MLB Tim Lincecum pitching with IR

[Amy in AZ.]

I have an ambidextrous 9 yo male pitcher (baseball) that I work with. This will help his dad a lot, I think.

 

[madkenna1469]

A lot of press around here when he first came up about how his dad modeled the motion on Sandy Koufax because of his size and thus need for efficiency over brute strength. The caveat/question now is, did he break down his body throwing this way, because he can no longer generate the velocity he could a few years ago.

Tim is one hell of an athlete with his size he has to generate as much energy as possible to throw as hard as he does. There is no question in my mind that it has taken a toll on his body and that is why you have seen the drop in velocity.

 

[WillyT812]

Looks close

I could not see the I/R here. What part of the motion do you see as being I/R? I know that when I throw overhand my palm is facing more towards my body as my elbow comes slightly over the top of my shoulder and I have to E/R my forearm a little to avoid side spin.

JJ, is it pure IR with a stabilized bicep against the rib cage? No. But, look what he's doing, almost the same thing we teach the girls throwing underhand. His hips whip the shoulders which whip his elbow. His arm is bent back more than ninety degrees and he snaps it out almost straight at release while rotating his arm as he releases the ball. It's a much more exaggerated motion but still uses many of the same principles we teach. For the life of me I'd have never thought they rotate their arms at release, I thought it was germane only to fastpitch.

 

[JJsqueeze]

JJ, is it pure IR with a stabilized bicep against the rib cage? No. But, look what he's doing, almost the same thing we teach the girls throwing underhand. His hips whip the shoulders which whip his elbow. His arm is bent back more than ninety degrees and he snaps it out almost straight at release while rotating his arm as he releases the ball. It's a much more exaggerated motion but still uses many of the same principles we teach. For the life of me I'd have never thought they rotate their arms at release, I thought it was germane only to fastpitch.

I got you. I view the term I/R in a really literal sense, meaning "rotation of a part of the body towards the centerline of the body" (kinesiotechy people can correct my rough definition) all of the other parts of pitching (lag between body segments, slowing down the upstream element as the energy is transferred to the next element in the chain etc) I just view separately as part of a sequence of firing of the kinetic chain.

 

[WillyT812]

What I liked was the snapping of the arm to an almost full extension and rotating at release. I assumed wrongly, as most fastpitch PCs do when it comes to girls, that men/boys would push the ball (hand behind the ball). Clearly, like the girls, the slow motion analysis shows a completely different story.

 

[ArmWhip]

In another thread I brought up the fact that IR can be separated into 2 parts of the arm, upper arm and forearm. In the first Lincecum video the IR (ER) of the forearm in very noticeable, his palm rotates to finish facing 'out' or toward 3rd base. In the second videos posted you see a fastball in the upper video and either a curve or slider in the bottom one as the fingers slide around the outside of the ball and you see the opposite rotational direction of the forearm and the palm faces in immediately after release before turning out.