Phase 5: Pull Down’s, Bull Pen’s, Pitch Count Build-Up January 13th

Jaeger Sports Professional Off-Season Throwing Manual & Schedule

Now that the arm is FULLY stretched out to its maximum distance, you are now ready for the more aggressive aspect of Long Toss…the Pull-Down Phase.

Pulling Down is like the reward for all of your patience and dedication to trust the process of getting your arm into great shape over the past 11 Weeks without making any high intent throws. Because one of the favorite things for a baseball player to do is to “let it eat”, it’s time to let it eat.

Like everything else we do, Pulling Down is also integrated progressively. Though by definition, once you have reached your maximum distance, and your arm is FULLY opened up, you are technically in position to throw with full intent. However, to be safe, and because we have the time, we still want you to “build into” Pull-Down shape. For this reason, you will start with Pulling Down with 85% effort on your first day, and work your way up toward 95-100% effort by the beginning of the second week of Pull-Downs.

As a reminder, when Pulling Down, be sure and come back into your throwing partner approximately 10 feet per throw. Also, feel free to refrain from full effort on your Pull-Downs until you get to approximately 150 feet. As mentioned earlier, because you are throwing on flat ground, it can be more stressful on the arm because you don’t have the benefit of the slope to help you get over your front side more easily. By lowering your intent until you get back into 150 feet, and Crow-Hopping in the proper way (off your back leg), you are able to get “taller” and get a great deal more support from your legs, core, and ground forces.

And finally, once the Pulling Down sessions begin, you will be integrating your Mound Work. As you can see, the Bull-Pen intent mimics the Pull-Down intent from your throwing session that day. For example, on the first day of Week 1, you will be getting out to your maximum distance, but only Pulling Down with 85% intent. Thus, you will also be using this same, 85% intent in your Bull-Pen. And just as the intent of your Pull-Downs increase, so will the intent in your Bull-Pens (i.e. at the beginning of Week 2, you will Pulling Down with 95-100% effort, so you can match that intent in the Bull-Pen).

*Note: We have allotted for 10 Bull-Pens, which should be more than sufficient to prepare you for Spring Training. Also, your Bull-Pens are scheduled for twice a week (Monday’s and Friday). We feel strongly that this is the most ideal way to space out your Bull-Pens. Also, because Sunday may be an off or light day, you may find that your Monday pen is lighter than your Friday pen. You may also consider Bull-Penning on Tuesday and Saturday, and thus, have your heavier days on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

**Note: Generally speaking, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (or Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday) are your heavier days re Long Toss. The other days are used to recover, restore, and rebuild. For example, how much you threw in your Bull-Pen Monday could affect your Tuesday workload, which in turn would affect Wednesday…and so on. The bottom line is that this schedule is set up to ideally position you to optimize your 2 pen days, and the middle day as your best Long Toss days. In other words, you’ll find that Monday and Friday (or Tuesday and Saturday) are the best days to fully Stretch Out, and fully Pull-Down. But keep in mind that Wednesday (or Thursday on a Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday schedule) is going to be your other best day to fully stretch it out. How far out you go on this “middle day”, and to what degree you Pull-Down is of course your call. The main point here is that we have set up the schedule in which Monday, Wednesday and Friday are your best Long Toss days from a Stretching out and Pulling Down perspective, and Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday are set up for you to recover, restore, and rebuild.

Phase 5: Pull-Downs, Bull-Pens, Pitch Count Build-Up (Sample Schedule)

Week 1: Monday, January 13th
Arm Care/Band Work: 1 Set, 25 reps per 11 J-Band Exercises prior to throwing