Fundamentals of throwing a ball and why is it important
Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS) are the building blocks of a child’s physical development. These essential skills—like running, jumping, catching, and throwing—create the foundation for more advanced athletic abilities and everyday activities. At ArrowSports, we believe that developing these skills early is key to helping kids grow stronger, more confident, and more capable in both sports and life.
In this blog, we’ll explore why throwing a ball is such an important fundamental skill and how learning it the right way can benefit your child both on and off the field.
Let’s dive into the fundamentals of throwing—and why it’s a skill every child should develop.
Why Is Throwing Important for Children?
Throwing may seem like a simple action, but it’s a complex movement that uses the entire body. From the legs pushing off the ground to the rotation of the hips, shoulders, and arms, throwing helps children develop coordination, balance, and timing.
Learning to throw properly builds both gross motor skills (using large muscle groups for big movements) and fine motor skills (using smaller muscles for control and precision). It also improves hand-eye coordination, which is vital for almost every sport and many everyday tasks.
Throwing is used in a wide range of sports—football, basketball, cricket, baseball, handball, and more. Mastering this fundamental gives children the confidence to explore and enjoy these activities as they grow.
Benefits of Learning to Throw Correctly
At ArrowSports, we emphasize learning the correct technique for throwing to ensure children build strength, coordination, and confidence in a safe, progressive way. Here are some key benefits:
Full-Body Coordination and Balance
Throwing a ball correctly engages the whole body, helping children learn how to coordinate their legs, core, and arms together in one smooth movement. This leads to better balance and posture, which supports not just sports skills but overall physical development.
Hand-Eye Coordination
Catching and throwing often go hand in hand. Through structured throwing drills, children learn to time their movements, improving reaction speed and focus. This skill easily transfers to racket sports, team games, and even activities like writing and drawing.
Strength and Power Development
The action of throwing helps develop upper body strength, particularly in the shoulders and arms, as well as core strength to stabilise the movement. Learning how to generate power safely is essential for preventing injuries as kids get older and take on more challenging activities.
How We Teach Throwing at ArrowSports
Our programmes at ArrowSports are designed to introduce and develop the skill of throwing in a fun, structured, and engaging way.
Children are guided through a progression of drills that focus on:
Grip and release technique
Arm swing mechanics
Weight transfer and body rotation
Target accuracy through games and challenges
We use a variety of balls—different sizes, weights, and textures—to help children adapt their throwing to different situations, keeping the experience exciting and helping them build versatility in their movement skills.
More Than Just Throwing: Building Lifelong Confidence
At ArrowSports, it’s not just about learning to throw a ball—it’s about helping children build confidence in their physical abilities. By developing key fundamental skills like throwing, we’re giving kids the tools they need to enjoy sports, participate in active play, and build a positive relationship with movement for life.
Throwing is more than just a game, it’s a stepping stone toward better coordination, strength, agility, and self-confidence.
Fundamentals Of Throwing A Ball
At TigerKids, a division of ArrowSports Singapore, we recognize the significance of Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS) in establishing a foundation for enduring athletic achievement. Among these essential skills, throwing is particularly vital as one of the primary abilities that children should cultivate early on. Whether in baseball or various multi-sport activities, throwing serves not only as an enjoyable way to engage children but also aids in developing balance, coordination, arm strength, and self-assurance.
The Importance of throwing in Children’s Growth
Throwing may seem like a simple action, but it’s a complex movement that uses the entire body. From the legs pushing off the ground to the rotation of the hips, shoulders, and arms, throwing helps children develop coordination, balance, and timing.
Learning to throw properly builds both gross motor skills (using large muscle groups for big movements) and fine motor skills (using smaller muscles for control and precision). It also improves hand-eye coordination, which is vital for almost every sport and many everyday tasks.
Throwing is used in a wide range of sports—football, basketball, cricket, baseball, handball, and more. Mastering this fundamental gives children the confidence to explore and enjoy these activities as they grow. There are also many different types of throws that can be done. In this blog, we will go through 3 different types of throws: an overhead throw, a straight throw, and a curve throw. This would be targeted more towards baseball.
Overhead Throw:
The overhead throw is a very simple throw that young children would struggle with, or even adults, as they do not have the FMS. A great example would be Jan Zelezny in javelin. From the picture below, we can see how Jan utilizes his whole body and how he winds his arm back in order to have more power in his throw. A crucial point is how he utilizes his entire body weight to throw, he uses his rotational power, coming from his core and using his shoulder and arms as much as possible by winding back as far as possible. The follow through of the throw is important as you are going to follow through with your whole body, not just your arms and shoulder. We can see the follow through from the picture on the right, where he launches his whole body to make use of the force.
To summarize the throw, it is important to utilize your entire body's momentum for a very long throw, but if it's just a normal overhead throw, there is no need to utilize your entire body weight in order to reach max power. It is also important to follow through with your entire body and engage your core just as you're about to throw.
Straight Ball:
The straight is a more complex throw that requires the thrower to use more of his fine motor skills, as the thrower would have to use his gross motor skills and fine motor skills at the same time. When a straight ball is thrown, the follow-through and timing of the ball are very important, as the follow-through and timing of the ball have to be timed. The follow-through in a straight ball not only comes from the arms, shoulders, and body, but it also comes through the fingers. A great example would be Aroldis Chapman, we can see from the picture below that his fingers are contracting, this is because of the follow-through, which is needed to have the ball in a straight and flat path.
As for the technique of the throw, it requires the thrower to draw back as far as possible, turn their torso and legs to maximize the body's rotation, and make use of the short-stretch shortening cycle. For the follow-through, the whole body follows through together, arms going down first, then the core, following up with the body weight, essentially putting your whole force into the throw.
Curveball:
The curveball would be the hardest ball to throw; it is more complex compared to the straight ball as it would require more fine motor control on the fingers. As for a curveball, it would require you to snap your wrist while following through with your fingers, trying to have your middle finger facing towards the target. The picture below would show the ideal grip on the ball. The snap of the ball is needed to add top spin to the ball which is the one which determines the curve on the ball. A great example would be Nolan Ryan.
As for the follow-through, we can see that the winding of the arm is different. Nolan is going with his elbow first, trying to get as much snap on his wrist to generate that topspin on the ball. The follow-through is mainly just the arms and not the whole body in order to keep the consistency of the throw.
How Tigerkids develops throwing skills
At TigerKids Singapore, we do more than just teach children how to throw, we enhance their overall Fundamental Movement Skills through enjoyable, engaging, and organized activities. In our junior football programs, kids discover various throws such as overhead, straight ball, and curveball, through interactive games and age-appropriate drills. We incorporate different ball sizes and fun target challenges to ensure that sessions are exciting, safe, and fulfilling.
In our multi-sports classes, children get to experience a variety of sports, expanding their skill sets while reinforcing essential abilities like kicking, throwing, and jumping. This comprehensive approach promotes children’s physical development and nurtures a passion for movement.
Why Choose TigerKids at ArrowSports?
At TigerKids, we go beyond just playing games. We help children build the skills, confidence, and love of sports they need to thrive physically, socially, and emotionally. Learning to kick a ball isn’t just about scoring goals—it’s about unlocking your child’s potential for a healthy, active life.
VisitTigerKids.co today to learn more about our junior football training and multi-sports programmes for kids aged 4–12 in Singapore.