It’s not a new arm slot
It’s not some mechanical adjustment
It’s not yet another bullpen
It’s not shoulder tubes, “recovery” wraps, or the latest marketing repackaging of weighted balls.
What it is, is applying the principles of physics to baseball
Produce more force, and you’ll throw harder.
How do you produce more force? Like we learned in high school physics, F = M x A.
Mass x Acceleration
That’s how you produce more force.
An important note is that in baseball, unlike many other sports, “mass” doesn’t mean mass specific force. In other words, you don’t have to overcome your own bodyweight while throwing a baseball or swinging a bat, like you have to while jumping or sprinting.
So while for example sprinters require a very low BF% to be successful, baseball pitchers can be very big and not necessarily “cut”, and still generate excellent velocity.
That’s why for the vast majority of pitchers, gaining mass results in greater FORCE, and subsequently velocity.
Not surprisingly, this is reflected in the elite population of the sport: the average MLB pitcher this past season came in at 6’3” and 220 lbs.
An intelligent diet driving gains in lean muscle, with the foundation of smart strength training, is a game changer for many kids.
Now for the other part of the equation: acceleration.
Speed and explosive work is a must for pitchers.
But sadly most don’t know how to go about it.
Because of long standing dogma at the low levels, many high school kids think “explosive” means doing cleans and snatches.
As it is, strengths are measured in velocities. So no EXERCISE is inherently “explosive”, it depends on the VELOCITY being produced in executing the exercise.
Therefore there’s many options available to accomplish training explosive strength, which is good news for overhead throwers, as the clean and snatch are notorious for creating a number of shoulder pathologies.
It’s also important to note that force is plane specific. So what baseball athletes should be focusing their efforts around is improving their ROTATIONAL power, which can done in an explosive manner in a number of ways.
Add size. Get explosive. Produce more force.
And start throwing gas.