Towel drills have been a staple in baseball for decades. Whether used during return-to-throw phases or as a mechanical cueing tool, the general assumption is that they’re a safe alternative to throwing—something you can do without worrying about taxing the arm. But assumptions only take us so far. The question is: how safe are they, really?

A recent study (PMID: 37865153) aimed to dig into that exact question—specifically looking at the elbow valgus torqueproduced during towel drills compared to full-effort baseball throws.

What They Found

• Towel drills produce less elbow stress than traditional throws—but the difference isn’t as dramatic as you might think.
• The average towel drill still generated 80% of the elbow stress of a max-effort throw.
• Interestingly, arm speed during towel drills correlated with elbow stress, but that relationship wasn’t seen in standard throwing. In other words, the harder you go during a towel drill, the more torque you create—but with a baseball in hand, this wasn’t as straightforward.

Why That Matters

Towel drills aren’t as “dry” as many coaches think. If you’re treating them like a zero-stress activity, that assumption might be leading you in the wrong direction—especially for athletes returning from injury or looking to manage in-season workloads. It’s not that towel drills are bad; it’s that they carry more load than expected.

So, if your plan includes high-volume towel work—especially at high speeds—you need to account for that stress in your total arm care strategy. It's not a throw, but it’s not nothing either.

A Few Caveats

As with any study, there are limitations:

• Small sample size.
• Self-selected mechanics and intensity across reps.

But even with those limitations, this study adds an important layer to our understanding of training stress. Whether you believe in towel drills as a mechanical tool or not, the stress data matters—and it should shape how you implement them.

At VeloU, we’re always trying to separate tradition from truth. This study doesn’t say to toss the towel. It says: use it wisely.

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