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Making the Case for Long Toss in a Throwing ProgramWritten on December 12, 2010 at 12:05 pm, by Eric Cressey Long toss may have been scorned by quite a few baseball traditionalists, but I am a big fan of it – and our guys have responded outstandingly to the way we’ve used it. Perhaps it’s just my “1+1=2” logic at work, but I just feel like if you can build up the arm speed to throw the ball a loooonngggg way, then you’ll be able to carry that over to the mound as soon as you get your pitching mechanics dialed in. And, this has certainly been validated with our athletes, as we have loads of professional pitchers who absolutely swear by long toss (both off- and in-season). So, you can understand why I got excited when my good buddy, Alan Jaeger – a man who has devoted a big chunk of his life to getting long toss “accepted” in the baseball community – was featured in this article at MLB.com about what a difference it makes – including for the Texas Rangers on their road to the World Series.
I was, however, not a fan of this paragraph in the article: “Former Red Sox pitcher Dick Mills has a business built around teaching mechanics and maximizing velocity, and he is a staunch opponent of long tossing. He has released countless YouTube videos angrily decrying this practice. In his latest, ‘How Long Toss Can Ruin Your Pitching Mechanics and Your Arm,’ he says, ‘Why would you practice mechanics that are totally different and will not help a pitcher during a game? And why would you practice throwing mechanics that are clearly more stressful where the arm does most of the work?’” Taking it a step further, here’s a Dick Mills quote I came across a few years ago: “Training will not teach you how to apply more force…only mechanics can do that. And pitching is not about applying more effort into a pitch but is about producing more skilled movements from better timing of all the parts. That will help produce more force. No matter how hard you try, you will not get that from your strength training program…no matter who designed it, how much they have promised you it would or your hope that it will be the secret for you.” While I agree (obviously) on the importance of mechanics and timing, effectively, we’re still being told that long toss, strength training, and weighted balls are all ineffective modalities for developing the pitcher – which leaves us with what, bullpens and stretching? It sounds like every youth baseball practice in the country nowadays – and all we’re getting now are injured shoulders and elbows at astronomical rates. Something isn’t right – and the message is very clear: specificity is a very slippery slope.
On one hand, when it comes to mechanics, you need to throw off the mound to get things fine-tuned to achieve efficiency. On the other hand, research has shown that arm stress is higher when you’re on the mound (there is less external rotation at stride foot contact with flat ground throwing). Additionally, every pitch that’s thrown is really a step in the direction of sports specialization for a youth baseball player – and something needs to balance that out. Why? Well, specializing at a young age is destroying kids. As a great study from Olsen et al. showed, young pitchers who require surgery pitched “significantly more months per year, games per year, innings per game, pitches per game, pitches per year, and warm-up pitches before a game. These pitchers were more frequently starting pitchers, pitched in more showcases, pitched with higher velocity, and pitched more often with arm pain and fatigue.” And people think that kid need more work on the mound? What they need are more structured throwing sessions (practice, not competition) and a comprehensive throwing and strength and conditioning program to prepare them for the demands they’ll face.
But those aren’t specific enough, are they?!?!?! Well, let’s talk about specificity a bit more. Actually, let’s read – from renowned physical therapist Gray Cook, a guy who certainly knows a thing or two about why people get injured: The physical presentation of differently trained bodies often provides a signature of the type and style of activity that developed it. Those who are exclusive in their activities seem more often be molded to their activities, and sometimes actually over-molded. These individuals can actually lose movements and muscles that would make alternate activities much easier. Specialization can rob us of our innate ability to express all of our movement potential. This is why I encourage highly specialized athletes to balance their functional movement patterns. They don’t so much need to train all movement patterns, they just need to maintain them. When a functional movement pattern is lost, it forecasts a fundamental crack in a foundation designed to be balanced. The point is not that specialization is bad—it only presents a problem when the singular activity over-molds to the point of losing balance. While there are probably 15-20 awesome messages we can take home from the previous two paragraphs, here’s the big one I want to highlight: it’s our job as coaches to find the biggest window of adaptation a pitcher has and bring it up to speed – while simultaneously keeping other qualities in mind. If he’s stiff, we work on mobility. If he’s weak, we get him strong. If he’s a mechanical train wreck, we get him more bullpens. If his arm speed isn’t good, we work more on weighted balls and long toss. If you just take a 5-10, 120-pound 9th grader and have him throw bullpens exclusively, he’ll get better for a little bit, and then plateau hard unless you get him bigger and stronger.
How does this work? It’s a little principle called Delayed Transmutation that Vladimir Zatsiorsky highlighted in Science and Practice of Strength Training. Zatsiorsky defines delayed transmutation as “the time period needed to transform acquired motor potential into athletic performance.” In other words, expand and improve your “motor pool” in the off-season, and it’ll be transformed into specific athletic performance when the time is right. And, as I wrote in The Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual, “the more experienced you are in a given sport, the less time it will take for you to transform this newfound strength and power [and mobility] into sporting contexts.” This is why professional pitchers can find their groove each year MUCH easier than high school pitchers in spite of the fact that they probably take more time off each year (2-3 months from throwing) than the typical overused kid who plays on 17 different AAU teams.
That said, there’s a somewhat interesting exception to this rule: really untrained kids. I’ll give you two examples from the past week alone at Cressey Performance. We had a high school senior and a high school junior who both just started up their winter throwing programs to prepare for the season. The first told me that he was sore in his legs after throwing for the first time in his life. Effectively, without throwing a single pitch or really doing any lesson work (or even throwing off a mound), this kid has managed to change the neuromuscular recruitment patterns he uses to throw the baseball. Strength, power, and mobility took care of themselves: delayed transmutation. The second told me that his arm feels electric. Ask any experienced pitcher, and they’ll tell you that your arm is supposed to feel like absolute crap the first 4-5 days after an extended layoff, but it always gets better. However, when you’re a kid who has gotten more flexible and packed on a bunch of muscle mass, it’s like all of a sudden driving a Ferrari when you’re used to sharing a minivan with Mom: delayed transmutation. Specificity is important in any sport, but a it really is just the work as far to the right as you can go on the general to specific continuum. Elite sprinters do squats, lunges, Olympic lifts, jump squats, and body weight plyos as they work from left to right on the general-to-specific continuum to get faster. So, why do so many pitching coaches insist that pitchers stay as far to the right as possible? Symbolically, long toss is to pitchers what plyos are to sprinters: specific, but just general enough to make a profound difference.
In a very roundabout way, I’ve made a case for long toss as something that can be classified as beneficial in much the same way that we recognize (well, most of us, at least) that mobility drills, foam rolling, strength training, movement training, and medicine ball drills to be excellent adjuncts to bullpens. In the process of learning to throw the baseball farther, we: 1. push arm speed up 2. train in a generally-specific fashion 3. improve contribution of the lower half 4. realize another specific, quantifiable marker (distance) of progress 5. keep throwing fun 6. train the arm with just enough LESS specificity to help keep pitchers healthy, as compared with mound work The question then becomes, “Why don’t some pitchers respond well to long toss?” In part 2, I’ll outline the most common mistakes I’ve seen:
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December 12th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
FOr pitchers who live in the northeast do you think its ok to Long toss in the Cold? Whate are your thoughts about that
December 12th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
I was in a long email debate with Mr. Mills over this same topic a few years back. It may have been over some of the same quotes you used in here, before I had even the slightest clue as to what I was talking about (some might think I still don\’t!)… but he seemed to be trying to sell a product more than argue his point that it was apparently a complete waste of time to do ANY strength training as an athlete/pitcher.
December 13th, 2010 at 7:08 am
@ Bill It all depends on what “cold” is. If it is above 35* and sunny it’s probably fine. Most importantly is that muscle performance decreases as temperature decreases (I can’t find the article right now but it is on pubmed). Your body fights to maintain your core temperature so it diverts blood flow from active muscles to your core to conserve heat. So if they are outside, make them wear cold gear.
December 13th, 2010 at 7:41 am
Eric,
Good stuff. I agree on early specialization.
My son plays soccer,basketball and baseball. I removed him from elite travel baseball team due to the fact they play and practice year round.
We did some body weight strength work to get ready for basketball and will do the same for baseball. He just turned 11 and will not pitch this season. I believe he needs to get stronger and we will wait til he gets older.
John
December 13th, 2010 at 11:22 am
Does anyone have any specific recommendations regarding a long-toss program for freshman in high school? One of the programs I’ve seen recommends throwing 8 throws starting at 90 feet and moving backwards in 10 yard increments until you can no longer make the throw in one bounce to your partner. In other words, you would throw 8 times at 90 feet, then another 8 throws at 120, etc., until you could no longer one-hop it to your partner.
Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
December 13th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Eric,
Nice article. I am wondering though, on the idea of specificity, if there are any statistics for injured pitchers/players from the south (who play all year long) compared to that of the north (who play 4 months). They always seem to be better than the players from the north, and the classic response to this is, “they play all year round, of course they are better.” Do you think this is a valid reason? If not, the only other reason I could think of the southern players being better is I guess a larger pool, as baseball is more popular in the south than in the north (turning out slowly, though!). Good read.
December 13th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Eric,
Great artical. What about the release point of the baseball being different during long toss (over 100\’) as the arm moves full speed? Wouldn\’t this cause motor nueuron confusion? We generally use long toss form about 90 to 100 feet and concentrate on the same release point as the pitch. 100 feet includes a slight crow hop.
There also seems to be two schools of thought on relaese points. One being at the top of the throwing motion to create \"Tilt\", the other release point out if front of the throwing motion to get the ball closer to the plate.
My son 6\’9\" has gone from the top of the throwing motion to the out in front method, and seems to be throwing the ball harder. Maybe it is because the ball gets there quicker being it has to travel less distance. Hard to throw a ball farther than 100\’ when the release point is out front.
What is your thought about the motor neurons? Any effect?
December 13th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Clay,
Re-read the entire article. It’s not about specificity!!!!!
A sprinter might do an Olympic lift and benefit tremendously even though the joint angles created don’t exactly replicate what happens when running.
“Motor neurons” are smarter than you might think.
December 13th, 2010 at 6:36 pm
Yes, Brad; it is a larger talent pool. However, the research shows that the lines at the doctors’ offices are definitely longer as well. Just check out this recent study in the AJSM; players in warm weather climates get hurt significantly more often than those from cold weather climates:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21051421
December 13th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
We start all our guys at 20 throws at 45ft and 20 throws at 60ft and gradually work them back over the course of a few weeks. Our pro guys take six weeks to get up to 300+ feet.
I don’t like the idea of just telling kids to go out and throw as far as they can on the first day.
December 13th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Yes, as long as they warm up thoroughly and don’t push the limits.
That said, most of our guys simulate it into the net.
December 13th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
I completely agree I have always been curious though on children in other countries. For exanple, children in the Dominican Republic play baseball nonstop, or chidlren in Haiti will play soccer all year. Another example, could be inner city children that play basketball 24/7. I could be completely off base, but I feel like these kids get hurt much less frequently than say a kid from the US that plays and trains (as in practice, bullpens,etc, not strength training)in only one sport, for example baseball. Is there any truth to that? or simply completely wrong, and if there is what is the reason why?
December 13th, 2010 at 10:06 pm
I completely agree. I have always been curious though on children in other countries. For exanple, children in the Dominican Republic play baseball nonstop, or chidlren in Haiti will play soccer all year. Another example, could be inner city children that play basketball 24/7. I could be completely off base, but I feel like these kids get hurt much less frequently than say a kid from the US that plays and trains (as in practice, bullpens,etc, not strength training)in only one sport, for example baseball. Is there any truth to that? or simply completely wrong, and if there is what is the reason why?
December 24th, 2010 at 1:44 am
I was in a long email debate with Mr. Mills over this same topic a few years back. It may have been over some of the same quotes you used in here, before I had even the slightest clue as to what I was talking about (some might think I still don\’t!)… but he seemed to be trying to sell a product more than argue his point that it was apparently a complete waste of time to do ANY strength training as an athlete/pitcher.