Beginner pitcher vs Beginner Coach

[CoachCeetar]

A year into my daughter pitching I guess i've become the defacto 'pitching coach' for our town travel team (insert clichés about coach's daughter, etc) just from looking up this stuff and paying attention in her lessons.

You can tell pretty fast, even if they're not even remotely good/reaching the plate/etc who's had instruction and who hasn't. The amount of wiggling/fidgeted/rocking or whatever you want to call it some of these girls do is insane. It's like they're trying to get their feet, hands, body into the position that feels right and doing it by brute force trial and error. Sometimes I feel like I could do more good for our team by coaching THEIR pitchers so we have pitches to hit vs. getting our pitchers better.


The problem I find is that some kids can throw the ball 'towards' the plate just on like, arm strength alone, but if you try to get them to release at the right spot, and not leaning over and front side resistance and all that, they can't. Add in parents/coaches/etc just telling them to "get it over" and it can be tough to get them to focus on mechanics over results.

And in 9 out of 10 posts, it's just insufficient drive. I'm getting to be obsessed with the 3:00 position as the first true checkpoint. I've never seen a pitcher with a bad 3:00 checkpoint that finishes the pitch correctly. I don't think I've even seen one with front side resistance unless she's straight-leg stepping out. So many little things can be alleviated without specific drills if the drive is corrected. Posture, FSR, elbow bend, etc. Fixing drive to hit that 3:00 checkpoint is my advice every time now. The rest seems insignificant to me at this point.

I hate the clock references for some reason, I wonder if it's because I'm left handed and mentally reverse just about every baseball/softball thing I read. Are we talking 3:00, when the ball is still in front of the pitcher? What stuff are you looking for specifically there for the checkpoint?

 

[tomorrow]

I hate the clock references for some reason, I wonder if it's because I'm left handed and mentally reverse just about every baseball/softball thing I read. Are we talking 3:00, when the ball is still in front of the pitcher? What stuff are you looking for specifically there for the checkpoint?

I agree with pjr202 that leg drive is the most common cause to many IR beginner pitchers.
The check point at 3 o'clock : is the back foot (right foot for RHT) detached from the pitching rubber and done with the push off part of the pitch.
https://www.discussfastpitch.com/threads/basic-arm-body-synchronization.18241/ Shows top pitchers broken down at the 3,12,9,6 o'clock points.

I do not think many beginners have the overall strength (core, glutes, ankle) to hit this 3 o'clock cue.

 

[PJR202]

I hate the clock references for some reason, I wonder if it's because I'm left handed and mentally reverse just about every baseball/softball thing I read. Are we talking 3:00, when the ball is still in front of the pitcher? What stuff are you looking for specifically there for the checkpoint?

Yep. Both arms still straight out in front.

I look first at the drive foot. At 3:00-ish all the bodyweight should have moved forward and the toes should be turning over. The back leg will be fully or nearly fully extended, and the front knee will still be driving out. The body is still in forward motion. If she's hitting those points, you can expect to see good posture and a light drag. If she's grabbing air on the back side immediately after 3:00, as long as she hit the 3:00 spot before that, then you can expect the weight is still moving forward.

With the weight forward, now she has good posture and is in the ideal position to have front side resistance. It doesn't mean she won't collapse on the front leg, but at that point the collapse is just a bad habit that can be corrected directly, as opposed to working backward and saying "you don't have front side resistance and the first thing to correct is your drive."

When there's still weight on the back side, the forward motion stops and you'll see the front leg shin drop at a more vertical angle. From my own physiological testing on myself, when that weight loses momentum and drops straight down, it's very difficult for the hamstrings and hip flexors to engage, and the burden of stabilizing the front side is placed primarily on the quads.

Meanwhile, as all this momentum is lost early and the whole body is dropping (we're only at like, 12:00 at this point), the back leg has dropped along with everything else, and it collapses into zombie leg/side of foot. You'll see some kids manage to get the hips around anyway by staying on on the back toe and collapsing the bag leg into a horizontal sweep. They kick the leg around behind them. But we know the posture and front leg are jacked, and you see really significant bowling.

Back to the front leg. A big issue with the quads is that they don't fully engage until the leg is significantly bent. And I believe that's why we see the pure zombie backside girls bend up front then shoot straight up at the time of release. The quads kicked-in, allowing the hip flexors to stabilize. The forward motion has stopped so they aren't fighting anything other than gravity from a purely vertical standpoint.

With good drive, when weight is still moving forward at the time the front foot plants, you'll see the shin come down in a nice arc. The hamstrings and glutes put on the brakes and the assistance muscles stabilize the front side from the shins up to the torso. Posture is stable, energy is transferred, and because that back end got weightless, the hips will easily come around for release.

In my semi-worthless opinion, for a new to intermediate pitcher (and beyond, really), the simplest version of everything I typed is...the success of the pitch is largely determined by 3:00 because if the body has stopped most of its forward progression by then, it'll drop straight down, bending the front leg, anchoring the right hip, and taking the ball down with it. I believe this is why newer, less skilled, or fatigued pitchers will hit a lot of RH batters due to it causing the throws to be low and inside, or they'll keep trying to compensate and throw high or just all over the place. Some of them are so consistent with their flawed drive that they manage to make adjustments with the hand and get a semi-consistent release and pitch. But they aren't typically able to locate much.

This is why you can see a basic step-pitch be successful as long as timing is correct, albeit significantly underpowered. Front side resistance and posture are easily attained. But, they're losing a minimum 10% withhout drive, and honestly probably a lot more.

There's a senior at a nearby high school who, before an injury, was throwing close to 60mph with a quick step only. I have a radar but haven't clocked her, but I've used it enough that my eye radar is pretty accurate. The ideal pitcher's build. At least 5'10, not skinny, very explosive, homerun hitter, etc. But her pitch is almost all arm. Her foot is planted by 2:00 and that arm flies to 6:00 in a hurry. Doesn't even pitch with whip. That's an easy 65mph thrower with proper mechanics. It would have probably made her the fastest pitcher in the region. Thats the kind of kid you see and almost feel depressed at the underdeveloped potential.

 

[CoachCeetar]

I agree with pjr202 that leg drive is the most common cause to many IR beginner pitchers.
The check point at 3 o'clock : is the back foot (right foot for RHT) detached from the pitching rubber and done with the push off part of the pitch.


I do not think many beginners have the overall strength (core, glutes, ankle) to hit this 3 o'clock cue.

In my semi-worthless, for a new to intermediate pitcher (and beyond, really), the simplest version of everything I typed is...the success of the pitch is largely determined by 3:00.

This is why you can see a basic step-pitch be successful as long as timing is correct, albeit significantly underpowered. Front side resistance and posture are easily attained. But, they're losing a minimum 10% withhout drive, and honestly probably a lot more.

My daughter's PC seemed to advise against really driving too much until everything else was in sync, so I think I agree many don't have that strength yet, and that maybe getting timing correct even with a step-pitch is step 1 before this. Though there are various different strengths you can step at certainly. It does seem like a big enough step at least give you a little room to build some forward power with the back side is important though. You can still kind of hit all those things with a step, it'll just be underpowered, but you can build up to that as you gain strength after you can actually repeat your mechanics more than once out of five times.

The two biggest things my daughter seems to work on as a beginner is release point/whip and staying tall/back. She doesn't know the term "Front side resistance" but she does understand what she's doing with it.

I think this might be beginner stuff 'before' your 3:00 checkpoint stuff though. But maybe not. Maybe our parlance is just 'stay tall' (she knows what all the connected parts of that means, and maybe i'm understanding that it's basically all the same things you were just saying)

 

[PJR202]

My daughter's PC seemed to advise against really driving too much until everything else was in sync, so I think I agree many don't have that strength yet, and that maybe getting timing correct even with a step-pitch is step 1 before this. Though there are various different strengths you can step at certainly. It does seem like a big enough step at least give you a little room to build some forward power with the back side is important though. You can still kind of hit all those things with a step, it'll just be underpowered, but you can build up to that as you gain strength after you can actually repeat your mechanics more than once out of five times.

The two biggest things my daughter seems to work on as a beginner is release point/whip and staying tall/back. She doesn't know the term "Front side resistance" but she does understand what she's doing with it.

I think this might be beginner stuff 'before' your 3:00 checkpoint stuff though. But maybe not. Maybe our parlance is just 'stay tall' (she knows what all the connected parts of that means, and maybe i'm understanding that it's basically all the same things you were just saying)

I don't disagree with you. A step pitch is fine if the timing is right. It's certainly the simplest way to get a girl throwing. Leg and core strength is always gonna be a big factor for younger pitchers. I really only work with one kid (brand new, no game pitching yet) other than my daughter right now, and we work on timing and arm separately from drive. We really only just got into drive the last time we did anything, as our sessions have been very sporadic since her MS season and my daughter's HS season have started. It's basically been back-chaining then baby-step full pitches.

Even if it's a step pitch, 3:00 still has the same checkpoints...they're just much more compact. A step pitch still needs a drive phase, opening, FSR, and closing. My daughter's first coach taught her to lunge out, then pivot on the left foot to close. That lasted about a year, and as best I could tell, only she and one other of his students over 10 or so (mine was 13) was still throwing that way. Seeing that almost no one was lunging there or any of the many school pitchers I had observed, I asked if we were gonna move-on to an actual stride, so he did. Around that time is really when I took more of an interest in deep diving into mechanics, and after a year or so of seeing her stride not get any better, I decided to take over. There was no front side resistance, and he wasn't teaching it. But I realized also that she would never have it because of the way he taught stride. Things certainly aren't perfect since I took over--and a lot of that is due to my own mistakes while learning-- but it's improved a lot, as has she. She's a contact pitcher and has done it very, very well. She's a sophomore now. The other girl I believe is a freshman at her own school, and as far as I know she still throws with the pivot.

She's kinda on the fence about playing next season, but if she decides to do so I have another instructor I want to take her to. We follow the same philosophy but he's got a lot more experience than I do, so I think she and I can both learn a lot. Plus that father/daughter comfort level won't hinder her progress so much. We work very well together, but the accountability just isn't the same when it's dad.