Jennie Finch?
How to fix glove swimming??
- Thread starter Boomers2012
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- Jul 17, 2012
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BM, so what you are saying is it is OK to allow this to happen? Remember, most here are talking about young...unseasoned pitchers. Allowing them to flail that glove arm too far off the powerline is going to cause grief. It WILL pull the lead shouldder off the power line. Do some very good pitchers learn to compensate for it... sure they do. These success stories are a perfect example of good information in the hands of the wrong person being dangerous. Sound familiar? Why ignore something we all know is counter productive in the hopes they'll learn to compensate? Teach the right way from the beginning. Avoids a lot of corrective measure in the long run. I agree with most of the info you share...but IMHO, this is less than optimal advice if you're suggesting it's OK to let this slide in young pitchers. I don't mean to be rude, but to me it seems like your meter for proper mechanics starts and ends at whteher or not they are using the "IR" mechanics, as you refer to. This is only a micron of the overall mechanics that need to be learned. No disrespect intended, but it does get somewhat old for some of us that you only offer your opinion when attempting to belittle other posters advice/observations. I'm sure if someone wanted to challenge YOU, they could find a few pitchers that got away with a bowling type delivery that was quite succesful. Does that prove that your "I/R" methodology is BS? Just looking for a bit of humility from you in your posts....after all, you don't own rights to the top 100 pitchers of all time, as your arogance would suggest.Take this for what you pay for it.......But I couldn't give 2 hoots about "glove swiming" UNLESS you can prove a problem exists because of it, and is DIRECTLY related to it........
If I didn't know better I'd say these pitchers took swimming lessons! How did they ever get by?
Sometimes I think PC's AND especially DAD's read about or hear someone talk about stuff like this and it gives them something to "coach"............
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FR,
Can you show an example of someone being pulled off a powerline by glove swimming? If anything, I'd say a glove swim is the body's way of helping it stay balanced--by compensating for other things. If we take that mechanism away without changing the thing it is compensating for, I'd bet that's when you start to fall to one side or lose power. Not saying a big swim is ideal, but you need to address why it's swimming, not just the swim.
Can you show an example of someone being pulled off a powerline by glove swimming? If anything, I'd say a glove swim is the body's way of helping it stay balanced--by compensating for other things. If we take that mechanism away without changing the thing it is compensating for, I'd bet that's when you start to fall to one side or lose power. Not saying a big swim is ideal, but you need to address why it's swimming, not just the swim.
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This is the glove swimming we are talking about. I still think her timing is off from the beginning.
CLM, could you explain her "timing is off" and how to fix it? I was under the impression the the throwing arm is supposed to be around 11 oclock upon the front foot landing. And yes, that is my DD's glove swim.....it doesnt seem to pull her off the powerline as she is consistent about 80% of the time.....
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Carly
Pitching Coach
Again, it's not a black and white issue. The pitcher I posted in my example was one of the best in her local area. She had incredible shoulder flexibility and was not pulled off line by her glove swim. But I would say that her flexibility is unusual, and many pitchers will have a problem, if not from being pulled off line, from just creating extra unnecessary stress in their shoulders that puts them at greater risk for injury. Even if the result of their pitches is not affected, it should be corrected for that reason alone.
Boomers, Look under your Newbie pitcher video on the 11th and 12th page. Alan Snedeker had some good advice. I looked up a previous post of his daughter and it was a mirror image of your DD. He has gone about fixing that problem with his DD. Also watch the link on page 12 of Amanda Scarborough. Check her arm location at full extension on push off. They are directly in front of her. Your DD has both arms at 12 high, way in front of what the lower body is doing, her timing is off. At front foot heal plant her arm should be around 11 (check the Scarborough video) your DD has hers at 9. Hal uses the shove the glove, I used the superman with my DD on push off of the plate. Extension foot and arms used together to push forward to get a strong push off and not just turning the back foot and doing the splits. I would concentrate on getting things right in the beginning and many of the things down stream will be so much easier to fix.
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- May 12, 2010
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Secret or no secret you be the judge but I say if your going to swim, swim inside.
- Dec 7, 2011
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KenB - You are in tune with where my head is at on this. If you think about it from a dynamics perspective the windmill pitch is occurring with the arm launching the ball off-center from the vertical axis of ground contact of the body. This WILL produce some level of torque. I am starting to conclude in my mind that the dreaded "swim", that one could look at almost any pitcher and say "they do it", is a result of the body wanting to counteract the torque.
Where I think I am completely aligned with everyone here is that this "counter-balance", that the body wants to do as the result of this torque, can sometimes induce nasty shoulder mis-alignment (in teh extreme cases), which in that I believe there is a detriment to the pitch.
- Jul 17, 2012
- 1,091
- 38
Ken, I agree with you. With young pitchers, it's likely they lack the body control and core strength to remain well balanced without the "counter weight" of the glove arm flailing off to the side. If you let it continue and it is severe, you're allowing a bad habit to become just that. A habit. The glove arm motion in the vids BM posted aren't severe in my opinion and likely are not problematic. I just grabbed a random video from Utube to show what I believe to be a problem to the point it pulls the pitchers front shoulder off the powerline. If they do throw it over the plate, they did "Something" to compensate. This girls fastballs are almost all leaking left, where the shoulder is going.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfi-0dd5y0Y
One more point on the topic. The glove arm being "thrown" forward, and then pulled down and back is a counter balance to the throwing arm coming down and foreward. This is the way it was explained to me, and it makes sense. Do you agree it's IDEAL if they are direct offsets, or is this bad information in your opinion?
