Throwing form issue....

[quandofloo]

I think this is the best place for this.

Last weekend my DD went to an Austin Wasserman throwing camp. It was catcher specific and he was awesome with the girls. She experienced arm pain after they started long tossing and Austin was great about breaking down what was causing the problem with us. Now I need to help her figure out how to fix it.

She has what he called hyper-mobility. During her throwing motion she is pulling her hand too far behind her head on her wind up. This is throwing her timing off between her leg plant and upper body turn so she is putting too much strain on her arm to generate force.

Essentiall, instead of getting to here:



She is getting to here:



What do you guys recommend to do to help her control that range of motion? We need to work drills to stop her from reaching so far back on her throws but I am not quite sure what to do.

 

[Gags]

I thought Austin teaches that arm should be in the position shown by the red line?

Or are you saying her arm is laid back TOO much, so that if viewed from 2b, the ball is almost facing up, and is behind her head. To put it another way - if the player above is standing on the mound, and throwing home, from 2B you'd see the ball on the 1B side of her head, but her elbow on the 3B, before she starts rotating to throw?

 

[Coach Foster]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe OP is saying that she is working on getting to where the red line is.

Austin has some really good throwing progression drills on his website. I use a few drills from his free ebooks and have seen success in mechanics and reducing arm pain. I use his No Wrist Flicks, 5 Common Throwing Errors, and Water Bottle ebooks.

Water Bottle drill is great. The most common ones we do are: Standing Arm Behind, Staggered Arm Behind, 1/2 Kneeling Away, Double Shuffle Throws.

 

[quandofloo]

I thought Austin teaches that arm should be in the position shown by the red line?

Or are you saying her arm is laid back TOO much, so that if viewed from 2b, the ball is almost facing up, and is behind her head. To put it another way - if the player above is standing on the mound, and throwing home, from 2B you'd see the ball on the 1B side of her head, but her elbow on the 3B, before she starts rotating to throw?

Yes, sorry that the illustration is not that great. I am limited in my tools on my work computer. She is getting her hand all the way behind her head. She doesn't rotate the ball completely facing up but she overextends her arm. Austin did send me some drills by email to do, but any other ideas you guys have would be great.

 

[CoachJD]

So the "instead of getting to here" picture looks very different from where you'd ever be after following Wasserman's program, especially since this appears to be a "position" (not a movement) often taught with the "L" drill (which Wasserman does not like for some excellent reasons).

I've just watched a bunch of videos from the throwing program, and the throwing arm is never like that. The ball never faces away in that fashion, and what's more, when Wasserman throws, his arm is actually much MORE behind his head.

I can't figure out how to attach a screenshot here (Apparently I DID attach the screenshot without realizing it), but look at the arm position he has when he demonstrates these drills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ngt6hJzZaqM

Maybe I've misunderstood you here, or maybe I've misunderstood Wasserman (I sure hope not), but you seem to be aiming for the opposite of what he teaches.

 

[quandofloo]

I am not explaining myself well. I'll try to add illustrations to this picture. That other image was the first I could find and not meant to be an illustration of where she was trying to get based on Austin's teaching.



Like I said, I am severely limited to what I can do from work and I spend most of my time after work either chasing my DD or passed out on the couch.

We are dealing with a hypermobiity issue and she is extending her arm too far around behind her head which is throwing the timing off.