if you had someone watch you to offer advice, or what would be better is videotaping, so you can see yourself what you need to fix), then take about 1 1/2 to 2 minute break, then do this again.
Keep record of how many times you hit the desired location, and always try to become better than the pitch before.
This will all help you improve. The more you pitch (and with good feedback so you know what to do to improve), the better you’ll become.
If you’re expected to throw 100 pitches in a game, you better be able to do it in practice. If you don’t, you won’t be fit to pitch those 100 pitches. That’s where people hit the so called "wall", their control goes south, their velocity might lower, and their chance for injury (because your body isn’t using the same motion because of fatigue) increases. That’s why you should build up your bullpen pitches higher and higher (not right away, but as I said, build up the number of pitches gradually).
As your mechanics are improved, and your skill improves, then start pitching both in non-fatigued and fatigued states (Then start throwing 10-15 pitches a block if you want). "Arnett, DeLuccia, and Gilmartien (2000) showed that males and not females benefit from practicing in fatigued conditions. Performance in fatigued situations improved after condition-specific practice. A coach must be wary not to practice only in fatigued states but to balance the two experiences and to err on the side of too little rather than too much fatigued practice."
Now about long-toss, don’t do it. You’re wasting valuable time that could be spent on the mound getting better.
Luttgens and Hamilton (1997), in their book on kinseiology about The Specificity of Neuromuscular Patterns: "Skillful and efficent performance in a particular technique can be developed only by practice of that technique. Only in this way can the necessary adjustments in the neuromuscular mechanism be made to ensure a well-coordinated movement. (p. 507).
That supports that if you want to get better at pitching, you do it from 100% intensity while being videotaped on the mound so you can see what you’re doing wrong and make the necessary corrections. You do not go out and do long-toss, which doesn’t replicate the pitching motion 100% intensity off the mound.
From 8.2 of The Science and Art of Baseball Pitching: "Total actions (e.g., those to be used in a competitive setting [ie. pitching]) need to be practiced. The partial or isolated training of movement segments (e.g., long-toss, resistance training) would not replicate the unit function in the total action [it's not the same as pitching from the mound]. Thus, once techniques (total response patterns) are being refined, partial practices will serve no purpose other than to learn another movement. There should be no intergration of the partial practice movement into the total response movement once an individual-determined level of skill competency is reached. The only way a highly skilled pitcher can improve his pitching, is to practice pitching. No axuiliary training activities will contribute to skill enhancement once the skill has achieved a resonable level of proficiency."
The specificity of movement patterns and control is a scientifically established principle of human exercise. There has been no wavering on this scientifically validated phenomenon over the past century, although minor theoretical incursions have been attempted. The training of the pitching skill and its variants has to be specific and hole.
The key is that baseball pitching is overwhelmingly a skilled acitivty. Every long-toss throw replaces a throw that could be made from the mound while working on perfecting better mechanics, stimulating game conditions, and mentally focusing and rehearsing the very refined and difficult skill of hitting the glove with all pitches.
Strength in the throwing shoulder is equal with the strength in the non-throwing shoulder (Sirota, Malanga, Eischen, & Laskowski, 1997). Ellenbecker and Mattalino (1997) also showed there were no differences between both shoulders in isokinetic work in professional pitchers. Strength did not differentiate the throwing arm and non-throwing arm and therefore, is an element that is irrelevant for pitching. It shows that strength in the throwing shoulder is not that important (for velocity) because it is no different to the non-throwing shoulder.
Long-toss is a different skill than pitching, the neuromuscular patterns are different, it will not transfer anything positive over to the pitching motion for anyone who has a decent level (or above) of skill at pitching.
Arthurt Salter-Hammel, personal communication, October, 1967 = When an arm was extended vertically downward and the index finger slowly traced a 12-inch circle, a pattern of sequential firing of the shoulder muscles was displayed with most muscles assuming a propulsive (agonistic) function at one time and a control (antagonistic) function at another. HOWEVER, when the same circle-tracing was sped-up, the sequence and functions of all the muscles were totally changed despite an observer seeing the "same action" done at a faster velocity.
Do you see why specificity matters? Not only in exercise, but in pitching from the mound at game-type intensity.
Best of luck. Any more questions, ask away.
Edited: And I have to address Mike W. STOP IT! Stop, it, I’m serious. Stop.
First, arm strength is developed by long toss. Have you honestly read what I’ve posted? And I’m not trying to be mean at all, I’m really not. But if you just look at the studies, perhaps you’ll start changing your mentality.
A lot of coaches do swear by it, but most the world swore by the Earth being flat, the Earth being the center of the universe. A lot of coaches teach what they’ve been taught, not what science has proven to be a waste of time. Okay I’m not going to say a waste of time, if you want to use it to raise your intensity before you go throw off the mound, fine. Other than that, it’s a waste of time.
It’s been proven? Okay, please show me the scientific studies posted with peer-review in scientific journals.
I’ve seen this before:
"i threw 55 mph my freshman year and was up to 80 by the end of summer ball my senior year. so if you want to see an example, there you go. hope this helps. "
Do you know how many different factors are involved to attribute to going 55 mph to 80? And to pin it to something that doesn’t help just shows ignorance beyond belief.
You could’ve grown (bigger, taller, faster)
Your level of skill could’ve increased (via more years pitching, some instruction)
You could’ve had some mechanical flaws fixed
Again, don’t focus on long-toss, just follow what I’ve said above and you’ll be throwing harder and harder (and more accurate, no sore arms) as the months go bye.
Tags: baseball pitch, baseball training, baseball workouts, Body, control, mound, plate, principle of individuality, speed, strength endurance, stretching routines, training for baseball, warm ups, workouts for baseball
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