Posted by: Major Dan (markj89@charter.net) on Thu Dec 6 10:31:26 2001

can the building of the deltoid muscle help hitting at all? Does this have a negative effect on throwing?

Tom-
every muscle can help. They all need to be built together/balanced, etc. The deltoids are not the most important muscles for hitting.
Focus on core strength - hamstrings, glutes, abs, obliques. build on that with quads, chest and back. Top off with grip and some arm strength.

As for throwing, be careful overbuilding deltoids at the expense of rotator cuff muscles. This can be an injury causer as the overdeveloped deltoids affect shoulder functionality and the imbalance is usually felt by the relatively weak rotator cuff muscles.