What is Long Toss? How do you create a long toss program?
What is Long Toss?
Long toss is catch play that consists of gradually throwing further and upping intensity to your partner or target. Long toss is not necessarily trying to extend and throw as far as you can each time out, but stretching out the distance that day according to how you feel and how much you plan on throwing that day.
What are the Two Types of Throws used in Long Toss?
There are two types of throws we work on during long toss with these definitions coming from jaeger long toss program. These two types are throws are extension throws and compression throws. Extension throws are going to be throws made as you go out and the distance increases. You want to put air on the ball and not feel so much off a pull down or try to throw it on a line. The intensity of the throw again will depend on how you feel and what you plan on doing for that day. We typically always perform extension throws, but extension throws will be the only throws made on days where the intent is to be kept between 50-70%
Compression throws are going to be the throws made while coming in. With compression throws being higher intent, we typically want to perform these throws on days that the intensity is 80-100%. As you work in from the distance, perform compression throws from about 80-120’ to your partner or target. While making these throws you want to try and keep them about head level and hit your partner in the chest.
How Should We Define Long Toss?
When Alan Jaeger, creater of the jeager long toss program, says he wants athletes to “listen to [their] arm,” it really sounds a lot like autoregulated training. So when we’re talking about long-toss, what are we actually talking about?
It should be made clear that long-toss in the general baseball community can be defined as anything from throwing 120 feet to 420 feet with arc or on a line, crow hop or not, and everything in between.
The mean distance for what all respondents considered as long-toss was 175 feet.
Is that a distance that you consider long toss?
Of the participants, 36% reported long-toss as throwing “on a line” and 70% reported long-toss as “not on a line.” These add up to over 100% because pitchers were allowed to mark both options in the survey.
Recently, a third study was published on long-toss which brought to light some interesting data. Pitchers, PCs, and ATCs with five MLB teams completed an anonymous survey on personal use of long-toss and their perception of distance and throwing mechanics.
The results of this survey show that players, pitching coaches, and athletic trainers all define long-toss differently. This is a problem when you consider that discussing long-toss can be a controversial topic, with coaches often falling into the “love it” or “hate it” camps with little wriggle room. The fact is that there is a good chance many of these arguments are talking past one another.
As this study points out, very few people agree on a single definition of long-toss. This leads to the obvious question: what’s the point of arguing about two very different things?
This study pretty clearly hit problem on the nose (emphasis mine):
“Despite widespread use in baseball, the distances and long-toss throwing mechanics remain controversial. While long-toss throwing is generally accepted as part of injury rehabilitation, the timing of long-toss throwing, flat-ground throwing, and use of lower extremity footwork are highly variable. Two reported biomechanical studies of long-toss throwing used vastly different approaches to evaluate long-toss and consequently, little data are available on its goals.”
In reality, this or any discussion about long-toss is somewhat flawed because long-toss should change depending on what your goals are.
Are you...
- in a return-to-throwing program?
- on-ramping to throwing after time off?
- building velocity in the off-season?
- getting work in between starts in-season?
- warming up before a game in-season?
All of these are going to be different just like whether or not athletes throw on-a-line or use a crow-hop.
Do you consider long-toss with arc throws, on-a-line, or both?
Do you consider long-toss with or without a crow-hop?
Pitchers were also more likely to use long-toss for “a component of arm strengthening, conditioning, and recovery via stretching.”
What is a Throwing Program?
A throwing program is a program designed to maximize your routine to help improve arm care, build intensity, build arm strength, and prepare for outings. A throwing program is going to be individualized to each athlete according to the time of the year (in-season, off-season) and health (coming off injury, coming off of time off, coming off of a season where they threw 80 innings).
During a throwing program we can focus on building up players through an on ramp, focus on improving velocity through a velo phase, focus on improving pitches through pitch designs, prepare for the season with live at bats, and build out a program to stay healthy and ready for the duration of the season.
How Does a Long Toss Program fit inside a Throwing Program?
First you need to warm-up to throw. This includes:
A dynamic warm-up
A Band routine
Wrist Weight Routine
Plyo Ball Routine
After all of that there is an athlete's catch play and long toss routine.
Should you Long Toss every day?
You should perform some sort of long toss roughly 2-5 times a week. Again, long toss does not mean going out 300’ every time you long toss. On a day you feel good but don't want to go out as far as possible, keep the distance short ar 120’ or so and perform extension throws from there. Even though you're not going max distance, that is still a form of long toss. How your arm feels is the biggest indication of how often you should long toss. Listen to your arm. The other major dictator is your start day or day to relieve. Some guys like to have a bigger workload the day before a start while others may want to make very minimal throws.
Should I Long Toss the Day After Pitching?
This is a very individualized question. There are pitchers who prefer to long toss the day after, others choose to play light catch, and others choose to not pick up a ball. If you feel long toss the day after helps you stay on schedule for your next start and helps you recover, then go for it! If you think no throwing the next day is best for you, then do that as well. Listen to your arm.
Getting this right will probably take some trial and error. It can help to write down what you are doing and when, along with how you feel your body responds. Keep in mind that this throwing should be invididualized. So long toss the day after pitching may mean just extension throws out until 90-120 feel and then light throws coming back in, no compression throws.
This can also differ based on how many pitches you threw as a reliever. If you had a short appearance and know you wont be used the next day, it may be helpful to stretch it out and get a decent sized workload in to stay ready for your next relief appearance. If you know youll be used the very next day and want to avoid throwing as much, it may be best to keep the long toss lighter in order to be ready for that outing.
How can I use long toss to throw harder?
Does Long Toss Improve Arm Strength?
Long toss can help build arm strength, but ultimately your throwing program is going to be most important. While we want to long toss 2-5 times a week, we need to properly manage our workload in order to continue to stretch out our max distance and build arm strength while staying healthy.
Going out and throwing as far as you can just once a week or 7 times a week, with no type of recovery or build up is not going to be optimal to build arm strength. We need to understand what days should be thrown at lighter or medium intent, so we can be prepared to throw high intent when necessary. Get on a throwing program that is going to allow your long toss to improve, building arm strength.
Part of this is keeping the arm in shape by throwing enough another part is pushing the arm
Does Long Toss Improve Velocity?
Much like building arm strength and being on a good throwing program, long toss can improve velocity as we are able to throw the ball further. The toughest part for many players is taking that intent you put into long toss and translating it to the mound. Throwing a ball further is great and going to help improve arm strength, but that doesn't always translate to velocity on the mound.
This is one of those questions where the answer is probably with some nuance, similar to improving arm strength.
In-Season vs Off-Season Training
How you use long-toss in-season vs off-season is going to change because your goals change. It’s much more likely that an off-season long-toss program is being implemented for arm strengthening or conditioning purposes.
Some prefer to stay away from long-toss because they believe it’s too stressful. This would depend entirely on what the athlete or coach thinks about stress and training. If they believe that pitchers should push their stress levels and workload abilities in order to improve, then they are more likely to long-toss.
If the coach believes in “saving their bullets” or staying away from stressful training, then they’re more likely to keep long-toss out of their programs.
Many of the anti-long-toss arguments come from wanting to reduce stress in a number of ways: either reduce peak stress by restricting distance or by reducing overall stress by restricting volume and number of throws.
Long-tossing in-season would be considered as maintaining workload between starts, or warming-up before a game.
In this case, long-tossing before a game can often mean throwing as far as a pitcher feels comfortable before a start. This may change depending on a number of factors: last start, how much they threw during the week, current weather, starting game time.
It seems like the argument isn’t entirely as simple as “you should long-toss” vs “you shouldn’t long”toss.”
Rather, it’s turned into the following: everyone should follow this one throwing program vs having athlete see what works best for them.
Coaching, Indoor Long-Toss, and Time Limits
One thing to be taken from discussing long-toss is that if you are going to commit to a long-toss program, especially in the off-season, then you need to make time in order to complete it. This might be one of the bigger hurdles for coaches and teams, such as creating artificial time limits or rushing to get to other work.
In the fall and winter, pitchers need time and space. We understand that these two aren’t always available, but they should be made a priority if you are looking to include long-toss. A schedule should also be made, describing which days are considered just extension (arc throws), compression (hard on-a-line throws), or off days.
If you are stuck indoors in the winter but you have a cage that can be pulled down, then long-toss can be simulated by throwing into the net. Your athletes won’t have an opportunity to judge distance, but they will be able to judge effort and throwing angle.
In-season, the focus of long-toss often shifts from building arm strength to maintaining arm workload and warming up. The same rules do apply for in-season as they do for the off-season. Time needs to be made in a practice schedule, pitchers need space, and a schedule should be made.
We understand that there are times when circumstances outside a player’s or coach's control can affect how a pitcher warms up. Weather and travel restrictions tend to be the two big problems that come to mind.
A couple workarounds to this include using tools such as j-bands or wrist weights, and Plyo Ball ® in a warm-up routine to aid throwing prep.
Should You Long Toss with Weighted Baseballs?
Weighted baseballs can also be used to start long-toss at any time of the year. This is especially helpful if it is cold out. Similar to a baseball the heavier weighted balls can be thrown at 50-75% RPE into the net to get a stretch.
Driveline long toss program starts extension toss with weighted and regular baseballs, we'd start with the heaviest weighted ball you'd throw that day, likely the 11 oz or 9 oz, then work down to a regulation baseball.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfnrCpmYQh0[/embedyt]
- Extension Throws: Done on Hybrid B and Hybrid A days after plyo balls. On Hybrid B days, after extension throws work back in lightly. No compression throws. 5 throws 11oz (60-75ft), 5 throws 9oz (75-100ft), 5 throws 7 oz (100-120ft), 5oz throws to tolerance.
- Compression Throws: Compression throws will be done on Hybrid A days after your extensions throws and working out to your max for the day with the 5oz. Repeat the extension phase as done above. Once done, work back in and perform 8-12 Compression throws from about 90-120ft out to your partner. These throws should be about head high, it is somewhat similar to pulldowns but without the running up, just a few shuffles.
- Side note: Distance with weighted balls are recommended. The distance will vary according to experience and build up of the athlete.
These compression throws, when used with a radar gun, are referred too as pulldowns. Pulldowns are only measured with a radar gun on the specific day that they are programs. It's important to understand that each day has a specific purpose in regards to the volume and intensity of the throws on that day.
Done at less than full effort, throwing weighted balls during the Extension phase of long toss allows the overload balls to help promote a better arm action.
As a reminder, long-toss as a year-round or programmed arm care has not been researched.
Comparing the arm stress of long-tossing “on a line” vs “not on a line” has not been researched.
Directly comparing restrictive 120-foot throwing programs to “long-toss” throwing programs has not been researched.
There is still a long way to go before we know anything concrete.
This article was written by Associate Researcher Michael O'Connell
Long toss is a great way to strengthen your arm, but it's not the only way. Learn more about how we strengthen our pitchers by reading the blog articles we have pertaining to strength.
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