Arm Strength

[erpowers]

I have a question about arm strength in terms of football quarterbacks. I often hear people talking about how a quarterback cannot improve his arm strength. Can someone explain to me how this is a true statement? Can't a quarterback increase his arm strength by just lifting weights in general and by doing bicep curls in specific?

[Awsi Dooger]

1. I've never seen it

I don't know much about this but I've always believed arm strength is indeed mostly natural. You certainly don't want to be overly muscle bound at QB, as opposed to a limber whip arm. In 30+ years of watching football I can't think of a single example of a QB noticably improving his arm strength. Once you get to the college and pro level these guys are mature, have been pointing to this for many years, and aren't exactly twigs. At a younger age velocity and distance can be improved by better mechanics, like ball positioning and getting your body into the throw. But whenever I hear about major prospects who are trying to improve their arm strength at a late stage, I basically reject it and downgrade them.

Todd Marinovich is one example. Marinovich was so weak armed in college that he was petrified to throw the Hail Mary pass at the end of a half or game, worried the NFL scouts would see how pathetic his arm was. There were literally 5 or 6 times in his USC career that the situation came up, and Marinovich didn't throw the pass a single time. He would either wander around until he got sacked, and once he waited and waited to be sacked but when no one cooperated he finally threw a ridiculous three yard dump off pass to a back. My friends and I got to the point we were rooting for the situation to come up just so we could thrill to a cheap laugh. It's still incredible to me that Al Davis took Marinovich in the first round.

Of course, his dad was the robo exercise and diet guy so he had Todd kneeling down and trying to improve his arm strength by throwing from his knees. Fans who think Marinovich's career was derailed solely by drugs are way off base. He had no arm. A first round QB is never out of the league in only two years if the teams think he has physical skills to work with.

[Poiuyt]

2. I don't think bicep curls would help much

Those are for bending your arm, whereas throwing involves straightening it. As far as strength for throwing, I would think that a lot more than just arm strength is needed. You would need to have a lot of overall body strength as well as very good technique. I'm not sure which specific muscles are involved with the throwing motion, but I'm sure that exercise physiologists have done a lot of study. It would be interesting to see what the training of Olympic javelin throwers is like as I'm sure there are a lot of similarities between the two.

[nickgutierrez]

3. Lifting weights doesn't help throwing arms, much

I suppose making a quarterback's legs stronger might help a bit, but not as much as for a pitcher, in baseball. There are ways to strengthen the small muscles that make up the rotator cuff, but that's not going to make a huge difference either.

Basically, the best way to get better at throwing is to throw, and that's true in both baseball and football. Once you reach a certain point in your development, there's only so much extra throwing you can do, and therefore so much more improvement you can make.

[Captain Hilts]

4. Jugensen's college coach made him practice thowing while on one knee. nt

[Jack from Charlotte]

5. Arm strength...aka..throwing velocity... comes from arm flex.........

among other things. Of course, leg strength, stepping forward and many other things contribute to throwing velocity. But, used to be, the thought was that how far back from your shoulder you could "reach" determined throwing velocity. Used to be, there were flexibility exercises that got ones arm to reach back further. But, I don't recall hearing of any adult athlete being able to do anything that increased throwing velocity, significantly.

BTW, ever see those pix of Sandy Kofaux while his arm was at it's optimum reach back angle? His wrist was well below his elbow. And that dude could bring it.

Note: He's well past his max reach in this pix as he come forward ready to release.

[Auggie]

6. To be honest, I'd rather have a QB who throws with brains and with accuracy,

has some mobility and can read a defense. Like Joe Montana.

[DaveinMD]

7. yeah

but your QB must be able to make every throw. Brady doesn't have a rocket arm, but he can make every throw that is required.

[Auggie]

8. And know when to throw the ball away