Building a better throwing program:

A deep dive into offseason programming for high school athletes

Auhtor, Michael Stafford

November ,2019

Phase 1: Volume

Week 2: Volume & Pulldown

We are now on our second week of our program at RBA. To give a quick recap I’m currently working closely with our high school athletes over a 10 week off season velocity and throwing program. During this program we will be progressing from flat groundwork to the mound. As well as developing better movements through the use of plyocare work and high volume/intent long toss.

I always structure our program by having a pre-throwing arm care warm up. This is followed by our dry-work and movement prep. For the first two week the main focus is on the arm path.

I start by giving a brief overview or what I am looking for in the arm path. The arm should be fluid, loose, and whippy in action. This usually follows a figure 8 or spiraling motion in where the scapula retracts, and elbow moves upward to the arm pit region. This gains tension as the body moves forward, then at the last second the arm flies into a high scap load like a spring.

Repatterning the arm path certainly takes much longer than 2 weeks, but it helps to gain an overall understanding of how the arm should work. This then can be incorporated throughout the course of the program and the athlete’s career.

During our dry work this is when we incorporate drills such as medball work, towel dirlls, patterning balls, and lower body/footwork. This is a great time for the athletes to really feel their adjustments before moving over to the wall and into long toss.

This week of the long toss protocol we begin to ramp it up a little bit. By the second week each athlete should be working out to their max distance in extension. At the beginning of week two we begin to implement a sub-max pull down. The protocol and time look something like this depending on the athlete.

5 minutes 0-50% 10 minutes 50-60% 5 minutes 60-100%

Pulldowns (Weights can also be prescribes depending on the athlete)

3-4 sets of 5 reps at 85-90% RPE

This first week we simple use a shuffle throw or a walking windup when pulling down. As we begin to move into later phases, we will implement a high intensity flat ground as well as a velocity mound day.

If you are interested in offseason programming as an individual or team. Please contact me at staffordbaseballperformance@gmail.com.