Why Ball Players, Including Pitchers, Should Lift Weights

This just in: Ball players didn’t do much, if any, weight lifting 50+ years ago.

Why?

Simply because the science of athletic training and sports medicine had not yet determined the value of this activity for most athletes, let alone ball players. Now, most, if not all, MLB teams have well-equipped weight rooms in their stadiums and training complexes, employing varying types of weight lifting programs for their players, including pitchers. And we know that MLB teams would never do anything that would put their highly paid players at risk, right?

Along with resistance training, there are a number of extremely valuable things ball players do now that weren’t done years ago.

It’s called PROGRESS.

While ball players need a certain level of strength as a foundation for developing power, their lifting should be for this purpose and not for looking good with their shirt off. Cosmetic, large muscles will not help a fielder or pitcher throw harder or hit with more power. Yet strong, flexible muscles can contribute to achieving these performance objectives.

The main causes of injury to ball players, particularly pitchers, are the following: 1) Poor mechanics 2) Overuse 3) Poor conditioning, or improperly designed strength and conditioning programs, and 4) Steroids and the physical problems they artificially introduce.

STRENGTH is defined as the ability to apply force. POWER is defined as the ability to apply force rapidly, or to apply force over distance and time. This is also known as work. Strength is an important component of power, as in the following well known training formula:

POWER = Strength (force application) X Speed (velocity of movement)

Speed is developed not only through bio-mechanical conditioning (e.g., proper running, throwing or hitting mechanics – the work of baseball/softball) but also by appropriate strength and flexibility training.

With this in mind, ball players need to understand this simple truth:

Strength is the basis of every attribute of athletic competition

In this issue we’ll cover the benefits of sport-specific resistance training for baseball and softball players at any position, including pitching. Understand that when I say “sport-specific” I mean strength training that is specific to the various skills required of baseball/softball players. Doing the standard body-building workout found in newsstand magazines, or what football players do for their sport is definitely NOT recommended.

BENEFITS OF WEIGHT LIFTING

Why should ball players perform weight lifting as part of their conditioning program? There are more than 600 muscles in the body. Many of them are used in the work performed by ball players, particularly pitchers. For information on how some of those are used in pitching and throwing, click here. I’ll restrict my list of benefits to those related to ball players:

1. Increased Lean Body Mass, Muscle Strength, and Power – A) We’ve established that you can be “fat” and still be a top ball player. But it’s not this excess baggage that makes a ball player good at his craft, so if you can reduce or eliminate excess adipose tissue, why not do so? Muscle tissue, being metabolically active, consumes calories and can improve functional strength. Fat does neither, so a reasonable increase in lean body mass is a benefit to ballplayers at any position.

B) Maintaining balanced strength across joints helps prevent injury caused when one muscle is stronger than its opposing muscle. For example, a common injury when running in any sport is a pulled or torn hamstring. This is often the result of stronger quad muscles vs. the opposing hamstrings.

C) Finally, any joint and muscle problems that may show up during training can be predictive for problems that could manifest in future training, practice or competition. Corrective activities or therapy can then be immediately implemented to prevent these problems from worsening.

2. Improved joint integrity and stability – A) The enhanced bone and connective tissue modeling (cartilage, tendons, fascia, and ligaments) that results from strength training leads to increased bone and soft tissue strength, all of which helps prevent injury. In particular, muscle and ligament attachment points are strengthened by this increased bone density.

B) A variety of exercises introduces different force vectors on all of these tissues, producing new stimuli to induce continued growth and adaptation to stress. The extent of this adaptation is directly related to the exercise intensity – aka the S.A.I.D. principle – Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands.

3. Improved Balance, Flexibility, Mobility and Stability - Stronger and more resilient muscles aid in the development of these attributes, directly leading to improved pitching, fielding, and hitting mechanics. In the 1968 Mexico Olympics, the flexibility of US athletes was measured. Gymnasts came in first as being most flexible with, surprisingly, the Olympic-style weight lifters coming in second. Strength and flexibility go hand-in-hand in a properly designed strength and conditioning program.

Why do ball players need to be flexible? Because of the stress imposed on joints and muscles used in performing the explosive movements required to play the game. Flexible muscles and joints have an increased range of motion (ROM), meaning in a general sense that they can move further in their ROM before they can be injured.

For example, runners with tight, inflexible leg muscles will have a reduced ROM in these muscles, limiting their stride length and therefore their ability to run as fast as they possibly could. It is the same with any of the muscles ball players use – limited ROM impairs performance.

4. Pre-habilitation – Strength training is a widely accepted means of helping to prevent injury. Strong, flexible muscles and joint components are more injury resistant than untrained ones. This principle is in use across a wide variety of sports.

5. Aids Re-habilitation and Recovery - One of the best ways to heal many types of soft tissue injuries is to strengthen muscles surrounding the injured area. For example, treatment for tendonitis commonly involves strengthening the muscles whose tendons have become inflamed. The stronger your muscles, the quicker the healing process.

6. Improved hormonal milieu – appropriate strength training results in increased blood levels of testosterone and growth hormone. This is especially important for “older” players (25+ years of age) as these hormones begin declining at this time, and continue to do so as ball players age. The benefits of naturally increasing endogenous testosterone and growth hormone are many.

All of these conditioning “proficiencies” developed through strength training will be valuable for any ballplayer to acquire.

THE BENEFITS OF TRAINING HEAVY

Routine plays on a ball field usually take between 6-8 seconds. Pitching a baseball takes about two seconds. Swinging a bat takes about three-tenths of a second. Therefore, the muscles that are used to perform these short-burst, ballistic activities need to be properly conditioned for that activity. Power and Olympic Lifts and Plyometrics are excellent methods of accomplishing this key training objective.

Lifts such as Squats (and variations of this lift), Dead Lifts, the Bench Press (flat and decline, but not incline), and modified Power Cleans (to the high pull stage, without turning the wrists under) can be very beneficial. Typically, performing one rep of any of these lifts will take 2-3 seconds – in the same time frame as the aforementioned on-field activities. This kind of training conditions the muscles, tendons, bones, ligaments, cartilage, and fascia closely for the activities ball players perform on the field. These lifts strongly target the hips, trunk, legs and back. Ball players routinely bend over, jump, lunge and squat in practice and games, so this training can, at a minimum, help to reduce injury, and may improve performance.

These lifts can be safely performed by ball players of 16+ years of age for 6-8 weeks as part of a periodized weight lifting program.

They are generally performed with heavier weight and lower reps/sets (e.g., 3 sets, 1-5 reps). Lifting at lower rep ranges at a higher percentage of one’s maximal ability emphasizes neural adaptations over metabolic stimulation - hypertrophy. The result is stronger muscles with less growth, or size – ideal for ball players.

Along with decades of science and research demonstrating the benefits of resistance training, we have current real-life examples of top pitchers who lift weights like Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson and Andy Pettitte, amongst many others. So baseball and softball players, including pitchers, listen up - participating in a properly designed weight lifting program can help you achieve your maximum athletic potential.