Experiences with speed cords

[slowcelica]

I agree that lower body mechanics are important. You can't pitch D1 without good lower body mechanics.

HOWEVER: Is this a kid getting ready to play D1? Or is she getting ready for a 12U-B team?

Parents can go down the rabbit hole of trying to perfect lower body mechanics before the kid can throw the ball.

Good lower body mechanics isn't going to compensate for poor upper body mechanics.

What we really need is a video of the DD so that we can see what she needs to work on.

Sorry maybe I should have explained better. My DD is currently first year 14u, she already goes weekly to a Pauly certified pitching coach who is great. She’s wrapping up her first year of hs ball but is in 8th grade (she started a few varsity games). Her lower body mechanics are pretty solid, but she needs more speed to get to her goals, she wants to play d1.

Im a big proponent of strength trading to fix mechanical issues. I find a lot of mechanical issues are cause by lack of strength, and are compensations for that. For example she had a problem with falling to the inside last year and just general lower body issues last year. We spent 3 months doing an intense body weight workout working on strength, and she’s not had the lower body issues since. I’ve seen this with other issues she’s had in the past too, we do lots of band work already, including a stronger front side.

Her walk/run through is 2-3 mph faster then her fastball, if that tells you anything. So I was just thinking of creative ways, I could get her to be faster off the mound, more like a sprinter coming out of the blocks. Her stride distance is good, she’s landing in the chalk of the circle, and she’s only 5’4”.

When you guys do long toss, you do it on days with no other pitching? How do those sessions go, do you just have her run through a regular fastball only warm up, then go into the long toss session?

 

[LEsoftballdad]

Our long-toss routine consists of normal stretching first, overhand throws to loosen up, and then warming up her underhand motion. She has to be ready for full-motion before even thinking of starting long-toss since as Shotgun pointed out, you're throwing pretty hard the further apart you get. My daughter throws 62, so we need a good-sized field to do it outside, but you can still do it indoors at a facility that has netting up top.

Once she is done with long-toss, we move to other drills and work on her pitches. It is the equivalent of an MLB starter having their in-between throw days. She does not do long-toss on days she pitches in a game.

 

[Rick M]

For long toss, DD typically gets three tries to hit me on the fly. Each time she does, she takes a few steps back and tries again. We do it along the fence to get a general idea of the distance by counting the fence sections.

Once she reaches her limit, she starts to walk back in, throwing every 7-10 feet until she gets to 43 feet. Then she throws 10 pitches and we’re done.

Including warmup, it takes about 40 minutes. She doesn’t do anything else on long toss day and doesn’t do it within two days of having to pitch.

Here she is about 120 feet out, which roughly corresponds to her normal pitching speed on the chart above:

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[El Oso]

I watched Kelly Barnhill do long toss before the SEC Championship game she pitched in 2019. A lot of long toss to be honest. At least 20 minutes of it. She would throw the ball waaaaaaayyyyy up in the air when she was doing it.

 

[sluggers]

Sorry maybe I should have explained better. My DD is currently first year 14u, she already goes weekly to a Pauly certified pitching coach who is great. She’s wrapping up her first year of hs ball but is in 8th grade (she started a few varsity games). Her lower body mechanics are pretty solid, but she needs more speed to get to her goals, she wants to play d1.

That explains a lot. Thanks.

When you guys do long toss, you do it on days with no other pitching? How do those sessions go, do you just have her run through a regular fastball only warm up, then go into the long toss session?

My DD was practicing 3-4 days a week.

She would always do a warm up, which would be underhand tossing and then regular (not power) walk-throughs. She would follow that with control work (throwing into quadrants, target practice, etc.)

From there, she would either work on breaking pitches or speed work. Speed work would usually include the "game" long toss....throw a strike, move back a step, throw a ball, move up a step, etc. She would end with "super long toss", which is throwing from short CF.

As to improving your DD's lower body strength, look at workouts for improving the start phase of the 40 yard dash.

Since the 40 yard dash is part of the NFL combine, and there is a lot of $$$ at stake, people have done a lot of work on improving the start phase. They do some band work as well as pushing weight sleds.

 

[slowcelica]

That explains a lot. Thanks.




My DD was practicing 3-4 days a week.

She would always do a warm up, which would be underhand tossing and then regular (not power) walk-throughs. She would follow that with control work (throwing into quadrants, target practice, etc.)

From there, she would either work on breaking pitches or speed work. Speed work would usually include the "game" long toss....throw a strike, move back a step, throw a ball, move up a step, etc. She would end with "super long toss", which is throwing from short CF.

As to improving your DD's lower body strength, look at workouts for improving the start phase of the 40 yard dash.

Since the 40 yard dash is part of the NFL combine, and there is a lot of $$$ at stake, people have done a lot of work on improving the start phase. They do some band work as well as pushing weight sleds.

Thanks for that explanation, I was wondering how people would get any speed work in, if they did nothing else. Once the season is over she’ll have tournaments every other weekend, pitching lessons every week, practice at least 2 times a week. So that makes it hard to do speed work without doing anything else.

I’ll definitely look at the sprint work you mentioned.