10 Tips To Throw A Baseball Harder

10 reasons you don't throw as hard as you think you should. Number one, you're not that big. Look, big bodies throw harder. This is why in the major leagues, you see all the pitchers are really tall and more than ever today, they're becoming very muscular. So if you're waiting for a growth spurt, you might have to keep waiting and that's just life. But otherwise, get in the weight room, eat a lot of food, get bigger and stronger. Number two, you have a weak glove arm. If your glove arm is flying out like this and you have a lot of gap between your glove arm and your body, you're losing miles per hour. Your glove arm should be compact, close to your body like this as your chest moves towards your target. Glove arm is very important in throwing a baseball harder. Number three, your arm slot isn't ideal for your body. Everyone's arm slot is different and every player is going to throw a little bit harder from somewhere in between this really high arm slot and maybe a low three-quarter arm slot. When you start to get from sidearm and below, you start to throw pretty much, you just throw slower. So tinker, see where your ideal arm slot is. You might throw a slight amount harder up here and a slight amount slower down there. Tinker and find out. Number four, your hips open up too early. If when you're going through your stride, you're landing a little bit open, you're definitely losing velocity. Make sure your chest stays closed all the way until you land in your stride. Number five, your rotator cuff and your scaps are weak. Make sure you're on a great arm care program. When you strengthen your rotator cuff, strengthen your scapula, they help your arm stay healthy longer and helps you throw harder. Number six, your forearms are weak. Your forearm muscles help protect your ulnar collateral ligament, the Tommy John ligament, from injury. And they're the last muscles propelling the baseball a little bit forward. If you don't want to leave anything on the table, do some Tommy John rehab while you're healthy. It will help you throw harder and give you the extra added benefit of adding some protection to your elbow. Number seven, you have to throw enough. You can't just throw twice a week or three times a week and expect to really get results. You should absolutely not be throwing hard every time, maybe only twice a week. But playing catch a couple days a week in addition to your bullpens and your in-game pitching and your long toss is really good for your arm. So make sure you have enough low-speed throwing days in the week. Number eight, your elbow angle is too obtuse. When you land, your elbow angle should be somewhere between 90 degrees and maybe 70 degrees. If it's too obtuse, like it's way out here, you're definitely going to lose velocity because you have a longer lever to then accelerate as you go. You need to have that 90 degree or slightly less arm angle when you land from your stride. Last two, you're too tall when you accelerate the ball. As you start to come through, if you're releasing the pitch really high like this, you're not using your trunk and your legs well enough. When you look at major league pitchers, they are using their whole body and they're driving their chest towards their target, producing a long lower body angle at release. And my last tip, if you don't feel like you throw as hard as you should, is your intensity. Do you finish with enough intensity? When you watch really hard throwers, they are really amazing finishers, getting every last bit of the baseball and having a really long follow-through. You can't start to ease off early and try to paint the corners. You have to throw hard all the way through to the very, very end. And you learn to control that and throw strikes with that level of high intensity. If you enjoyed this video, subscribe to the channel. Check out my online pitching courses, my baseball books. All that stuff is in the description below. And I'll see you here in the next video.