When it comes to physical training and weight lifting for pitchers, there are a wide variety of considerations that go into their programs. On the strength side, most of the training methods and adaptations are going to be fairly general in terms of their direct application to sport.

Strength Training and Weight Lifting for Pitchers

A great way to conceptualize this is using Bondarchuk’s Pyramid of exercise classification, shown below. An athlete’s program should address each layer of the pyramid in varying degrees. The factors determining those degrees are time of year, age, their training experience, and other individual athlete characteristics/needs.

Anatoliy Bondarchuk”s Exercise Classification pyramid, retrieved from https://bigtexbri.com/2016/05/26/the-pyramids/

Almost all exercises we perform in the weight room setting are going to fall under GPE or SPE and aren’t necessarily specific to baseball, but rather should be specific to the athlete’s needs. This means that very few exercises in this program will look like anything a player does on the field. Instead, they will be prepping the body to perform at the highest level in games.

Key Considerations

As mentioned above, there are many factors that go into an athlete's training program. Among the most important of these are athlete goals, age, and training experience along with the time of year or how close they are to playing in games. 

For this program, we’ll focus on the needs of a high school or young college baseball field. Typically, the younger an athlete is the more general their needs are, as their focus should be more on long-term development and goals than immediate results in competition. 

if you want to play college baseball it is going to be extremely important to build a body that is capable of playing college baseball.

In the gym at Driveline, our average college baseball player weighs 17lbs more than our average high school player and is 24% stronger (measured in the Isometric Mid-Thigh Pull). It reasons then that prioritizing increasing lean-body mass and strength are good places to start for a young athlete. With the role strength training plays in those, it is clear why weight lifting for pitchers is so crucial.

Along with size and strength, another big gap between average high school and college athletes is their explosive strength. In-gym college athletes test about 21% higher lower-body power in our jump testing. With this in mind, it will also be important for young pitchers to increase their explosive strength. Some common ways to do this are performing compound lifts with a focus on speed, Olympic lift variations, loaded jumps, and plyometric training along with sprinting. 

With high school athletes, we want to use our compound lifts to build strength and cause hypertrophy (muscle growth). To achieve this, focusing on speed rather than weight with those won’t be ideal. We do program some amount of Olympic lifts and loaded jumps for our athletes, but we prefer to devote as much weight room time as possible to building foundational movement patterns to set them up for long-term success. 

This considered, sprinting and plyometric exercises are our primary methods of increasing power for high school pitchers. Training this way also helps get the body ready to meet the explosive in-game demands they’ll see on field. When starting any training program that includes weight lifting for pitchers, being able to accurately evaluate your strengths and weaknesses in these areas takes any program to the next level. This is a big advantage of going through our strength assessment and training with us in-gym or online.

Weight Lifting Workouts for Pitchers

This 6-week strength program is focused on gaining strength and size along with a slight increase in lower body power for a This 6-week strength program is focused on gaining strength and size along with a slight increase in lower body power for a pitcher with less than two years of training experience. It uses barbells, dumbbells, cable machines, and medicine balls and is made to partner with a pitching or throwing program. This block would be best for an early to middle offseason phase where physical development is a top priority.

Lifters with enough experience and a qualified strength coach can front squat instead of goblet squatting on day one. RIR means Reps In Reserve, so a set of 5 with a 2RIR load would mean use a weight that you could barely complete 7 reps with.

*Need Free Lifts Insert*

In-Season Considerations

Once competition volume increases, weight room volume must see a corresponding decrease to maximize on-field performance. This does not mean that you shouldn't be lifting hard in season (you should). It also doesn’t mean that you can’t ever be sore- it just means that you will need to pay extra care when managing the frequency and volume of your training, or in other words how often and how much you work out. With potential decreases in frequency and volume, we’ll want to make sure we maintain high intensity (how hard you train) to keep our off-season gains and even continue progressing.

At-Home Modifications

We understand that not every athlete is working with the same facilities and equipment. This is where it is important to view the exercises as ways to achieve an outcome, not as absolutes. For example, the squat in lift one is to build strength in a range that will achieve some hypertrophy. If you don’t have a barbell with enough weights, this could become a goblet squat using a dumbbell or kettlebell. If those options also aren't available then finding a way to build some kind of load such as a backpack full of books might be the best option. From there, making changes to the squat to make it more challenging with the lighter load is next. Some easy ways to do this are:

• Longer eccentric tempos (going slower on the way down)
• Pausing at the bottom of the rep
• Increasing the number of reps
• Switching to a unilateral variation like a lunge

It is important to note that while these methods can be an effective “next best thing”, you will still be missing key benefits if the loads aren’t consistently heavy enough so prioritize finding gym access as soon as you are able.

What’s Next

This program is a great start for physical training and weight lifting for pitchers. As you gain experience, our other development programs for strength and speed can help continue your physical development.

To take your training to the next level, come train with us so we can find out exactly what your individual strengths and weaknesses are and pair your personalized strength and pitching programs.