Question for all the pitchers out there...

[elicotton]

I never played baseball but I have a 12 year old son who's a pretty good ballplayer. His fastball is around 55-60 mph with very good placement and plenty of movement. He also has a 12-6 curve thats just nasty, but I don't let him throw it much yet.

Here's my question. He began lifting with the junior high football team this week. They worked out on Monday and Wednesday, both days doing 3 sets of 10 in the Squat, Bench and Chest-Supported Row.

The Squats hit him pretty hard, causing a lot of soreness. On Thursday morning, I asked him how he felt and he said he was only sore a little in the legs, but they felt rubbery, like they couldn't support him. I know he scheduled to pitch that night but don't worry too much about it because I figure he's young and can handle it.

Well, he always starts a little slow and gets better as the game goes on, not really hitting a peak till around 40 pitches, so when the other team was making decent contact in the first inning, I wasn't too worried. He got out of an inning with a double play and only one run scoring and I'm thinking, OK, now hes warmed up.

Second inning starts and he is throwing REAL slow, like in the low fortys, with no movement. Still three up three down due to some good defense.

Third inning, slower still, no follow thru (he usually falls off the first base side of the mound) and I realize that he's just exhausted, really shot. I then asked the coach if it was just me or was he pitching really slow and he said "Yeah, I noticed it but thought it was just me. Do you realize that a couple of their hitters pulled the ball? First time this year he's been pulled."

We replaced him after that inning.

My question to you pitchers...can lack of recovery from weights have that dramatic an impact on your pitching? Any personal examples?

BTW, he was pitching on five days rest, and had only thrown 72 pitches over 6 innings the previous game.

[LD_18]

if he is just starting to lift with them, then a good explination as to why he had a rough outting was due to the workout and soreness, but he needs to continue to do those workouts and also as a pitcher he needs to do ALOT of running. he will build up a tolerence for the workouts and they will not effect his performance as much. also, keep in mind that he needs to be smarter about his days that he lifts so he can have ampule time to recover completely. he also should concentrate more on his leg workouts than he does on bench press cause the majority of pitching and endurence in a game comes from the legs, look at all the pros even if they dont have huge legs u can bet that they r solid. pm me if u have anymore questions as to what he (yall) should consider for workouts or just baseball quesions in gen. i'm always glad to talk bout ball haha. i used to pitch and play the field i was a "two-way" player all through college, but just stuck to 3rd base in pro ball.

[elicotton]

Thanks bro. What kind of sux is that the football program sets the workout days which are Monday and Wednesday, and his games are usually on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. I have a nice gym set up in my basemant so I'm going to tell the Jr. High football coach that I'll work him out around the baseball schedule rather than him making all the team workouts. I think your right, it's a matter of timing the workouts so he'll be recovered by game time.