Baseball: the long toss argument

For quite some time now there has been this argument in baseball about how far pitchers should long toss. Some people believe that long tossing 300 feet means you can throw 90 mph. The other side thinks that you should not go past 180 feet during long toss. Most MLB organizations side with just throwing until 120-180 feet and bringing it back in.

At Throw University we believe in just throwing to 120-180 feet and bringing it back in. The reason for this thinking is that a study has been done by the famous ASMI revealing that velocity decreased near a 300 foot distance. The study revealed that the group of throwers velocity average 87 from 180 feet and the average velocity near 300 feet was 85.

My analogy to all my athletes about this is that if you were training to run a fast 40 yard dash you would not train for it by running a lap around the track. Pitching is a quick burst of power movement so you want to train like that as much as possible. The other problem is that extremely far long toss forces you to alter your mechanics and launch angle to throw the ball that far. Through personal experience I have seen a lot of guys that could long toss 300+ feet but could not throw over 85 mph off the mound. I have also had a teammate that could not long toss more than 85 yards and he touched 95 mph. So at this point I really do not believe the whole 300 feet = 90 mph.

All that being said I do think extreme long toss has its place. Long toss is a great tool for warming your arm up and increasing range of motion in your shoulder. I personally recommend long tossing to a max of 180 feet, because that gets the range of motion needed in the shoulder and you can for the most part still throw with the same mechanics. The only time I would recommend extreme long toss would be if that pitcher does not have much external rotation (lay back of the arm) during his throw. Then I would tell the pitcher to stretch it out past 180 feet to improve range of motion. But for 95% of pitchers I would bring it in after 120-180 feet has been reached.

On a side note, If you are an outfielder I would stretch out to a good 200-250 feet each day. The reason for that is that you will have to make some long throws from the outfield to the plate, to 2nd, or to 3rd.