5 Things I've Learned About Throwing Hard

I've been training to throw fast my whole life. At first that meant a bucket of baseballs at a park and seeing how far I could throw. At age 11 I got a radar gun, and the next year I was throwing 80mph as a 12 year old. Then 87mph at 13. 91mph at 14. 95mph at 15 years old. And I finally peaked at 96mph at age 16.

But after that I wouldn't see any improvements in velocity for almost a decade.

The Plateau

Why? Because the strategies I had employed were flawed. They were simple and allowed me to use max effort to continually raise the bar. But eventually, inefficient mechanics and a lack of functional strength meant that I couldn't improve any further. I was stuck nursing a sore arm whenever I would throw hard, and all my time was spent trying to get back to a healthy baseline instead of improving.

The older you get, the more reps you've done, the harder it is to change. Which meant that unlearning bad habits was extremely challenging. It required me to come up with an extremely efficient process, which I coupled with diligent and intentional work in order to reinvent myself at age 27.

I was suddenly reaching upper 90's velocity. Within a couple years that upper 90's peaked in the low 100's as a reliever. And seven years later, at age 36, I'm still throwing upper 90's - from sidearm as a starting pitcher.

So what did I learn that helped me make velocity strides at a later age than anybody in baseball history?

1. Quality Over Quantity

Low volume/greater frequency is better than high volume/lower frequency. My goal in a velocity session is to continually see my velo ramp up. If I spend 2 consecutive pitches below my peak, then I set an ultimatum that my next pitch must be the fastest of the session or the session is over.

2. The Mental Game Happens Off the Mound

Your improvements are developed away from the mound. After a session, you need to churn over in your mind how you felt. Look at video. Study the best pitchers in the game. Devise a new strategy for next time. You can't expect to show up and do the same thing you did last time and get different results.

3. Know When to Walk Away

If you don't have it that day, shut it down. Whatever improvement you were trying to make that day clearly isn't working. Focus your efforts on devising a new strategy for next time, instead of trying to browbeat your way through a failed effort. It's better to try again sooner with a revised strategy than to make 30 extra throws and put yourself on the shelf longer two days longer than necessary.

4. Redline Your Efforts

Sometimes the answer is to work harder, not smarter. Not all velocity gains are made from better mechanics. If you've reached a plateau and nothing is working, then you need to redline your efforts and evaluate what happens. Where did your mechanics breakdown? Where did you get sore? The difference between 95% effort and 100% effort is night and day. In a game, you're mostly going to pitch at 95% physical effort. But in practice, 100% on every pitch can be a great learning tool.

5. Sustainability is the Ultimate Metric

Faster velo is great, but if your arm is hanging in the wrong places the next day, then it doesn't count. Throwing hard on a single day, to have it then tank your velocity for the next week, is not an improvement. There's a big difference between muscle soreness from hard work, and the type of pain/discomfort/fatigue that is unsustainable. Taking inventory of how you feel the next day after throwing is VITAL to improvement.