How To Increase Pitching Velocity: Use A Medicine Ball

Our players love using medicine balls for a number of reasons. They love trying to break them (that’s something we tell them to try) which increases intensity. Also, they’re able to continue getting reps even if their arm doesn’t feel fresh.

In this video, Scott discusses how our pitchers use the medicine ball for drills.

Are you a high school pitcher or parent that wants to know if you or your son is capable of more fastball velocity? Our HC4 Velocity program helps pitchers add on average 4mph to their fastball and for FREE, you can see if you’ve got more in the tank! Tap the link below to find where you’re leaking velocity.

https://www.healthyvelo.com/velocity

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Full Transcript (will update):

How To Increase Pitching Velocity: Use A Medicine Ball

Here is one of the tools I use all the time if someone is going to work with me in person for a lengthy assessment. Guys will come here for three to six, seven hours or for a weekend camp, and we're going all day long, and they run out of steam.

If you wanna throw harder and you wanna train to throw harder and you wanna do it longer throughout the day, eventually your arm taps out, and something else can be very valuable. We often use two-pound med balls for a lot of different ages. You can use four pounds, but guys tend to slow down their movement, and we're more of the camp of getting you to move faster as much as possible.

Then for young guys, this works out pretty well, but you can also use a smaller basketball or something like that. And then you can throw it against a wall or into a net. What's nice about these is when you put both hands on the ball, you're able to use both arms, you're able to use more of your body, and you're able to get quite a bit out of it. You can actually sometimes tap into more of your body, and you're able to get quite a bit of velocity because you're having to use your whole body to propel this thing that is fairly heavy, especially compared to a baseball.

So things we'll have guys do is let's say I'm a lefty and I wanna throw in this direction. I'm gonna start with hands on the side and then the ball going back over my shoulder almost like I'm going to do an axe, like I'm gonna hit an axe. So it goes back here or almost like you're doing some kind of crazy motion with your bat and you'll be here. And then when you go through the motion, you let the ball just kind of hang out relaxed back behind you, and then it sits back there, and then you're gonna throw it chop style. So I'm gonna be here.

Let's say good. Let's say I just go through the motion I'm gonna come set, and then I'm gonna create some looseness kind of get it back here. You don't have to but it helps for some guys back here. I'm gonna lift. It's gonna come behind me, and then I'm gonna propel it with hands on the side like this. A lot of guys will want to go and push it with one arm. And that actually can add a little bit more stress than you might want. So make sure that the technique is fairly solid. If you need to get a smaller ball, go ahead. Again, these are two pounds. It works good for guys middle school if they're gonna have gone through puberty. But definitely high school and college guys.

So come through your hands on the sides of the ball. So you're kind of thinking I'm throwing my thumbs at the target here. And then you can go through the same motion. What I like about these is one you can throw a lot because you might get tired. But you're not going to get fatigued in your arms like you would throwing a baseball. And then two you can really really work on intensity, so you're using your whole body, and then you're just going all out trying to just push this thing through a wall, through a net. And we'll often tell guys that are throwing it to a wall that you are trying to break this thing. And after a while, these things do break, so there is a possibility that you could break it on one of your throws.

So you can start adding these for a pretty low cost to almost any of your drills. Good luck, and make sure you are subscribed to this page so you can get more Healthy Velo tips.