proper timing of stride foot land vs hand position

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May 7, 2008
174
18
where should the ball(pitching hand /arm) position be relative to when the stride foot lands.

i vidoed a student today as we wer working on getting her to pull the elbow through, internal rotationthing and i noticed her foot was still inth air with her arm nearing 3 o'clock. i was thinking this is a little late????

She ahs a pretty long stride ( 8 foot lenghts) so her foot is traveling for a realtively long time to cover the distance

thanks
 
May 7, 2008
174
18
so far no shoulder issues

Loks like we are abck to my orginal clock face with 9 oclock in front of pitcher 12 straight up then 1,2,3,4,5,6 coming down the back side. I have been working to get her from the 3 oclock position to pull her elbow down and lead with it rahter than pushing a straight arm around the circle. i made the video to show her so she could see hoping that would help. When i made the vid i noticed that her foot was still inthe air to somewhere between 2 and 3 oclcok ( hard to see even frame by frame)

So clearly in the air longer than the 1-1;30 you suggest. I have also heard the term "snap into a firm front leg" which if correct is kind of hard to do if your leg is still moving in air

Is opinion I should try to get her to shorten her stride just a bit and get her foot down faster to help her get the 'elbow pull and snap" ???? thanks

(revfire says she is throwing 54/55. so I feel with a better sanp she can move up a few mph)
 
Last edited:
May 7, 2008
8,506
48
Tucson
We have confused this clock issue in the past. I teach the way FP91 describes, from the child's point of view, not someone facing her. That would be confusing as heck.

Anyway, I would rather have a student that has her foot in the air at 2-3 o'clock, than one that has hit flat footed any earlier.

No, do not get her to shorten her stride. We are talking fastball, right?
 
May 7, 2008
174
18
and yes I hate the idea of shortening a stride as I spend most of the time lengthening them! But to get her arm at 1:30 (from 3oclock) would require her arm to go slower!!!! to allow time for stride to hit and slower arm seems a worse backwards then a slighly shorter stride

any ideas on how to quicken a stride to the contact point???
 
Oct 18, 2009
77
8
Lengthening or shortening the stride is one way to move the 'clock hand' of the arm circle relative to the touch-down of the stride foot; the other theoretically 'possible' approach is to shift the onset of the arm circle. If you wish to increase stride length without slowing down the arm circle, you 'could' try delaying the initiation of the arm circle by a fraction of a second, allowing you to increase "flight time" (hence adding distance) without sacrificing arm circle velocity and 'clock hand' position. It is not difficult to visualize this adjustment; however, when I experimented with it using my DD as a guinea pig; it proved exceedingly difficult to implement in practice. I suppose when it comes to making changes to something as fundamental as the coordination between major body components, especially in the context of an explosive motion, it's basically like trying to move a house: whether you try to move it by one inch or a hundred feet, it's roughly the same amount of work and degree of technical difficulty.

Also, I've noticed that in men's fast pitch, where many of the pitchers seem to hang in the air for an eternity before touching down a mile away from the rubber, the front half of their arm circle, where much of that flight takes place, is exceedingly slow. In so doing, they are still able to perform the same natural "up together, down together" motion that girls use, only with the "up together" part stretched way out. The trade-off is that they essentially have to generate their full arm speed with only the back half (or less) of the arm circle. I've tried this with my DD as well; she can add a foot or more to her stride length this way, but she loses a lot of arm speed by effectively giving up the front half of the arm circle. So we abandoned that experiment as well.

In the end, I think all one really needs to remember in terms of proper timing is to stick to the easily-understood notion of having one's arms and legs go "up together, then down together", as Hillhouse emphasizes in his tapes and during clinics. Beyond that, it's possible to over-analyze this stuff and cause the pitcher to do a lot of extra work for little or no practical gain.

My $0.02,
Gene
 
Jul 14, 2008
1,800
63
where should the ball(pitching hand /arm) position be relative to when the stride foot lands.

i vidoed a student today as we wer working on getting her to pull the elbow through, internal rotationthing and i noticed her foot was still inth air with her arm nearing 3 o'clock. i was thinking this is a little late????

She ahs a pretty long stride ( 8 foot lenghts) so her foot is traveling for a realtively long time to cover the distance

thanks

No thats not "too late". It's near perfect.......The ball should be approaching your 2 to 3 oclock position.

Take a look at these girls frame by frame. You can't see the feet, but you can judge by the "pound" of the front leg as to when weighted plant occurs......

After it loads, you can move it frame by frame forward and back with your keyboard R/L arrow buttons.........

Windmill.....

What do you see?......
 

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