Football Drill Question

[BoardMember]

Chris, you are 100% correct that using a football WILL ABSOLUTELY accelerate the conversion from push to whip.........For the very reasons you state.

1.) Causing them to stay open.

2.) Unlocking the elbow by FORCING THEM to lead with the elbow. You cannot throw an underhand spiral if the elbow is not leading, or at least inside the ball......It's PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE........

3.) One that you didn't mention is that it teaches them that upon approaching release they MUST BE INSIDE THE BALL with the hand.

Keep up the good work buddy. And welcome to the "mecca" of fast pitch softball pitching knowledge...........

Oh and I forgot #4........

There is one person who posts here that you should completely ignore........Have you figured out who that is yet?........You only been here for a few hours and she's already "dumped" on your thread........

 

[cuzmail]

There is one person who posts here that you should completely ignore

Negative Nelly?

 

[Doug Romrell]

Chris, you are 100% correct that using a football WILL ABSOLUTELY accelerate the conversion from push to whip.........For the very reasons you state.

1.) Causing them to stay open.

2.) Unlocking the elbow by FORCING THEM to lead with the elbow. You cannot throw an underhand spiral if the elbow is not leading, or at least inside the ball......It's PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE........

3.) One that you didn't mention is that it teaches them that upon approaching release they MUST BE INSIDE THE BALL with the hand.

Keep up the good work buddy. And welcome to the "mecca" of fast pitch softball pitching knowledge...........

Oh and I forgot #4........

There is one person who posts here that you should completely ignore........Have you figured out who that is yet?........You only been here for a few hours and she's already "dumped" on your thread........

SARCASM ALERT! SARCASM ALERT!

So, when an assistant coach approaches one of these wacky arm-whip IR pitchers, would the following be the case?

Use a football, but put your fingers across the seam, point the ball straight back toward 2B with the ends of the football pointing at 1B and 3B, push the football through the release point maintaining the ball orientation, push through your release bringing your fingers up to your throwing arm shoulder, finishing with your elbow pointing at the target. Make darn sure that your arm stays straight going into release. We sure wouldn't want any of that elbow-leading crap. We're preventing injury here. And, you do this as suggested here and you'll throw so much faster and more accurate.

1.) Make sure you slam the door (close) as you release.

2.) Don't bend your elbow. Keep that arm straight going into release. You cannot throw a perpendicular football with a tight spin if your elbow leads the way, so don't do that!

3.) Approaching release you MUST BE BEHIND THE BALL with the hand.

Oh, and make sure you IGNORE that knucklehead who teaches that arm-whip and IR crap.

 

[Jojo]

I use a small plastic football for football/riseball work. The small toy ones fit in the hand better, and feel more ball sized.
During the release drills I ask them to flip the football end over end--similar to the double ball drill.
Once we progress to a full arm circle the football starts to come out with a spiral spin, I encourage this and we begin to work on the football angle out of the hand.
We will throw this at full pitch and when the spiral and angle are right you can get a pretty decent drift of the football before the plate.
Not so much fun for the catchers.

 

[chrispots]

Thanks for the encouragement BM...we had 3 stations going tonight...1 football toss, one with the lock drill, one with the unlock drill. Girls spent about 15 minutes at each station before we moved on to show it and throw it and then full motion. We may go backwards for a bit with this but I've assured my parents that the long term gain outweighs and potential short term loss. I've also assured them I'm not going to be judgmental while we transition. My parents are supportive of my decision even if it costs us a few games and/or their DD's performance falters.

Really looking forward to hooking up with Java over the next few weeks. My assistant and I take a lot of pride in teaching and developing our gals all around games and teaching our pitchers the optimal method of pitching just aligns with the rest of our coaching philosophy. We are not perfect by any means but we're never short on effort.

I'm not new to forums so I picked up on #4 pretty quick...I isn't is dumbs as I looks

 

[Ken B]

We lost a good one... RIP Chris...