Pitching faster

MikeP said:

Two questions: My dd is 9 and just started pitching about a month ago. We are going to a lady that teaches IR and while we've never discussed how fast dd may be throwing she preaches to always throw as hard as possible, conversely her team coach tells the girls not to worry about velocity but throw strikes. Pitching coach seems right to me as her thought is that if mechanics are correct and you throw hard the strikes will come. Second, we practice at home twice a week and she gets some pitching in at team practice, should we incorporate long toss in both at home practices? Actually I have a third, at the risk of sounding stupid is long toss done as if she were pitching/underhand? I have noticed that when she throws hard, more times than not she throws strikes or close. When she just goes through the motion, she has less control.

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Ken Krause said:

For #1, keep in mind that the team coach and the PC have very different goals. Team coach's goal is to win today, or at least make it fun for the rest of the players. No one enjoys a walk fest. PC's goals involve your daughter's longer-term prospects. The softball world is littered with girls who followed the "just get it over the plate" mantra when they were young and never developed into actual pitchers. Neither is wrong, per se, but it all has to do with who needs what when.

If your daughter plans to pitch long-term, I'd go with what the PC is saying. It's also what I tell my students. You want to throw hard all the time so you develop your mechanics. It's amazing how often you'll see a girl who is only focused on throwing hard/developing her mechanics throw strikes without even thinking about it. Versus the girls who is "trying" to throw strikes and having trouble. She may get a little less time at 9U if she struggles, but she'll be doing much better at 12U than those who only focused on strikes.

For the long toss question, in my opinion it depends on how far apart the two at-home practices are. If they're spread pretty far, sure, go ahead. So say Sunday and Wednesday. If they're back-to-back, you may not want to at this age. As i recall, it generally takes stressed muscles 48 hours to recover, so make sure you have that much time in there. It also depends on how much time you have available each day. You don't want half the session to be long toss.

For question 3, yes, do long toss with a pitching motion. But as she gets further back, tell her to get some air under the ball, i.e., arc it in. I usually tell my pitchers to try to throw the ball over the backstop to get them imparting that extra energy into it. Work your way back 5-6 feet at a time. Then, when she has maxed out, work your way back in again. As she gets to the last couple of markers, she should start throwing the ball more like a normal pitch again. Of course, this depends on how successful she is from the longer distance, but that will be the eventual goal.

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STRIKE3 said:

To the OP, over the years this is probably the 1 thing (Long Toss) that I failed to have DD do. We would do it on occasion but that didn't and doesn't help. We did everything else you could possibly do but not long toss.

With that said, we started a long toss program about 3 weeks ago (per a post Riseball had made) and it will be about all we do (outside of HS/Travel ball) this fall. DD has already seen the results in a very short time and her velocity was up this weekend and we just started....

S3

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CanOfCorn said:

Out of curiosity are you talking overhand long toss or windmill pitching long toss? I have seen both done and we have done both depending on who was instructing. I am a big fan of overhand long toss but haven’t formed an opinion on windmill.
[MENTION=10413]riseball[/MENTION] what did your daughter do with respect to this?

CoC


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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spleen1015 said:

It's funny that we read on here that speed doesn't matter. Anyone can hit 70 MPH if its going straight. That's true...

But whenever you go to a college camp, coaches are going to tell pitchers that are 58-59 that they need to be faster. I haven't been to an SEC camp but I have been to several mid major camps and my DD has been told at every single one of them that she needs to throw harder when they are clocking her at 60-61.

I think the every thing needs to be focused on, but a pitcher with no movement throwing 66 is going to get a lot more attention than a pitcher throwing 60 with good movement & command. I've seen it first hand.

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BT3100 said:

Everything above^
I was telling DDs PC that until DD hits 65 we are gonna skip camps and the cost associated with them.
She said schools like to see progress..
I think they don't care (D1) unless you are 6'2" or throw 65.

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STRIKE3 said:

To the OP, over the years this is probably the 1 thing (Long Toss) that I failed to have DD do. We would do it on occasion but that didn't and doesn't help. We did everything else you could possibly do but not long toss.

With that said, we started a long toss program about 3 weeks ago (per a post Riseball had made) and it will be about all we do (outside of HS/Travel ball) this fall. DD has already seen the results in a very short time and her velocity was up this weekend and we just started. To make the program potentially more fun (takes a bit more time) but gives DD something to aim for to beat everytime we do it (and she has beat it everytime so far)

Mark your distances when you do this drill. I have a 100 ft measuring tape and while DD is putting cleats on and warming up I measure and mark the following:

Distance (Feet) Speed (MPH)
100 50
125 55
150 60
175 65

The above is a distance/speed correlation for long toss that Rick Pauly had discussed years ago. Every 5 feet is roughly 1 mph in velocity. So a long toss landing at 130 feet would be 56 mph. I have found this is a pretty accurate correlation as her Pocket Ball Coach Radar, Bushnell, and long toss distance give the exact same speed. Weird huh?

Most importantly, it makes long toss fun for DD as she is always trying to beat her last distance. Hope to share some positive results at the end of the year if I can find this post again....

S3

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MattM said:

Ok I'm all in. We started long toss on Sunday and did it again this evening. Starting at 40 ft she moved back 5 ft at a time, then threw 10 pitches from max distance, and moved back in 5 ft at a time. Any recommendation on number of reps at max distance?

Using a regular pitching motion (no walk thru) and counting from the pitching plate to where the ball lands she maxed out at 109 ft. She was pitching a consistent 49 mph on the ball coach radar (hit 50 once) from 40 ft. Going to continue to do this twice a week and hopefully can give an update on our progress.

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