Expert: Dennis Girardi - 6/6/2011

Question
Hi Dennis,

I have asked you a question before and you really helped me.
So here i am back for more advise.

I am training and coaching my sons team, mostly 8 and 9 year olds. This is our 1st year the kids have to pitch and catch themselves.
I am curious if we can allready start with long tossing or do they need to be of a minimum age, for instance 12 ?
Basicly i would like to know some sort of matrix for the long toss, something like below

8-10 year olds:  2 x 10 minutes a week
11-12 year olds: 2 x 15 minutes
13-14 year olds: 3 x 15 minutes
etc etc

We are from europe and you rarely see long toss over here and thus we don't see a lot of good arms.
Hope you can help me.

thanks in advance

Answer
Hey Tony,
It's good to hear from you again.
When you are judging long toss, judge by the players size instead of his age.
Also, if the player throws long toss with ease, don't hold him back.

Here is an outline, but this is just from my experience..
Sore arms usually come from over throwing (while pitching) not so much long toss.
Have them only toss as long as they can throw on a fly or 1 bounce and about 5 to 8 feet off the ground.

Average 8-10 year olds size:  10-12 throws per session, from the outfield.  3 x per week
Average 11-12 year olds size: 12-15 throws per session, from the outfield.  3 x per week
Average 13-14 year olds size: 10-20 throws per session, from the outfield.  3 x per week

I hope this helps.
Dennis