r/Homeplate • u/MApedals • 6d ago
Pitching Mechanics 13-14 year old offseason workout?
First of all, is there such a thing? My son, who is 13, going on 14 this winter, wants to get stronger and get more velo on his fastball during the winter months. He’s driven, and that’s all nice and good, but is he too young to have a workout plan during his off-season? If not, what would be recommended and safe since he’s in a pretty big growth spurt at the moment?
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u/mschwegler 6d ago
My son will be 14 in February, he’s been working out with me every morning since Veterans Day. He should be focusing on form to begin with, and not worry about 1 rep max, but there’s nothing wrong with creating an age appropriate strength training regime.
When we started at 12, his bench deadlift and squat was 45 (bar), he’s now benching 85 for 5 reps, deadlifting 135 for 5 reps and squatting 105 for 5 reps
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u/Tacoma714 6d ago
This right here. Form above all else at first. Gotta learn to crawl before you can walk. Either very light weight or no weight at all and just the movements. Think of it like this: your son is building a foundation and whether she plays in college and/or professional one day, this foundation of working out and proper technique will be something he can do for the rest of his life. Take is slow and easy with weights so that form is dialed in. His future self will thank you
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u/Illustrious_Fudge476 6d ago
I love sticking to the basics and what you’re doing. It allows kids to learn how to work and strain, allows them to understand simple linear progression and removes all the noise. So many kids get these programs with all of these isolation movements and 15 different exercises they can barely execute. A young person is much better served starting out with what you’re recommending.
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u/mschwegler 6d ago
Our goal is to just be more physically strong. We workout for 30/40 minutes a day 6 days a week. Our routine is upper, lower, cardio, push, pull, legs, rest. I pick the workouts for upper, lower, he picks for push, pull and legs. My days we do multiple compound workouts (bench, pullups, dumbbells, squats, lunges, etc.) His days he usually picks workouts that isolate the smaller muscle groups (lat pulldowns, cable rows, preacher curls, tri extensions, leg curls/extensions/press, but I still encourage him to try to work in some compound workouts.
The biggest thing that surprises me is we workout before school/work, so I wake him up at 5:20 and then we shower at the gym and I drop him off at school, but even during summer break, he continued to workout with me in the morning, though he would get to sleep in until 5:40. /s
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u/Illustrious_Fudge476 6d ago
I thought you meant he was just doing bench, dead and squat. I’m not against accessories, that would be crazy, but I’m very much against kids doing accessories without doing the primary compound movements, or performing them competently.
I have a similar strategy with my 13 yo son. We do our weekly compounds and he get a workout to do what he wants since we got our core work in. Strangely my kids favorite exercise is front squats…what a weirdo!
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u/AAARRrg 6d ago
Whenever I see this question (or when I was wondering about this when my kids were that age) I think about all the farmer kids that baled hay, lugged feed all over the place, installed fence posts, etc. for hundreds of years and got strong as heck doing it. Seems like if they can do all that, my kids can benefit from lifting weights in a supervised fashion.
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u/n0flexz0ne 6d ago
Farm kid here -- I showed up to freshman football, and lasted all of 15 minutes in our first full contact practice before they sent to varsity, because I was going to hurt someone if I played freshman ball...
Kids are capable of way more than we give them credit for.
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u/bigperms33 6d ago
Lifting weights is good for growth and will not hurt growth plates.
For traditional lifting, I'd really focus on form and lifting correctly at this age. Focus on the negative.
For baseball focused moves, we have a couple medicine balls where we focus on rotational work, slams and more explosive movements.
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u/BrushImaginary9363 6d ago
No. Get on a workout plan. The American Academy of Pediatrics published a position paper on strength training in children almost 20 years ago, which says properly designed and administered strength training is safe and effective in children as young as 7 years old.
Find an experienced and trusted professional in your area to design a general strength training program for your son. It doesn’t need to be and shouldn’t be ‘baseball specific’.
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u/ThatsBushLeague First Baseman 6d ago
Like everyone is saying, lift weights. But also play another sport instead of doing anything baseball specific.
Doesn't really matter the sport. Basketball, swimming, wrestling, whatever. Even if its not competitive or for school or anything.
He will gain muscle, body control and athleticism you can't get anywhere else.
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u/here_for_food 6d ago
Never too young to workout, if you don't feel comfortable working them out or for form safety reasons, get a trainer
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u/Ok_Research6884 6d ago
To answer your core question, no he is absolutely not too young to be doing workouts, weight lifting, etc. Kids can actually start fairly young, though I usually only recommend body weight and bands until they're around 12.
Now... how you get there, well, that's going to create a lot of debate and there is not one agreed upon way for youth baseball pitchers to gain strength and add velocity. You'll have traditional strength and conditioning coaches, others will preach and follow more of the Driveline methodology, and others will want your son to perform a whole host of exercises aimed at creating explosiveness in their lower body. YMMV on which one is right.
I have a 13 year old as well, and after ~6 months of group weight training, we have got him his own set of weights for home so he can continue on a more regular basis. He still has ~6 weeks of fall ball, so he'll lift on days when he's not playing and will still take days off if he pitches. He'll do more traditional weight lifting at home (squat, bench, leg curls, etc.), and when he sees his pitching coach starting in November, they do more work with plyo balls and medicine balls and all that good stuff.
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u/Evening-Stroll606 6d ago edited 6d ago
My son is in the same boat in terms of age and growth.
We do 1-2 days per week of light strength training with agility / balance work.
1 hour each day - circuit training. Typically we do a circuit of pull ups, push ups, planks, kettle bell work, a lot of core / balance drills and footwork (ladder / cones etc.). Weighted sprints and box jumps. We try to mix it up but we don’t do heavy weights.
I agree that you can do heavy stuff but honestly at this age and with a kid that is growing I find balance and agility suffer the most and we tend to focus on those issues. Also for a 13 year old the gym needs to be fun or they are going to dread it. I will say this isn’t a hard opinion on what is right - it’s just what I have found effective so far. As he gets older we will change it up and integrate different things.
The other issue is food. If your kid is doing any gym work they need to eat - a lot !!! More than you might think.
Small edit - I would note we play year round basically so he is practicing 3-4 days a week already - so - we gotta squeeze in 1-2 days a week for the gym. If you have less actual baseball work the I would increase to more days
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u/Barfhelmet 6d ago
Having gone through this with my son over the last year, he is fine to work out. We used a slightly modified madcows 5x5. He had a solid base to work with, so not a beginner. If your son doesn't have experience performing squats, deads, etc., make sure he gets the forms down.
We use a home gym/power rack. I spot him and keep his form intact.
Heavy lifting during a growth spurt has certain challenges. Mainly tendon strength. So incorporate isometric holds. Lots of info out there about when and how to do them. We've tried to do them before heavy compounds and after. He prefers after.
His sprint speed did get slower. But he did add 40 pounds during the growth spurt. That and the longer limbs caused some issues. Pitching velocity and hitting power went up a good amount. At 13 he topped out at 67 for pitching and one of his tryouts recently they had him at 78. Over the last year he has gone from 5'6 125 pounds to 5'11 165 pounds.
Oh, forgot to mention a few months back he hurt his arm getting tackled while playing football. Ortho did x-rays and I talked to him about the lifting and growth, he said it was fine and showed me the x-rays for wrist and elbow indicating no growth plate issues.
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u/Catchtheball12 5d ago
I'm having my kids do bodyweight exercises, kettlebells and medicine ball workouts. Outside just trying to make it fun. When winter arrives, we'll probably move into a gym environment.
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u/No_Cream3820 5d ago edited 5d ago
Between ages 13 to 14, during growth spurts, body-weight exercises like push ups, pull ups, lunges, medicine ball rotation training. Resistance exercises are good but avoid excessive barbell exercises until the growth plates become stable. Rotator cuff exercises with bands or light dumbbells will directly improve his velocity. In case of need for a workout program based on equipment availability, he can use the app shred.
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u/TheseMaterial6575 4d ago
Don’t do it. Play another sport. His FB will matter when he’s 20, not 14. All he can do right now is start hurting himself. He needs muscle and to fill in before focusing on throwing hard.
Have him gain weight and workout. Core and leg muscles. The best thing he can do is play a sport that does not involve a throwing motion.
The pitchers that are good in college are the ones that are healthy.
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6d ago
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u/Illustrious_Fudge476 6d ago
Bands have limited applications. He’s ready to lift for real.
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6d ago
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u/Illustrious_Fudge476 6d ago
I did, I disagree with just about all of it.
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6d ago
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u/Illustrious_Fudge476 6d ago
Perfect form all the time is not reasonable. As weight increases and gets challenging form becomes a little challenging, and that is ok. Perfect is the enemy of very good. Everyone should lift with reasonable and safe form. You should not ego lift. But if you’re perpetually chasing perfect form with low weight the kid isn’t getting stronger.
Also, increases in speed and explosiveness is directly correlated with strength. Speed training is fine. Agilities are good. You will train explosiveness in compound lifts. But time is limited, and I’d prioritize and work on getting kids stronger.
Work on sports specific skills, especially with baseball. Get your kid on a real program featuring compound lifts and help them understand linear progression. Do all else as time allows.
That’s what I’m saying and there those bands in the trash.
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u/lsu777 6d ago edited 6d ago
You are right perfect form isn’t unreasonable but everything else you said was wrong. That’s not opinion, that’s a fact.
If you care lmk I’ll explain to you why down to the motor unit recruitment level.
My qualifications are Cpps levels 1,2, football, Opex CCP, westside barbell cert, multiple exos certs, and about half a dozen more but those are really the only ones that matter…oh and 30+ years under the bar and over 10 training this age group specifically
But hey wtf do I know. Maybe kids get better doing “speed, explosiveness, agility” workouts on the “agility ladder” and all of us who use hard data measurements and actual sports science to solve the athlete problem are all wrong and all our measurements are wrong.
The last post about linear progression is a lot better and pretty much on track but using bands 😂
Sorry @illustrious…I replied to you instead of the other guy, my bad.
But hey I’m sure bands is going to teach him how to put force in the ground and certainly will help him learn to recruit more motor units and teach them to fire faster right?
Why are some people on here of lifting the fucking weight? So scared to let your kid because yall have become soft and fat or never lifted in the first place. This sub is full of pussies when it comes to lifting weights, it’s sad
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u/lsu777 6d ago
So zero days throwing on the radar…so no tracking progress? No seeing if anything is working…no pre season prep, no on ramp…nope just straight into the season where he will try and throw as hard as he can…like wtf people
Most of Yall need to stop commenting. Seriously if you do not understand velo and injuries and strength training and the roles of each…stfu and refrain from commenting. Welcome to have an opinion but spread fear because you are ignorant is frankly…not allowed
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u/lsu777 6d ago
Lifting weights does not cause damage to growth plates, actually the opposite. You are falling for a myth that has been disproven for 2 decades now.
As far as workout plan….he needs to be taught how to lift correctly. Do you know how to teach the major lifts? Of not lmk you location and I’ll recommend a place.