In baseball, a pitcher may stand in one spot for the vast duration of an inning, but he’s the one guy on the team who does the most physical work in a game. Pitching requires an incredible amount of attention, precision, and stamina. It is both a mentally and physically exhausting job, yet extremely rewarding when the job is done right. No less than any other team member, the pitcher has to train hard, although his training will require quite a different approach than that of many other players of other sports. What comprises effective pitching drills?

Is weight training a vital part of pitching workouts? A pitcher needs to have a strong arm to throw fast pitches, doesn’t he? Actually, weight training is a bad idea for a pitcher. First of all, it is not the arm that controls pitch speed, but the body. Neither does this mean that a pitcher should do a full body strength training workout. At the heart of speed is good pitching mechanics, period. All weight training does is provide the pitcher with further opportunity for injury.

Do other types of exercise make for good pitching workouts? While full body strength training is not recommended, full body explosive exercises are. These may include sprinting and aerobic training. One reason behind this is that while good pitching mechanics improve pitch speed, exhibiting speed, in turn, improves the acquisition of good mechanics. Besides, pitching is not slow and deliberate, like weight training - pitching is fast and explosive, much like sprinting and aerobic exercises.

The best practice routines are those that most closely resemble genuine game intensity and play. Therefore, workouts should stick to explosive exercises as previously mentioned. Practices should also be extremely intense. The pitcher should throw from a mound and not the flat turf. Drills and concentrating on the long toss should be traded in for practicing pitching mechanics. Pitches should not only mimic game intensity, but also quantity. That is, the pitcher should try to throw in practice as many pitches as he would in a game. Throwing fewer pitches, again, actually creates greater risk of injury.

Really, these approaches to practices only make sense. Just as standing still at the foul line and taking large quantities of shots doesn’t really prepare a basketball player for a real game, neither is a pitcher prepared for a real game simply by tossing the ball back and forth. The key is in doing exercises.

Football is a physical sport, so it makes sense for players to want to bulk up with plenty of muscle and weight to fly across the field making tackles. Baseball, on the other hand, is not a physical sport. While physical skills are certainly beneficial in the game, brute strength isn’t one of them - most especially if you’re a pitcher (who isn’t expected to be the world’s best hitter or runner). Why, then, do too many baseball pitchers train for strength when they should be working on improving pitching mechanics?

Which physical skill is more important: strength or speed? When it comes to pitching a baseball, speed wins. No, strength training is not required to gain speed, either. First, the mind has to understand pitching mechanics, then the body has to practice them - so that executing proper position and form is as natural as slipping a hand into a batting glove. Since the body and not the arm controls speed, once one learns the proper body mechanics, everything else falls right into place.

What are some dos and don’ts that will encourage a pitcher to gain velocity through pitching mechanics instead of attempting to increase strength? Don’t do weight training, throw heavy balls, or focus on the long toss. Remember, this will only make the arm stronger, not the pitcher. In fact, these are sure ways to simply increase chance of injury, so it is doubly important to avoid them. Neither are drills or other excessively repetitive exercises helpful.

Should the pitcher, then, instead do the complete opposite and simply try to improve by playing “catch” or doing anything less than game intensity pitching? No.  Just because the pitcher should be working on training his whole body to use proper pitching mechanics - instead of focusing on his arm through tunnel vision - doesn’t mean his practice shouldn’t be intense.

Keep the body under control by eliminating unnecessary and speed-decreasing movements. Don’t rotate your trunk or hips. Don’t step to the side before lifting your leg or lift your leg too high. Do have a longer stride, however, to put you closer to the plate and add to your overall control. While position is important, don’t obsess over “staying tall”, as this can actually shorten your stride. Don’t forget: In baseball, speed outranks strength, and speed is gained not through strength and pitching drills, but through mechanics. With good mechanics, a baseball pitcher will simultaneously acquire both faster speed and better control.

Some coaches just don’t really understand correct pitching mechanics, and consequently their pitchers dedicate a lot of their time performing drills that just aren’t very effective for improving pitching speed and accuracy. These coaches probably also have their players lifting weights with the goal of building up arm strength, which really isn’t required in order to throw at a higher velocity. The amount of time spent in baseball pitching workouts could be much better spent if the coaches focused on the pitching mechanics and the way that the whole body can be used to generate explosive power to increase a pitcher’s velocity.

Some of the more common aspects of most baseball pitching workouts include pitching drills, weight training, using weighted balls, and stretching have proven to actually do more harm to pitchers than good or actually end up decreasing a pitcher’s velocity. This is because many of these drills and methods don’t focus on the body as a whole. The best pitchers use use their entire body in order to throw the pitch, and not simply their arms. When you use your whole body for pitching, and do it with maximum effectiveness, there are certain postures that your body should go through, and if a pitcher trains his body in this process, it becomes natural to use the proper body mechanics to throw your pitches.

While this theory has been proven in many studies, word hasn’t really traveled through the masses and hasn’t really reached most coaches. Consequently, many coaches continue to have their pitchers spending wasted time in pitching workouts with the methods that aren’t as useful in actually improving pitching. More and more parents are learning about the importance of using their whole body and the correct way of throwing a pitch through the use of training videos and manuals that you can find online.

Hopefully, as more studies are done showing the typical pitching workout methods are not as effective as many believed, more coaches will switch to more effective pitching training regimens. A more effective workout would lead pitchers through pitching techniques, starting from the end and moving backwards, and on te process of using their body to harness the explosive velocity that can be generated through pitching a baseball correctly.