How much clearance is needed...

[cbullard]

On a pitch? I see some pitchers kind of lean to give their arm room to get through. My DD went to a pitching camp at a local college and one of their pitchers mentioned giving room for clearance as well.

 

[riseball]

This is horrible advice and the reason you have to be very careful when going to "college camps". Most college pitchers have mechanics which are suspect at best and most coaches know enough about pitching to be dangerous.

Your journey starts here:
Brush Interference
Learn it!
Know it!
Live it!

 

[JAD]

Even pitchers that do not throw with true brush interference need to keep their hand "slotted" next to their body. Leaning to clear the hips sounds like a recipe for trips to a chiropractor....or worse.

 

[Ken B]

I my opinion, no gap (or very little) is what I'm looking for from the bucket.

 

[Dukhunt22]

Got a question? I've heard from hillhouse and some others about going through the hips not around the hips. From the pictures above, it looks like these pitchers are going around. Am I missing something? Looks to me the hips are more open at release of the pitch?

Chad

 

[Classof2020]

Got a question? I've heard from hillhouse and some others about going through the hips not around the hips. From the pictures above, it looks like these pitchers are going around. Am I missing something? Looks to me the hips are more open at release of the pitch?

Chad

Of course you have to go AROUND the hips and not through the hips because they are solid. So maybe you can clarify a bit more for others who are reading and would like to give you help. It seems that maybe your question is just more what angle are the hips at when you go around them? and brush interference refers to how close the arm can be to the body at the point of the ball/arm coming around the hips.

 

[MountainMan]

I hate to speak on DukHunt's behalf but I think what he is referring to is that there seems to be different levels of BI discussed on here. A lot of folks tend towards making brush contact behind the hip with the hand just clearing the leg (Ueno style). As KenB was showing. Although, Hillhouse discusses the elbow just brushing the belly, with the hips much more open then closed. I think what ultimately matters is that there is contact and the energy gets passed down to the lower arm.

 

[sluggers]

"Going around" the hips is not descriptive. This suggests that the arm follows a curved path.

Somewhere around the elbow, the arm should make contact with the hips. The amount of contact seems to vary with pitchers. Some "brush". Some slam. The ball and the hand should not contact the body prior to release.

It is a very tight window for the ball to go through.

 

[Dukhunt22]

Sorry you couldn't understand what I was saying. I was referring to how open or closed the hips are as the ball comes around.

Chad

 

[cbullard]

Thanks for the feedback everyone....I thought it was strange. But, I don't know everything about pitching, so I thought I'd check with you all.