Thread: Transfer of weight before stride

Hi, My daughters pitching coach teachs that you should not lean in to your pitch to transfer your weight to your back leg before you push off the plate.
This does not seem to be working for her, as her speed has slowed down. She no longer has any explosion off the plate. Her pitches just look slow.
I have watched pitcher after pitcher use that lean to explode off the plate.
I was just looking for some feedback or ideas on what I should do or could do
to get that explosion back. Her travel coach has stopped letting her pitch because all he sees is she looks slow. Help!

The object of the motion coming off the mound is to create as much forward momentum as possible. This increased forward force will translate into increased speed if the stride landing(front foot) is correct and the force is transfered to the back throwing side of the body. I often have pitchers run through the pitch when warming up and the increased forward drive increases their throwing speed. Therefore, anything done at the beginning of the motion to help drive stronger off the mound is a positive. Think of it this way. If I was hammering in a nail into wood, would I start the hammer only in a forward motion from a dead stop, or would I swing the hammer backward before I came forward. Obviously the latter method produces far more force. It is the same for any moving object or body. Dropping the heal on the rear foot and leaning back will only help to increase the forward momentum when it is done at the beginning of the motion.

Rich

I use the idea of a sprinter coming off the blocks, you've got to lean forward and get low to leap out powerfully. If you want to lean back onto the rear foot and then come forward into the sprinter's pushoff I guess that is OK. I have seen several pitching coaches put a rubber belt around the pitcher's midsection and hold back on it in effort to make the leap more powerful, to me this doesn't accomplish much because the pitcher is too upright.