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4-Week Program Increases Velocity
in Youth Baseball Players

January 6, 2011
(Click here for a 2-page .pdf of this newsletter)

A study released in December 2010:

2010 20Study 20Title

Put 2 groups of baseball players 11-15 years of age into 2 groups:

  1. No program at all
  2. 75 minutes/day, 3 days/week of:
  • 10 minute warm-up (stretching, arm circles, wrist exercises
  • 30 minutes of elastic tubing exercises (1 set of 25 reps for 17 different exercises)
  • 30 minutes of throwing that consisted of:
    • 5-minute warm-up throwing at 50 feet
    • 15 minutes of “Pivot Throws” (5 minutes each at 60, 75, and 100 feet)
    • 10 minutes of Long Toss
      • (13-15 year old group threw no further than 150 feet)
      • (11-12 year old group threw no further than 125 feet)
    • 5 minutes of cool-down stretching
By the end of the program, those in the conditioning group had a 4.1% increase in velocity (56.1 to 58.4 mph) compared to a 1% decrease in the control group (54.1 to 53.7 mph)

Why Do I Believe Velocity Increased?

The best part of the tubing exercises was the emphasis on the "negative" part of each exercise, called the "eccentric phase":

Eccentric 20Exercise

The eccentric phase is the most ignored yet perhaps most important way to train the throwing shoulder.


Of the tubing exercises showed in the study, the 5 I would most recommend are:

Exercise1Exercise2
Exercise3Exercise4
Exercise5


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Dr. Arnold!