The primary goal of youth pitchers is to train to throw harder. The most obvious way to accomplish this is to practice pitching. However, youth pitchers often forget about overall strength and conditioning. Resistance cord exercises strengthen the upper body, including the shoulders, which mainly are responsible for throwing, and the back and chest muscles that also assist with pitching.
Shoulder Exercise
Pitchers place a lot of stress on their rotator cuff muscles. Resistance cords let you strengthen the rotator cuffs through your full range of motion standing up. The external and internal rotation at 0 degrees abduction exercises strengthen the rotators both in the direction you throw a pitch and the opposite direction for the wind up. To set up for these exercises, tie one end of a resistance cord to a doorway and hold the other end in your right hand with your elbow bent at a right angle against your side. To do external rotation, stand sideways with your right shoulder toward the door. Point your right arm toward the door, still touching your side, and then pull on the band as you rotate your arm toward the left. Perform internal rotation by turning around, starting with your right arm across your abdomen and then rotating the arm outwards. These exercises are among the most popular exercises for throwers.
Chest Exercise
Pushups are not only a classic exercise for the chest, shoulders and arms but also one of the top exercises to increase throwing power. A resistance cord across the back adds extra difficulty to the exercise when knee pushups or toe pushups become too easy. To begin, assume pushup position with the cord across your upper back and holding the ends wrapped around your hands. Bend your elbows and lower your chest toward the floor, then push yourself back up against resistance from the cord.
Back Exercise
Bentover rows are an exercise for the back and shoulders. This is an explosive strength training exercise recommended for youth pitchers by Kyle Nellesen, youth baseball coach. To perform a bentover row with a resistance cord, stand on the center of the cord with one foot, incline your upper body forward 45 degrees and hold the ends of the cord in your hands, with your arms pointing straight at the floor. Then, bend your elbows to pull the ends of the cord toward your waist and squeeze your back muscles.
Youth Workout Schedule
Youth pitchers do not need to strength train more than four days a week, but they should rest for a minimum of 48 hours between workouts. An ideal schedule is to strength train on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, taking the other days of the week to do cardio, plyometrics and to rest.
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