Increasing velocity

[kibadbo]

Yup, she's in the top 3% (IMHO) if she's throwing 59 at 13. My DD is the same and we really aren't thinking or worrying about more speed at all. I get wanting more, but you're already ahead of almost everyone.

Obviously the increases from 40 to 45 and 45 to 50 come really fast, as they grow and mechanics improve by leaps and bounds. But that's gonna slow off a ton as they have good mechanics and don't grow much more. Totally agree with the post above: our biggest improvements come after our 6-8 week total pitching break in Nov-January. We show up to team practice and the pitchers that worked hard in the off-season seem to be about the same and my DD seems faster. I tell them what we did, they just don't seem to believe it I guess. The body needs rest to come back stronger. To repair the muscle fibers. And honestly, the brain needs a break too. And perhaps the spirit.

And yes, any core and leg strength is huge. But I'm not planning on turning my DD into a gym rat just to gain a few MPH. Just too many other things in life she wants and needs to be doing. We do weights in off season and when we can during the season, but it's not a top priority.

I would never discourage time in the weight room. But in my very small sample size of one 15 year old, weights have not increased velocity like we hoped they would.

My daughter's HS team hired a strength coach and she works with the girls every school day. DDs lifts have exploded. She's literally the strongest girl on both of her teams and it isn't even that close. But her velocity has not budged.

Honestly I would not have believed it if I didn't witness it in person. She's not going to stop lifting. But the results have been disappointing.

 

[Towny9]

I would never discourage time in the weight room. But in my very small sample size of one 15 year old, weights have not increased velocity like we hoped they would.

My daughter's HS team hired a strength coach and she works with the girls every school day. DDs lifts have exploded. She's literally the strongest girl on both of her teams and it isn't even that close. But her velocity has not budged.

Honestly I would not have believed it if I didn't witness it in person. She's not going to stop lifting. But the results have been disappointing.

A few questions: Was your DD already pretty strong relative to her peers? Did she throw during the lifting period? Was there any speed element to their workouts?

 

[Vertigo]

I would never discourage time in the weight room. But in my very small sample size of one 15 year old, weights have not increased velocity like we hoped they would.

My daughter's HS team hired a strength coach and she works with the girls every school day. DDs lifts have exploded. She's literally the strongest girl on both of her teams and it isn't even that close. But her velocity has not budged.

Honestly I would not have believed it if I didn't witness it in person. She's not going to stop lifting. But the results have been disappointing.

In my anecdotal evidence of one, I’d say that weight training alone helped my dd become more balanced, thereby helping her mechanics become more efficient. I also feel it helped prevent injury and contributed to her increased endurance while pitching during games. Did we see a big jump in velo? No, maybe a slight increase if at all, but her pitches did seem a lot crisper, if that makes any sense.

I do believe (my own belief) that the fast twitch muscles help the most with velocity and sometimes if girls become too bulky, they (the FTM) actually can become inhibited.

I don’t think people should get a false hope of getting their dd’s into the weight room and seeing big velo gains if everything else (mechanics, height, body weight, etc) stay the same. Just my 2 cents and nothing scientific on my end to back it up. It’s just my opinion. I do feel that the benefits of weight training are definitely there, though.

Another caveat - I am only relating this to softball pitching.

 

[_MIA_]

Yup, she's in the top 3% (IMHO) if she's throwing 59 at 13.

You sure it isn’t top 2.53%? (sorry.. just throwing out 3 struck me as funny..)

 

[uncdrew]

I would never discourage time in the weight room. But in my very small sample size of one 15 year old, weights have not increased velocity like we hoped they would.

My daughter's HS team hired a strength coach and she works with the girls every school day. DDs lifts have exploded. She's literally the strongest girl on both of her teams and it isn't even that close. But her velocity has not budged.

Honestly I would not have believed it if I didn't witness it in person. She's not going to stop lifting. But the results have been disappointing.

I'm with ya. Weights is important. Certainly, hugely important to hitting.*

I'm just saying in my DD's quest to get more pitching velocity, weights comes after a lot of other things. Most specifically mechanics/lessons/practice and then long toss and lastly rest. We still do some weights, just not much (as we've just run out of time in the day).


* My 2009 DD's team practiced with the Orgs 2005 team twice per month. Those girls literally hit over half their BP balls out. My DD asked them how they do that, what got them to where they could hit so many bombs. They simply said "weights".

 

[uncdrew]

In my anecdotal evidence of one, I’d say that weight training alone helped my dd become more balanced, thereby helping her mechanics become more efficient. I also feel it helped prevent injury and contributed to her increased endurance while pitching during games. Did we see a big jump in velo? No, maybe a slight increase if at all, but her pitches did seem a lot crisper, if that makes any sense.

I do believe (my own belief) that the fast twitch muscles help the most with velocity and sometimes if girls become too bulky, they (the FTM) actually can become inhibited.

I don’t think people should get a false hope of getting their dd’s into the weight room and seeing big velo gains if everything else (mechanics, height, body weight, etc) stay the same. Just my 2 cents and nothing scientific on my end to back it up. It’s just my opinion. I do feel that the benefits of weight training are definitely there, though.

Another caveat - I am only relating this to softball pitching.

Makes sense to me. And as you pointed out, there's really not much of a control group possible on this. We can't keep our DDs from growing so even if you took 6 months off pitching and hit the weights hard, it would be near impossible to say how much velo gain is due to weights. And if you were pitching while lifting, the velo gains might be from the pitching/lessons/mechanics.

I do want my DD to do more band work as a year-round constant. More stretching than weights perhaps, but certainly is some of each.

 

[uncdrew]

You sure it isn’t top 2.53%? (sorry.. just throwing out 3 struck me as funny..)

Let me check my database of fastpitch pitchers real quick.

1% sounded too extreme a statement. Maybe I should have gone with 5%.

 

[Vertigo]

Makes sense to me. And as you pointed out, there's really not much of a control group possible on this. We can't keep our DDs from growing so even if you took 6 months off pitching and hit the weights hard, it would be near impossible to say how much velo gain is due to weights. And if you were pitching while lifting, the velo gains might be from the pitching/lessons/mechanics.

I do want my DD to do more band work as a year-round constant. More stretching than weights perhaps, but certainly is some of each.

Since her junior year of HS dd would always bring her bands with her to practice/games and she’d have a routine she’d do with them before and after pitching. Seemed to work well for her.

This winter when she was home from college she started incorporating weighted plyoballs when we would warm up for a bullpen session. She would just use them while warming her arm up from the 9 o’clock and 12 o’clock positions. She also uses the heaviest ball in the pack to do forearm exercises while just sitting around. She said she’s already noticed an improvement in her shoulder and arm strength and how much more relaxed her arm feels while pitching. Again - anecdotal - I’ll report back in March after I see her pitch live in games if I notice improvement.

 

[_MIA_]

Let me check my database of fastpitch pitchers real quick

that was the point of my wiseas$ comment . All of that said, she is certainly ahead of the game. I would say here in OK there are only a few 09’s throwing that hard in games (granted I am more familiar with 08’s)

 

[PharmerBrown]

Let me check my database of fastpitch pitchers real quick.

1% sounded too extreme a statement. Maybe I should have gone with 5%.

It's way less than 1%.