Take a Look..........

[stickpile39]

I think we agree. Inferior is incorrect otherwise it wouldn't be inferior. If you went to the doctor and he gave you an inferior diagnosis you would not get better and the advice he/she would give you would be incorrect.

Hey Coach. WEll...we sorta agree. You CAN pitch at a relatively high level with the hip slam stiff arm, HE mechanics, just not at as high of a level (in my opinion which has been formed by the great info on this board), Hanson Principal, etc.

If you get an inferior diagnosis you might not be able to go on living at a high level...or maybe not even at all!

 

[MK37]

In the two years that DD has been pitching, I have been her coach using Hillhouse and Boardmember's material. She had a good year pitching last summer and I thought I've taken her as far as I can. I signed her up for lessons with a coach who came highly recommended and I've seen two of the coaches students pitch. The coach has some crazy drills and a lot of them that primarily use the core and driving the shoulder toward the catcher to get speed. And of course HE.

She has pretty much left DD alone during full pitch until last night. She had DD focus on HE. I'm catching for her and right away could see her pitches slowing down.

On the way home DD and I are talking and I say, your pitches slowed down when you were following coaches instructions. She says, yea, coach took away my whip.

We are done with what I signed up for and got out of it what we could, which was mostly time throwing indoors.

 

[illini-heel]

I can understand the concern of "hello elbow", but I don't get the animosity toward beginning with wrist snap drills. These help to develop muscle memory and bring the fore-arm flexors into play to help bring in an extra couple of MPH.

My DD's PC has an impeccable pedigree. She was an All-American for both Lorene Ramsey and the all-time NCAA winningest coach Margie Wright. She led Margie's first squad to place in the NCAA world series. She's had 55 Div 1 full scholly students and 2 captured NJCAA championships (including a tourney MVP). I only mention this as she doesn't teach the "Mr. Tim system" but she does teach and advocate wrist snap drills (in particular for fastballs).

 

[JJsqueeze]

I can only speak for myself, but my problem with them is the placement in the pitching learning process towards the front of the process as opposed to the rear of the process. Meaning, so many PCs teach this as step 1 in learning how to pitch or very close to the beginning and I think it is more appropriately added as a speed/spin enhancer once the rest of the mechanics are in place. You cannot deny that the wrist is an extra link in the chain and has the ability to add speed, but it is no where near the top of the speed adders.

I try all the drills before I teach them to my DDs and when I tried to pitch with a focus on a wrist flip I found it darn near uncontrollable to time it just right so I decided to use them later on when everything else is in place.

 

[starsnuffer]

Wrist snap drills are taught because wrist snap drills are taught.

That's pretty much the beginning and end of it. It's just a case of monkey-see, monkey-do. A pitcher teaches them because their instructor taught them, who's instructor taught them. There's no reason or rhyme as to why, it just "always been done that way, son".

-W

 

[nanotech14]

Wrist snaps are one of the biggest waste of time. Take that time and work on getting a good whip with the arm.

 

[Ken B]

For those who are interested in learning, experimenting, etc., it's worth trying out the wrist brace experiment: After warming up, throw 10 pitches and calculate the average speed. Then put on a wrist brace and throw another 10.

The discussion with folks who advocate that the wrist muscles can propel a ball to 70 MHP is difficult. Most tend to believe what they've been told and the physics get explained away. Eventually the misinfo will die off and more kids can benefit from better information and instruction.

 

[BoardMember]

I can understand the concern of "hello elbow", but I don't get the animosity toward beginning with wrist snap drills. These help to develop muscle memory and bring the fore-arm flexors into play to help bring in an extra couple of MPH.

My DD's PC has an impeccable pedigree. She was an All-American for both Lorene Ramsey and the all-time NCAA winningest coach Margie Wright. She led Margie's first squad to place in the NCAA world series. She's had 55 Div 1 full scholly students and 2 captured NJCAA championships (including a tourney MVP). I only mention this as she doesn't teach the "Mr. Tim system" but she does teach and advocate wrist snap drills (in particular for fastballs).

Wrist snaps as in: "lock your entire arm at your side and flip your wrist"???........

Or wrist snaps as in: "stand in a drill postion and take the ball back a little ways and then bust one off".........

Option 1 is USELESS..........

Option 2 is an advanced I/R Drill...........

 

[Madsdad]

BM,
Can you demo this advance drill.

 

[Jojo]

Wrist snaps as in: "lock your entire arm at your side and flip your wrist"???........

Or wrist snaps as in: "stand in a drill postion and take the ball back a little ways and then bust one off".........

Option 1 is USELESS..........

Option 2 is an advanced I/R Drill...........

I actually do a little of "wrist snaps" in warm ups.
I have them flip the ball off into their mitts-forearm out, then drive inward to "bust it off" into the mitt. It's not an isolation of the wrist alone, it incorporates the forearm as well.

Then after a few of those I have them pull just the lower arm back and bust one off--I use a lightweight ball for beginner pitchers-- to their catchers, utilizing the lower arm mechanics then continue higher up, pulling back the upper arm.