1. Why tubing belongs in every arm‑care framework

Every serious methodology has its own language—at Oates, that's the Prepare / Compete / Restore arm‑care model. Elastic tubing fits all three phases in a way few other tools can.

• Prepare: After a general movement warm‑up, a short band circuit can wake up the rotator cuff and scapula, move the shoulder through familiar ranges, and give pitchers a sense that their arm is "online" before they ever touch a baseball.
• Compete: Between innings or in the middle of a long travel day, tubing gives athletes a way to keep the arm feeling ready without adding heavy throws to their workload or dragging a full gym across state lines.
• Restore: The day of and the day after an outing, lighter tubing helps reclaim comfortable ranges and maintain the movement habits coaches have worked hard to build. It also allows the athlete a chance to increase blood flow which aids in the body's natural recovery process.

This isn't guesswork. In-season studies of high school pitchers have shown that layering a surgical-tubing routine onto standard baseball activities leads to measurable increases in both shoulder strength and mound velocity, all while maintaining a track record of zero time-loss injuries. This performance is backed by on-field EMG data, which confirms that standard band drills heavily recruit the same critical stabilizers utilized during the pitching motion. Ultimately, tubing is the rare tool that survives the rigors of a grueling baseball calendar while consistently delivering the data-backed results coaches demand.

2. What the research actually says

A six‑week bump in strength and velocity

The Oregon State work with high school pitchers is worth having in your back pocket. Twenty‑four pitchers were split into a tubing group and a control group; the tubing group added six surgical‑tubing shoulder exercises during the season.

By the end of six weeks:

• The tubing group had greater gains in internal and external rotation strength at the shoulder.
• They also saw a significant increase in pitching velocity, while the control group did not.
• No time‑loss shoulder or elbow injuries were recorded in the tubing group during the program.

For a coach, the takeaway is straightforward: a modest, well‑targeted tubing routine can quietly help pitchers hold or improve performance in‑season without beating them up.

On‑field band drills that actually matter

Another group of researchers took 12 rubber‑tubing exercises throwers were already using on the field and wired up the shoulder to see which ones did the real work. They played with anchor height—sometimes the tubing was fixed low, sometimes at elbow height, sometimes high—to match different phases of the throwing motion.

Seven exercises led the pack, including:

• External rotation in the arm‑cocking "lay‑back" position (external rotation at 90 degrees of shoulder abduction).
• A banded throwing acceleration move, with the arm moving across the body like it does off the mound.
• A deceleration pattern that mimicked the arm slowing down after release.
• Low scapular rows and scapular punches that lit up the shoulder‑blade muscles.

All seven can be done in under ten minutes if athletes hit about 30 smooth reps per drill at a steady tempo, making them realistic candidates for a pre‑throw circuit in the bullpen or down the line.

Youth‑specific arm‑care with one band

At the younger end, the Youth Throwers Ten program re‑worked the classic Thrower's Ten idea for kids using body weight and a single piece of elastic resistance. When youth throwers followed it at least once a week, researchers saw:

• Lower medial elbow injury rates.
• Better shoulder rotation and hip internal rotation.
• Improved lower trapezius strength and more favorable thoracic posture.

Dartmouth‑Hitchcock's overhead‑athlete packet tells the same story from a hospital perspective: bands anchored above, at, and below shoulder height, with rotation and diagonal patterns used to prepare and protect athletes whose sports live overhead. For coaches, that's a green light to treat tubing as a first‑line tool for kids and teens, not just a pro or rehab‑only resource.

3. Surgical vs sheathed tubing: choosing the right "engine"

Not all tubing is built the same, and that's a good thing.

Surgical tubing: precise and proven

Clinic‑grade surgical tubing—the kind associated with TheraBand—is what showed up in the high‑school pitcher study and what many therapists reach for in shoulder rehab. TheraBand's own instructions emphasize a few key points:

• Check the tubing before each use; if there are cracks, thinning, or nicks, it's done.
• Attach it to stable, smooth anchors or approved accessories, not sharp or abrasive surfaces.
• Don't stretch it more than about 300% of its resting length—roughly three times as long as it is at rest.

When you respect those boundaries, surgical tubing feels predictable and responsive. It's ideal when you're chasing specific arm‑care patterns, and it's a natural fit for more mature or higher‑level athletes who can handle load.

Sheathed tubing: built for teams and travel

Sheathed tubing takes that same basic elastic idea and wraps it in a protective sleeve. That sleeve:

• Shields the inner tube from fence posts, door frames, and the general abuse of team life.
• Helps contain the tubing if it fails, reducing the risk of a sudden snap‑back.
• Allows a more forgiving working distance in full‑body patterns without flirting with catastrophic overstretch.

In team environments, especially with mixed ages and varying attention to detail, sheathed tubing becomes the workhorse: durable, safer to share, and better suited to the realities of buses, backfields, and chain‑link fences.

4. Handles, cuffs, and balls in the hand: changing the feel on purpose

What the hand is doing:

Hand‑grip research has shown that gripping a ball and gripping a handle are not interchangeable.

• A spherical "ball" grip drives higher activation in the thumb pad and the small muscles inside the hand, and forces the fingers to spread and curve—very similar to how a pitcher actually holds a baseball.
• A cylindrical handle grip distributes force differently and tends to behave more like a classic power grip.
• Forearm muscle patterns change with grip type, not just with how hard an athlete pulls.

So:

• If the goal is to rehearse grip and hand feel, adding a ball in the hand while the band provides resistance makes the drill more "throw‑like" at the level of the fingers and thumb.
• If the goal is to de‑emphasize the hand and focus on what the shoulder blade and upper arm are doing, a handle or cuff that reduces or removes grip demands can be a better choice.

Why cuffs and forearm loops show up in scapular work

Look at scapular‑control drills from sports‑physio sources and you'll often see bands looped around the wrists or forearms instead of being held in the hands. The logic:

• Take finger tension out of the equation.
• Force the athlete to organize at the shoulder and scapula instead of squeezing harder.

A wrist cuff attached to tubing is simply a baseball‑specific version of that idea. It secures the load to the forearm so the athlete can let the fingers relax, feel the scapula glide on the rib cage, and move through throw‑relevant arm slots without fighting a handle.

An additional advantage of wrist cuffs: Because the hand is free, athletes can hold a ball during tubing exercises. This allows them to rehearse throwing grip and the spherical hand position while the tubing loads the shoulder and scapula.

Handles, cuffs, and ball‑in‑hand setups aren't competing; they're different ways of turning the same tubing into different drills.

5. Anchors, snap hooks, and staying inside the safe zone

No tubing program is better than its anchors and safety habits.

Manufacturer instructions and clinic safety sheets all say roughly the same things:

• Attach bands and tubing to stable, non‑moving structures.
• Keep the attachment point smooth to avoid cutting into the material.
• Inspect both the elastic and the connection point regularly.
• Avoid stretching bands past about three times their resting length.

Dedicated clips like carabiners and snap hooks line up with that advice:

• They create a consistent, secure connection to the anchor.
• They make it easy to move the anchor point up or down a fence, net pole, or rack without having to re‑tie knots.
• They give coaches one obvious piece of hardware to check for wear each week.

The other part of safety is knowing when to change bands. Guidance from TheraBand and clinic sheets is clear: if you have to stretch a light band nearly to its limit to get the load you want, it's time to move up a resistance level. Overstretching lighter tubing doesn't just raise the odds of a snap; it also accelerates wear and shortens the band's useful life.

6. Youth guidelines: what changes when your pitchers are 12, not 20

The research on youth throwers points toward a simple idea: give them enough load and complexity to build good habits, but not so much volume or resistance that they're surviving the program instead of owning it.

Youth Throwers Ten is a good model:

• It uses body weight and a single band.
• It calls for 2 sets of 10 reps per exercise, with minimal rest, at least once per week.
• It cues posture and scapular position constantly, with an eye toward movement quality instead of chasing fatigue.

For coaches of 9–14‑year‑olds, that translates to:

• Lighter bands across the board, especially for rotation and diagonal patterns.
• Fewer total drills per session—often 4–6 good movements are enough.
• More emphasis on rhythm, breathing, and positions, less on "burn" or "pump."
• A clear lane for tubing as part of arm‑care and movement education, not a substitute for age‑appropriate throwing limits and rest.

With older high‑school and college arms, you can expand the menu and the intensity. With kids, the tubing's job is to build a base and teach them what "clean" movement feels like.

7. How tubing actually looks inside the week (example circuits)

There's no single perfect tubing program, but the research gives you enough to sketch out patterns that fit the arm‑care framework.

Example: Prepare circuit (pre‑throw, 5–8 minutes)

After your general warm‑up:

• External rotation at the side with towel roll: Light band, 1–2 sets of 10–15 each arm.
• External rotation in the lay‑back position (90 degrees of shoulder abduction and elbow flexion): Light band, 1–2 sets of 10–15 smooth reps.
• Low scapular row: Band anchored at or just above elbow height, 1–2 sets of 10–15, focusing on pulling the shoulder blade back and down.
• Scapular punch: Band behind the athlete at roughly elbow height, 1–2 sets of 10–15, finishing with a long reach and controlled return.
• Simple diagonal (across‑body pull that echoes acceleration): Moderate band, 1 set of 10–12 each arm, not to fatigue.

Everything should feel rhythmic and under control. The goal is to step onto the mound feeling that the shoulder and scapula know where they're supposed to go.

Example: Restore circuit (post‑throw or next‑day, 5–10 minutes)

On the day of or the day after an outing:

• Very light external and internal rotation at the side: 1–2 sets of 10–15, just to keep rotation comfortable.
• Short‑range rows: High‑quality squeezes, 1–2 sets of 10–15.
• Gentle diagonals: Lower resistance, slow tempo, 1 set of 10 each way.
• Band‑around‑wrists scapular control (Y or W pattern): Light loop around wrists, small range, 1–2 sets of 8–10 focusing on shoulder‑blade motion.

Here the coaching cue is "easy and smooth." If the athletes chase fatigue, they've missed the point.

These are examples, not prescriptions. They show how a coach can use the same tubing differently in Prepare and Restore phases while still staying inside the boundaries the research and safety standards describe.

Related Content

This article is part of a broader arm‑care framework for pitchers and position players. You can explore the full overview and dive into the Prepare, Compete, and Restore model here: In-Season Arm Care for Pitchers.

Coming soon in this series: Deep dives on shoulder stability progressions and recovery‑day templates you can plug straight into practice plans.