Long Toss
Ages 10 and up · Two gloves, a ball, and open space; a field or park for real distance days
Long toss (throwing at gradually stretching distances) is baseball's classic arm-building routine, and it is also the drill most often done wrong by enthusiastic families: no warm-up ladder, max-distance heaves on day one, and sore arms treated as progress. Done right, it is a gradual, mostly-comfortable stretching of distance that builds arm strength and throwing athleticism across a season, not an afternoon.
The parent's job here is mostly governance: the warm-up ladder happens every time, effort stays smooth (a stretched throw is still an easy throw), distance grows week over week rather than rep over rep, and any arm soreness ends the session and earns rest. Those four rules are the entire difference between long toss building an arm and quietly damaging one.
How to run it
- Warm-up ladder, every session, no exceptions: easy catch at 20 feet, then 30, then 40, several throws at each, arm loosening before anything stretches.
- Stretch phase: extend distance in small steps (ten feet or so at a time), staying at each until throws arrive comfortably. The throw stays SMOOTH: full body, crow-hop welcome, effort around 70-80 percent, arc allowed to grow naturally with distance.
- Find today's honest edge: the distance where throws still arrive with decent carry and zero strain. Stay there for a handful of throws. That edge, logged weekly, is the whole program.
- Pull-down phase (optional, older kids): walk back in 10-15 feet and make a few throws on a flatter line at moderate effort. Skip entirely for younger kids.
- Cool down at short range with easy catch. Total session: 20-30 minutes, twice a week in season at most, with the throwing week's TOTAL load (games, practices, positions) counted honestly around it.
What to say
Common faults and fixes
Skipping the ladder (first throw at 100 feet because the arm "feels fine").
The ladder is the session's admission ticket, enforced by the parent every single time. Cold long throws are how young arms get hurt on nice days.
Max-effort heaving at the edge (grunting, recoiling, one-more-foot fever).
The 70-80 percent effort ceiling with the smoothness test: if the throw looks violent, the distance is a lie. Pull in ten feet and rebuild.
Long toss stacked on a heavy throwing week (pitched Tuesday, caught Thursday, long toss Saturday).
One family ledger of the week's total throwing. Long toss is a supplement, not an addition to an already-full arm; skip it in heavy weeks, guiltlessly.
Make it easier, make it harder
Shorter edges, fewer steps, once a week; for kids under ten, ordinary stretched catch (no formal program) is genuinely enough.
Gradual weekly edge growth (the log tells the story); crow-hop integration throughout; the pull-down phase for teenagers; or a structured in-season versus off-season split, best guided by a coach's program at serious levels.
This page teaches the drill. ParentEdge builds it into a plan for your kid.
Built around their game, their goals, and what they’re working on.
How far should my kid be able to throw?
The honest answer: farther than THEIR last month, measured at the same smooth effort. Distance charts by age mislead more than they help (bodies and training histories vary wildly); the weekly-edge log is the only comparison that trains anything. Growth of ten to twenty feet across a season is a genuinely good outcome.
Is long toss safe for pitchers?
As part of an honestly counted throwing week, with the ladder and effort rules, long toss is a standard piece of pitcher development. The dangers are additive load (long toss on top of full pitching weeks) and max-effort edge-chasing. When a kid pitches seriously, the pitching coach's program should own the throwing calendar, and long toss slots inside it, not beside it.