I was having a conversation with one of our players recently about the topic of keeping the arm healthy. We discussed the idea of exercising vs. training vs. testing. In strength and conditioning circles you’ll hear most people say “you’re either training or you’re testing”, “you’re either developing strength or displaying it”, or something along those lines. In essence you’re either showing off quality “X” or trying to develop/improve quality “X”.  For the purposes of this article, training refers to the process of trying to develop a quality and testing is trying to display that quality at its highest peak. Most coaches (rightfully so) will tell you to spend more time training than you do testing. However, this conversation with our player sparked some extended thoughts on this for me.

He added the third element that we are going to talk about here: exercising. I know what you’re thinking: “Exercise is what the locals do at Planet Fitness. I train, bro”. Yes, I get it. I am the same way. People without any sense of long-term direction in their approach to fitness tend to spin their wheels and get nowhere (not always though). However, the concept of “exercising” may play a valuable role in a program for someone who is consistent with his/her training on a largely regular basis.

In terms of throwing for a pitcher, it essentially breaks down to this: off-season catch playing is exercise – nice and easy, stay fluid, throw the ball to “keep the arm moving”, in-season throwing is training – bullpens, long-toss, focused throwing program, etc. all have the goal of developing a specific quality in throwing (control, arm strength, arm action, etc.), and testing is obviously pitching in the games – taking everything you’ve done for your training and putting it on display when the lights are on. As mentioned above, ideally you’d spend more time training than you would testing. But to this player, he thought the “exercising” (light catch to keep the arm moving in periods of low baseball volume) kept his arm healthier than taking extended periods of no throwing at all.

Now let’s apply this to the strength and conditioning setting. “Exercise” is simply checking the box. You’re on vacation and you go to the hotel gym to get in a light session. “Training” is all your concentrated blocks with focused goals. “Testing” is what displays how effective your training has or hasn’t been (this does NOT mean one-rep max as there are plenty of ways to determine the effectiveness of a training cycle – more on that in another article). How much time should we take completely off from physical activity? Would we be better suited to have shorter times of being completely off and replacing some of that time with “exercise”? These are some of the thoughts that came to mind during this conversation. Should throwers take extended breaks or would they be better off to play light catch in periods of lesser baseball activity? Should strength sport athletes take extended breaks or should they get back into the gym shortly after competitions to do mobility circuits? As with just about everything I think the answer falls somewhere in the middle. However, we should take the idea of exercising vs. training vs. testing (vs. complete time off) into consideration when individualizing programs for our athletes. Some may benefit both mentally and physically from extended time off. Others need to feel like they accomplished something (even if it’s just a light bike ride for 15 minutes). As others before me have said “motion is the lotion”, and I think sometimes we just blindly apply complete rest in scenarios where it would better serve our athletes for them to just do some sort of “exercise”.