Best Ways To Increase Velocity For Baseball (Top 4 Ways)

Hey team Alex here in today's episode, we're going to be talking about the four best ways to increase your velocity for baseball. How hard you throw the ball. We all want to throw the ball super hard, but we want to make sure we're doing it the right way and not neglecting accuracy and command as we are going through this process of getting stronger with our arm. And it's also important to note that depending on your position and it will prioritize how important velocity is. Alright, so we're going to talk a little bit about that in those positions. How important is velocity? And then of course the four best ways. And if you're new to my channel, my name is Alex Swenson. I'm A former Division 1 college coach, scout and recruiter with 11 years of experience. And now what I do is help high school baseball players and their families navigate this college recruiting process and put them in the best possible position to play at the next level. So if you're looking for for help going through this recruiting process of getting noticed, getting seen, you can visit my website and we can set up a call to see if this is a good fit. I'll put that website right down here. You can also get it down in the description. So now let's talk about the positions and prioritizing the positions of again, what's important at this position from a velocity standpoint and what's not. So let's talk about the first category of this positions that it's not a priority from an arm velocity standpoint. You don't have to be throwing 90 miles an hour here. All right? And that is first baseman, second baseman. In center fielders, it's kind of self explanatory. The one question mark you might have asked is center fielders don't have to have a strong arm. And not to say that you don't want a strong arm at any of these positions. First baseman, second base, center fielder. It would actually really help you to be versatile at other positions, especially in this new landscape of college baseball and recruiting where they just dropped down their rosters. Versatile. I talked to these college coaches almost on a weekly basis. They're looking for versatile players. Now with that said, it is not a priority. Again, you don't have to be a hard thrower, first base, second base, self explanatory how close it is. Okay. In center fielders, it's just not a priority because you very rarely have a center fielder that's going to throw out a guy at home plate. It's more Important. Those guys at center field are speedy and go track down balls. That is the most important. Go get the balls in the gap. Go, go get the balls behind you at the angles and in front of you. That is very important. Now let's talk about the second category where it's important but again it's not the top priority. Okay? We need to have somewhat of a strong arm and that is third baseman, okay? Shortstops, catchers and corner outfielders. And there's no like order. Those are just the positions, okay? So third baseman, again, it's not a top, top priority because some such a reactionary position where the ball is going to get on you really quickly. That's why they call it the hot corner. Okay. And we just need to make sure we can get the ball over there, all right? With some firmness, if you will, especially with a slow roller. But the accuracy is really important. Of course, shortstops, hey, we do need a somewhat of a strong arm, but we see this in PBR or perfect game showcases where guys are trying to throw it as hard as they possibly can to get the highest velocity, but they're not hitting the first baseman. Guys scouts hate to see that, all right? They want to see good hands, good feet. And yes, we want to see some hey, firmness with the throw, but it doesn't have to be out of this world there. We need to have some accuracy that is really, really important. Corner outfielders, you're going to have the best chances to throw guys out at third base or home. So we like to see some arm velocity there and ball velocity, if you will, you'll see them interchangeably. I call arm velocity or ball velocity. It's just velocity of the ball coming out of your hand, the miles per hour, if you will. And then catchers, there's more been more and more emphasis of velocity, but which we got to hit certain standards. But what's really going to help you decrease your pop time is your hands and your feet. How, how quick do you get out the ball? And yes, if you have a little up on your throw with a velocity standpoint, that's going to be super helpful for sure. But, but man, there's plenty of guys that have average arms at the next level, but get rid of the ball really, really quickly and are accurate that are a lot better than guys getting slow out of the ball. Arm velocity is really good, but it's slow, maybe inaccurate. That's not what we're looking for. Then of course the next category is pitchers. Yes, there are certain standards that we have to hit. All right. Velocity is not the end all be all, but it is important. All right, it is important. We need to hit certain standards from like a Division 1 perspective. We right handed pitchers, on average freshman year, guys going in D1 mid majors, they're sitting around 86 miles an hour, topping out 89. Somewhere right around there, Power 4 schools, they're sitting around 88 miles an hour, topping out 90, 91, 92. And then again, this is going into their freshman year, left handed pitchers, typically for D1 mid majors, they're sitting around 84, 85, topping out 88 somewhere. Again, these are averages, numbers. There's guys above that, there's guys below that. For Power 4 schools, lefties are typically sitting 86, 87, topping out at 90. So those are kind of the standards that we're looking for. And it's important that we're trying to increase our arm velocity, especially at these positions here, of course, pitchers and then those other positions that I talked about there. But remember guys, accuracy and command has to be important for some reason this day and age that we have lost that in some instances, guys that are playing at next level and that are successful aren't the hardest throwers. They're the guys that are good throwers but man, they can really command the ball up, down, in, out and throw two to three pitches off speed pitches for a strike to keep guys off. That is really important. Now let's get into the nuts and bolts. What is the best way to increase arm velocity? The four best ways, if you will, number one right off the bat is you need to be more consistent of throwing the ball hard throughout the week. In order for us to increase our arm strength, we have to throw the ball harder. I call them velo days or if you're a pitcher, velo pins of letting it go at least two times a week, three times, maybe four times a week. And it doesn't have to be long toss, all right? You don't even have to have a partner with this. If you have a partner, that is great, all right? But you could be throwing into the net. You could have a throwing sock. Google throwing socks. They are fantastic. Especially if we're in the winter months and you can't really get outside. It's literally like a bag over you or a sock over you that you can release into and it catches it and you grab the ball and you can work on your mechanics there. You can throw very hard into a net or into a throwing sock and increase your velocity. But you need to have A consistent plan of throwing the ball harder. Now of course pay attention to your arm health, that you're good and your recovery there. But you need to have a consistent weekly plan of throwing hard. A good eight week, maybe a ten week plan. Take a little break, back off and then work up to that. Especially in this off season as we're going through this, you might be a multi sport athlete, that's fine. But finding some time to work on your throws and then leading up to season having those velo days, really, really important. Number two is weight training. Explosive movements guys. Being strong in the weight room and getting strong solves a lot of your problems from a metric standpoint, sometimes from a stat standpoint, getting strong, working on explosive movements from clean and jerks and things like that to hey, working on our core, of course working on squats and deadlifts like that. Strengthening our shoulders and our backs, even our chest helps a lot. Forearms and wrists helps a lot with velocity. All right, number three is mobility and biomechanics. Alright? Making sure we are mobile, getting strong in the weight room is really, really important. But we don't want to be a stiff board, a big like football guy if you will. Alright? We need to be mobile and we need to understand our biomechanics. Shoulder and hip separation, getting out over our front leg, that will help increase our velocity. And then number four, all right, the most underrated is recovery. Sleep is massive. You got to make sure that you are sleeping out the night, not playing games into the middle of the night, all right? Nutrition, the foods that you're putting into your body, water intake, all those things. Do your best to track that because that is really important. And this is also in the recovery. You need to take breaks from throwing throughout the week. This is coming from a baseball coach and a former pitching coach. All right, we love fresh arms. The problems with a lot of guys in Florida, Texas, California, warm states, not all of them, but they overthrow and they tire out and there's Tommy John's, all that where a lot of the guys in the north, all right, there's, we call them honey holes. Places where they have fresh arms because they have deep winters, they're not throwing as much and they have fresh arms there and those guys can lengthen and have velocity and have room for improvement. So take breaks when you need to take breaks for your arm health and, and to get stronger. If you guys have any questions, please let me know. Comment down below. What you would do and what you've seen that's helped you most increase your velocity. I'll see you in the next video. Take care of.