Looking for opinions on what to work on at this point.

[lostcreek1]

For you guys that teach this stuff, what would you be working on. Her forward lean at release is getting better and we will continue to work on that, and looks like she needs a little more bend in her elbow. Other than those two things what do you see that you would try to address at this point. She sees a PC regularly really just looking for another set of eyes that knows more than I do.

 

[tomorrow]

IMO the back leg/left leg needs to be pushing harder to drive the hips open. I would not try and fix the bend in the elbow until the hip issues are resolved.

 

[Mike-Coach-Q]

This is a very good example and explanation of her pitching mechanics. You don't need to purchase the power drive.

 

[lostcreek1]

This is a very good example and explanation of her pitching mechanics. You don't need to purchase the power drive.

I’ve seen all her stuff. Hard for an 8 year old to replicate what she does.

 

[PJR202]

There are a number of things going on there, but there are two I would focus on first.

--She's really not opening the hips up at all. Her entire motion and throw is performed perpendicular to the power line. The shoulders are completely squared. It appears to me that instead of driving off the right leg and driving the left knee out, her first motion is to just high-step off the rubber with the left leg until her weight shifts forward, then only pushing with the right leg (really just the foot by then) at the last moment.

If she doesn't drive hard off the right leg and drive the left knee forward, she won't open up. If she's doing it correctly she won't even need to force the opening. It'll just naturally happen. Just make sure she's not stepping out. As Tomorrow said above, she needs to be pushing some. Her opening move should be like a sprinter.

--What's also keeping her perpendicular to the power line is her glove arm swim. The swing and the weight of the glove just helps keep the shoulders out of position.

Look on youtube for drills for driving off the rubber, and glove arm swim, or just what to do with the glove arm in-general.

There are other things, but those two are what I would be looking at first.

My daughter (14, not quite 2 years pitching) has the glove swim, but her drive off the rubber is pretty solid. She's got forward tilt, though, and it's messing some things up. She can throw a fairly consistent strike, but we've gone backward to correct it all. I've stopped her lessons indefinitely, which was a really tough choice to make. But it was now or never if she wants to be back on course for her first high school season. This stuff is tough to do! Just keep working on it at home. It makes all the difference.

 

[lostcreek1]

There are a number of things going on there, but there are two I would focus on first.

--She's really not opening the hips up at all. Her entire motion and throw is performed perpendicular to the power line. The shoulders are completely squared. It appears to me that instead of driving off the right leg and driving the left knee out, her first motion is to just high-step off the rubber with the left leg until her weight shifts forward, then only pushing with the right leg (really just the foot by then) at the last moment.

If she doesn't drive hard off the right leg and drive the left knee forward, she won't open up. If she's doing it correctly she won't even need to force the opening. It'll just naturally happen. Just make sure she's not stepping out. As Tomorrow said above, she needs to be pushing some. Her opening move should be like a sprinter.

--What's also keeping her perpendicular to the power line is her glove arm swim. The swing and the weight of the glove just helps keep the shoulders out of position.

Look on youtube for drills for driving off the rubber, and glove arm swim, or just what to do with the glove arm in-general.

There are other things, but those two are what I would be looking at first.

My daughter (14, not quite 2 years pitching) has the glove swim, but her drive off the rubber is pretty solid. She's got forward tilt, though, and it's messing some things up. She can throw a fairly consistent strike, but we've gone backward to correct it all. I've stopped her lessons indefinitely, which was a really tough choice to make. But it was now or never if she wants to be back on course for her first high school season. This stuff is tough to do! Just keep working on it at home. It makes all the difference.

Her glove hand swims out quite a bit. Seems like you read contradicting thoughts on that. Some people say keep it as straight to the catcher as possible, and other people say they don’t worry about it to much. If you set something beside her the swim will go away but as soon as you move it, it comes right back. We have been working on driving off the rubber, at this point I am not sure she has the strength to drive off any harder/farther. She is young and not a small kid.

 

[Tatonka]

I agree with what's been pointed out here so far. Work on sprints (proper start position), incorporate lunges and skip jumps into the routine...keep these as fun as possible because they can get boring and repetitive quickly if not. Review the Drive Mechanics thread which is pinned at the top of this sub-forum...there's some great info about this part of the motion in there. Do the wall sprints (again pay close attention to technique). Ingrain as much as possible reaching forward with the glove hand toward the target/catcher. There's always more but get that drive explosive, smooth and consistent. Have fun!

 

[Tatonka]

Her glove hand swims out quite a bit. Seems like you read contradicting thoughts on that. Some people say keep it as straight to the catcher as possible, and other people say they don’t worry about it to much. If you set something beside her the swim will go away but as soon as you move it, it comes right back. We have been working on driving off the rubber, at this point I am not sure she has the strength to drive off any harder/farther. She is young and not a small kid.

IMHO glove swim ain't all bad for some kids but if you can reduce it early by focusing on a solid starting drive it's easier than trying to fix later if it becomes an issue.

 

[Mike-Coach Q]

GD has a swimming glove hand. We focused on lifting both elbows. She did a lot of these without a ball or full pitch. The Q of the H are not necessarily, I didn’t see a video of her off the rubber doing this drill. For her the glove position helps with speed and control.

 

[PJR202]

Her glove hand swims out quite a bit. Seems like you read contradicting thoughts on that. Some people say keep it as straight to the catcher as possible, and other people say they don’t worry about it to much. If you set something beside her the swim will go away but as soon as you move it, it comes right back. We have been working on driving off the rubber, at this point I am not sure she has the strength to drive off any harder/farther. She is young and not a small kid.

The issue isn't that she's not driving out far enough. It's that's not really driving out at all. Right now she steps high, her momentum tips her far forward, then she does a bit of push that primarily comes from the foot because she's gone so far forward. She doesn't even need to be as far out as she's currently going. An advanced pitcher usually doesn't land much father than their own height. At 8 years old, she doesn't even need to be that far. She just needs to get where she's going, quickly. You see plenty of competent young pitchers doing little more than a step, but they do it with a burst of speed. It's about the momentum.

The fact that she's not driving out is going to put her into a situation where she either doesn't open at all (which she really isn't) or she will develop or be instructed to do a forced opening, which you also don't want because she'll lose power with the drive leg bring out of position. If she gets to driving off the rubber correctly, she'll open up naturally and with all the speed and momentum her body is capable of producing.

I don't like glove swim. It's fighting against correct position of the upper body. In my daughter's case, she's got a posture issue that I don't think she can even truly correct until the swim is gone. I did see a fairly advanced pitcher with a swim on a facebook post last week, but she was forcing the shoulder into the correct position while the arm just flailed out. Most of the time that's not what's happening, as is the case here.

I'll add also...I obviously don't know what exactly her pitching coach teaches, but if she or he is doing the catching or isn't taking slo-mo video, they can't see everything. There's just too little time between the start of the pitch and when you have to look for the ball to catch it. I think my daughter could be a lot farther along if I had done the catching at her lessons, but he never really took me up on my offer.