PowerNet’s weighted baseball is one of the best on the market. It’s sleek, easy to handle, comes in a range of weights to build your strength, and it’s endorsed by the pros. It’s made from thick, pliable plastic designed to last for years.
Precision’s Impact baseballs come in a 15-ounce weight to take your game to the next level. They’re designed with a soft, but durable plastic, and weighted to provide the feedback you need to improve your game. These comes with a worry-free 1-year warranty.
SKLZ’s weighted baseballs are the real deal. They’re made following the same construction, size, and material as the official 5 ounce balls, but they’re heavier. Practice with these weighted baseballs and the 5 ounce will be a breeze when it comes to game time.
Practicing with a weighted baseball works on the same principle that going to the gym and lifting weights does. You practice with heavier equipment, so when it’s time to stand up in the real thing, you’ll easily be able to handle the lighter weight.
Weighted baseballs are getting more and more popular, and it can be tough to know which ones are the best on the market and which ones are actually worth the money. That’s where we come in. We’ve spent the time researching all the weighted baseballs out there (well…most of them) so you don’t have to.
Below the list of recommended balls, you’ll find a buying guide. Here, you can read more about the benefits of using a weighted baseball to practice with, what type of training programs are the most effective, how heavy your weighted baseball should be, and examples of studies proving they work.
Here are the best weighted baseballs you can get today:
Practicing with a weighted baseball has fantastic benefits for both batting and pitching.
For batting, the heavier ball will help improve your follow through on your swing, almost forcing the overall swing movement to require more energy. In turn, as you practice for longer periods of time with a weighted baseball, your core and arm strength will start to increase. And when you switch back to hitting the standard 5 oz ball, you should see a massive increase in control and velocity.
As good as weighted baseballs are for improving your batting, they’re even better for pitching. The single area you’ll want to see get better, is increasing the velocity of your throw – and you will. Your arm strength, muscle memory, and control over the ball will all improve.
On another note – Dr Glenn Fleisig from the American Sports Medicine Institute said that training with different weight variations in the baseballs will increase the awareness the nerves and muscles. Allowing you to pitch far more effectively when returning to a standard baseball.
There are plenty of studies proving the above benefits which you can find below.
There are plenty of different training programs already available that incorporate a weighted baseball. Before we get into one of the most popular, always remember to warm up properly and first practice with a standard baseball. Not doing so may result in short and long term injury.
One of the best training programs to use is the one you’re already doing. Probably not what you wanted to hear, but changing programs and incorporating a weighted baseball all at the same time can sometimes be a bit too much for your body to handle, especially your joints.
Don’t have a proper pitching program? Here’s a simple one that’ll work with all levels of experience if you’ve never thrown a weighted baseball before:
| Weight | Throws | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| 6 oz | 20 (70% effort) | 40 to 150 ft |
| 6 oz | 20 (85% effort) | 70 ft |
| 6 oz | 10 (100% effort) | 70 ft |
| 7 oz | 10 (90% effort) | 70 ft |
This program can be repeated 3-5x per week. Again – always make sure to include a warm up and cool down with your practice sessions.
Once you stop seeing any improvements on your 5 oz pitch from this program, it’s time to switch it up. Add in heavier balls and/or longer practice sessions.
A standard NFL football weighs 15 oz – 3 times heavier than a standard baseball. Just because NFL players are able to throw their football long distances at fast velocity with low risk of injury, doesn’t mean you should start practising with a 15 oz weighted baseball straight away – your body isn’t used to it.
If you’ve never thrown any types of balls heavier than a 5 oz baseball, start off slow, maybe with a 6 to 12 oz ball, and increase as you go on. This is especially important for children as their bodies are still developing, and jumping to a heavier weight too quickly and have serious negative consequences. Slow and steady improvement is better in all ways.
On the other hand, if you’re a young adult or older, you’ll probably be able to handle a heavier baseball from the get-go. Just don’t throw at 100% effort to start with – take it easy at 50-70% effort, then increase and your body and joints adapt to handle the heavier weight.
PowerNet’s weighted baseball is endorsed by German Marquez of the Colorado Rockies and Andrelton Simmons of the LA Angels.
On top of that, Aroldis Chapman, currently at the Yankees, Corey Kluber – a pitcher for Cleveland, and Travor Bauer – also at Cleveland, have all used weighted baseballs in their training.
We’re sure there are many other professionals and thousands of upcoming amateurs using weighted baseballs as well, but you get the point – the pros use them, and they’ve been using them for a while.
There are also some retired pros who stand behind them:
"I am in favor of using weighted baseballs as a compliment to any arm strength program. Weighted baseballs can also be used to teach proper arm path, even in young throwers (without actually throwing the weighted baseball)"
"No one ever had shoulder injuries because of using a weighted ball in such a way to build the back of the shoulder so it wouldn't hurt your rotator cuff. David Cone, Dwight Gooden, Sid Fernandez, myself and all of those pitchers used it and none of them had shoulder issues."
There’s been quite a bit of research into the use of weighted baseballs, both in more recent times and from a while back.
Here are some of the major studies and their conclusion:
“Baseball weighted implement training is a unique but essential training protocol that is research based, injury free, and, most important, enhances youth, high school, and collegiate players’ performances.”
You can read it here.
“Group 1 pitched with a heavy, light, and standard baseball 3 days a wk for 10 wks. Group 2 pitched with a heavy and standard baseball for the first 5 wks and then a light and standard baseball for the final 5 wks. Group 3 served as a control and pitched with a standard 5-oz baseball for 10 wks. Pitching velocities were determined by electromagnetic radiation radar. The velocity of 15 consecutive pitches was calculated to represent mean pitching velocity for each subject. Groups 1 and 2 improved significantly in throwing velocity, but no improvement was observed for the control group.”
You can read it here.
Finally, if you’d like to dive deeper into the research behind the use of a weighted baseball, check out some of the following studies:
Weighted baseballs are a great way for kids, teenagers, college students, and adults to improve their pitching and batting. However, care needs to be taken when incorporating a weighted baseball into your training routine to ensure steady improvements without the risk of injury.
If you have any more questions about weighted baseballs, leave them in the comment box below.
Good luck with your game!
Mike is one of the lead editors at Weighted Living and the author of this article. He's become fascinated with weighted products (a bit too much we think) and loves to see all the different ways they can improve our loves. He's written quite a few weighted product guides as well.
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Weighted Living features a range of articles, guides, and product recommendations for everything weighted. We believe anyone and everyone, including yourself, can enhance the way they live by simply adding a bit of weight into their life.
Weighted Living features a range of articles, guides, and product recommendations for everything weighted. We believe anyone and everyone, including yourself, can enhance the way they live by simply adding a bit of weight into their life. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
