The first time my son's shoulder got sore, I did what most parents do: told him to rest, then let him go back to throwing the same volume that caused it. Two months later we were sitting in a clinic while a doctor explained that youth arm injuries usually come from one thing — a jump in throwing volume the arm never adapted to.
That conversation is why we count throws now. Not because counting is fun, but because you cannot manage what you don't measure.
Why Volume Needs A Plan
Coaches track pitch counts in games, and that's good. But games are a small slice of a young arm's weekly load. The throws nobody counts are the warm-up tosses, the long toss before practice, the throws to first between drills. Add a new hard-throwing session on top of all that and the week's volume can double without anyone noticing.
The Weekly Structure We Use
| Day | Work | Throws |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Light catch, arm care bands | 25 |
| Tuesday | Net location work, 70% intent | 30 |
| Wednesday | Arm care and lower body, no throwing | 0 |
| Thursday | Progressive long toss | 30 |
| Friday | Net location work with sequences | 25 |
| Saturday | Team practice (not counted here) | — |
| Sunday | Full rest, no throwing | 0 |
Two rules make this work. Wednesday and Sunday are hard zeros, not "light days," because the point of a rest day is tissue recovery. And weekly totals never jump more than about twenty percent from the previous week.
How We Track It
- Every set of throws gets written down, including warm-up tosses. Those are the ones that get forgotten and they add up to dozens per week.
- We log intent, not just count. Thirty throws at seventy percent is a different load than thirty at full effort.
- Weekly total goes on a line graph. Up and to the right is fine as long as it's gradual.
- Any entry with pain gets a star and a rest day, no discussion.
When We Back Off
- Any sharp or point-specific pain. Soreness is data, pain is a stop sign.
- Velocity dropping in a session that started strong, which usually means fatigue rather than a mechanical problem.
- Two consecutive weeks at a high total, even without symptoms.
- A growth spurt. Growth changes mechanics, and the arm adapts to a different body than the one it trained last month.
Where The Net Fits
Location work is the part that's safe to do in volume, and it's the part a net makes possible. The $59.97 nine-hole pitching net gives defined targets, so a session has a score instead of just a throw count, and my son can run a full location set alone in the backyard when I'm not home. On hitting days, the $69.99 premium net with the adjustable tee covers both sides of the family on one frame, which matters when you have two kids and one yard.
The nine holes also solve a counting problem. Throwing at a blank net, kids lose track and drift into junk throws that build nothing but fatigue. Aiming at specific pockets keeps every throw intentional, which means the twenty-five throws on a Tuesday are all working throws rather than twenty-five throws plus ten wasted ones nobody wrote down.
The Part Parents Get Wrong
Most of us worry about the big stuff — mechanics, velocity, the travel team schedule. What actually wrecks arms is boring and invisible: three extra days of throwing in a week because a friend asked, a new showcase, a growth spurt. Those are the spikes that the arm has no time to adapt to.
Counting throws is unglamorous. It is also the only thing in this whole article that has actually prevented an injury in our house.
What A Year Looked Like
No sore shoulders, no missed weeks, and his location score went from twelve out of twenty to seventeen. Nothing dramatic happened, which is exactly the point — the season where nothing goes wrong is the season that does the most for a young arm.
Write the numbers down. It takes ten seconds and it changes every decision you make after.