Baseball has become a kind of passion for many sports persons today. Many people in the US choose playing baseball as their life’s goal. As a result, the interested boys and girls in playing baseball will be trained from the time they show interest in the game starting from the school level.
One of the important parts of a baseball team is a pitcher. A pitcher is someone, who requires more potential and power in his arms to successfully achieve strikes against the team they are playing. As a result, they will be trained with the help of weighted balls, so as to successfully achieve the required potential. However, using heavy baseballs for training might sometimes result in causing some health damages in the pitcher’s body.
ReVitalize Rehab Club is one of the best known rehab centers in Bixby Knoll, Long Beach, California. They are best known for offering complete bone and muscle health in the injured sportspersons. The experts working there will not only help you with achieving a healthy life, but will also let you understand how to safely use weighted baseball.
Throwing Program of Weighted ball in a Baseball
The velocity of the balls can decide the fate of any baseball match. Everything depends on the health of the arms and shoulder muscles of the pitcher, in every baseball match. In order to achieve the required velocity, the pitchers will be trained with the balls weighing 2 to 4 pounds. Sometimes, the weight of the ball might increase even till 32 or more than 32 pounds.
Using heavy weighted pitching balls in a baseball practice is actually a best choice, when it comes to training the pitchers in a most advanced way. However, it is not necessary that it is not an ideal choice, as it might include some health problems.
Are Weighted Balls Not an Ideal Idea?
It is a universal fact in the world of baseball that the higher usage of any baseball, ends up with increasing the weight of the balls. Normally, quarterbacks in a football practice are the ones that use the balls more than the pitchers in the baseball practice. However, it is the pitchers that end up with physical injuries than the quarterbacks. Why is that?
Coaches normally believe that tripling the actual weight of the baseballs might increase the practice sessions of the pitchers in three folds. They think that it is an ideal way of subjecting their players to more practice sessions. Increase in arm stress because of the heavy weighted balls usually ends up causing physical damages in the body of the pitchers.
Incorporation of the Weighted Baseballs
Using weighted baseballs in the baseball practice doesn’t mean that the players will be allowed to use weighted balls from the initial stages of the practice sessions. The coaches make sure that the players have done enough sets of warmups and their arms are in their 100% potential, before the players are allowed to touch the weighted baseballs. Players normally require more than months of practice before the actual match. The coaches start the practice with the weighted baseballs from the starting practice sessions.
Once the practice sessions reach about 6 weeks, the players will be subjected to thorough medical examinations, so as to make sure that the elbow torque, muscle strength, velocity, motion shoulder range, injury rates, etc., of the players are in excellent working condition till the actual matches.
It is discovered that the percentage of injuries as found in the arms and muscles of the baseballs players is almost 25% more, while using the weighted baseballs, as compared to the group of players using the normal weighted baseballs.
Programs of Weighted Baseball Velocity
There are many programs that work on increasing the velocity of the players and have been in motion from the past few years. Such programs are known by the name weighted ball velocity programs. Many experts are working on understanding more about such programs with the idea of understanding whether such programs have positive effects on the players.
The fastball velocity of the pitchers is increasing with each weighted baseball velocity program, and this has been proven in many researches. However, the increase in the pitching velocity of the baseball has even resulted with the increase in the injury rates in the pitchers, and this is because of the usage of weighted baseballs.
Amateur players prefer training with weighted baseballs, when compared with the experienced players. Their main goal here is to achieve the required potential so as to reach the league of the experienced players. Even though the ideology is right here, the amateurs often experience injuries that might become a major drawback in their baseball career.
Consistency in the Throwing Program
If you are a player and are experiencing some dilemma regarding whether or not to go with weighted baseball practice, then it is suggested to start the practice at slower levels. If you are on a holiday from the training for more than 60 to 70 days, then it is strictly suggested to not just jump into weighted baseball training right from the start.
Puberty can Cause Major Changes in the Arm Developments
It is a well-known fact that puberty can cause many changes in the body of any human being. The changes usually will be concentrated on the joints and muscular structures of the body. Hence, understand that puberty has a major role to play in your decision regarding whether or not to go with weighted baseball training.
To conclude, weighted baseball training can offer wonderful benefits for the pitchers. They will get to experience an increase in the velocity of their pitches. The players will even get to enjoy triple fold practice in their single practice session in a day. You can go on listing many benefits from using weighted baseballs. However, the weighted baseballs practice programs even have some drawbacks such as increased chances in the arm and shoulder injuries.
Understand your requirement properly in becoming a baseball player and decide whether to go with the weighted baseball practice programs as per your requirement. You can even consult your physician, before making a right decision.