Long toss is a baseball throwing drill where two players stand on flat ground and gradually increase the distance between them, often out to 200 feet or more. It’s one of the most widely used arm-conditioning exercises in the sport, practiced by everyone from youth players to major leaguers, though how it’s done and why varies more than most people realize.
How Long Toss Works
The basic concept is simple: you and a partner start relatively close together, maybe 60 to 90 feet apart, and slowly back up after a series of throws until you reach your maximum comfortable distance. Most pitchers and pitching coaches consider anything beyond roughly 155 to 200 feet to be long toss territory, though the exact cutoff depends on who you ask. Professional pitchers surveyed in one study averaged about 177 feet as their definition. Athletic trainers, who tend to think about it through an injury-prevention lens, put the number closer to 157 feet.
That gap in definitions reflects a real split in how people approach the drill. Pitchers and coaches generally favor throwing at longer distances with an arced trajectory, treating it primarily as a way to stretch out the shoulder and build arm strength. Trainers tend to prefer shorter distances with throws kept “on a line,” closer to the mechanics of actual pitching, mainly for rehabilitation purposes.
Arc Throws vs. Line Drives
This distinction matters more than it might seem, because the two styles produce very different things biomechanically.
When you throw on a line at moderate distances, your body mechanics closely resemble what happens on the pitching mound. Your trunk tilts forward, your arm slot stays consistent, and the forces on your shoulder and elbow are similar to normal pitching. This makes line-drive long toss a useful bridge for players working their way back from injury or building up arm strength during the offseason.
When you remove the distance constraint and tell a pitcher to throw as far as possible, everything changes. The body becomes more upright at release, the knee stays straighter, and the ball leaves the hand on a high arc rather than a flat trajectory. Players often add a crow-hop (a running shuffle step) to generate more momentum. At maximum distance (averaging around 260 feet in one biomechanical study), the shoulder rotates further back, the elbow bends more, and the forces on both joints increase compared to mound pitching. That’s the tradeoff: max-distance throws build more arm strength and stretch the shoulder further, but they also place greater stress on the elbow and shoulder.
The Two Phases of a Long Toss Session
The most popular structured approach, developed by pitching trainer Alan Jaeger, divides each session into two distinct phases.
The first is the stretching out phase. You start close and gradually move back, throwing with arc and building distance slowly. The goal here is to let the arm open up, not to throw hard. Think of it as a massage for the shoulder. You keep backing up until you reach your maximum comfortable distance for the day.
The second is the pull-down phase, and this is where the velocity work happens. Once you’ve reached your max distance, you start walking back toward your partner. The key: every throw on the way back in should carry the same effort level as your longest throw. If you stretched out to 300 feet, every throw during the pull-down should feel like a 300-foot effort, even when you’re only 150 feet apart. The only things that change are your release point and the angle of the throw, which get flatter and more aggressive as the distance shrinks. By the end, you’re firing near-max-effort throws from a short distance on a line, which closely mimics pitching intensity.
Why Players Use It
Long toss serves several overlapping purposes depending on who’s doing it and when. For pitchers trying to add velocity, the pull-down phase trains the arm to produce and sustain high effort levels. For players returning from time off, controlled on-a-line throwing at increasing distances serves as a structured ramp-up. For everyday arm care, the stretching phase helps maintain shoulder range of motion, which naturally tightens over the course of a season.
The velocity argument is probably the most debated. Proponents point to the fact that max-distance throws generate higher arm speed and greater rotational forces than mound pitching, essentially overloading the arm in a way that, over time, trains it to produce more force. Critics counter that the mechanics at extreme distance look nothing like pitching, so the strength gains may not transfer to the mound as efficiently as other drills. The biomechanical research supports both sides to some extent: short-distance, on-a-line throws do mimic pitching well, while max-distance arc throws train raw arm strength but with a different movement pattern.
How to Prepare Before Throwing
Jumping straight into long toss without preparing is one of the most common mistakes players make. A good pre-throwing routine has three stages.
First, loosen up the soft tissue. Use a foam roller or massage ball on your lat, the back of your shoulder, your chest, biceps, and forearm. Spend 30 to 60 seconds on each area and hold on any particularly tender spots for about 10 seconds. A cross-body shoulder stretch is effective for the muscles around the joint without being too aggressive on the joint itself. Avoid stretching the front of the shoulder, which is already loose in most throwers.
Second, activate the muscles with resistance tubing. This isn’t strength training. You’re doing light sets (two sets of 10 reps) with a band to wake up the rotator cuff and scapular muscles before you load them. Younger players should use lighter resistance, older or more experienced players can go heavier.
Third, move through a dynamic warm-up. Arm circles, trunk rotations, and sport-specific movement patterns get blood flowing and prepare the joints for the range of motion throwing demands. Even a three-minute dynamic arm warm-up makes a meaningful difference.
Scheduling and Frequency
Most throwing programs call for long toss every other day, giving the arm a full recovery day between sessions. During the season, pitchers typically fit long toss into the days between starts or outings. In the offseason, it often serves as the backbone of a conditioning program, with sessions gradually increasing in distance and intensity over weeks.
The distance you work out to should increase progressively. Trying to throw 300 feet in your first session back after time off is a recipe for a sore arm. A structured program builds distance week by week, letting the muscles, tendons, and ligaments adapt to the increasing load.
Weighted Balls and Long Toss
Some training programs incorporate slightly overweight (6 oz) or underweight (4 oz) baseballs into long toss, compared to the standard 5 oz ball. The idea is that heavier balls build strength while lighter balls train arm speed. One study from Driveline Baseball measured elbow stress during weighted ball long toss and found something unexpected: underweight balls actually produced noticeable reductions in elbow stress, while the overweight balls did not show significantly more stress than a standard baseball. The data didn’t support the assumption that weighted ball long toss is harder on the arm, though it also wasn’t definitive enough to call it safer.
Common Mistakes
The biggest error is treating every throw like a max-effort competition. Long toss is a training tool, not a distance contest. Skipping the gradual stretching phase and immediately trying to air the ball out puts enormous stress on a cold arm. Similarly, losing your mechanics in pursuit of distance, letting your arm drag behind or your elbow drop below your shoulder, increases injury risk without adding training benefit.
Another frequent mistake is doing max-distance arc throws exclusively and never incorporating on-a-line throwing. Since arc throws change your body position significantly compared to pitching (more upright, less forward trunk tilt, greater shoulder rotation), relying on them alone means you’re training a movement pattern that doesn’t fully match what you do on the mound. The pull-down phase exists specifically to bridge that gap, bringing the mechanics back toward a pitching motion. Skipping it leaves half the benefit on the table.
Finally, ignoring recovery days undermines the whole program. The forces on the elbow and shoulder during max-distance throws exceed those of normal pitching. Throwing through fatigue or soreness on consecutive days turns a conditioning tool into an injury mechanism.