loading the pitch/wind up

[coach james]

My dd will swing both hands back in her wind up...she modeled Finch when she first started at 11yr old... Does anyone have an issue with the amount of swing back? For her, once her hands have crested and start the forward motion, her drive knee bends and starts the "launch" position. This HS PC of hers has told her to limit the back swing to only a foot past her hip???
IMO this is not all that unlike the stretch-n-fire while batting. Getting fully loaded in order to fully unload. What are your opinions on this?

 

[quincy]

Seems like if you watch 10 different pitchers you will see 10 different windups so there are a lot of ways to go about this. DD is trying to do what Hillhouse shows which is ball in the glove and a suttle move back. Pitcher is just trying to move their center of gravity back a little bit. To me minimize the amount of movement to accomplish this seems like a good idea to me but I would not lose any sleep over it.

 

[slingnit]

The amount of load is really not an issue. Unless it is causing problems with arm circle or leg I don't see a problem. Some kids will bring their arm too far behind their backside(wrap it around their body) or get it too far away from their body and it will cause issues with the arm circle right from the start. Every kid has their own little ways and if that is comfortable for her, not hindering her performance, and not a mechanics issue let'r keep on doing it her way The major problem of bringing your hands apart is showing your pitch too early. Some of the best college pitchers have changed their wind, keeping the ball hidden in their glove until they seperate after their drive from the mound.

 

[halskinner]

When you start your forward momentum for the body, you want the body on a forward lean. Bringing both arms way up in front, then down, then seperating the hands and bringing them both back behind you. As I understand this. Swinging both arms behind you causes you to bend forward AT THE WAIST and that is not something you want to do.

All that extra arm motion requires energy that you might wish you had not used up by the 4th inning.


Sometimes trying to immitate these Olympic calibur pitchers is the exact wrong thing to do for a young pitcher.

 

[Carly]

A backswing like that shouldn't mess up her pitch (though anything is possible; I'd have to see her), but if you're looking to optimize her pitch in every way possible I personally think it's better to keep the ball in the glove during the wind-up. Simply, she'd be hiding her grip from both the batter and third base coach (assuming she's a righty), and also giving the batter less time to see the ball. For the 99.9% of us who aren't built like Jennie Finch but would like to be successful pitchers anyway, hiding the ball can provide an advantage.

What she does with her arms should not affect how much she loads. If she's relying on her arms to load, she's probably not loading properly right now. It's gotta come from the legs.

 

[Amy in AZ.]

I have quit teaching a back swing all together. I see it as doing nothing to help the speed of the pitch. I think that the PC is trying to compromise with you, so I would work with her.

 

[starsnuffer]

I have had very flexible girls "overload", to where they bring their backswing way back and even over their head backwards. This created timing problems as the arm swing was very late once the pitcher was able to establish a good lower half and explosive drive. I very much prefer the ball in the glove backswing as this prevents the issue. . . provided you can keep the female pitcher from cocking her hips to her glove side on the backswing.

I imagine this amount of backswing was also unhealthy. I had a pitcher complain of back pain, as soon as we fixed this, the pain went away. I was guessing with this particular mechanics diagnosis but the guess seemed to work.

-W

 

[3DD'sDAD]

How a pitcher loads is "style". The fact that a pitcher loads is an absolute (sorry Pefect Circle). I have to question why someone would want to waste energy on swinging her arms back when a simple movement with hands together can achieve the same thing. But again, that is style, and as we all know a girl will "play good when she feels good" as opposed to a boy who will "feel good when he plays good". A change in style can really change how someone feels, so change for the sake of change is not neccessarily a good thing.

 

[coach james]

In the same respect to a forward long jump, trying to get as far forward as possible, One would use their arms to help create forward momentum. This is the ONLY reason dd does this. I agree with most of you as to hiding the ball in the glove during the load, but again, 3years of muscle memory are taking over and dd struggles with it. She's planning on asking to speak privately with the HS PC tomorrow and will respectfully ask him to not change any fundamentals per her private pc request... we'll see how it goes and I'll fill you in tomorrow night.

 

[quincy]

It sounds like it is going to be a long 2 months for your DD.

If DD played for your Team would you try to change her to be better? (There is a lot of room here)