by Coach Griff

Catching is the toughest job on the field, make no mistake. It’s even harder when you’re jumping after wild pitches.

Improving your catching fitness will make the game a lot easier, allow you to catch more innings, going far deeper into a game.

When you get good enough, your team and your pitchers will love you.

<aside> 🤕 As with all exercise, if any of the below information causes you pain, stop and seek advice from our coaches.

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The importance of fitness in catching

Catching requires a combination of athleticism and insight.

You don’t need to be the fittest player on the field, but keeping pitches under control is an exhausting job, especially in the midday sun in all that gear.

Understanding the importance of catching fitness can help explain some of the difficulty with specific catching techniques, such as framing and blocking. Your body may not be able to catch with the right mechanics, simply because you are not yet strong enough to do so.

Although I’m not a catcher, the weakness point in my pitching fitness is my landing leg. It absorbs a significant amount of momentum each pitch (and because I’m too lazy to go to the gym), it is often the first part of my body to experience fatigue. This fatigue means I “sink” at the point of release, reducing velocity and causing me to get under the ball and miss “up and away” to a right-hand hitter. If you’re a left-hand hitter and I’m running out of energy, you’re in a bad spot.

Building your catching fitness from the ground up will make the techniques taught in this clinic far easier.

A word of caution on weights

Heavy weights don’t make for a better catcher. Baseball is a nimble activity, like gymnastics, and requires strength throughout mobility.

Lifting heavy weights for catching is a recipe for failure (especially for younger players), and I recommend players only lift weights once they’ve mastered their mechanics and built substantial stabilising muscles through Therabands. My coaches prevented me from lifting weights until I was 17 years old.

The reason we do not recommend weights for young players is because they can accelerate your road to injury. As an example:

• If your pitching mechanics are not yet sound, you are placing stress on the incorrect tendons and ligaments, ones that are not designed to absorb the strain you are placing upon them.
• If you then lift weights on top of this, you are building stronger muscles that place even more strain on these incorrect tendons and ligaments.

<aside> ⛔ No bench press. Bench press is perhaps the worst-possible exercise you can do for throwing. Velocity doesn’t come from pectoral strength, and if your muscles get too big, you won’t be able to properly follow through with your throw.

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Catching fitness

To get you started, here are some of the best exercises to improve catching fitness.

• Running, 200m at a time at an 80% effort
• Push ups, in various hand positions
• Pull ups, wide and slow
• Sit ups, in various feet positions
• Planks, front and side
• Pistol squats, in the slowest possible descent and ascent.
• Jump squats, as big and high into the air as possible.
• Ski jumps, as far and wide as possible.
• Burpees, as fast as possible.
• Wall sits, feel the burn.

<aside> 🏃🏼 You can’t get enough squats. Any activity that involves squatting will help improve your catching.

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Therabands.

Here’s an excellent routine for improving arm strength with your Therabands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4uEX-TaIU4

Equipment required

Stretching