He must have a Rubber Arm…
Have you ever wondered how a coach can throw so much batting practice (BP) and get up the next day and do it again? Well, I have a couple of secrets but first lets describe a typical scenario. You are a youth coach or a parent that is working with their kids on hitting.
Tee work and soft toss is great to develop a fundamentally good swing but it will only get you so far. Your player will need to see some live pitching…so you throw BP to your player out on a field or cage somewhere.
I have seen many parents/coaches throw BP but not be able to throw strikes and throw with appropriate velocity. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to hit in batting practice and the pitcher is throwing too slow or cannot throw strikes. Also, if you are not conditioned to throw BP every day, your arm is going to be sore.
To get the most out of throwing BP, here are some useful suggestions:
- Get an ‘L’ Screen or Portable Safety Screen for protection. It is hard to stay consistent if you have a fear of being hit by a “come backer”.
- Do not throw from 60’6” (regulation distance). Move closer to the plate. Accuracy will increase and you pitches will be relatively faster.
- Use your body to throw, not just your arm. Find a rhythm when throwing. I usually take two steps and kind of walk into the throw. This takes a lot of pressure off of your arm.
- Try to throw off a platform to create the downward plane. Again, it takes some pressure off of your arm.
- If all else fails, use a muscle rub cream on your arm.
There is a product called “Rubber Arm” that was developed to help athletes and everyday people recuperate faster from the aches and pains associated with physical activity – Like throwing Batting practice!
I use this product during the height of the spring season when I am throwing BP every other day. This spring, my assistant coach could not throw BP because of the shoulder surgery that he had in the past. So it was up to me to throw most of our BP sessions. One day in practice, I wanted to extend our BP session to our last of 4 groups but I hit “the wall”. I had to find a way to push through it to keep practice running and give my players the best opportunity to prepare for the game the next day.
One of my players tossed me a bottle of Rubber Arm, I applied some on my elbow and shoulder and it gave me that second wind to complete the round.None of my players got shorted because of my arm. GREAT stuff.
After using all of the pointers above, I am able to condition myself to throw 500 pitches every other day with some velocity behind them. That is 8+ large buckets of baseballs holding 60 balls each. This is how to throw batting practice.
Stay on plane!
Coach Kuebler
About CoachK
