Strength in Numbers – 268
For years, baseball has treated “arm care” as something that happens around throwing.
A few bands. Light dumbbells. Shoulder mobility. A standard warm-up. Maybe a few exercises after throwing, or a crazy 2×12 exercise program with 20 reps per set to fully burn out the arm.
Those things may have had some value. But there is a much bigger question:
Does ramping up training prepare the arm for the forces it experiences when throwing a baseball, and if so, can I overcook or imbalance my throwing arm?
That is where new-age arm care may be falling short.
Throwing Is a High-Force Activity
A pitcher may throw roughly 100 competitive pitches in a game, plus warm-up throws, bullpen pitches, and between-inning throws. Each throw places substantial forces on the shoulder as the arm accelerates and then rapidly decelerates.
Compare that with a traditional arm-care session consisting of hundreds of repetitions with very light resistance, or, now, programs that may overstimulate the throwing arm and drive down the nervous system.
In some instances, the exercise volume may be higher than the throwing volume, yet the force per repetition can be dramatically lower. Similarly, low exercise volume and heavy force may challenge the nervous system more than what it can handle.
Light work or heavy work requires the right performance framework, intent, and improved fatigue resistance, or recoverability. I am seeing that people try to make everything heavier and more exhaustive for the throwing arm.
The throwing arm needs enough strength, rate of force development, coordination, and tissue capacity to tolerate baseball—not simply enough endurance to complete an arm-care circuit, or lack of downloading, deloading, or overloading it.
An image from a recent post expressing the actual loading on the throwing arm that is experienced per throw when a pitcher can reach 90mph. Over 22,000 lbs of force per game if the pitcher is throwing 100 pitches. Training must support the loads placed on the arm.
One Size Fits All Is the Bigger Problem
Whether arm training is too easy or too challenging, the biggest limitation to high performance isn’t the exercises themselves or their intensity. It’s giving everyone the same exercises with little change or adjustment.
Two pitchers can throw the same velocity and have completely different physical profiles. One may lack external rotation strength. Another may struggle with internal rotation strength. One may have difficulty producing force quickly, while another produces plenty of force but has difficulty recovering between outings.
Giving them all the same five exercises (super heavy or super light) doesn’t address those differences.
In fact, training without measuring can potentially reinforce an existing imbalance.
This matters because the muscles around the shoulder don’t all do the same job. The arm must accelerate explosively, stabilize the shoulder at extremely high speeds, and then manage tremendous deceleration forces—all within fractions of a second.
Exercises like this one look very simple, but coordination-wise, they are very hard in engaging the serratus while in upward rotation – a motion-specific component of training that must be realized as well, not just force or mobility.
The progression should look more like:
Measure → Identify → Throw → Train→ Recover → Reassess
Measurement identifies where an athlete needs help. Training addresses those individual needs. Throwing provides the ultimate sport-specific stimulus and loading that the arm can handle. Reassessment tells us whether the athlete is adapting—or accumulating fatigue faster than they can recover.
The Goal Isn’t to Mimic Pitching in the Weight Room, or Blast the Arm, or Treat it Like Porcelain.
Throwing is already the most specific training activity a baseball player performs. We don’t need to recreate a 90+ mph pitch with a dumbbell.
Instead, training should develop the physical qualities that allow the athlete to tolerate and repeatedly produce high-speed throwing while balancing the shoulder.
The future isn’t about crushing the arm. The next generation of Arm Care is built on understanding the throwing arm inside and out.
Strength Matters Most.
Ryan
