It’s officially confirmed – proper softball conditioning using the right exercises – functional exercises (aka ”sports-specific” exercises) – increases arm strength and throwing velocity.
I’ve known a long time that strength training helped to increase arm strength and throwing velocity.
However, I decided that it would be nice to gather some scientific evidence to substantiate this claim.
After doing some research, I can tell you that there is no doubt enough studies to show that proper strength training using functional exercises definitely helps increase arm strength and throwing velocity.
To learn more about what is functional training – the type of strength training that most elite strength coaches use today with their athletes – click on the link to read a great article about it that I wrote a few years ago.
If you want to increase your throwing velocity, you should definitely integrate strength training into your training regimen and make sure that you use functional exercises to get the best results.
Some references:
1.Blievernicht, John. Balance Training. Idea Personal Trainer Magazine, September 1998.
2.Cibrario, Mark. Functional Integrated Strength Training Workshop. Can-Fit-Pro Conference, Toronto, August 2000.
3.Ewart, Linda-Joy. Function vs. Fluff Workshop, Personal Training Forum, The Fitness Group, July 2000.
4.Spencer, Cathy. Abdominals under the microscope Workshop. Can-Fit-Pro Conference, Toronto, August 2000.
5.Twist, Peter. Balance Your Workout. Sports West Digest. Vol. 2 No. 1, February 2000.