11 year old dd has gone backwards pitching in the last few months

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sluggers

Super Moderator
Staff member
May 26, 2008
7,133
113
Dallas, Texas
The deal is that kids at her age can have terrible form and pitch well. So, she goes to some games and sees some other kids throwing and she starts incorporating what they are doing into her motion...she doesn't necessarily "intend" to do it, but she does anyway.

You have to keep going back, over and over again, to the basics. You have to drill it into her head the right way to pitch...which is:

1) Good posture.
2) Good leg drive.
3) Brush interference
4) Internal rotation.
5) Front side resistance

Sit down with her, and go over what this means.

Then, pull out a video of her, and let *HER* grade one of her pitches for each of these 5 things.

Your goal is to teach her the hows and whys of pitching.
 
May 30, 2017
25
3
You are all so helpful, thank you. We def had a better day yesterday, and what we did was start at 25% as recommended and really concentrate on that fsr. I explained to her exaclty what it meant and why and she stayed much taller . She also saw that even when we went to 50%, she was throwing harder and with better control than she had when she leaned …...hoping things are starting to look up !
 
Mar 13, 2010
1,758
48
I would stop learning 3/4 pitches.

You’re trying to do too much with her.

At her age, with the changes she needs to be working on her mechanics and a change up. Anything else is too much and too difficult.

Good luck!
 
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
I would stop learning 3/4 pitches.

You’re trying to do too much with her.

At her age, with the changes she needs to be working on her mechanics and a change up. Anything else is too much and too difficult.

Good luck!

I just told my daughter the same thing last night.

She's all excited about peel drop, rise ball, etc. etc.

I told her that for the next few years (she's 9) she'll work on fastball and change. That's it. We can talk about the other pitches, and happy to have her know about them. But until she can hit the corners with the fastball consistently and get a change-up over the plate, that's our focus.
 
Jan 28, 2017
1,662
83
Girl that pitches with us that's 11 and probably 5.10, was leaning really bad. Our PC tells her to stay tall every pitch for two years. She was practicing without the PC and her dad asked me to watch her as we were leaving. I said, keep your head tall. I saw her last week and she was staying tall and throwing gas. Her dad told me that telling her to keep her head tall worked. Maybe it will work with your DD. I probably said try to make your big old head hit the ceiling while dragging your toe. LOL
 
Apr 28, 2014
2,316
113
One thing that I don't see a lot of parents doing to using the slow-motion apps on their phones to dial down into the motion. That Technique app is outstanding. I have been using it more and more and at least I can see where we need to work.
 
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
Filming girls on Slo Mo feature of your phone and playing it back to them real time is a great tool.

You'll get to where you can slide with your thumb to the exact frame you need. Then play, thumb slide it back, play again. There are times we do this after every pitch or every at bat and discuss what we're working on.
 
Nov 26, 2010
4,784
113
Michigan
I would stop learning 3/4 pitches.

You’re trying to do too much with her.

At her age, with the changes she needs to be working on her mechanics and a change up. Anything else is too much and too difficult.

Good luck!

This was going to be the main point of any suggestion I made here. Let her work on 1 pitch, then add a second...

Don't let her work on 3-4 at a time. Learn one at a time. In that first video I could almost hear her thinking, she looks like she has a lot on her mind. Learning multiple pitches can do that.
 

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