Pitching Issue

[jdint]

So the daughter is having some trouble with her elbow hitting her hip, like turning it purple and black and wincing in pain when she is pitching. This came up a couple of
years ago and she was able to fix it. This time she is struggling to correct the issue.

So, in my not real informed a opinion, her arm circle is off. It looks to me like her glove arm is swinging way out to her left causing her to pinch her scap together too much to counter balance with her throwing arm. This is putting her arm circle to far behind her body.

The below video is of her last weekend. She still is pitching pretty well for the most part. This game she threw a 7 inning shut out, so that's cool (I know nothing about the team they were playing, but they seemed like a solid team), but her consistency is down do to pain, so I thought I'd see if anyone notices anything else that could be causing the issue. It's messing with her head a bit, so it would be great to get it figured out.

Thanks

 

[abbygale]

I love gc video but it's kind of hard to see. I agree that she isn't letting her elbow peak out . I would start by eliminating her drive foot turnout and look at the resulting arm circle and glove. That should keep her from over rotating, get the glove under more control and allow the elbow to peak vs hide and slam. I like what her back is doing, I don't think balance is the cause.

 

[Jeffrey]

She too open with the hips at brush. As stated already limit drive foot turnout (get hips closed more than shoulders) so she brushes a softer spot. Another helpful cue is to have her lead the elbow to her belly...brush will happen, but hopefully the slamming will stop.

 

[DNeeld]

So, in my not real informed a opinion, her arm circle is off.

Exactly, but I don't think its the glove side throwing it off. Simply put, she's bringing the ball directly over her head, which results in it being behind her shoulder on the downside. This leads to problems into release as the elbow is going to be caught behind the body for lack of a better term.



With a few warm up throws, have her concentrate on bringing the ball up over her shoulder, or even an inch or so outside her shoulder and see if that corrects the problem.

 

[yuba30]

My daughter went through a similar issue with the bruising (I can't tell if it is exactly the same cause from the video).

I've got quite a few of the Rick Pauly videos purchased and he covered the issue in one of them. Basically he said that happens when the ball hand at the top of the circle comes too far over the top of the head it causes the arm on the down stroke to be too far behind the body causing a more severe contact with the hip at release. He says the ball should be about 1 ball length away from crossing over the head (so not over the head at all) at 12 o'clock so that at release there is just a light brush with the hip.

As soon as I had my daughter focus on not letting the ball get over her head it fixed the issue and only took a few practices and a game or two before it was automatic. Good luck!

 

[jdint]

Exactly, but I don't think its the glove side throwing it off. Simply put, she's bringing the ball directly over her head, which results in it being behind her shoulder on the downside. This leads to problems into release as the elbow is going to be caught behind the body for lack of a better term.

View attachment 25986

With a few warm up throws, have her concentrate on bringing the ball up over her shoulder, or even an inch or so outside her shoulder and see if that corrects the problem.

Yeah, we've tried a few thousand slower pitches (only a slight exaggeration) to try and get her to stop getting the ball so far over head, but at full speed she goes right back to doing it. That's why I was thinking/guessing maybe the glove arm was adding to the problem, kind of like an overcompensating move with the throwing arm to counteract the wild glove arm. I'm probably grasping at straws with that.

We had a little time last night so we worked on not turning the drive foot out and keeping glove arm more out in front of her and she seemed somewhat positive about the results.

It seems everyone is in agreement that she just needs to stop bringing the ball over her head, so we will continue to work on that. Hopefully something clicks in her mind at some point and she can feel it at full speed.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[Mike-Coach-Q]

I've seen where the arm going over the top is away from the ear causes the arm to be behind the hip also. Going off the picture it looks like the upper torso rotation is off.

 

[Mike-Coach-Q]

In the video, I see her drive leg foot going way to the left like her hips is getting pulled around backwards towards 1st base. I think the glove swimming is to help counterbalance the force. A view from 3rd base might help. Take it with a grain of salt, I might be reading in to it way to much. You are in a better position to verify my observations. Good luck

 

[jdint]

In the video, I see her drive leg foot going way to the left like her hips is getting pulled around backwards towards 1st base. I think the glove swimming is to help counterbalance the force. A view from 3rd base might help. Take it with a grain of salt, I might be reading in to it way to much. You are in a better position to verify my observations. Good luck

I think I see what you are saying. This might be her trying to actively get that hip out of the way so she doesn't hit it. I'm not sure though. I know it looks wonky. Might have to sort this out after the season when that hip has had time to heal.

 

[Kraedad]

I'm no expert, but my 12u DD is going through the same thing. Pitching instructors had a couple of ideas, but hips being too open (pointed to 3rd base RH) at release seems to be the biggest culprit after working on it.
In the drive phase our cue is drive with the right hip. If she gets to 45 degrees with the hip with drag foot shoe laces almost pointed to the catcher she is good to go. After focusing on this recently in a game, I did notice my DD slowly loses this posture after 3 or 4 innings and starts opening back up. I'm wondering if that is a strength/stamina issue. Any way good luck. It is a very frustrating / discouraging issue to contend with.