With New Year’s Day having come and gone, two things have occurred.
One, the holiday season is over; and two, baseball season is just around the
corner! It’s certainly an exciting time here at MSI: our pro pitchers are continuing
to dial in their stuff on the mound, college guys are building up in
preparation for their season, many of our high school guys are in the middle of
their velocity phases, and our youth guys are starting to on-ramp after shutting
down for a few months.
High school baseball starts in the beginning of March, leaving 8-9
weeks before daily practices and lots of throwing. The rest of this article will
detail why it’s important to start throwing now and provide two free throwing
programs to get you ready for March!
First, why is it important to start throwing two months before
practices start? Can’t you just show up March 6th and get your arm
in shape without a problem? Giving an answer to this question is challenging
and heavily nuanced. However, the short answer is no.
Every time we throw a baseball, lift a weight, or go for a jog, our
bodies are stressed. As we experience stress, the body is forced to react and
adapt. As we adapt to this stress, more and more stress can be applied. If high
amounts of stress are placed on the body before it’s ready, soreness, fatigue,
and in some instances, injuries can occur. On the other hand, if stress is
gradually applied over days, weeks, and months, the body will continue to
positively adapt.
So, what does that have to do with pitching? Well, if you don’t throw
for three months, then decide to throw a bullpen at max intent, you’re likely
placing way too much stress on your body. (Note: I’m not saying that you will
get hurt if you do this. I don’t use fear-mongering to motivate athletes. But,
just understand that you are at a higher risk for injury.)
A common metric used to measure stress is acute to chronic (AC)
workload ratio. AC ratio is defined as the amount of stress during one week of
activity divided by the average total stress over the previous four weeks. In
baseball terms, that means how much throwing you’ve done in one week compared
to your total amount of throwing over the previous four weeks. A recent study, Relationship between workload
and throwing injury in varsity baseball players (Mehta, 2019), found that players
who had an AC ratio greater than 1.27 were 14.9 times more likely to get
injured compared to baseball players with an AC ratio lower than 1.27. Some
takeaways from that study highlighted the importance for throwing workload to
be built up over time as a means to decrease injury risk.
That’s where a throwing program comes in.
By following a program that gradually increases your chronic workload
without spikes in your acute or daily workload, you may decrease your injury
risk. That is the goal with the two programs shared below. One throwing program
includes PlyoCare drills where athletes will do several drills designed to focus
on certain parts of the delivery. The second throwing program is a simple long
toss progression. Both are designed to keep your AC ratio in line as you
prepare for the high school season. On top of that, both programs include consistent
mound work and bullpens. This gives sufficient time to work on things like
velocity, command, or a new pitch.
For each program, on one tab you’ll see a layout of the 8-week throwing
program, followed by the drills, sets, reps, and intensity for each day. On the
second page, you’ll see the same 8-week layout, but with numbers labeled
instead of days. That number is the approximate daily workload for each given
day. The daily workload (measured in arbitrary units) is calculated by taking
the total number of throws multiplied by the rate of perceived exertion (RPE)
for that day.
Daily Workload = # of throws x RPE
Daily workloads for each week are added up under the column ‘Acute
Workload.’
Acute Workload = SUM (Daily WorkloadSun-Sat)
The next column, ‘AC Ratio,’ takes the Acute Workload for a given week
and divides it by the average Acute Workload of the preceding four weeks.
AC Ratio = Acute WorkloadWeek 4 / Average Acute WorkloadWeeks
1-4
So, that concludes my first blog post. I hope the information presented
can be helpful to athletes and coaches interested in learning more.
Both throwing programs are linked below. Please reach out with any
questions or comments.
Reference:
Mehta, S. (2019).
Relationship between workload and throwing injury in varsity baseball
players. Physical Therapy in Sport, 40, 66–70.
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