Glute activation...
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Thanks for all of the response and guidance in front and behind the scenes.
For the time being, we are going to continue walking the road of re-discovering our glutes. Who knows where it will lead, but I'm sure it's the right thing for us at the moment. There is no more room to re-double our pitching efforts again.
We are at a crossroads with the experts and it is tough. I will say that the weeks of research into the subject, testing, and memory recollection are weaving a tapestry. So many issues, aches/pains, and injuries in her and my past are coming together to a central cause.
I think our issue only affects a small group of people, and there is no real middle ground. Extra training for us only makes the quads stronger and more dominant while the glutes become weaker relative to them. If you can feel your glutes working even a little bit, then this issue is not for you. Probably best to move on and do not waste your time on this.
To help people who might suspect a similar issue, I'm going to list many of the factors affecting us.
Me
- Long history of pulled back muscles starting in HS wrestling
- Straight leg deadlift, 1 rep of only the 45lb bar, throwing my back out at 17
- Discovery of hyper-mobility in lower spine
- Hamstrings nearly pulling a day or two before throwing back out for years at 22 years old (~210lbs at the time)
- Vertical jump training was always all felt in quad and calves
- Glutes have NEVER been sore
DD
- Anterior knee pain years ago
- Knee valgus condition
- Terrible hamstring pain after conditioning program and additional pitching practice
- Unable to stretch hamstrings
- Cannot drive off rubber before 3 o'clock despite MAX efforts and with that being the only objective
Both
- Incorrect natural hip hinging
- Difficulty bending at the waist without feeling like you will fall over
- Tight hamstrings that cannot be stretched and result in horrendous leg pain down to the calve when doing so
- High beighton test scores
. - Not sure how it's related, but we both have hyper-mobility in the lower spine and >10 degrees of hyper-extension in the knees
- Feel all quads on almost all leg related exercises
- Feel all quads when down and ready in the in infield
- Lack of explosiveness in all-out efforts to drive forward or laterally
- Running speed and running gait is bad
- Flat buttocks muscular profile
- No sign of hip thrust in jumping or lift exercises (squats, deadlifts, cleans, or just standing up)
- Feel all weight on drive leg quad when loading legs on the rubber
- See similar hip hinge and posture issues in my mom and grandmother
I know many don't see what I see since they can't feel what we feel. I've wanted to touch on this subject publicly for a while so mission accomplished. I'll check in as we progress along the path. Who knows where it will lead, but I'm sure the good Lord has a plan even if it ain't pitching for much longer.
For the time being, we are going to continue walking the road of re-discovering our glutes. Who knows where it will lead, but I'm sure it's the right thing for us at the moment. There is no more room to re-double our pitching efforts again.
We are at a crossroads with the experts and it is tough. I will say that the weeks of research into the subject, testing, and memory recollection are weaving a tapestry. So many issues, aches/pains, and injuries in her and my past are coming together to a central cause.
I think our issue only affects a small group of people, and there is no real middle ground. Extra training for us only makes the quads stronger and more dominant while the glutes become weaker relative to them. If you can feel your glutes working even a little bit, then this issue is not for you. Probably best to move on and do not waste your time on this.
To help people who might suspect a similar issue, I'm going to list many of the factors affecting us.
Me
- Long history of pulled back muscles starting in HS wrestling
- Straight leg deadlift, 1 rep of only the 45lb bar, throwing my back out at 17
- Discovery of hyper-mobility in lower spine
- Hamstrings nearly pulling a day or two before throwing back out for years at 22 years old (~210lbs at the time)
- Vertical jump training was always all felt in quad and calves
- Glutes have NEVER been sore
DD
- Anterior knee pain years ago
- Knee valgus condition
- Terrible hamstring pain after conditioning program and additional pitching practice
- Unable to stretch hamstrings
- Cannot drive off rubber before 3 o'clock despite MAX efforts and with that being the only objective
Both
- Incorrect natural hip hinging
- Difficulty bending at the waist without feeling like you will fall over
- Tight hamstrings that cannot be stretched and result in horrendous leg pain down to the calve when doing so
- High beighton test scores
. - Not sure how it's related, but we both have hyper-mobility in the lower spine and >10 degrees of hyper-extension in the knees
- Feel all quads on almost all leg related exercises
- Feel all quads when down and ready in the in infield
- Lack of explosiveness in all-out efforts to drive forward or laterally
- Running speed and running gait is bad
- Flat buttocks muscular profile
- No sign of hip thrust in jumping or lift exercises (squats, deadlifts, cleans, or just standing up)
- Feel all weight on drive leg quad when loading legs on the rubber
- See similar hip hinge and posture issues in my mom and grandmother
I know many don't see what I see since they can't feel what we feel. I've wanted to touch on this subject publicly for a while so mission accomplished. I'll check in as we progress along the path. Who knows where it will lead, but I'm sure the good Lord has a plan even if it ain't pitching for much longer.
- Feb 22, 2013
- 206
- 18
When I read the OP, I thought you were over thinking pitching. I was hoping that one of the resident gurus at DFP would solve your dd's drive problem and that Sleepwalker wouldn't have to give his 2 cents so that he wouldn't get blasted out of the water for his poor writing style and improper use of correct DFP terminology.
So here it goes -
Have your dd stand behind the pitching rubber with her drive foot toe touching the back of the pitching rubber. Have her drive off behind the rubber at 3 o'clock (see drive mechanics thread) and drag her right toe strait across the pitching rubber and land in the K position or W position and stop. She will now be ready for the double push, or what has been called front side resistance.
I think that what you are saying here is that you don't want to teach a crop hop, but the drill above will teach a crow hop, but I am not done, nor a good writer, so bear with me and if I am full of crap, you wouldn't do this drill with your dd anyways.
The double push terminology comes from a youtube video that I was watching that showed Hannah Rogers at a TCS Florida event. it was called, "How to improve your speed with coach Jen from virtual softball academy." Coach Jen specifically addresses the double push in softball pitching. Which I relate to Drive Mechanics and Front Side Resistance in the DFP world.
The difference that I see is that a crow hop is replanting on your right foot and pushing off with your right foot from a position not on the pitching rubber and a second push to the elite pitchers is when the drag toe goes from driving towards the plate to a position behind the pitcher for a second push. To illustrate my point regarding the second push in elite pitchers, I went to the Model pitchers thread on DFP and the second push can be seen on posts #21 and #149 for Cat Osterman, post #36 for Daniel Lawrie, post #92 for Ueno, post # 64 for Lisa Fernandez and post # 128 for Hannah Rogers and there are plenty more in the model pitchers thread.
When driving off of the pitching rubber, the drive foot is pointed towards home plate. On the second push, the drive foot gets pulled to a position of figure 4 or behind the pitcher or what have you.
If you try this, you will probably have to use cues like don't release the ball until you land.
I have heard and watched youtube presentations on crow hopping and have heard people say that it can be corrected quite easily by turning the foot over, pointing the toe down etc.
If it is a glute activation issue and I am way off, I am sorry for the rambling. There are lots of times I start responding to threads only to delete them before posting because of the rambling in my writing.
Just my 2 cents.
So here it goes -
Have your dd stand behind the pitching rubber with her drive foot toe touching the back of the pitching rubber. Have her drive off behind the rubber at 3 o'clock (see drive mechanics thread) and drag her right toe strait across the pitching rubber and land in the K position or W position and stop. She will now be ready for the double push, or what has been called front side resistance.
I think that what you are saying here is that you don't want to teach a crop hop, but the drill above will teach a crow hop, but I am not done, nor a good writer, so bear with me and if I am full of crap, you wouldn't do this drill with your dd anyways.
The double push terminology comes from a youtube video that I was watching that showed Hannah Rogers at a TCS Florida event. it was called, "How to improve your speed with coach Jen from virtual softball academy." Coach Jen specifically addresses the double push in softball pitching. Which I relate to Drive Mechanics and Front Side Resistance in the DFP world.
The difference that I see is that a crow hop is replanting on your right foot and pushing off with your right foot from a position not on the pitching rubber and a second push to the elite pitchers is when the drag toe goes from driving towards the plate to a position behind the pitcher for a second push. To illustrate my point regarding the second push in elite pitchers, I went to the Model pitchers thread on DFP and the second push can be seen on posts #21 and #149 for Cat Osterman, post #36 for Daniel Lawrie, post #92 for Ueno, post # 64 for Lisa Fernandez and post # 128 for Hannah Rogers and there are plenty more in the model pitchers thread.
When driving off of the pitching rubber, the drive foot is pointed towards home plate. On the second push, the drive foot gets pulled to a position of figure 4 or behind the pitcher or what have you.
If you try this, you will probably have to use cues like don't release the ball until you land.
I have heard and watched youtube presentations on crow hopping and have heard people say that it can be corrected quite easily by turning the foot over, pointing the toe down etc.
If it is a glute activation issue and I am way off, I am sorry for the rambling. There are lots of times I start responding to threads only to delete them before posting because of the rambling in my writing.
Just my 2 cents.
I seen Mr. Pauly suggested that you bring glove to side.... (mens style) in the DRIVE thread... I agree... its pictured in DD's clips too. ^
Good point. It's been so long, I don't know if she ever centered her foot correctly. Will keep this in mind moving forward.
We're going to work on some sprinting drills for a little while. It can't hurt and you can always stand to be faster especially if your not #1 on the rubber.
It seems wrong to expect DD to sprint off of the rubber when she can't sprint correctly on a track with no foot/stance restrictions. The model pitcher database and evaluation that I posted earlier really points toward serious flaws in her drive mechanic (explosiveness and power).
The tricky thing is that her arm speed is really fast... I think this is why her brain resists letting her delay her arm swing when we try working on it. If she delays her arm swing, it can't move faster later to catch up. It's max'd out. I do think getting the release more behind would be good though...much better for brush.
It seems wrong to expect DD to sprint off of the rubber when she can't sprint correctly on a track with no foot/stance restrictions. The model pitcher database and evaluation that I posted earlier really points toward serious flaws in her drive mechanic (explosiveness and power).
The tricky thing is that her arm speed is really fast... I think this is why her brain resists letting her delay her arm swing when we try working on it. If she delays her arm swing, it can't move faster later to catch up. It's max'd out. I do think getting the release more behind would be good though...much better for brush.
A lot has to do with the fact that some girls just don't have as many fast twitch fibers as others…they have more slow twitch. Softball requires a lot of explosive movement that uses more fast twitch fibers. Look at a sprinters built compare to a distance runner. They are muscular vs the sprinter who has a leaner, slim body.
People have two general types of skeletal muscle fibers: slow-twitch (type I) and fast-twitch (type II). Slow-twitch muscles help enable long-endurance feats such as distance running, while fast-twitch muscles fatigue faster but are used in powerful bursts of movements like sprinting.
You can also see the difference in running where a sprinter will drive with her legs moving forward(with a forward lean) while a distance runner will try to conserve energy and you see their legs kicking backwards.
I was always more of middle distance runner…someone who had a mixture of slow and fast twitch muscles…When I wanted to work on speed, I had to do explosive moves to teach my body to run different. Even before working on sprints, I spent time on the treadmill doing deadmill sprints so I can learn how to lean forward and create energy by driving my foot. If I didn't do this, the treadmill belt would not move.
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Thanks Crystal,
I follow what you are saying about fast twitch and slow twitch, but what I'm talking about is something different. Why does one kid get down and ready and feel the weight of the position completely in the quads while another kid gets down and ready and could chill there all day? I don't think that is a muscle density or fast/slow twitch issue. I think there is something bigger at hand.
Kids with posterior and hip hinge problems still need to get down and ready when the coach yells at them... So they bend their knees and lower their CG. Their feet stay flat on the ground while their quads get epic-ally tired waiting on the pitcher... This is a kid who will not react explosively when the time comes to break for a ball.
Other kids do it right by hinging at the hips and loading their backside. Their posterior drive chain is engaged and ready to go. When the ball comes at them, they are prepared to explode using the glutes and hams. Those same kids are the ones who run with good form flowing around the bases so smooth and effortless. No one told them how to do that, it just always worked for them.
It's not as simple for kid 1... They have no idea their glutes are shutdown and explaining to them how they should work is not enough. After a long time of glute dormancy, the other muscles get stronger and tighter to compensate. Before long they squeeze the glutes out of the picture
. When they run the bases, it's totally different. Their movements appear forced. Despite hard effort, they run with poor form. Their heels striking the ground first and out front...I'm pretty sure DD is like kid 1. She hits all of metrics for it. We hope that targeted training can awake the sleeping giant that is her posterior drive chain. If not, she's gonna have to start hitting the ball much harder
.
Would you say an imbalance of the muscles also contributes? I am curious about what is going on with your daughter and kinda of speaking out loud things that is going on in my head. I know women are quad dominate but do you think that some girls have a larger imbalance between these opposing muscle groups than other girls? Without trying to high jack your thread, I will try to make it brief what I saw in my daughter when we joined the gym. Our first workouts were to see if she had any imbalances that needed to be corrected. I already figured that being she was a right handed pitcher, her right side would be slightly stronger than her left. This held true for her upper body strength. Come to her lower body…her right side was not only weaker but a considerable amount of weakness was noted. She had a huge imbalance between her right/left lower half… Just like with you, I am wondering about this in my head and now out loud.
Not sure this link will help at all, but I found some interesting reading material here after reading this thread. I have been cognizant of "individual differences" between athletes for some time. It is very easy to see the differences between tall players and short players, between skinny players and not-so-skinny players. etc. But how many other differences are there when you take strength, flexibility, balance, and other factors into consideration? That is probably my favorite part of the Drive Mechanics Thread because Java spent so much time including many of those differences.
https://www.t-nation.com/training/dispelling-the-glute-myth
https://www.t-nation.com/training/dispelling-the-glute-myth
