DD Pitching Milestone: 50 mph

riseball said:

Every 5 mph have her date and sign the ball with the speed. They will be treasures when she is older.

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Jojo said:

Rocketech, how often and how long does she practice? I'm asking because I often have parents ask me how come so-in-so throws so hard and has a change-up but my DD throws slower and doesn't have a change yet and they started at the same time.
Generally the answer is that the other kid is a much harder worker.

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Rocketech1 said:

Proud dad moment. Brought out the radar gun yesterday for the first time in about two months and 11YO DD hit 50 mph several times. Her previous best was 48 mph.

One of the reasons for the increase in speed, I attribute to her new PC focusing on "slow to load (on the back swing) and then explode". This is my new cue.

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Rocketech1 said:

Quick recap of DD's pitching progression. At 6 she liked to pitch a tennis ball to me everyday after work. We did this for about 4 or 5 months. When she turned 7YO, she said she wanted to pitch in games in the fall (moved up to 8U) with mixture of kid/coach pitch. Since I knew nothing about windmill pitching, I took her to weekly pitching lessons for the next two years. She practiced 3x a week, and practiced & played almost year-round.

The past few years she would only see a pitching instructor between seasons but still practiced with me 3x a week. I became her defacto PC. We have just recently gone back to weekly lessons.

IMO, the two most important things that contributed to her development is a) building a pitching area on the side on my house so it was easy and convenient to get in 30 minutes of practice on the spur of the moment b) she got lots of quality reps at a young age: rec fall, spring, and summer all-stars every year.

By the way, she rarely practices more than 30 minutes at a time but one thing that has helped tremendously with her speed, accuracy and approach to pitching is the end of the practice game what I call "sequences" where she has to "strikeout" 6 batters before we are done. This has really helped her to be a pitcher not just a thrower.

With that said, there is so much room for improvement with her mechanics but you have to take it one week at a time.

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