By popular request...
DD's pitching coach taught this by positioning her on the rubber and telling her to lean forward...not at the hips, but rather her whole body, bending only the pivot foot knee.... and when she felt like she going to fall on her face... push with the pivot foot to catch her balance. How do you teach it?
Great post. I've found that once a pitcher has matured a bit and has sound mechanics (about sophomore year in HS) they benefit much more from running/sprinting/agility training then they do from their actual pitching/softball practices. There are a lot of great athlete only training facilities around that help out with this.
-W
JS, thank you for this post.
DDs pitching coach calls this the Attack Posture, and says this is a critical position for DD to get in.
JS, in your opinion, is there a particular pre-motion that helps a pitcher get into this Running Start, Attack Posture, better than others? The reason I ask, is remembering back to an exchange between your and BM regarding overlap, and was also wondering how much overlap does or does not play into getting into a good Attack Posture.
Those are some great wall drills. Some of those I've seen and used but some are new to me, I'll definitely try them out.
Using weighted sleds also helps because they force the athlete to utilize that same posture. Expert supervision is strongly suggested here though, as we're talking about quite a bit of weight being both pulled by the athlete (with a harness) and pushed by the athlete.
I like Javasource's drills because they can be used by athletes of all ages. I don't suggest the sleds until after puberty.
-W
So if we take this one step further, past the drive drills and into plant. What are we looking for? My novices eye says we are looking for a pretty violent opening at the top of the circle, say from 1 oclock to 11 oclock and then quickly followed by a slight but quick closure to 45 as the foot plants. The tell tale thing I see in fast pitchers is a powerful open/close (but only partially closed) move right before and into plant. I will try to find a good clip of what I am talking about.
“…lower extremity contributes 50–55% of the total energy generated by the body during performance of an upper extremity task. To transfer energy through the kinetic chain from the lower extremity to the upper extremity, a softball pitcher must have good neuromuscular control of the lower extremity. - Gretchen D. Oliver PhD, ATC, LAT
In other words, get you’re a$$ moving!“…clinicians should incorporate strengthening exercises that mimic the timing of maximal muscle activation most used during the pitching phase…
…there is a need for core strengthening to help properly transfer energy to decrease the stress placed on the shoulder when performing a successful pitch. Core strengthening should focus on gluteal activations and on trunk rotational activities.”