Please share your input on my DD's motion(video)

[lhowser]

P.S. Sorry for the thread hijack, lhowser! Maybe this banter has given you some insight...

I really have found the convesation helpful and interesting. She is in 8th this year. High School is one of the goals she has. It's a pretty big deal around here because our school here in Ohio has played in our D-1 State final for the past 3 years. She really hopes that this summer can be one of great progress before high school and before 16U ball. She did some mirror work yesterday working on some of the things we talked about. No ball in hand yet. Probably will work the mirror agressively again and then start throwing.

 

[coachdan]

Bill, What drills can you do to improve elbow snap in the pitch? I know you don't like drills but what can be do to improve this.

Dan

 

[Rick Pauly]

[

JC heir: The hips close at release, but after the arm passes the hips. *BUT*, you usually wait until the pitcher is older to start teaching closing the hips. There are at least two reasons. First, it is a mess if the pitcher starts closing too early. It is very difficult to break them of this very bad habit. Second, to throw a rise, the pitcher has to stay open and not close. Young pitchers can be easily confused if you try to teach them to stay open for a rise and then close for a fastball. Most don't have that much control of their bodies. It is much easier to teach them to stay open, teach the rise, and then later teach them to close the hips for a fastball.[/QUOTE]



Have to question some of the comments made above--why would you not start a pitcher with the correct mechanics from day one?

Many pitchers overcome less than optimal pitching mechanics-------sometimes I wonder how good some of these girls could have been if their mechanics were more kinetically linked.
In what would be termed good pitching mechanics, the hips begin the closing rotation before the release of the ball---the shoulder closing rotation lags the hip closing timing slightly. In good pitching mechanics the hip and shoulder rotation temporarily(and I am talking about a millisecond) decelerate to a near stop just prior to release so as to provide resistance for the pitcher to pull against.
After release the hip and shoulder rotation perform an "unloading" follow through action. The naked human eye does not see the stoppage described----it takes a very high speed camera to detect this.
Relative to hip closure/shoulder rotation----it is nearly identical for all pitches. The variation between riseball and dropball hip and shoulder rotation up to release is minimal.
For an added note---the beginning of the ball release (thumb off the ball) is in nearly the identical place for all pitches also---the middle of the thigh.

Lastly, the girl in the video that started this thread is throwing from the top down rather than from the bottom up-----yet she is doing well. Her hip rotation does not really get involved until the ball is half way to the plate.

 

[lhowser]

Lastly, the girl in the video that started this thread is throwing from the top down rather than from the bottom up-----yet she is doing well. Her hip rotation does not really get involved until the ball is half way to the plate.

Now that is most interesting. As the dad I would be most grateful (and perhaps it could lead to good discussion) Rick Pauly if you could explain throwing "from the top down" vs "from the bottom up".

Does this mean she is not using hips/torso first and then working her way up to the shoulder and arm?

BONUS QUESTION if I may: What do you think of that arm finish. Many hard throwers seem to finish across to the left shoulder. Does this aid in the whip from elbow to wrist to release or is it a non-factor?

 

[JC heir]

Bonus answer:
When you throw hard overhand, you naturally finish across your body. think how strange it would be to finish sttraight down on your throwing side...... same thing holds true for underhand windmill. A good strong finish is gonna be cross body IMHO

 

[druer]

One thing that I heard a really good coach share one time at a camp with some pitchers who complained about their front knee having pain. They all landed with front knee at 45 or closed even more than that and he suggested that they open it more. He said to finish the hip rotation comfortably that front knee had to be beyond the 45 that many teach. Which makes sense to me just standing in a sideways position with the front foot at 45 and then trying to rotate my hips I can feel the pressure on the front knee.

Bonus Question: Most overhand throws are not straight from top to bottom they are really coming from outside your shoulder and coming across your body the entire time. If you just hold your throwing hand up while looking in a mirror you'll see that your hand starts extended from the body and even if you just hold your hand still and rotate your hips you'll see that the motion of your hand is coming from outside your body to inside your body. But if you hold that hand up for a pitch, rotate your body and bring your arm down you'll see it is truly on the same plane the entire time.

 

[Rick Pauly]

Howser
Quicl reply---running off to a Coaches clinic.

Yes, the pitching mechanics should move from low to high. The hip and mid-torso torquing action is what should make the shoulders rotate.

Follow through is something I put very very little time into---when viewing a pitcher in slow motion/freeze frame you should see a very strange looking unloading/counter reaction of the hand/wrist. It extends forward in most cases and performs some real contorsions long before it moves to a finishing position near one of the shoulders.
My advice====focus on having a violent release action and let the follow through go where ever it wants to.

Rick

 

[BoardMember]

Follow through is something I put very very little time into---when viewing a pitcher in slow motion/freeze frame you should see a very strange looking unloading/counter reaction of the hand/wrist. It extends forward in most cases and performs some real contorsions long before it moves to a finishing position near one of the shoulders.
My advice====focus on having a violent release action and let the follow through go where ever it wants to.

Rick

Follow through however can be very telling as to the instuction someone is recieving. In this young lady's case, it's pretty obvious that her follow through is an indication of someone who doesn't fully understand the mechanics of how to "throw" a softball underhand.

In this clip it appears her wrist starts purposefully extended open, indicating that her coach thinks the "throw" is produced by an "underhand waving motion" of the wrist upward at release, and straight up pull to finish. Some of this could be explained IF this was a peel drop, but it doesn't appear to be based on the position of the ball "outside the wrist" at 6:00 just before release.

I also appears that her hand is on top of the ball at the 9:00 position, then works it's way back inside the ball at 6:00. Not Good. This would directly correlate to the follow through which is a straight up pull, which is competely stiffling the articulations of the scapula, humerous, forearm and wrist action that allow a pitchers natural creation of the proper "throwing motion", the largest contributor to velocity...........

If this is a peel drop, the mechanics need to be repaired. If not, the mechanics involved in this young lady's learned sequence are stiffling her ability to create natural velocity.

IOW, She is a "pull pitcher".......And NOT throwing the ball........

These young lady's are "throwing the ball". See if you can pick up what they ALL have in common.........:

 

[BoardMember]

One More "Thrower".......

 

[BoardMember]

And of course one of the hardest "throwing" female pitchers in the world:

The shoulders close to 45 degrees.......

Then:

Scapula (rear shoulder), Humerous (upper arm), Forearm, Wrist........

All medially (internally) rotating toward the center of the body, and the target..........And the shoulders follow.......

The essence of velocity..........

No "forced follow though"........

The actions of internal rotation cause the finish to split the line (hand across/elbow out), and in MOST CASES, pronates the forearm, disapating energy without injury........

There are of course a couple of pitches that are thrown (released) with a "palm forward" orientation.......Palm Change/Drop and Peel Drop are good examples......But almost all of them show the same internal rotation of the humerous, forearm and wrist into release.......including riseball.....While good pitchers attempt to keep the thumb pointing toward third on a rise and screw to minimize internal rotation for maximum back or side spin, the reality is they don't.........

Release points will vary from early (as internal rotation begins) for rise and screw, to late (as internal rotation ends) for drop, curve and roll over or back door change........

IMO, teaching velocity with inward-forward spin (mid-release) early in a pitchers development will allow her to "blend speeds" much easier as she matures........

Teaching inward-forward spin will insure that the pitch is released at/through the mid-point of internal rotation, and is the best starting point for teaching the proper throwing technique of fastpitch, and will yeild the greatest possible velocity available........