Arm Care is About More Than Just the Arm
What comes to mind when you hear “arm care”? Most baseball and softball players probably think about rotator cuff exercises using resistance bands and light dumbbells, external rotations, the Thrower’s 10, or shoulder mobility. But throwing isn’t just a movement of the shoulder; it involves the entire body.
I like to think about throwing like cracking a whip. The crack doesn’t come from the very end of the whip alone - it comes from energy being transferred from the handle, through the entire length of the whip. Throwing works much in the same way. Throwing starts with the legs pushing off the ground and driving the body forward, then turns into rotation with the hips and torso transferring energy up through the body. The shoulder and arm are the last links with the arm unwinding and the wrist providing the last flick.
While most of the attention when it comes to throwers is on the shoulder and elbow due to the tremendous forces on these joints (and rightfully so), we should also think about arm care in a more global sense as well. Arm care isn’t just about strengthening the shoulder - it’s about building a body that’s prepared to tolerate the demands of throwing.
Build a stronger athlete: Throwing starts from the ground up, so arm care shouldn’t stop at the shoulder. Developing strength through the legs, hips, and trunk helps create and transfer force through the body. We also shouldn’t overlook general upper body strength. Compound exercises like rows, presses, and pull-ups don’t just strengthen the larger muscles - they also challenge the rotator cuff while allowing us to use heavier loads than isolated exercises alone. Isolation exercises still have an important place, but they should complement, not replace, a well-rounded strength program.
Build work capacity: Arm care is about maintaining the quality of your throws throughout a practice, game, or tournament. As fatigue builds, movement quality can change, and recovery between innings or games becomes more important. Good aerobic fitness won’t make you throw harder, but it helps you recover between bouts of high-intensity effort so you can continue performing throughout the day.
Build throwing capacity: As mentioned in last week’s blog, throwing is a skill of its own and a unique demand on the body. Therefore, it needs to be developed and progressed on its own. Being a strong athlete with good conditioning provides the foundation, but it doesn’t automatically prepare your arm for throwing. Having a progressive throwing program that manages your workload is just as important to arm care as the strengthening exercises. Nothing can replace throwing.
Recovery: I’ve talked about recovery before, but it is an often overlooked aspect. We tend to focus on all of the things we add to get better (e.g. resistance training, long toss, weighted balls), while overlooking the things that actually allow our body to adapt to training; and even then, we tend to focus on fancy gadgets rather than the low-hanging fruit of sleep, nutrition, hydration, and managing stress.
As a baseball and softball player, you are more than just an arm, shoulder, or elbow. You are an athlete, and while the arm is the bread and butter, you need to remember that the rest of your body is just as important to throwing. If you want a more resilient throwing arm, stop thinking only about your arm and start preparing your whole body.
