Pitchers hips?

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Feb 7, 2013
3,188
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Thanks, I'll look for that drive mechanics thread. Seems like we are all on the same page as our concern was more on the girls having wider hips and driving the rear hip could possible damage her shoulder. Thanks, again.

Men and women come in all different shapes and sizes. To suggest that girls will damage their shoulders because they may or may not have a little wider hip is plain ignorant. In fact, all good /great women pitcher get their hips purposely in the way "to receive the arm" coming down the circle (thanks Java). Hello elbow instructors erroneously think the pitcher should clear the hips to create a throwing lane. We know better....
 
Dec 5, 2012
4,143
63
Mid West
Coach James, Thank you for your reply. I want to make sure I understand it correctly. You do believe a pitcher, man or woman, needs to use their legs and drive into the pitch with their hips? I'm not sure what the I/R is to start with in the classroom? I believe my friend has a good idea on drive mechanics and resistance as he was a pretty good international pitcher.

We don't "drive" our hips. We do however resist the front side so strongly that the hips have no choice but to follow the angle of the front foot. This will create an involuntary hip snap, that must be stopped at an appropriate 45 degree angle. This angle of the hips will aid in getting brush contact with the arm. That contact is a trigger that creates a massive amount of energy transfer. If done correctly, the speed, spin, and release point will all be better for it.
 
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Thanks, I'll look for that drive mechanics thread. Seems like we are all on the same page as our concern was more on the girls having wider hips and driving the rear hip could possible damage her shoulder. Thanks, again.

Just about the opposite is true. In a sense you want the hips to get in the path of the arm so it can get a brush trigger on the hip and then stabilize on the thigh. The way the elite level pitchers do this is to ensure that the hip rotation leads (and causes) the shoulder rotation. The shoulder rotation should be slightly less then the hip rotation at time of release for optimum brush interference. The brush interference is a stabilizer and reduces the distraction forces on the shoulder.....it is actually a safer method of pitching then trying to "clear a path so your arm can pass through".

One thing to be clear on....the hip rotation stops at about 45 degrees just prior to the arm entering the release zone and remains stopped until after release.
 
Mar 23, 2011
492
18
Noblseville, IN
In my opinion, the hips are not manually turned... To me, high level pithers to not turn their hips, instead their hips simply turn automatically. I beleive this automatic turning of hips to be a reaction to a backwards pull of the upper back and shoulder complex.

Take a look at these two clips. I do not think that either athlete is intentionally turning their hips. I also do not think that it is muscle memory (ie someone taught them to do it at age X and now they do it unconsiously like riding a bike). I think this overlapping movement pattern is a natural response of the body for athletes who have good working posterior linkages.

BlaireLuna_HipSnap.gif


Avila_rear_slo.gif
 
Feb 3, 2010
5,752
113
Pac NW
I give credit to adduction of the legs and arms for a pitcher. Overhand/hitting are similar, but not sure I'd closely compare it to pitching?
 
Apr 5, 2013
2,130
83
Back on the dirt...
In my opinion, the hips are not manually turned... To me, high level pithers to not turn their hips, instead their hips simply turn automatically. I beleive this automatic turning of hips to be a reaction to a backwards pull of the upper back and shoulder complex.

Take a look at these two clips. I do not think that either athlete is intentionally turning their hips. I also do not think that it is muscle memory (ie someone taught them to do it at age X and now they do it unconsiously like riding a bike). I think this overlapping movement pattern is a natural response of the body for athletes who have good working posterior linkages.

BlaireLuna_HipSnap.gif


Avila_rear_slo.gif



Watch the gluteus in the above gifs. The catcher has a strong gluteus activation. The pitchers isn't as strong but it's there, earlier in the motion. (I could imagine her using it more to create more power but it does appear to be a warm up pitch.)


I may be totally late to the party on this but I am really looking forward to having my DD understand this concept.
 
Mar 23, 2011
492
18
Noblseville, IN
I give credit to adduction of the legs and arms for a pitcher. Overhand/hitting are similar, but not sure I'd closely compare it to pitching?

I think there are many similarities between the overhand throw and the underhand pitch.

0199210896.adduction.1-150492CEDB36D1AFE8E.jpg


I do not think that leg adduction is causing Luna's waist to turn in the clip. Adduction is a linear movement and at least to me doesn't seem to explain what causes her hips to rotate. Some people will say that the front side resistance / leg plant will give her a post for which to convert forward momentum into rotation, but if you view the clip in slo-mo, you will see that her rear leg starts to turn before her front foot plants. It seems me that her hip is not turning, it is being turned by her turning rear leg. I don't see adduction causing the leg to IR.

I beleive that the scap/lat action involved 12 to 9 o'clock phase of the pitching mechanic creates a reaction in the hip joint that forces the pelvis over and around the ball of the femur. This mechanic forces the leg to turn (IR). The IR'ing leg kicks off a chain of motion events: IR'ing leg --> rear hip turns with the leg --> waist turns with the hip --> upper torso turns with the waist. HI uses the gif below to explain the interaction between the back muscles and the rear leg. This mechanic is present in countless athletic movement patterns (throwing, swinging, swinging tennis racket, ice hockey power shot, a boxer throwing an upper cut, overhand pitching, and also fastpitch pitching).

Gears.gif


The resultant of this motion is overlap (arm and back going backwards while the lower body turns forward). The overlap forces the arm into deep ER for which the arm will soon thereafter whip/snap (IR).

Regarding an overhand throw, while our eyes see an arm that IR's into a throw, I don't think strong throwers actually contract their shoulder muscles to IR their arm to throw. To use IR to throw the ball would be to push the ball forward. A strong throw whips/snaps. The snap forward (which is in the IR direction) is a result of a forced deep ER of the arm as it moves backward while the lower body is snapping it forward. The backwards momentum of the ball in the hand is overwhelmed by the corner created when the hips turn forward. The arm stretches in the ER direction deep in the shoulder complex (beyond the athletes normal range of movement) and then snaps forward when the stretch can no longer be maintained (due to the elbow decelerating).

I think the underhanded pitch is doing the exact same thing except the arm is adducted instead of out to the side. The side arm throw with similar mechanics kind of splits the difference between the two. Brush contact then creates the perfect stopping point for an arm that is heavily ER'd to snap forward into IR.
 
Mar 23, 2011
492
18
Noblseville, IN
Watch the gluteus in the above gifs. The catcher has a strong gluteus activation. The pitchers isn't as strong but it's there, earlier in the motion. (I could imagine her using it more to create more power but it does appear to be a warm up pitch.)


I may be totally late to the party on this but I am really looking forward to having my DD understand this concept.

Being honest, teaching the overlap in pitching is VERY HARD :). I beleive that most athletes who do "overlap" do so automatically as part of their bodies physiology not because of anything they were taught. I've taught myself and DD to overlap in overhand throwing and in hitting, but pitching has been a real challenge.

I think a lot of the automatic part of the motion ties into the glute activation that I discuss in the other thread. I think if we fix the underlying issue that breaks down glute mechanics, things like overlap will start to happen on their own. If your DD is fortunate not to be entirely quad dominant, I think that overlap will happen as long as we don't accidently coach it out of them.

DFP is light years ahead of everyone else in pitching mechanic instruction, but I think this particular subject has a lot of development left to go. Seeing as how most of the parents on the site have kids who tend to have decent athletecism, most of them will not need to dig this deep into this kind of problem.
 
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