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General | General | 4/29/2021

Wolforth Throwing Mentorship: Article 5

Jerry Ford

Ron Wolforth

Photo: Johnny Tergo/Truth Baseball

Ron Wolforth probably knows more about the throwing arm and arm care than anyone we know. Many of you may have heard about the famous Texas Baseball Ranch that Ron has been running for many years. We have built a great relationship with Ron and his wife Jill over the years.

It all started a few years back when Ron sent his son Garrett to a Perfect Game event. His son was a catcher/infielder and set some all-time PG records for pop times (1.75) and velocity (89 mph) at the time. He also threw mid-90s across the infield. He is now playing professionally. Being an average-sized kid, this really drew our interest. Once we realized who his father was, it became clear.

Since then we have followed the Texas Baseball Ranch closely. Ron is a very humble man, which is a reason so many speak highly of him. We have never run across a single person that shows any disrespect for him or the Ranch. So we decided to ask him to help our millions of followers.

Over the years he has helped thousands of pitchers, including many that became Major League All-Stars. Yes, he teaches velocity gains, better control and command, and everything a pitchers needs to be successful. However, unlike many others, he is an absolute stickler when it comes to doing it safely. His interest doesn't just involve velocity gains and other improvements, all of which are very important. He wants his students to understand arm care and how to throw and stay healthy. He does this without a cookie cutter program. He understands that all players are different individuals.

Perfect Game's interest in prospects, arm care and keeping young kids healthy is the major reason we have decided to work with Ron Wolforth.

Below is the fifth of an ongoing column he will be doing on our Perfect Game website. This information will be gold for any player interested in improving their throwing ability and staying healthy. Make sure you read every column he contributes and feel free to comment on them.

If you want to attend one of his camps and improve your throwing ability, here is the link to the website:
https://www.texasbaseballranch.com/

Jerry Ford
President
Perfect Game

^{. . .}
Article 1: Where the Sidewalk Terminates
Article 2: The Exact Location of Your Arm Pain is Incredibly Valuable Information
Article 3: No Pain, No Problem...Right? Not Quite So Fast.
Article 4: The Secret to Accelerated Skill Development: Hyper-Personalization

Around 2014, I saw a trend coming very rapidly to baseball training… Weighted ball throwing programs were quickly becoming a “thing” in American baseball culture. Velocity programs using overload and underload implements were becoming a fad of sorts.

Now, those of you who have previously heard of the Texas Baseball Ranch®, may be a bit confused.

You may be asking, “Hasn’t Coach Wolforth and the Ranch been long-time advocates of utilizing weighted balls in their development of pitchers? I heard they’ve been using them for years. Why would he now write a piece critical on weighted balls? Has Coach Wolforth changed his mind? Is he really now against the use of weighted balls?”

The truth.

I remain a big proponent of weighted balls as a tool for developing elite throwing athletes… when used intelligently and appropriately!

Here is my dilemma, and the reason I wrote the white paper titled, “The Case Against Weighted Balls?”.

As I point out in the paper, we have been utilizing weighted balls since 2002/2003. We were utilizing weighted balls long before they were popular. We actually took a bit of heat in the first five years or so for their use from the baseball orthodoxy, and we were seen as needlessly edgy and provocative.

The problems we began to notice started to surface over the last 5-7 years. As they say, “nothing succeeds like success and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”. Watching our success on velocity enhancement from afar, multiple people/groups began copying what they thought were our processes, slightly changed the verbiage/labeling, and applied their own individual touches.

Things like that are very common in the business world; think no further than best-in-class Yeti vs. RTIC. Why would baseball be any different?

Here was the primary problem from our perspective: If you don’t know the entire 20-year history of our weighted ball journey and how specifically we evolved in our use of weighted balls, you will almost certainly make some crucial mistakes and inferential leaps with regards to their ramp-up, dosage, frequency, and, most importantly in our view, when and where the implementation of overload and underload implements would be contraindicated and maybe even dangerous.

In short, weighted balls themselves are neither good nor bad. They are simply tools and tools can, of course, be mismanaged and/or misapplied.

And boy were they ever.

"Purchase the balls online and we will send you a weighted ball throwing program,” one well-known company encouraged.

“Come to our facility and we’ll put you on a 6-week weighted ball velocity enhancement program and you can start gaining velocity tomorrow!”

Dozens of academies across the USA and Canada were in a hurry to join the “weighted ball/velocity revolution”.

At the Texas Baseball Ranch®, when we saw these tools being implemented universally to all their athletes with no assessments, no preconditions considered, and a very steep ramp up process, we felt a little like that scene in Ghostbusters where they knew that the city shutting down the power grid was a horrible idea and things were about to go from bad to worse.

We knew many young men were not yet ready for the new levels of stress.

We knew injuries were going to go up exponentially.

They had to in our estimation.

Almost no one checked these young men first for structural soundness and asymmetries

Almost no one checked these young men first for strength and stability

Almost no one checked these young men first for mobility and flexibility

Almost no one checked these young men first for mechanical inefficiencies

Almost no one checked these young men first for having a solid throwing foundation before ramping up full effort intensity

Almost no one checked these young men first for their history with injury, soreness, or general level of fitness

Almost no one checked these young men first for their developmental age, their previous experience with high intensity throwing, or where they are in their competitive season (off-season, pre-season, in-season, post-season)

It wasn’t just “Ready, Aim, Fire!” … It was actually more like “Fire, Aim, Ready.”

Dr. James Andrews, frequently touted as one of the preeminent orthopedic surgeons in the United States, asked me to join a discussion group this past January at the prestigious “Injuries in Baseball Course” hosted by the American Sports Medicine Institute (ASMI).

The topic of discussion… “Are weighted balls safe?”

It appears that arm injuries, subsequent ulnar collateral reconstruction surgeries (“Tommy John”), and labrum surgeries are happening at an alarming rate.

Again... This didn't surprise us.

That is the reason I wrote the white paper, “The Case Against Weighted Balls?”. So that I, and the Texas Baseball Ranch®, would not be thrown into this monolithic group of supposed weighted ball advocates.

I believed weighted balls were going to be getting some really bad press.

However, weighted balls weren’t the problem… how they were being used was the problem.

If you or a young man you know is involved in a weighted ball/velocity enhancement program, I’d urge you to get this free report. After reading it, I believe you will be able to see when, where, and how weighted balls can be included into your program, not only to enhance your development, but most importantly, create a healthy and durable arm.

I look forward to continuing our discussion.

Ron Wolforth
CEO - The Texas Baseball Ranch®

P.S. If you’d like to get your free copy of "The Case Against Weighted Balls?” simply CLICK HERE.

P.P.S. Next time: “The Truth About Pitch Counts, Workloads & Overuse”

Coach Wolforth has written six books on pitching including the Amazon Best Seller, Pitching with Confidence. Since 2003, 122 of the players Wolforth has trained have been drafted and 458 have broken the 90mph barrier. He has consulted with 13 MLB teams, dozens of NCAA programs and has been referred to as “America’s Go-to-Guy on Pitching” and “The Pitching Coaches Pitching Coach”. Coach Wolforth lives in Montgomery, Texas with his wife, Jill. They are intimately familiar with youth select, travel baseball and PG events as their son Garrett (now a catcher in the Cincinnati Reds organization) went through the process. Garrett still holds the PG Underclass All-American Games record for catcher velocity at 89mph which he set in 2014 at the age of 16.

If you would like a free copy of Pitching with Confidence, go to freepitchingbook.com.

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