Medicine Ball Exercises for Pitchers

By Tom House, PhD

All pitchers can and should work on improving their functional strength to improve resilience, prevent injury and increase velocity. That’s why we’ve added the National Pitching Association’s medicine ball exercises to Mustard. They are designed specifically to help you develop functional strength and improve performance. You’ll find it under the “Recovery Exercises” tab in your “My Plan.”

This medicine ball routine is also specifically designed to return foot pounds of energy into your body. Exactly how much energy you need to return depends on how hard you throw, how much you have thrown, how much you weigh, how old you are and a variety of other factors. However, because of the weight of the medicine balls and the number of reps in the routine, they are particularly beneficial when it comes to energy return. They provide more bang for your buck than lighter implements like bands, light dumbbells or plyo ball holds.

*Note: This blog refers to medicine balls, which are around eight inches in diameter and weigh anywhere between two and six pounds. It does NOT refer to weighted balls or plyo balls — the baseball-sized balls ranging from one ounce to two pounds that athletes use for various throwing drills and movements.*

The Medicine Ball Routine Builds Joint Integrity

These medicine ball exercises are designed to build joint integrity. It’s not going to build your beach muscles, but it is going to greatly enhance the overall health of the shoulder by increasing stability, mobility, flexibility, durability and pliability.

Flexibility: The ability of your muscles and connective tissues to be stretched passively through a full range of motion. Essentially, flexibility is how far you can stretch your muscles.
Mobility:The ability to move a joint through its full, active range of motion with control.
Stability: The ability to maintain control over a joint’s movement or position, resisting destabilizing forces.
Durability: The ability of the muscles to act as a natural support system for joints, reducing stress and the risk of injury.
Pliability: The ability of your muscles to absorb and disperse daily forces so that you can achieve more and avoid injury.

Understanding a Bit About Joints

The body is made up of flexible, alternating stable and mobile joints that are powered by muscle through ranges of motion. The ball-foot-arch complex is stable. The ankle is mobile. The knee is stable. The hip is mobile. The lower back is stable. The upper back is mobile. The shoulder blades are stable. The shoulder is mobile. The elbow is stable. The wrist is mobile.

You have to adapt your training to fit the need of the joint itself. Stretching a mobile joint leads to instability. You can stretch a stable joint, but you never want to push past normal range of motion.

When it comes to protecting your joints, your first line of defense is muscle. Your second line of defense is connective tissue. Your third line of defense is actually the bone, cartilage and other hard tissue that makes up the joint. Mustard’s medicine ball exercises actively strengthen all of those lines of defense.

When Should Pitchers Perform the Medicine Ball Routine?

The cool thing about this med ball routine is you can really do it anytime during your workout day. Use it as a warm-up, for post-throw recovery or for conditioning on days between throws.

A lot of pitchers like to take the balls into the bullpen and do the exercises that involve torquing or bouncing the ball into the wall. That’s a great way to get the total body loose before you throw, rather than just waking your arm up to go into the game.

When performed post-throw, this med ball routine also boosts blood flow to your shoulder. This helps you recover faster and recharge your arm after an outing.

How Heavy Should the Medicine Ball Be?

We recommend the two to four-pound ball for youth pitchers and the four to six-pound ball for more mature teen and adult pitchers. You should perform these medicine ball exercises for high repetitions. That’s around 25 for beginners and up to 100 for more experienced folks. You should choose a ball that allows you to do those reps without approaching failure. If you are doing the med ball routine as a warmup, do it until you feel a slight burn, then do just a few more reps. After you throw, you can push closer to fatigue.

If you’d like more great content from Mustard, and you’d like to evaluate and improve your own pitching mechanics, download the Mustard pitching app today.