Starting Pitchers (5, 6 & 7 Day Cycles – Sample Schedules)

We also strongly recommend that you keep this mentality of Bull-Penning on the 3rd day after the start during the Season (if you are a starting pitcher), rather than the 2nd day after your start. For example, if you start on a Sunday, we’d highly recommend that your Bull-Pen day is on Wednesday. This will provide for OPTIMAL endurance and longevity during the season because having an extra day prior to your Bull-Pen significantly helps your arm Recover, Restore, and Rebuild in the most optimal way, as opposed to Bull-Penning on the second day after your start, when the arm is still in recovery mode, and may be more vulnerable to being sore (naturally, if you prefer Day 2 that’s of course your call).

This Day 3 concept in both Spring Training, and during the season also best position’s you to maintain the principles of our Off Season Throwing Program, and get Healthier, Stronger and more Durable throughout the season.

Please note the article below, entitled, “Bridging The Gap”, that goes into depth as to the “why” behind using the extra day BEFORE your Bull-Pen, rather than after it, is far more beneficial to your arm. This article also outlines our 5, 6, and 7 Day Cycles for Starting Pitchers (for your convenience, you’ll notice the 5 Day Cycle for Starting Pitcher’s below).

Article: “Bridging The Gap”: 5, 6, 7 Day Throwing Cycles In Season: https://jaegersports.com/bridging-the-gap-making-a-safe-and-effective-transition-from-high-school-college-baseball-into-professional-baseball/

Sample Schedule: Starting Pitchers 5 Day Rotation (based on ~300 ft Long Toss)

  • Day 1: (Start Day): Long Toss (~ Max Distance Stretch Out + Pull Down)
  • Day 2: 120-200 ft (Stretch Only)
  • Day 3: 200-300 ft (*Stretch Out Mainly with Light to Heavy Pull Downs)
  • Day 4: Full Long Toss + Pen (ie 300 feet + Pull Downs)
  • Day 5: 90-180 ft (Arm Care, Low Intent/Massage Throws)
  • Day 6: Start Day

*Amount of workload on Pull-Downs and Bull-Pen days can be adjusted based on the amount of pitches that were thrown on your start day

Relief Pitcher Protocols

Whether it’s because it’s “how it’s been done for decades”, or it’s a topic that people don’t have much hands on experience from a training perspective, Relief Pitchers protocols are often based on “saving your arm for the game”, rather than “training” for the game. Thus, Relief Pitchers will tend to go out to 60-120 feet on game days “in case they go into the game”, or possibly, because they threw the day before.

But for countless reasons, and unless you threw an unusual amount of pitches the day before (or you are the Long Reliever), your arm has been built to stretch out from day to day. In other words, if you easily trained at 300 feet in the off-season, and your arm has been acclimated to this, even on a day that you would theoretically throw with full intent later on in the game, your arm is still built to stretch out to a high percentage of your maximum distance (ie 300 feet). And when your arm is accustomed to being stretched out to a high percentage of its maximum distance prior to high intent throwing, and even though it’s later on in the day, you get in the game and make high intent throws, your arm can easily be shocked because it wasn’t close to being STRETCHED out to its normal range of motion.

Naturally, this can vary from game to game, and there may be days where it feels necessary to go “lighter” and “only” stretch your arm out to 150-200 feet, but unless you threw more than, ie, 20 pitches in a game, chances are that your arm is going to recover well, and then want to stretch out relatively far the next day.

This is how the arm stays in what we call a positive cycle – it’s BECAUSE you are stretching it out relatively far from day to day, that it STAYS in great shape, and thus, recovers well so that it can stretch it out relatively well the next day. When you “save the arm for the game” – and perhaps this is because the arm wasn’t as well conditioned as it could’ve been in the Off-Season – you get into what we call a “negative cycle”. And this is where the arm doesn’t want to throw out very far because it may not have recovered well from the day before (maybe because it didn’t go beyond 60-120 feet), and now you are needing to lower your workload, and save it for the game.

Our suggestion is to essentially, STRETCH your arm out to at least 75% of your maximum distance, and refrain from any high intent throwing on the way back in. If you end up throwing a lot that day, you may back you’re your distance a little bit the next day. If you didn’t throw at all, you may need to throw more distance the next day. The bottom line is to at least STRETCH your arm out each day so it can “open it up”, and position it best to not be shocked in the game.

*Note: Here is article that offers a number of suggestions to help Relief Pitchers maintain the Health, Strength, Endurance, Conditioning, and Recovery of their arm throughout the season:

Article: Inside Pitch Magazine, “What Pitching Coaches Probably Forgot To Do (Relief Pitcher Protocols)”, by Adam Revelette:
https://www.abca.org/magazine/magazine/2018-1-January_February/Last_Inning_What_Pitching_Coaches_Probably_Forgot_to_do_This_Fall.aspx

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