If there is one aspect of youth baseball that could improve, it's the dynamic warm-up. 

All too often, when I'm either driving by a field or coaching a youth baseball team, the "warm-up" at best resembles what I did 30+ years ago. Players run some poles, do some arm circles, and then go directly into catch play. This warm-up is not good enough to help players prepare to play at their best.

Running poles does not map to what players do in competition on a baseball field. This does not mean that aerobic exercise or improving conditioning is bad. It means that poles - and similar types of aerobic exercise - do not aid in pre-game preparation. This is because of the energy systems that our players utilize when playing baseball, so let's do something that does!

When it comes to static stretching for throwing, the story is very similar. You can find evidence on both sides of the aisle. It all depends on how far back you want to go looking at research studies. Static stretching is ill-suited for athletes who must produce force and be explosive. An effective throwing warm-up will provide much more benefit than just static stretching.

Youth baseball coaches typically have too much to teach and little time to teach it. This means we can orient our focus on the thing that will take the least amount of time to provide the most benefit - an effective warm-up. 

What A Good Baseball Dynamic Warm-Up Should Include

An effective dynamic warm-up should be easy for coaches to understand and execute for the players. It should involve the biological systems of the body - along with the ranges of motion - that players will use in training and competition.

Generally, the purpose of our dynamic warm-up is to:

• increase blood flow to active muscles
• raise core body temperature
• enhance metabolic reactions
• improve joint range of motion

Putting the throwing specific part of our warm-up to the side momentarily because throwing to warm up instead of warming up to throw makes absolutely no sense. We'll touch on the throwing warm-up later. The dynamic warm-up needs to focus on warming up the athlete's whole body, similar to how they move in a game.

• Produce force (sprint / jump / accelerate)
• Accept force (stop / land / decelerate)
• Stabilize
• Balance
• Change direction (transition from one of the above movement phases to a different one)

Dynamic warm-ups should ideally involve all of the movements, speeds, and force production rates that correlate to baseball's demands.

Specific to the rate of force production and speed, we would not recommend going from 0 to 100 in terms of intensity. So the dynamic warm-up structure should allow our players to ramp their intensity up as they complete the program. 

Example Programs - 5 Minutes:
Light Jog

Bear Crawl

Open The Gate / Close The Gate

One Leg Hops

Long Stride

Pogo Jumps

Carioca

Skips for Height

Short Sprint / Shuffle Steal Start

Dynamic Warm-Up Set Up

We'll want to establish our dynamic warm-up area with a maximum distance that works for most exercises. With players 12U and younger, going with a distance equal to the base path distance - 60 feet - makes sense and is easy to establish. Players can start on the outfield 1st or 3rd baseline; please do not upset the Baseball Gods and do your dynamic warm-up in the infield. It's easiest to have them line up in one long line with everyone going simultaneously. Limited space? Use small groups of 3-4 players. 

If you're working in small groups, have the first player in the line get at least halfway to the max distance before the second player begins. Otherwise, the kids will be on top of each other. Not timing different athletes will look unorganized and impact how the kids move through the warm-up. We want them to be focused on the movements, not worried about being on top of each other.

If you have cones, you can establish this dynamic warm-up area with two cones at either end of our maximum distance away from the foul line. This way, players on both extreme ends of our line/groups have something to reference. If you don't have cones, you have a coach stand at the end distance.

Our dynamic warm-up exercises should be performed twice. Once on the way out to our maximum distance and a second time on the way back.

What Is A Good Throwing Warm-Up

A good throwing warm-up will take the same approach as our dynamic warm-up did. Acknowledge the parts of the body that will be utilized in throwing and how they will be used - and then target them through structured exercises and drills to help players get ready to throw. 

Players need to be warmed up to throw, they shouldn't just throw to warm up.

Too often, players pick up a baseball and start throwing right after they've been dropped off and put their bags down.

This makes their throws highly unintentional, and they generally become more "pushy" than they are good.

We want to avoid athletes throwing a certain way because they aren't fully warmed up. This is very much what a lot of youth catch play looks like when kids first get on the field. 

When they begin to throw, they can do so in a manner that maps to how they throw in practice and games. There is a ton of benefit for youth players here, making them more sensitive to their intent and environment.

We want youth athletes to show a blend of linear and rotational movements exhibited by high-level throwers. When players spend 5-10 minutes of their catch play "working into" throwing, it's not hard to imagine that 75-85% of our throwing was this pushy, non-intentional throwing pattern. This makes throwing patterns that we'll see in-game generally resemble the same ones established in the warm-up - which are not good.

Driveline's Youth Throwing Warm-up

The opposite of this is warming up to throw like our Youth Intro Arm Care program and our Youth Throwing Kit, which includes J-Bands, Youth Wrist Weights, and Plyocare balls.

Jaeger Sports Youth J-Bands are great for adding an appropriate amount of additional tension. At the same time, players undergo a brief series of arm exercises designed to drive blood flow, muscle activation, and stabilization of the arm—all before we even pick up a ball. 

Youth Plyocare balls then allow us to appropriately develop and refine throwing patterns and mechanics for youth players, utilizing underload/overload principles that have been proven effective at ballistic training for years. We throw Plyocare balls with the drill work to help to develop robust throwing mechanics that are both efficient and powerful.

We use Plyocare balls in a structured system of drill work that breaks the throw down into its parts (linear, rotational, then a blend of linear with rotational movements). These drills are designed to go from very constrained (Reverse Throws and Pivot Pickoffs) to un-constrained (the Walking Wind Up).

Conclusion

A well-designed and executed dynamic and throwing warm-up will significantly benefit all players' safety and competitive output, youth included. One of the first principles of youth sports should be to keep our players safe and healthy. These guidelines for proper warm-up should be integrated into the start of every practice, training & competition game that players attend. Whether it's 5 minutes for a dynamic warm-up or 15 minutes for a dynamic and throwing warm-up, this is time that is well worth spending on our youth baseball players. 

This blog was written by Driveline Academy Director Deven Morgan and edited by Michael O'Connell.