Drill to stop pitcher bending at the waist

[DOG310]

Help, this may have been covered, but I'm not smart enough to find it!

DD is a 10 y.o. pitcher. In an effort to gain more speed, she has developed a tendency to bend at the waist, causing some high, wild throws.

More importantly, she sometimes feels a "pull" in the muscles in the front part of her shoulder. She is aware of what she is doing and is attempting to correct, but almost a third of the time she resorts back to the bending.

Does anyone have a link to a thread that covers this OR drills or methods to help stop this?

thanks in advance.

 

[Catscratch]

Although I am not familiar with the specific link you mention, my suggestion for dealing with the bending and any other mechanical issue she may have would be to return to the technical basics of snaps, T's, L's, one arm circle and not move onto the next drill until flawless and painfree. I wouldn't have my daughter full-out pitch until I was confident that her mechanics were solid and pain free. I would stop her each time I saw the negative tendency.

 

[bobbyb]

Here is link that previously discussed it.

http://www.discussfastpitch.com/softball-pitching/1466-bending-waist-release.html

I work with a girl that use to bend alot. We went over to the baseball mound...had her feel what it was like to stay back ...then practiced 3 oclock and k's till she felt it correctly...staying up and back. Without a ball...so she would concentrate on lower body. Then we practiced her stride/leap the same way...till she felt it correctly. Took a while for her to get it when we put a ball back in her hands... but she is much better...she was getting tired of having to do it over and over...we did that more than anything till she got it. She is 13...difficult to break as she had been doing it for 3 years.

 

[ArmWhip]

Most of the time a serious bending problem goes hand in hand with pushing the ball instead of using IR or armwhipping the ball. As the arm comes down the backside the pitcher will start to square the shoulders, get the hand on top of the ball and push down through release. Bending over is often a way to compensate for throwing the ball high. Make sure that she stays open and is using IR, K-position or stork drills are fine.

 

[DOG310]

Thanks for the advice and the link. She's been doing the stork drill the past few days and it has helped. The thread also gave some good ideas on finding the root cause. Thanks again.

 

[Ken Krause]

One other thing I tend to find with girls bending forward is they have an intention of throwing hard, but they don't use their legs very effectively. So they start to drive out with the upper body too soon, the legs don't get a chance to load, and in the end there isn't much of a push off. And it's late.

You can try having them load with their center of gravity under them, and not leaning forward until the legs are ready to explode. The further the head gets away from the legs before push-off, the more tendency there will be to bend forward since the head is heavy and has a huge effect on balance.

 

[Ken Krause]

Checked back tonight with a girl who was having that issue to see how we corrected it. She told me I told her to face the wall at the top of the circle (translation: open up completely). When she did that it all came together for her. Tonight, no problem with throwing high or bending forward. So I guess it worked!

 

[Jojo]

One other thing I tend to find with girls bending forward is they have an intention of throwing hard, but they don't use their legs very effectively. So they start to drive out with the upper body too soon, the legs don't get a chance to load, and in the end there isn't much of a push off. And it's late.

You can try having them load with their center of gravity under them, and not leaning forward until the legs are ready to explode. The further the head gets away from the legs before push-off, the more tendency there will be to bend forward since the head is heavy and has a huge effect on balance.

I find this quite common with new pitchers trying to throw hard. Girls tend to feel like they can get more power out of their upper body-shoulders, arms, so they emphasize on the upper body.
They are not used to incorporating the lower body--legs to use for power.

Sometimes I'll ask them to show me their batting swing and then I ask them how far they think they would hit the ball if they just left their legs still and leaned over and reached out for the ball.
Some of them will get it after that

 

[starsnuffer]

It's also common for pitchers who are trying to "guide" the ball for a strike. They'll bend over and have their release way out in front of them. Call it the rec-ball stoop. "just play catch with the catcher, honey".

-W

 

[Jojo]

It's also common for pitchers who are trying to "guide" the ball for a strike. They'll bend over and have their release way out in front of them. Call it the rec-ball stoop. "just play catch with the catcher, honey".

-W

I call that "coach pitching".