Free High School Velocity Building Program: 6-Week Foundation

Who this template is for

Progression is gated on training age, not grade. Beginners should start with the middle school or 14U movement patterns regardless of grade. Athletes under 16 keep to one higher-intent throwing day per week. Experienced athletes should still have a qualified coach choose loads and coordinate competition.

An athlete who can lift more but cannot recover for the next practice has not necessarily improved the week. Pair modest strength progress with honest notes on throwing quality, sleep, and soreness. Three loading weeks, one lighter week, then two more loading weeks is a standard wave that lets a high school athlete progress without accumulating fatigue.

For age-specific pitching limits and rest requirements, consult the current MLB Pitch Smart guidance and your league’s rules. Limits are ceilings, not training targets.

Your weekly framework

The days below are movable placeholders. A qualified coach should fit them around current throwing, other teams, and recovery. Throwing volume comes from the throwing program below; it prescribes no maximum-intent throwing and does not stack on top of team practice or games.

Session details

Before each session, 8–12 minutes: easy walking or jogging, leg swings, hip and upper-back rotations, then a light band arm-care series (external and internal rotation, a row, and a scapular raise; one set of 10–15 each), then an unloaded rehearsal of the first exercise. Use a clear surface, a secure band anchor, and equipment sized to the athlete.

Order each session so the work that depends on freshness comes first: jumps or sprints, then the main strength exercise, then accessory and trunk work, with any conditioning last. Main strength sets stop with 2–3 clean repetitions still possible; accessory, youth, and beginner sets keep 3 or more in reserve. Rest 2–3 minutes after jumps, sprints, and main strength sets and 60–90 seconds after accessory sets. Progress by the two-for-two rule: when the final set reaches two repetitions above target in two consecutive sessions, add the smallest available load (about 2.5–5 lb for upper-body and 5–10 lb for lower-body exercises, or 5–10% for youth). End a set when speed, balance, or technique changes. No lifting to failure or maximum-effort testing is required.

A · Strength and landing

B · Single-leg strength

T · The throwing week

Practice focus

Do not turn video feedback into five simultaneous corrections. Select one observable, external task with the coach, use it within normal throwing work, and retest under the same camera and effort conditions.

Throwing program

Ages 15 to 18 (high school) · Offseason build · 4 throwing days per week. Build throwing volume and long toss distance first. Intent rises late in the block, after the base is there.

Place the throwing days on your week so the longest or hardest day is not the day before a game, and throw before lifting when they share a day. If a team already runs throwing practice, that practice is the session: use the numbers below as a ceiling and log what was actually done. Games replace a throwing day; they never stack on top. Repeat a week instead of moving on if the arm feels heavy or soreness lasts into the next morning.

Week 1 · about 210 planned throws

Week 2 · about 230 planned throws

Week 3 · about 240 planned throws

Week 4 (lighter week) · about 180 planned throws

Week 5 · about 240 planned throws

Week 6 · about 260 planned throws

Throw counts include warm-up throws. Distances are ceilings, never targets. Pitch Smart for this age group: Ages 15 to 18: daily max of 95 (ages 15 to 16) or 105 (ages 17 to 18) pitches, no more than 100 combined innings in any 12 months, at least 4 months off from competitive pitching each year. Need a different phase or number of days? Use the free throwing program generator.

Week-by-week progression

The weeks are decision points, not deadlines. Repeat or reduce a week when recovery is poor. Exact doses here are original coaching examples, not a research-proven route to a certain velocity.

When to move on

Progress to a coach-supervised loaded program when at least ten of twelve sessions are complete, the two-for-two rule has been met on the goblet squat and Romanian deadlift at least twice, landings and accelerations remain crisp, and throwing volume rose without pain. If any lift needed more than three repetitions in reserve to stay clean, repeat the block before adding load.

Common questions

Can I use this in season?

Only after the coach fits it around appearances. Use the separate in-season template when recovery time is limited; in season, one higher-intent throwing day outside games is the ceiling.

Why no weighted-ball schedule?

The evidence does not justify assigning an advanced weighted-ball protocol to every unknown reader. The manuals that use them require an on-ramp, a strength base, and direct coaching, and the randomized trial reported injuries in the weighted-ball group.

Why lift after throwing rather than before?

The supplied manuals put throwing first because throwing through fatigue raises injury risk; lifting on the same day as higher-intent throwing then leaves the following day free for recovery.

Evidence & source notes

These sources inform the principles, not a guarantee that this exact template produces an outcome. Coaching manuals are labeled separately from research. No proprietary program tables or illustrations have been reproduced.

1. Haff & Triplett, Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning, 4th ed. (2016)

   Chapters 7, 17, 18, 20, 21 and 22: youth guidelines (1–3 sets of 6–15 repetitions, 2–3 nonconsecutive days per week, load increases of about 5–10%), exercise order and rest intervals, the two-for-two progression rule, plyometric prerequisites and 48–72 hour recovery with depth jumps contraindicated while growth plates are open, aerobic progression of no more than 10% per week, in-season maintenance with unloading weeks, and criterion-based return to play. Consulted from the supplied book; no program tables reproduced.

2. Driveline Baseball, Hacking the Kinetic Chain: Advanced Pitching

   Supplied edition. Pre-throwing warm-up and band arm care (pp. 79–98), auto-regulated long toss (pp. 118–120), on-ramp periods of one to four weeks scaled to time off (pp. 170, 185), a recovery day after every maximum-effort day and pulldowns no more than once every five days (pp. 165–166), and age tiers that reserve hard weighted balls for older athletes with youth limited to light training balls (pp. 122, 177–178). Coaching context, not proof that a particular drill prevents injury.

3. Tread Athletics, A 4-Week Intro to Weighted Ball Training

   Supplied adult (18+) guide, cited only for its gates: a four-week on-ramp before any high-effort weighted-ball work, a strength base and no red-flag movement issues first, roughly 15–20 high-effort throws twice per week, and the rule that pinches, shooting or tingling pain are never acceptable (pp. 26, 72–73). Its schedules and ball tables are not reproduced and it is not applied to youth.

4. Ben Brewster, Building the 95 MPH Body

   Supplied coaching manual: throw before lifting, place neurally demanding work before accessory work, progress linearly until a stall, and wave three loading weeks with one deload week (pp. 108–116). Its nutrition tables were not used.

5. MLB Pitch Smart: pitching guidelines by age

   Daily pitch maximums and required rest days by age. Values quoted in these templates were checked in September 2026; the linked page is authoritative and league rules may be stricter.

6. Reinold et al. (2018): randomized weighted-baseball training study

   Velocity improvement does not establish that a weighted-ball protocol is appropriate for every pitcher; the trial also reported injuries in the weighted-ball group.