Weight shift and foot shuffle

[JJsqueeze]

My older DD's accuracy has backslid a little. I noticed that prior to push off, she has some side to side weight shifting action going on similar to the girl in this video. Cueing her with feeling the weight shift more straight back than side to side appears to help it a lot, but we have also experimented with the getting a wider stance and then using a pivot foot slide move that is so common (see the next video) to get the pivot foot more in line so she can push straight forward. I remember seeing the little slide move discussed before with some advocating it but I didn't understand why at the time. Is this slide move there in order to allow the loaded weight on the stride foot to transition to the pivot in more of a straight line and not cause side to side imbalances?

Note that the videos are just the quickest samples I could find of what I am talking about.

 

[JJsqueeze]

foot shuffle example

 

[Boomers2012]

JJ, we have incorporated the slide across the pitching rubber. To be honest, I really didnt understand the reasoning behind it except to eliminate the rocking chair motion. After my DD got the timing down with it, she seems to really like it. We did notice that she began to slide a little too forecful and it would cause her to rock up on the side of the left foot. It was an easy fix and imo, it has really helped with getting her to drive off of the rubber instead of rocking back and forth off of the rubber......

 

[JJsqueeze]

Did you notice any accuracy/consistency improvements? I know this didn't show up until we started doing some work based on JSs drive mechanics thread. So I was thinking she is getting a more powerful push off (her speed is up 2 mph avg over the last month) but this is exposing some balance flaws.

 

[Boomers2012]

Did you notice any accuracy/consistency improvements? I know this didn't show up until we started doing some work based on JSs drive mechanics thread. So I was thinking she is getting a more powerful push off (her speed is up 2 mph avg over the last month) but this is exposing some balance flaws.

Yes, after she got used to doing it, i felt like she was more consistent. The biggest problem we encountered was that she was able to drive farther thus causing her timing to be off. When she realized that driving farther doesnt equate to speed, she was able to contain the drive and her timing of the arm versus plant got substantially better. I basically just told her to get the landing foot down a little quicker....that made sense to her. It is far from perfect and she still has a tendency to "over push" but now she realizes when she does it.

I totally agree with it exposing balance issues. Fortunately, i didnt really focus too much on it and it just kinda worked itself out (i think).

As for the increase in speed....yes, she has seen consistent increases since we started focusing on the drive phase.

 

[Dave619]

Did you notice any accuracy/consistency improvements? I know this didn't show up until we started doing some work based on JSs drive mechanics thread. So I was thinking she is getting a more powerful push off (her speed is up 2 mph avg over the last month) but this is exposing some balance flaws.

I'm sure every pitcher is different on this. For my DD she had a tendency to slide her foot like the second video. IMO, it caused her to be inconsistent. For her, the less "moving around" she does the better her mechanics are and the more accurate she is. She was not consistent in the stopping point of her slide. This would cause her to be off on her landing...causing balance issues....weight transfer issues...brush interference issues...and the list goes on. I think if she is consistent in the the starting point and stopping point of her slide she will be fine. My DD just couldn't get to the same position so we eliminated it.

 

[JJsqueeze]

thanks for the info guys...looks like I chose the wrong day to post a mechanical topic. Today is radar and speed day at DFP...I will keep bumping it though because I for one find this little nuance quite fascinating and want to understand it more.