Fixing sprinters posture using the foot hyperarch mechanic

[jryan15]

I know everyone's looking forward to more feet pics... DW pointed out that she could see the toes start to dig in for the photo of the athlete doing a 1/4 squat. I had not noticed this and thought it would be worth showing more clearly. Notice how the toes of the natural athlete (far left) automatically dig in as she squats. Compare this to the bad example (far right) doing a 1/4 squat. The two images between are of people activating which naturally pulls the toes in.

Who knew that 30 years ago when coaches would say dig your toes in, they meant it literally, and they were more right than they realized... All of this helps support the many photo's Chong shows of NBA players' feet. Those pronounced toe tendons aren't just a bunch of gross feet, they are clear indicators that high level athletes are doing stuff different under the hood.

 

[colin]

The problem with not being off the rubber by 3 o'clock can be much bigger than it might seem.

1. Not meeting the checkpoint means that your drive and arm circle are out of sequence (in the case below I explain as the arms being early, but technically the legs were late)
2. If your arm circle is effectively two frames earlier than your drive, it can lead to your release being early
3. If your release early, your rear hip may not have had time to close back up
4. If you rear hip hasn't closed back enough, it isn't in place for brush interference so no brush
5. If you are not brushing, you lose accuracy and speed
6. If you are not brushing, your release will be late (out front)
7. If your release is out front, your fingers will drag on the ball and produce cork screw spin

Each of these breakdowns are not particularly overwhelming however in aggregate can be career ending. You might waste several months trying to fix a cork screw spin problem before you figure out lack of brush was the culprit. Now you spend several months working on fixing brush before you finally figure out that you can't brush if your arm is always ahead of your hip... Now you start jacking with your basic motions... Change to single arm arm back, change to no back swing, delayed back swing, early push, no back step... It goes on and on and next thing you know, your kid wants to quit pitching because shes tired of being a #4 because she can't throw straight...

Now most people on here won't ever suffer this kind of pain, but a few will. I hope to save them a few years of troubleshooting .

'the legs are late or the arm is early' seems like two sides of the same coin to me. if the drive is at its best is there no way to sync with the arm to get the most out of the available energy? if that is the drive you have wouldn't better timing still increase speed? how to slow the arm down a bit to be in sync with the legs? more backswing?

 

[jryan15]

'the legs are late or the arm is early' seems like two sides of the same coin to me. if the drive is at its best is there no way to sync with the arm to get the most out of the available energy? if that is the drive you have wouldn't better timing still increase speed? how to slow the arm down a bit to be in sync with the legs? more backswing?

Good question, that is what I had originally thought too, so we spent some sessions trying to delay it. What we found was that it is very difficult to do. The later that she started her backswing, the earlier she stopped her peak. Similar things happened when she tried to slow it down. It turns out that the body has a natural flow for these two movements and trying to force this delay is very hard. Even if you start the leg drive with things out of kilter, the body will work to recover.

This was part of the reason that I started the model pitcher database. When I evaluated pitchers' peak backswing to the time that they push with their drive foot, I found that most pitchers start driving at around 1 or 2 frames after peak backswing. There are a couple who are earlier (-1), but they don't really have a full backswing so it's a little cutoff. DD is pretty much in line with the norm on when she starts her drive relative to peak back swing.

Many times over the years, PC's and others have recommended to me the whole make the best of what you've got approach. The truth is, that is what we are doing and is the reason DD is still pitching. But here is the real pain of not having the correct drive mechanic... Since 2014, she's only picked up 1 to 3 mph despite working incredibly hard. I would bet a weeks pay that for her age, she's at least in the 95th percentile of number of hours worked on strength/pitching from then to now. I don't know anyone on her HS or travel teams who've come close to putting in as many hours.

Once kids' bodies and arms stop growing, speed is going to start coming down to drive mechanics. Not having a glute driven drive becomes an absolute brick wall for future progress.

 

[jryan15]

If anyone is interested in how the glute issue affects a hitter, check out this post (link).

 

[Rosey]

I came across this thread awhile ago but didn't read all of it. I'm glad I came back to it and read it a couple of times. Great Job jryan! I'm a believer. Now I have to figure out how to incorporate it and get my athletes to activate it as best they can. I'm thinking of having my pitchers pitch barefoot

I just wanted to post that I did buy the $50 version of Chong's book but I didn't learn anything that jryan didn't already describe here. I was a little disappointed. In fact, I thought jryan explained it better and how it relates to the softball drive mechanic. I'm wondering if the $99 version with videos is better. Can anyone attest?


Update: Just noticed another email with a bunch of video links. So hold off on my earlier complaint of not worth it. But if anyone wants to add their 2 cents about the $99 version I will take that.
Update #2: Nevermind I take it back. After watching the videos (they were a little rough) I have a better understanding. I don't know if it's worth it for all people but I don't feel disappointed in spending the $50 now.

 

[Ken B]

I've struggled with jryan15's take on this, but have learned from it and it's helped me to better understand some points in the Drive Mechanics sticky. The benefit has been passed on to my kiddos.

 

[Rosey]

I'm still trying to understand it and organize the information in my brain. But my take right now is that I think it could be a tool to get kids to a better drive off of their toe and feel more bounce than push. Drive mechanics talk about the ankle being a rigid level but I think this HA goes into further detail on how to make that happen. Some kids after doing 2 step, putting them in sprinter poses, creating better overlap, were still having trouble getting that "push" to transfer all the weight into the front leg on stride and the drive foot would stick or drag heavy. I was thinking it was a lack of core strength or muscle deficiencies. I was working with a national team (non US) player once who threw 67 but lacked control. She had a very strong core and everything else and she was very explosive but her drag foot ankle was on the ground IMO causing the lack of control. We worked on her just trying to transfer more weight to her front leg and it helped. She had excellent sprinter poses, overlap, all that mentioned in the drive mechanics but something wasn't connecting. She also had really bad ankles (sprains ect.). I think that even though she was strong she wasn't activating the right muscles on the drive. I'm going to go back to my videos of her and see if I see anything.

One thing thing Chong talks about in regards to basketball is that you don't need knee bend. So this confuses me with the sprinter poses in pitching and sprinters. My thought is pitchers and sprinters need it in the beginning to catapult them forward. Where as a jump shot is up and down. Sprinter pose gets you the angle then extend the hips HA gets you the bounce off of your drive toe. Thoughts?

 

[Rosey]

One thing I forgot to mention is that I think a cue that I wasn't aware of before is to have the toes curl down on the drive foot while "bouncing" off. As opposed to feeling the toes curl toward the shin in a dorsiflexed manner. I'm going to try to test this cue with some students to see if I see any change.

 

[Rosey]

Okay so I've had another day of trying to understand and trying to get a couple of kids to feel it and trying to feel it myself (no real breakthroughs). In essence there's plantar flexion(PF)and dorsiflexion. PF is where your toes and foot point downward and dorsiflex is where toes and foot point to the shin. Chong's theory I think wants you to curl (point) the toes downward (toward heel) but foot upward, creating locked ankled (rigid lever) when jumping/running so you are bouncing off of the ball of the foot.

The next question is how to get kids to feel it. I think Rick Pauley's Sprinter Drive Drill is good. I also do a drill where I have the kid facing the catcher standing on the drive leg and she takes 2 hops staying on the ball of her foot on the drive leg before she jumps out to pitch. The key is for them not to hesitate between hops and pitching if they do they are not staying "locked" on the ankle and bouncing off the ball of the foot.

 

[jryan15]

I came across this thread awhile ago but didn't read all of it. I'm glad I came back to it and read it a couple of times. Great Job jryan! I'm a believer. Now I have to figure out how to incorporate it and get my athletes to activate it as best they can. I'm thinking of having my pitchers pitch barefoot

I just wanted to post that I did buy the $50 version of Chong's book but I didn't learn anything that jryan didn't already describe here. I was a little disappointed. In fact, I thought jryan explained it better and how it relates to the softball drive mechanic. I'm wondering if the $99 version with videos is better. Can anyone attest?


Update: Just noticed another email with a bunch of video links. So hold off on my earlier complaint of not worth it. But if anyone wants to add their 2 cents about the $99 version I will take that.
Update #2: Nevermind I take it back. After watching the videos (they were a little rough) I have a better understanding. I don't know if it's worth it for all people but I don't feel disappointed in spending the $50 now.

Hi Rosey, thanks for following up on your own questions! Always helpful for everyone who'll have the same questions later. I agree with what you said about the book, disappointing indeed. Videos are more helpful, but also have a lot of grey areas.


So as I'd documented, we run into some tendon pain/issues doing Chong's workouts. Unfortunately the pain was severely affecting her pitching which has been critical to her TB and HS teams, so we couldn't afford to have to shut things down for several weeks to heal again if the injury repeated. Sadly I'd resigned to take the "L" on this one. Just too late in her career to continue navigating dangerous and still slightly murky waters.

I did find one other kinesiology expert who touched on similar foot activation issues and possibly relating it to glutes (actually knee valgus issues). This was Dr. Jim Li out of Australlia/China. I was able to politely internet stalk him enough to finally get in touch with him . It seems that he agrees with a hypothesis that I had in that the ROOT CAUSE of the foot issue could be more related to a bad windlass mechanic which relates back to the tendon of the big toe... Sure enough when you research how to improve a bad windlass mechanism, many of the suggested training methods are similar to what Chong teaches.

So if I were able to go back in time, knowing what I know now, I would... Pester Dr. Li some more , and then I would focus my efforts on improving the windlass mechanic.