Long Toss: It’s More Than Just Throwing Far

How often should I long toss?

How far should I throw?

Should pitchers long toss?

What about position players?

Is long toss good for your arm—or bad for it?

Like most questions involving athletic performance, the answer is:

It depends.

That answer frustrates people because we like black-and-white rules. We want someone to tell us exactly what to do, how often to do it, and how far to throw.

Unfortunately, the human body doesn’t work that way.

Age matters. Injury history matters. Position matters. Training history matters. Where you are in your season matters. Your goals matter.

And, maybe most importantly, what your arm is telling you that day matters.

So instead of looking for a universal long-toss prescription, we need to understand what long toss actually does and where it fits within an overall throwing program.

First: Who Should Long Toss?

Are you planning to throw a baseball or softball competitively in the near future?

If the answer is yes, there is a pretty good chance some form of long toss belongs in your throwing program.

There are exceptions.

If long toss consistently causes pain, that’s obviously something that needs to be addressed. But simply eliminating long toss because throwing hard hurts isn’t necessarily solving the problem.

If throwing hard at distance hurts your arm, getting on a mound and throwing hard isn’t magically going to be safer.

Pain needs to be evaluated and addressed.

There are also certain throwing styles—some lower-slot or three-quarter sinker-type arms, for example—that may not respond particularly well to traditional long toss.

That’s fine.

But removing long toss also removes a useful tool for exposing the arm to higher throwing stresses. If traditional long toss doesn’t work for you, you still need to figure out another way to prepare your arm for the stresses it’s eventually going to encounter during competition.

The answer isn’t simply avoiding stress.

The answer is appropriately preparing for stress.

And none of this should happen without a proper throwing on-ramp.

You cannot put the baseball down for an extended period, pick it back up, and immediately start airing it out.

You have to progressively prepare the arm for what you’re asking it to do.

What Do I Mean By “Long Toss”?

Let’s define some terminology.

I generally think of throwing in three broad categories.

1. Throwing

This is normal catch play.

Low-intensity throwing. You’re moving the arm, playing catch, and accumulating throwing volume without trying to produce a high-intensity throw.

2. Long Toss

This is where we begin “stretching it out.”

When I use that phrase, I’m not talking about stretching your arm. I’m talking about progressively increasing throwing distance and exploring how far you can comfortably throw the baseball.

A football field makes this incredibly easy because the yard lines give you built-in measurements, but you can create landmarks anywhere.

More importantly, long toss means:

Throwing as hard as your arm wants to throw that day.

That’s an important distinction.

You aren’t obligated to reach your all-time maximum distance every time you long toss.

Some days your arm may feel great.

Some days it won’t.

If you normally reach 300 feet but your arm tells you 240 is enough today, 240 is enough.

Learning to recognize that feedback is part of becoming an experienced thrower.

3. Pitching and Bullpens

This is where young players often get themselves into trouble.

If you leave many high school players to their own devices, their throwing program becomes something like:

Play some light catch.

Throw a bullpen.

Play some light catch.

Throw another bullpen.

Why?

Because bullpens feel productive.

They want to work on their breaking ball. They want to work on command. They want to work on their delivery.

Meanwhile, the middle of the throwing-intensity spectrum gets neglected.

That’s where long toss becomes incredibly useful.

Throwing Is About Dosage

Different types of throwing need to exist in different amounts.

A good throwing program should contain a lot of low-intensity throwing, a smaller amount of moderate-to-high-intensity throwing, and the smallest amount of true pitching/bullpen work.

What we often see instead is plenty of light catch, not enough long toss or moderate/high-intensity throwing, and way too much pitching.

That’s backwards.

High-intensity throwing needs to sit on top of a large foundation of lower-intensity throwing.

Think of it as a pyramid.

The bottom of the pyramid is your low-intensity throwing.

Above that is your moderate and higher-intensity throwing.

At the top is your highest-stress competitive throwing.

The smaller the foundation becomes, the less comfortable I am with everything sitting on top of it.

How Often Should You Long Toss?

Again:

It depends.

What are your goals?

Where are you in your career?

What’s your injury history?

What position do you play?

If you’re throwing 96 mph, commanding the baseball, healthy, and everything you’re doing is working, I’m going to be very hesitant to completely overhaul your throwing program just because I prefer something different.

Results matter.

On the other hand, if you’re a junior in high school throwing 73 mph and your baseball career probably depends on developing significantly more arm speed, our risk/reward calculation is completely different.

Now increasing throwing capacity becomes a much higher priority.

Add a significant injury history to that same athlete and the calculation changes again.

There simply isn’t a universal answer.

Every Position Needs Some Level of Arm Fitness

Pitchers obviously need to throw hard.

Catchers need to throw hard.

Outfielders need to throw hard.

But so do infielders.

Even a first baseman or second baseman may suddenly have to make a high-effort throw across the field or to home plate.

If competition may require you to throw a baseball at high intensity, your arm should have some familiarity with throwing at high intensity.

That doesn’t mean every position requires the same throwing volume.

It means we shouldn’t allow the first baseman’s hardest throw in three weeks to occur with two outs in the seventh inning while he’s trying to throw somebody out at home.

The DH?

Fine.

Go hit bombs.

The Day After Throwing Hard

This is one area where I become much more prescriptive.

If you threw hard yesterday, today should generally be a low-intensity throwing day.

Notice I didn’t say:

Don’t throw.

I said:

Don’t throw hard.

This distinction gets missed constantly.

Players throw hard one day and think that means they shouldn’t touch a baseball the next day.

Assuming the arm is healthy and there isn’t legitimate pain, I want that low-intensity throwing.

You are continuing to expose the arm to the activity without piling another high-intensity stressor on top of yesterday’s work.

Being rested and being prepared are not the same thing.

Why Long Toss?

The obvious answer is performance.

Long toss can help develop the ability to throw farther and harder. Most baseball people would simply call that developing “arm strength.”

That’s certainly part of it.

But I think the more important reason is often overlooked.

Long toss is a stress-management tool.

And this is where the conversation becomes much more interesting.

Training isn’t only about improving performance.

Training is also about preparing your body to withstand the demands of performance.

Before we worry about how much velocity we can produce, we’d better make sure the body is capable of tolerating the stresses required to produce it.

Long toss gives us a way to progressively expose the throwing arm to significant stress in a controlled environment.

And that’s important because the mound shouldn’t be the most stressful thing your arm has ever experienced.

Neither should the throw from center field to home plate with a runner trying to score.

Competition shouldn’t introduce your body to a completely new level of stress.

Trees Need Wind

Years ago, scientists attempted to create an enclosed, self-sustaining environment known as Biosphere 2.

They controlled virtually everything.

Soil.

Water.

Temperature.

Atmosphere.

Yet they encountered an interesting problem:

Trees struggled to remain upright.

One contributing factor was the absence of normal environmental stress—particularly wind. Trees exposed to mechanical stress respond by developing stronger structures capable of tolerating that stress.

That’s a useful way to think about training.

Stress isn’t inherently bad.

Too much stress is bad.

The wrong stress is bad.

Stress applied too quickly is bad.

But removing stress altogether doesn’t necessarily create resilience.

Sometimes it creates fragility.

I’ve joked before that I’m not really in the gym business.

I’m in the stress business.

Our job is to apply appropriate stress, in appropriate amounts, at appropriate times, so athletes adapt and become better prepared for the stresses their sport will eventually demand.

Long toss can serve exactly that purpose for the throwing arm.

Without some form of appropriate high-intensity throwing exposure, you run the risk of becoming the tree that has never experienced wind.

Then game day brings a hurricane.

Prepared Isn’t the Same Thing as Rested

This distinction is incredibly important.

We hear constantly about overuse injuries in baseball.

Overuse absolutely exists.

But I also believe a significant number of injuries labeled as “overuse” are actually related to under-preparation followed by sudden spikes in stress.

I’ve referred to these as shock injuries.

An athlete rests.

Then rests some more.

Then barely throws.

Then suddenly throws at maximum intensity because a game, showcase, bullpen, tryout or practice demands it.

The arm wasn’t necessarily overused.

It may have been underprepared for the stress it suddenly encountered.

Your arm doesn’t have deductive reasoning skills.

It doesn’t know:

“I’m a baseball player, and I’m probably going to have to throw hard next weekend.”

Your body responds to what you have actually asked it to do recently.

If you haven’t thrown hard in weeks, your arm doesn’t remain prepared for high-intensity throwing simply because baseball season is approaching.

Preparation has to occur before the demand.

The Throwing Stress Pyramid

High-intensity throwing should rest on a large foundation of lower-intensity throwing.

That’s the concept I want athletes and coaches to understand.

Too often, throwing programs look like this:

Hard throwing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Bullpen.

Nothing.

Game.

Nothing.

Bullpen.

That’s not stress management.

That’s a collection of stress spikes.

A healthier throwing schedule is much more boring.

And boring is usually good.

A basic offseason week for a healthy, properly on-ramped athlete might include a high-intensity throwing day followed by low-intensity throwing the next day. Later in the week, intensity can increase again according to the athlete’s goals and how the arm is responding.

The exact schedule can change.

The principle doesn’t.

High stress. Recover. Maintain exposure. Build again.

What we don’t want are large periods of nothing followed by sudden high-intensity throwing.

Throwing Six Days Per Week Doesn’t Mean Throwing Hard Six Days Per Week

This is another area where people hear what they want to hear.

When I say healthy throwers should generally be throwing around six days per week, people sometimes react as if I’m suggesting they max out their arm six days per week.

I’m not.

Some of those days may involve extremely easy catch play.

That’s the point.

Throwing frequency and throwing intensity are two completely different variables.

The low-intensity days matter.

The moderate days matter.

The high-intensity days matter.

And they all have to exist in appropriate proportions.

Success By a Thousand Check Marks

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from working with athletes is that success usually isn’t the result of a handful of heroic training sessions.

It’s a thousand check marks.

The athlete who understands this realizes that today’s easy throwing session matters.

It may not be exciting.

Nobody is holding a radar gun.

Nobody is filming it for social media.

Nobody cares that you played easy catch for 15 minutes.

But you put another check mark in the box.

The athletes who struggle are often the ones who love the big days.

Velocity day?

They’re there.

Radar gun out?

They’re ready.

Bullpen?

Absolutely.

Light catch tomorrow?

Can’t find them.

Moderate throwing two days later?

Suddenly they’re busy.

Then somehow their schedule opens back up perfectly for the next velocity day.

Lots of red.

Not enough green.

Not enough yellow.

Too much white space.

That’s not how you build a durable throwing arm.

Learn to Listen to Your Arm

Ultimately, one of the most important things a thrower can develop is the ability to understand his or her own body.

Your arm will give you information every day.

Listen to it.

That doesn’t mean becoming terrified of every bit of soreness or discomfort.

It means developing enough experience to recognize the difference between normal fatigue, a day when the arm simply doesn’t want much intensity, and something that genuinely isn’t right.

Some days you stretch it out.

Some days you don’t.

Some days the ball comes out great.

Some days you play easy catch and go home.

A good throwing program provides structure without ignoring the individual athlete standing inside that structure.

That’s why there’s no magic long-toss distance.

There’s no perfect number of throws.

There’s no universal schedule.

There are principles.

Build a large foundation of low-intensity throwing.

Expose the arm appropriately to higher levels of stress.

Avoid sudden spikes in throwing stress.

On-ramp before demanding high-intensity work.

Understand that being rested isn’t the same thing as being prepared.

And learn to listen to your arm.

Long toss is simply one tool for accomplishing those things.

But for most baseball and softball players, it’s a pretty useful one.

Because eventually the wind is coming.

It’s better to grow the roots