SevenFramePitching - SixFramePitching?

[bobbyb]

I was going to post something on two threads I found interesting…”best ways to increase pitch speed” and “the real deal”. Time has been a factor though..so let me throw this out here on its on all together.

So far here is the list of recommendations from the best ways to increase pitch speed on that thread.
1. Mechanics
2. Lower body strength and core strength.
3. Push harder off rubber
4. Mental toughness
5. Doing everything faster
6. Standing on one leg pitching
7. Three oclock throws, Long toss, Rapid speed throws


Since increased arm rotation speed is on our list of goals…for this off season…I want to show…how we are looking at it…and see if others have done this as a measuring tool….if my times seem right or if its all off base.

From what I see…Arm speed has a lot to do with it (speed)…as others said it isn’t all there is to it… because the arm swing is dependent on mechanics and lower body/core strength primarily. But arm rotation speed…seems to correlate specifically to ball speed…on the videos I have measured. I have yet to find a way to measure arm “whip”…but I would like to be able to. Someone that has that 300 frames per second video…might be able to give us some insights in that.

Prior to posting my dd and the questions in the other post on off season improvement. I had decided to measure arm rotation speed so we could set a goal and get more specific about training for that too. I did it in a way…that one of the hitting posters talked bout for bat speed…so we could measure it simply.

FiveFrameSwing…had spoke about getting the barrel moving to poc in five frames of a 30 frame per second video as a good marker in a post in the hitting section.

So…I measured frames on 30 frame per second video. I am not saying that I am exact in my measurements here and its limited to the videos I have… yet it does compare closely to the “cut 2/100ths of time off full rotation” to gain 5-6 mph that pitchsoftball.com talks about…and it correlated good across the board of pitchers I had video’d….enough that it seems useful enough for us (me & dd). Besides…something about those little time stamps and reading things in 100ths annoys me!

There were 10 good pitchers and 3 average pitchers…There were only 2 of them I actually seen clocked by radar…which is the problem here. Of all of them…only one of them was for sure near mid 60s. I was guess-stimating that the good pitchers were over 55, some were near 60 and the average were at to below 55 (Estimated speeds…since I didn’t have radar speeds of them)...and the guess’s here correlated good.

After seeing “the real deal” thread…I looked at things again adding Tori Funicane. Tori Funicane’s arm speed was just amazing to me for her age. All I could say was wow. Didn’t think I would see much faster than the fastest girl I had video’d live...who is at 64mph…who is the fastest I seen the last two years.

I used frame counts starting at 9 oclock position (arm/ball pointed to catcher) to release… because the 6 oclock to 9 oclock up swing… didn’t seem to make a difference. All of the pitchers took 3 to 4 frames to get from 6 oclock to 9 oclock …regardless of their speed...including Tori at 3. Since the other girl was at 4 and still threw 64 mph…and the slower pitchers were all at 4 too and most the good pitchers were at 4, one was at 3…the up swing from 6 oclock to 9 oclock is not where I wanted to spend our energy/focus…at least at this point.

For new pitching dads/moms…I think this is important… as I remember back when we started… thinking the whole point of the swinging the ball back…was to get momentum of the arm going forward to get faster arm speed going up. That does not seem to be the case and is why you can swing arm back or launch from the side. It seems to play little to no role for increased arm rotation speed. I also noticed on some video when my dd would be told to “be quicker”…she was quicker in the back swing only…her intended effort didn’t occur during the important swing phases… as the frame counts remained the same from 9 to release. I wouldn’t have known that by eye sight as it looked like she was being quicker.

On the two pitchers I saw clocked and Tori’s video… here were some findings.

From 9 oclock to release
Girl A: Tori…said to be at 68… measure at just less than 6 to 6 frames from 9 oclock to release. Video gets a phantom arm on side view so hard to be exact but it is quick!
Girl B: Clocked at 64 mph consistently…measured at 6.5 frames or just under that. I thought this was the ultimate of quickness of arm rotation till I seen Tori’s…at these ages.
Girl C: Clocked at 56-57 mph…measured right around 7.5 frames.
My dd: Measured at just >8 to 8 frames at low 50s.

Measured from 9 to 12 oclock position they measured
Girl A: 2 frames
Girl B: 3 frames
Girl C: 3 frames
My dd: 3 frames
Maybe the up move is important here?

Measured from 12 to 3 oclock position
Girl A: 2 frames
Girl B: 2 frames
Girl C: 3 frames
My dd: 3 frames
This is significant as both girls near near 65 + mph…moved quickly thru this range.

Measured from 3 oclock to release
Girl A: just less than 2 to 2 frames, again video gets phantom arm here
Girl B: 1.5 frames
Girl C: 1.5 frames
My dd: 2 frames
Whats interesting here on video… is that Tori’s frame speed here was less than Girl B yet… Tori covered a lot more distance on this phase.

Also on this position… Girl B and C…are extremely fast thru here. However Girl C… does not slot the elbow as well as Girl B before pronation… Girl C brings her arm down rotating the upper arm a little early…yet when she pronates the forearm…it is really fast.

On the other side of the coin…one girl video’d I know throws low 50’s…had a 7.5 frame rate…yet…she bends a lot at the waist on release…which just confirms…that technique is important and more so than arm rotation speed. She may be able to throw upper 50’s just by stopping the bending if she can maintain the same 7.5 frame rotation speed.

Whether its specific enough or not…it gave me something to play with….and a couple focus points to set our goal and to be able to measure whether what we are going to do for arm rotation speed is doing anything or not.

IF this was standard correlation… enough as far as generalizations go…couldn’t we say?
SevenNHalfFramePitching…for upper 50’s.

SevenFramePitching… for 60 mph

SixNHalfFramePitching….for 64 or so?

SixFramePitching…If you’re a phenom like Tori...for upper 60’s


Our off season goal this year… for arm rotation speed… WAS initially…to get to 7.5 frame pitching.

Till I had another question…

Can my DD even rotate her arm…from 9 oclock to release…that fast without a ball? I asked her to do it without warming up…three rotations. She was at 7.25 frames from 9 to release. Again…that was interesting.

If she can do it without a ball and warm up…what keeps her from being able to do it while pitching? My thoughts were... that there were three primary things.
1. Technique…something with technique is restricting motion. (one of the main reasons I posted her in the other post for suggestions).
2. Strength lower body/core…the lower body-core is not yet strong enough for the forces applied to “it”…let alone the shoulder complex.
3. The upper body (primarily shoulder) reflex-stretch mechanisms and strength/muscle contraction speed… to handle the deceleration phase primarily (which I think is more important than the shoulder strength and strength of acceleration phase)… is not good enough to have MORE shoulder rotation speed.

So we changed our goal to 7.25 frame pitching from 9 oclock to release for off season.
I do not know whether someone can knock .75 of a frame off of rotation or not… but we are going to try. I really don’t see why not especially if she can do it without a ball. The suggestion from BoardMember on arm path and lower body contraction may allow the body to adjust that specific aspect of arm rotation speed with just those two things corrected…just like going to leaping automatically sped up arm rotation.

It seems easier to count frames on a 30 frames per second than to use milliseconds or hundredths and gives a general non specific way to compare arm rotation speed and ball speed…if this is close.
I do wish I had done this from the time she was little…to track the changes…that could have been interesting.

Has anybody measured along this line of thought …. enough to say its close?

Anybody know what their dd’s 30 frame per second…frame count is from 9 to release…and the mph she throws...if so state her age too? If it correlates close across a spectrum of pitchers…even ages….that would be interesting…if it doesn’t…we probably could learn something from the differences.

Sorry for the long post, but I am curious about this.

 

[bwalk63]

Bobby, I like the questions you are asking, hopefully we can learn something here, my daughter just starting pitching today after 4 weeks rest, so in the next couple weeks I will put up a video, she is in the 57-58 range at season's end, so it will be interesting to see where she is at, my guess is 7 to 7.5. good post

 

[sluggers]

This is going to make me sound even more geekier than usual...but, I was a "proto-geek" in college, so perhaps I should come to terms with my inner-geek...

Your mistake is trying to measure "arm speed". It is more complicated than just "how fast the arm spins.

The crack of a whip is made because the end of the whip breaks the sound barrier and creates a sonic boom. The end of the whip is moving faster than 768 miles per hour. Trust me on this--the speed of the arm of the person cracking the whip isn't close to 768 MPH.

For a little more physics:

Everyone is familiar with a traditional catapult. There are seen all in the time in movies.

Notice that the traditional catapult has one long arm. The arm is pivoted quickly, and the object is launched from the end of the catapult. Great. It is real easy to calculate the speed of the object thrown by the catapult. You measure the speed of the arm, and multiply it by the length of the arm, and, voila, the speed of the object.

However, the traditional catapult was abandoned in the middle ages. Why? The "trebuchet" made catapults obsolete.

Notice that the trebuchet has a two part arm. There is a long wooden arm just like a catapult, and there are long ropes holding the basket. This two part system is much, much more efficient than the one part system. With the same amount of energy, the trebuchet can throw an object much further than the traditional catapult.

To give you an idea of how the trebuchet works, here is a strobe picture showing the rope portion trailing the wooden arm of the trebuchet.

So, the speed of the object launched by the trebuchet is based upon not just the speed of the wooden arm, the length of the rope holding the basket, and the timing of release of the object within the basket.

The trick with a trebuchet, of course, is "when do you release the object in the basket". If it isn't released precisely at the right time, then the object is thrown wildly. (Sound familiar?)

A pitcher with a good whip is similar to the trebuchet, except:

(A) The pitcher's delivery system is composed of five parts, not the two parts of the trebuchet. The parts are: (1) the neck to the shoulder; (2) upper arm; (3) forearm; (4) wrist, (5) fingers.
(B) Each part of the delivery system adds energy to the ball. In a trebuchet, energy is only added to the wooden arm.
(3) The pitcher's forearm rotates on two axes. Nothing in a trebuchet even remotely does a two-axis rotation.

The shoulders rotate slower than the upper arm; the upper arm rotates slower than the forearm, the forearm rotates slower than the wrist, and the wrist moves slower than the fingers.

For a good pitcher, it is the summation of all these different pieces that result in the final speed of the ball coming out of the pitcher's hand.

The problem with your method of trying to measure the "arm speed" is that you are ignoring the complex interaction between the various parts of the delivery system.

Perhaps a simpler way to say this:

 

[bwalk63]

sluggers, I agree with what you are saying, but bobby did clarify that there are many things that contribute to speed, and arm speed is one of them, you I am sure would agree with that. I have heard Jennie Finch at one of her clinics say that arm speed is very important. Not the only thing, but it is important. So I think bobby just is referring to one of many things that are important to gaining speed. My DD has a very strong drive off the mound, with very strong legs, and when she is not throwing as hard as she should it is almost always arm speed. The speed she has picked up in the past 2 seasons, 13 years old-48 just turned 15 - 57-58 is a combination of leg drive and arm speed. Yes I know every pitcher is different, but arm speed is a good topic for discussion I believe.

 

[Sparky Guy]

BB,

You're putting too much emphasis on arm speed as the crux for speed. I will admit that arm speed is important in relation to pitch speed. However, what you really need to look at is the wrist snap. This were the real speed is generated at. Unfortunately, that is not the only thing that relates to pitch speed. The crux of the pitching motion is being fluid from start to finish. It's the girls who put it all together are the ones who excel at it. Some of it is genetics.

I have two girls who I am working with right now. They are both 11 years old. Both are about the same height and weight. Both are big, strong girls. Girl A is a phenomenal athlete. She does well at any sport she plays. She has pretty good speed but has to really work at it get it. Girl B is a good athlete but a phenomenal pitcher. She is smooth and VERY fast. She has the natural ability to bring the timing of all the pitching motion components together at the final milliseconds of the delivery for the explosion of the ball out of her hand.. Unfortunately, that is something that is very hard to pick up on tape, even with good equipment.

What I tell my students is that in order to pitch effectively their motion needs to be a fluid explosion. Once they understand that things usually move forward pretty well. Once the fluidity is achieved then it comes down to the timing. This where speed comes from. The girls you see throwing mid 60's look like it requires normal effort to accomplish it. There are all kinds of drills that help refine each of the element. Then it's up to the girl to bring them all together.

 

[redhawkridge]

Slugger:
The actual name of the apparatus you refer to as a catapault is "mangonel"
FYI
JimP

 

[sluggers]

Redhakridge: Thanks for the information!

bwalk63: I'm not saying arm speed is not important. I'm saying bobbyb's method of measuring arm speed doesn't make any sense.

Here are Jenny Finch and Cat Osterman.



In both pictures, you can clearly see that the forearm is moving at a different rotational velocity than the upper arm. So, what is "arm speed" then? What is he actually measuring?

Also, he isn't taken into account of the arms...a taller pitcher, with longer arms, does not need to rotate her arm as fast as a shorter pitcher to attain the same speed.

 

[bwalk63]

sluggers thanks for setting me straight, I misinterpreted what you were saying. what you say makes sense. But don't you think that measuring the arm speed the way he is would tell us if the pitcher needed to pick up some part of her motion to create more speed? does that make sense?

 

[bobbyb]

If you understand physics…it probably doesn’t make sense!

Since I have limited to no…knowledge of physics and the Trebuchet…I had to rely on my great (exponential -10 or so) grandfather…to see what really happened back then with the Trebuchet. His name is Agathe.
Here is his story…
Archimedes was working with him and they were drinking wine and talking about building stuff…they decided on the Trebuchet. They got busy and Agathe was drinking more wine than Archimedes….Archimedes used a light counter weight that only moved the arm slowly. He was confused and sadden that it didn’t work…and was redrawing the contraption and redoing his math. Agathe having had a little to much wine (uh…he’s from the wifes side of the family)…fell in the counter weight bucket causing the arm to move faster and the rock to fly farther and faster. Archimedes pronounced..”THAT’S IT…move the arm faster”. Archimedes was thankful and they had more wine, had a good time…put a few holes in castles…but Agathe never got credit for what he did. All in fun of course!

On the Serious side…

It is the whole kinetic chain and whip that creates speed. I understand the analogy your making with the Trebuchet. I understand the question “what are you measuring”. I agree…That is true as far as I am concerned…and I look at it from the ground up. One reason I was measuring and comparing back when I first did this…is because it simply stood out while looking at video.

And you definitely can not cover all the variables of the kinetic chain or the other variables such as arm length, pitcher height, radar differences, style,… etc. Yet simply because all variables can’t be measured…doesn’t mean it isn’t useful IF there is a correlation.

Lets hallucinate for a moment and say… that “arm speed” is the rotational speed from point a (where the ball is at..at 9oclock.). to point b (where the ball is at release) …regardless of all other variables.

To me… that’s not what makes looking at this useless…it makes it more interesting… in that at least I see…at minimum a co-incidence of a correlation. Maybe its just a co incidence of the pitchers I have video’d...i am fine with that.

IF we did look at this…we would find either…there is nothing to it…OR there would be correlations to arm rotational speed to ball speed to the majority of pitchers in a age group that gave a “range” despite the variables. That’s interesting.

At minimum we would be seeing… some part of the limits (minimum or maximum)… that all the other aspects of the kinetic chain play and variables play… OR at least a range of speeds for a measurable arm speed. Granted that range may turn out useless.

For example: Lets say out of 10 pitchers (without knowing/measuring all variables)…with a frame count of 7…they all throw around 60. How much around 60? 2 mph? 1, 3 …what is that range 4mph, 5, 6,7? 56 to 63…or 57 to 62… or 58 to 61 ect.

Or maybe it’s a really wide margin of range…such as 52 to 65.

If 10 pitchers regardless of all the variables in throwing…are measured at 7 frames…and are say in a range of 56 to 63 …wouldn’t you find that interesting just because there is a pattern? IF one of those pitchers is out of that range…saying throwing 66+…wouldn’t you find that interesting?

Someone that is out of the range compared to others…that much on the positive side…would make me wonder what is the difference…in physical attributes, mechanics and/or training etc.

IF there is no correlation…then there simply isn’t one. If all the variables skew a correlation to the degree…that speeds overlap to a degree that its useless…then thats simply the way it is. Such as…there would be pitchers at 7 frames and the range is from 45 to 68.

Yet I haven’t seen that…if someone has a video of someone pitching that measured at 7 frames on a 30 frame per second video from 9 oclock to release…and she throws as fast as Tori…please let me know. I would be curious about that.

Have you looked at this before and found it useless? Are you saying there is no correlation at all? Not even in developing a range of correlation?

Thanks for the input!

Edited; let me add one more thing to this. If there is even a useful range...and say...my dd is rotating at 7.5 throwing 57 mph...and gets stuck there...and Sparky Guy gave me a clue to exploding the wrist snap and we worked on that...and she started throwing 60 mph with no frame rate change...that would be interesting too to me...and i could correlate that added part as a reason to increase another 3 mph. Just an example.

 

[sluggers]

It is the communication to the player about these concepts that is important--putting it in terms that benefit her, not the adults and their scientific idealization.

Amen, brother, amen...