Your Son's April Arm Injury

is Being Scheduled Right Now

The Harsh Reality of Skill Development - Part 1 of 5

Let me start this series with something most people in baseball won't say out loud.

In my experience, a great many of the arm problems we will see next April are being set up right now... in October, November and December.

Not necessarily because a young pitcher is throwing too much. Often it's because of what happens when he stops.

Here is the pattern. I have watched it for more than thirty years.

The fall season ends. The arm is tired, so the family does what seems like the responsible thing.  They shut it down. No throwing. For a lot of kids, no anything.

Weeks go by. The holidays come and go.

Then somebody looks at a calendar in January and realizes tryouts are three weeks away.

Suddenly, an arm that has done nothing since October is asked to go from zero to game speed in about twenty days.

And here's the part that concerns me most.

The family thought they were doing the right thing.

They gave his arm a break. They let him rest. They assumed that when he started throwing again, he'd be fresh and ready to go.

But rest and readiness are two very different things.

That is the harsh reality. Now let me tell you why it is dangerous.

Rest is Not the Same as Rebuilding

Let me be clear about something.

Time away from competitive pitching can be a very good thing. I am not arguing against it.

But understand what rest does and what it doesn't do. Rest lets soreness settle. It does not make soft tissue stronger. Muscle, tendon and ligament adapt to what you ask of them. Ask nothing of them for weeks on end and you don't get a fresh arm. You get an arm that is ready for nothing.

And here is the trap. The arm FEELS great.

No soreness. No stiffness. So the athlete cuts it loose the first week back... with tissue that is nowhere close to ready for the intensity.

Think about it this way. Nobody would take two months off from running and then enter a race three weeks later at full speed. Yet, every January, I see young pitchers attempting something remarkably similar with their throwing arms.

And then we're surprised when problems show up in March and April.

Then Comes the Rush

The issue isn’t simply that a pitcher took some time off. 

Every hard throw creates micro-trauma in the arm. Always. That is the price of the activity. A prepared arm absorbs it and recovers. An unprepared arm, asked to do too much too soon, falls behind... and it stays behind.

That is the pitcher whose elbow or shoulder starts barking in March. Or the one who is "just a little tight" all spring and never throws as hard as he did last summer.

And it happens at the worst possible time. Tryouts. The varsity roster. The first major tournament. The beginning of a season the athlete has been looking forward to for months.

And nobody connects what is happening in March with the decisions made in November and December.

They should.

What to Do Instead

The solution isn't complicated. But it does require something that too many families overlook. A plan.

At the Ranch, there are three things I want parents and athletes to think about.

1.     Count backward from the first day he has to throw at full speed.

Don't start with the date he plans to begin throwing. Start with the date he needs to be ready to throw at “game intensity”.  This does not mean, his first game. It means when he first has to throw at full intensity.  For example, if he’s trying to make a team, this would be his first bullpen in front of his coaches.

With this understanding, the ramp back up to game intensity should take eight weeks at a MINIMUM. Twelve is better. So get out a calendar, find the first date he has to throw at full speed, and count back. Here is the chart we use at the Ranch:

Find his row. Wherever you live, the math works the same way. If your son needs to be ready to compete in February and your entire plan was to "start throwing after New Year's," you may already be behind.

And that's a problem worth addressing before the season begins.

2. Take time off the mound... not time off from everything.

At the Ranch we say it this way: Throw more, Pitch less.

While he rests from pitching, he should still be moving, playing light catch, getting stronger, and working on his mobility and the quality of his soft tissue. An off-season is supposed to build something. Weeks on the couch build nothing.

Time away from pitching can be valuable. Time without a plan is a missed opportunity.

3. Earn each step.

Build the foundation first: higher volume at a low to medium intensity. Then add distance and intensity. Mounds and maximum effort come last, not first. And if something hurts, that is information. Don't push through it and don't ignore it.

The goal isn't to see how quickly a young pitcher can get back to throwing hard. The goal is to prepare him to handle the demands of his season as safely and effectively as possible.

A Question Ever Parent & Player Should Ask

Ask one question this week: "What date does he need to be ready to throw full intensity, and what date does his ramp-up start?” If nobody around him can answer both, he doesn't have an off-season plan. He has a break.

After more than thirty years working with pitchers, I can tell you this:

The problems we see in the spring don't always begin in the spring. Often, the groundwork was laid months earlier.

And the good news is that families who understand that connection have an opportunity to make better decisions before the season arrives.

Next in the series: Why the program your son is following this winter may have been built for somebody else.

Ron Wolforth

Coach Ron Wolforth is the founder of The Texas Baseball Ranch® and has authored six books on pitching, including the Amazon Best Seller Pitching with Confidence. Since 2003, The Texas Baseball Ranch® has had 142 of their players drafted, and 682 have broken the 90 mph barrier. Coach Wolforth has consulted with 13 MLB teams, numerous NCAA programs, and is often referred to as “America’s Go-To Guy on Pitching.”

Coach Wolforth lives in Montgomery, TX with his wife, Jill. They are intimately familiar with youth select, travel baseball and PG events as their son Garrett went through the process. Garrett, a former catcher in the Cincinnati Reds and Houston Astros organizations, still holds the PG Underclass All-American Games record for catcher velocity at 89mph which he set in 2014 at the age of 16. Garrett is now an instructor at the Texas Baseball Ranch sharing his experience with the next generation of players.

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Free Ranch Resources:

1) A special 90-minute webinar hosted by Coach Wolforth - “The Velocity Code: 3 Secrets to Improving Velocity and Staying Healthy”.  Register here: https://keap.page/m130/velocity-webinar-registration.html

2) Get a free copy of Coach Wolforth’s book, Pitching with Confidence.
Visit: www.freepitchingbook.com

Ways to train with the Ranch:

3-Hour Private Training Session - designed for athletes who are needing immediate attention for a performance constraint, especially arm health related.  Call for details (936) 588-6762.

Elite Pitchers Bootcamp (EPBC)
Join our 3-day event for pitchers ages 12+. EPBCs are held every month except March & April. Details, dates and current availability at: www.texasbaseballranch.com

Want to see what makes EPBC different? Request our detailed information package “What Makes This Bootcamp Different?” by emailing Jill@TexasBaseballRanch.com.

Private Lessons & Fall Classes (Greater Houston Area)
For details, email info@TexasBaseballRanch.com or call (936) 588-6762.  Classes are held Monday and Wednesday beginning in September and run through January.