Assistance with 11 year old Pitcher

My daughter turned 11 a couple months ago. Was successful at 10u TB but we have moved up to 12u. Last tourney I noticed she was struggling and throwing high pitches and dragging the side of her foot instead of her toe. Continuing to try and work the kinks out of her form so she can be successful... I welcome all comments and suggestions.

I placed some youtube vids here of her pitching.

https://youtu.be/Af7leNEA7FE Multiple Pitches

https://youtu.be/_sRvei9jQyc Side 1
https://youtu.be/RejqZiGci94 Side 2
https://youtu.be/ZLzFKFBNiw4 Back
https://youtu.be/ki-xBhcvjw0 Multiple pitches

Thanks!

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When someone has a tremendous amount of potential, like your DD, people will come up and give her advice so that they can "touch the magic". These people are well intentioned, but most can't tell a softball from a pineapple. Be very careful when people give her advice.

You need to consider pitching lessons for her. She looks to me to be "a natural". There are lots of options for lessons which might fit your particular situation.

The reason your DD is inconsistent is that her body is confused about what it is supposed to be doing.

First pitch.The first two pictures are from her first pitch. She has the palm down after release...meaning she is doing forearm pronation, which is fantastic. Then, she pulls her hand back into her stomach, turns her palm up with the thumb pointing to home plate. ??? Why??? Did someone, somewhere tell her to do this in order to "help" her?

Second pitch: She uses HE (hello elbow). Her palm is up after release. She has no forearm pronation.
Third pitch: She does 50% forearm pronation, so her palm is facing 1B after release. She then rotates her arm so the palm is facing 1B.
Fourth pitch: Beautiful, 100% forearm pronation, and then she pulls her hand into her stomach.

She is inconsistent with her arm motion, so she has trouble with control.

This is the drill your DD should be doing:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/B6PW4DCqbW8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Note (1) the hand is behind the ball at 12 and (2) the ball is *UP* and on top of her hand at 9.

She needs to do the drill above about a hundred times a day for a while.

Whoever is teaching her the "hand in the belly and thumb pointing to the catcher" needs to be politely told to leave your DD alone.


OTHER POINTS

The beginning of her motion is crazy. There is no need for it at 11YOA.

She probably has too much backwards lean.

But, first, fix the forearm, and then I suspect a lot of the other problems will get worked out.

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Thank you Sluggers. I think it comes from the over exaggeration of of coming up to her opposite shoulder when she was first learning the whip and it kind of morphed into that. Thank you for the VID as well.

I would not worry about the heel dragging right now it is a momentary bounce (although a little too much at plate separation sideway)and while not optimal is not going to impact much because it naturally comes back off the ground in reaction to her hip releasing. She is also leaning back a little too much but for right now I would leave it since we don't want to foster the dreaded forward lean which is a far more common problem, wanting to keep straight and tall are a good thing, I don't want any thoughts that she needs do come/lean forward a little creeping in yet.

Listen to [MENTION=332]sluggers[/MENTION] the whole forced hand to the belly wrist turn is not helping; her movement should be much more natural...look at the drill posted and use it

Finally she has a pretty bad sideways lean if you would video her from the direct back you could probably see it better but it looks like she is trying to keep her hip/thigh out of the way by leaning over a little so her arm can go by without touching it...that is the opposite of what we want, we want a slight brush. I just went back to the drill clip look how you can't see any space between hip and arm at release and she is straight not leaning over. I also think some of her leaning back might correct itself since it looks like it's a lean over and back. Blue line is highlighting the sideways angle/lean Red circle is the space that should not be there.

Just a suggestion, but if this is the area she normally practices, buy a portable (regulation) pitching plate that you can stake into the ground. Well worth the $20. And then measure off the distance to 40 feet to the tip of home plate.

Regarding mechanics, I think she looks great for an 11YO. One thing to keep in mind is the biggest jump in difficulty for a pitcher is from 10U to 12u as the distance is now 40feet (vs 35 feet), the ball is bigger 12inch, and the batters are are bigger/stronger/better.

I think she has a bright future...

Rocketech1 said:

Just a suggestion, but if this is the area she normally practices, buy a portable (regulation) pitching plate that you can stake into the ground. Well worth the $20. And then measure off the distance to 40 feet to the tip of home plate.

Regarding mechanics, I think she looks great for an 11YO. One thing to keep in mind is the biggest jump in difficulty for a pitcher is from 10U to 12u as the distance is now 40feet (vs 35 feet), the ball is bigger 12inch, and the batters are are bigger/stronger/better.

I think she has a bright future...

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We usually practice in the batting cage with a pitching plate but it was occupied. I just ordered another last night ( you read my mind) in case it's occupied again. Thank you very much we will keep working at it. The good thing is she wants to get better.

Ken B said:

View attachment 11904 .. . . . ...>.

Click to expand...

From Ken's awesome stills I would suggest:

Drive Mechanics
She looks like she is reaching out with her front leg, and spinning sideways (open) while her rear leg remains in contact with the plate and remains weighted?
A good measure of this is to see how much her push foot gets separated from the plate forward, *before* her stride foot comes down to contact with the ground.
Maybe concentrate upon driving straight out from the plate, and don't force the opening motion - let it happen naturally , because it will!

Release Posture
Start working on keeping shoulders level with eachother through the circle and into/through release.
Her extreme throwing shoulder "dip" is really tough to fix. I went through this with my DD (now 14) and she still battles it from rearing it's ugly head.

at 11yrs old, her core is comparatively weak, compared to older pitchers.
Maintaining "core control" throughout this motion is really hard!
But if you watch the NCAA D1 pitchers, they all seem to have this mastery.
Reduce all unnecessary movement and control, control, control.
(the trick is learning this body control, while staying loose, fast, and whippy. Hard to do!)