14yo need help

[flamethrower]

Latest video. Any input appreciated.
Sluggers, the arm up the front circle is still off. I believe timing could be holding her back. To me it seems that her body is ahead of her throwing arm if that makes any sense.

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[tojo]

Flamethrower, have you seen any improvement in speed or control since you made the adjustments suggested after posting the first video? The previous video shows your DD driving down the powerline and the 2nd shows her closing more.

 

[flamethrower]

She is throwing pretty well right now actually. Speed is back to around 56 and her control is better. She initially learned the slam the door style with drills where she stood completely closed so it is something that has plagued her since those early days. I paused the 2nd video at release and she appears pretty open to me although I see her closing to the catcher as she finishes.

 

[coachdan]

You do drills to fix problems. If a drill doesn't fix the problem, then you don't do the drill. Walk throughs are great for leg drive and "staying back." Your DD doesn't have those problems, so she needs to do drills to address those problems. In other words, she is wasting her time doing walk throughs.

As to the bent arm, the cue that helped my DD was to "come to a point at 3 and then reach for the sky at 12".

To fix the arm bend, she needs to throw at about 50% speed and focus on extending her right arm at 3, getting a good "point" toward the catcher, and then keeping that extension until 12. You need to ask her to focus on her arm extension so that she can "feel" the correct position. Have her gradually increase the speed up to 100%.She needs to work on this probably 20 minutes to 30 minutes each practice.

Slugger I will have to respectfully disagree with you on this once again and I would like to refer you to an older post you made we were discussed this issue with the bent arm at 12. In that thread you were promoting the arm being straight at 12 o'clock and then back tracked after I showed the hillhouse video.

First, in my original post, I meant to say that your DD's arm should be straight at 3. At 12, the arm should have "the bend". From 12 down, the elbow leads the hand until release, when the hand passes the elbow. I apologize for my part of the confusion. But, you did say that you instructed her to always have a bend in the arm.

So... back to your question. Pitching is primarily about the transfer of momentum. In the case of the straight arm-bent arm, we are talking about angular momentum.

I'm sure you've seen the spinning skater. If her arms are out, she spins slowly. When she pulls her arms in, she spins quickly. That is an example of the conservation of angular momentum.

If an object is spinning around a point, its angular momentum is its angular velocity (RPMs) multiplied by its distance from the point. So, as the object is brought closer to the points, its angular velocity of the object has to increase. This is called the conservation of angular momentum.

If you look at Hillhouse's pitch, you can see how the "whip" works. At 3, he maximizes the distance of the ball from the pivot point (his shoulder). He then bends his arm, bringing the ball closer to his shoulder, which increase the angular velocity of the ball. The amount of bend he gets is incredible. It looks to me like the ball is about 50% as far from his shoulder as it is when his arm is straight. So, just by bending his arm, he doubles the angular velocity of the ball. That is quite a trick...doubling the angular velocity of the ball simply by bending the arm.

Then he straightens the arm and releases the ball. The angular velocity of the ball is not reduced immediately when his arm straightens because the arm is deformable. (If the arm was made of steel, the angular velocity of the ball would slow down immediately and the arm would go back to traveling as fast as it did before he bent the arm.) So, it takes perhaps a 1/10 of a second for the angular velocity of the ball to slow. If the timing is just right, the ball is released at a high angular velocity and at a maximum distance from the shoulder.

The important thing is the ratio of the arm at its maximum extension during the circle to the arm at the maximum bend. For Bill, the ratio looks to be about 2. For your DD , the ratio looks to be about 1.

Stop video at the 4 sec mark or as close to the 12 o'clock position as possible.