Most pitchers who train on their own drift into the same pattern. Every day is a little hard. Catch play creeps up to 80% and recovery days turn into "feel" bullpens. By Thursday the arm is heavy and the radar gun is flat. Nothing in the week is truly easy, and nothing is truly maximal. The fix comes from track and field, and it is simple to describe: make high days truly high and low days truly low, and stay out of the muddy middle between them.
What are high and low days?
Sprint coach Charlie Francis organized training into two kinds of days [1]. High days hit the nervous system hard: maximum-speed sprints, starts, heavy lifts and intense medicine ball work. Low days were "tempo" running at about 65% to 75% of top speed, plus core and general work, which helped recovery and fitness without draining the next high day [1]. He mostly avoided the medium zone, because it tires an athlete out without giving a top-end stimulus.
Translated for pitchers, a high day groups max-intent throwing (pulldowns, mound velocity work, velocity-focused plyo drills) with heavy or power lifting. A low day holds recovery catch play, easy extension-style long toss, light plyo movement work, flat-ground feel work, aerobic conditioning and mobility.
Why the very top is so expensive
Francis wanted at least 48 hours between similar high-intensity sessions. In his system a 95% effort might need only about 48 hours to recover from, while a true 100% career-best effort could call for up to 10 days of easier work at or below 95% [1]. The exact numbers come from elite sprinting, so do not transplant them literally onto a 16-year-old's arm. The shape of the curve is the lesson: recovery cost climbs steeply near the top, so you can only afford truly maximal days if the rest of the week is built to absorb them.
Francis also described one shared "energy pool" for intense work. A sprinter who had just run near-record times had little left for heavy lifting that day, while a tempo day left her fresh enough to lift heavy [1]. Treat this as a coaching model that describes a real pattern. The specific nervous-system mechanism has not been established. The pitching application holds either way: put your heavy lifting on the same day as your high-intent throwing, so the next day can be truly low.
Bompa and Haff call alternating intensities across the week one of the most effective ways to prevent exhaustion and staleness [3], and Plisk and Stone describe the heavy/light day system as a basic and intermediate planning tactic [4]. Issurin traces the idea back to Matveyev's work in the 1950s [2].
Should high and low days look different all offseason?
No. Early in the offseason, high and low days should look fairly similar. Later, they should spread far apart. This is the part most programs get backward.
Early offseason: a narrow gap
The first job of the offseason is piling up volume. Issurin describes the accumulation block as relatively high volume at reduced intensity [2], and Bompa and Haff note that athletes are not expected to fully recover during the preparatory phase, with contrast between hard and easy days growing as competition approaches [3]. For beginners, Plisk and Stone suggest a conservative heavy/light system where both kinds of day are submaximal and the difference lies mostly in the type of effort [4].
Driveline describes the same shape in its own programming. In a recent video on workload, a Driveline trainer calls the early offseason a "tide rising" phase where weekly throwing volume is fairly flat and the high/low contrast lives mostly in the weight room, before the plan moves to two or three throwing peaks a week [8]. Their on-ramp uses moderate-intent hybrid days to rebuild throwing fitness before any 100% days appear [5].
Closer to the season: a wide gap
As the season approaches, the highs get higher and the lows get lower. Velocity-building phases at Driveline revolve around two 100% effort days per week with real recovery days between them [5]. By the time you reach mound work and live hitters, the high day is both maximal and specific.
| Phase | High day | Low day | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early accumulation | Plyo circuit plus long toss, a few throws to tolerance, moderate lifting | Lower-intent plyos and catch, aerobic work, mobility | Small: volume is the goal |
| Late accumulation | Adds short pulldown exposure and heavier strength | Recovery catch, flat-ground feel work, tempo-style conditioning | Moderate |
| Velocity build | Pulldowns or a radar-tracked plyo velocity day, heavy or power lift | Partial plyo circuit, light catch | Large: two highs a week |
| Season prep | Mound velocity, bullpen or live at-bats at full intent | Low-intent flat-ground command, recovery | Large and specific |
This "narrow early, wide later" framing is consistent with periodization theory, and it matches what Driveline describes, but no study has tested it directly in pitchers. Endurance sport offers a loose parallel. In a nine-week trial of well-trained endurance athletes, a polarized plan with mostly easy work, some hard work and little in between improved key endurance measures more than the other training plans tested [9]. A 2025 network meta-analysis found no overall difference between polarized (wide-gap) and pyramidal plans, though competitive athletes tended to gain more from polarized training and recreational athletes from pyramidal [10]. Wide separation seems to pay off more for advanced athletes. That is endurance data, so treat it as a hint.
Intent on every set
Make your easy days actually easy
Pitch AI tracks the intent of every throwing set, so your easy days and hard days are actually different, and logs every throwing session so the week's workload builds progressively.
Every day should still be a challenge
A low day is still a training day. Francis treated tempo work as a core part of his system for recovery and aerobic fitness [1]. The question is where the challenge comes from.
On a low day, the challenge should come from skill or capacity. Skill means small command targets, shaping a pitch, or a movement constraint. Capacity means aerobic conditioning or mobility under load. It should never come from sneaking in medium-hard throws. Driveline's coaches put it bluntly: they get more upset with an athlete for throwing too hard on a recovery day than for not throwing hard enough on a velocity day [5]. Guadagnoli and Lee's challenge point framework explains why skill challenge still teaches on easy days: learning depends on matching task difficulty to the athlete's level, independent of physical intensity [7].
Driveline adds a useful twist: they put extra movement complexity and problem solving on high days, when athletes are fresher [8]. Both ideas can live in one plan. Low days get low-intensity skill puzzles. High days get high intent plus the hardest new movement problems you want solved fresh.
How to stack stress on high days
- Group the hard stuff. Max-intent throwing and your heaviest lifting go on the same day.
- Make the next day truly easy. Low-intent catch, light plyo work, mobility and easy aerobic work.
- Leave about 48 hours before the next high. That is Francis' minimum between similar sessions [1].
- Count your highs. Pitchers in one Driveline study typically ran two high-intensity days, one moderate day and three recovery days a week [6]. In that six-week study, average pitching velocity did not change, so the structure describes common practice and says nothing on its own about velocity gains [6].
A starter in season already lives this way. The start is the high day, and the days after it stay low until a short bullpen in the middle of the turn. The offseason just gives you more control over where the highs land. Our workload and arm health guide explains how to track the total, and weighted ball training covers how to dose the hardest high-day tools.
What to do this week
Look at your last seven days of throwing and label each day high, low or middle. If more than one or two days land in the middle, you have found the leak. Pick two high days, put your heavy lifts on them, and make the days after them genuinely easy. Then ask whether your easy days really were easy, which is harder to answer than it sounds. Part 3 explains why: is throwing at 50% effort actually 50%? If you are just starting the year, go back to Part 1 on planning the offseason, or jump ahead to Part 4's weekly schedule.
Frequently asked questions
Should pitchers throw hard every day?
No. Maximal efforts carry a steep recovery cost. Most well-designed programs use about two high-intent throwing days per week, with genuinely easy days after them and as little medium-hard throwing as possible.
What should a pitcher do on a low day?
Low-intent catch play, light plyo movement work, flat-ground feel work, aerobic conditioning and mobility. The challenge should come from skill, such as small targets or pitch shape goals, not from sneaking in harder throws.
How much rest do pitchers need between high-intent days?
Sprint coach Charlie Francis used at least 48 hours between similar high-intensity sessions. Driveline avoids pulldowns more than about once every five days and uses a plyo-based velocity day as the second weekly high.
Should high and low days be different early in the offseason?
Only a little. Early offseason training focuses on accumulating volume, so high and low days can look fairly similar. The gap should widen as the season approaches, so the highs are at their highest when it matters.
High days and low days
Let Pitch AI keep your highs high
Pitch AI tracks the intent of every set and shows your acute-to-chronic workload trend, while a daily Wellness Check-In for arm freshness, soreness and pain can reduce volume on days your arm needs it.
References
- Francis C. The Charlie Francis Training System. Patterson P, ed. 1992.
- Issurin VB. New horizons for the methodology and physiology of training periodization. Sports Medicine. 2010;40(3):189-206. doi:10.2165/11319770-000000000-00000
- Bompa TO, Haff GG. Periodization: Theory and Methodology of Training. 5th ed. Human Kinetics; 2009.
- Plisk SS, Stone MH. Periodization strategies. Strength and Conditioning Journal. 2003;25(6):19-37. doi:10.1519/00126548-200312000-00005
- Boddy K, Daniels M. Hacking the Kinetic Chain: Advanced Pitching. Driveline Baseball; 2017. Chapter 3.1, Throwing Programming.
- Marsh JA, Wagshol MI, Boddy KJ, et al. Effects of a six-week weighted-implement throwing program on baseball pitching velocity, kinematics, arm stress, and arm range of motion. PeerJ. 2018;6:e6003. doi:10.7717/peerj.6003
- Guadagnoli MA, Lee TD. Challenge point: a framework for conceptualizing the effects of various practice conditions in motor learning. Journal of Motor Behavior. 2004;36(2):212-224. doi:10.3200/JMBR.36.2.212-224
- Driveline Baseball. "What 1,000 Bullpen Days Told Us About Pitch Counts." YouTube, 2026-10-10. youtu.be/5OZjHuvBtiY
- Stöggl T, Sperlich B. Polarized training has greater impact on key endurance variables than threshold, high intensity, or high volume training. Frontiers in Physiology. 2014;5:33. doi:10.3389/fphys.2014.00033
- Rosenblat MA, Watt JA, Arnold JI, et al. Which training intensity distribution intervention will produce the greatest improvements in maximal oxygen uptake and time-trial performance in endurance athletes? A systematic review and network meta-analysis of individual participant data. Sports Medicine. 2025;55(3):655-673. doi:10.1007/s40279-024-02149-3