Posts Tagged ‘pitching mechanics’

I was recently checking out some slow-mo clips of top-ranked college pitchers and I came across a video of this kid named Logan Verrett, now a sophomore at Baylor. At 6’2” 170lbs the kid is a beanpole, and yet he was gunned as high as 94 mph when this clip was taken his freshman year. Given another couple years to keep maturing and build up some strength, this kid should be touching upper 90sby the time he’s draft eligible. The scouting report on this website had only positive things to say about him, until it mentioned that his mechanics included a common flaw of “traditional” mechanics: “reverse forearm bounce.”

I was scratching my head at this point. That’s a BAD thing? You see, every high level thrower (yes, this includes outfielders and anyone else who throws at least mid 90s) that I have ever seen, not to mention nearly all amateur players as well (to varying degrees) exhibit this mechanical trait. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me first present you with the definition of “reverse forearm bounce” that the website provided, and explain why it was called a “flaw.”

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Have you seen this video about the Seattle Mariners’ new approach to strength training? If you haven’t please check this out.

I got a kick out of this man Elliot  running around calling everyone a “beautiful rotational athlete.” Interesting guy.

Now, I DO think he knows what he is doing, but he acts like his new program is a whirlwind of modern science – it isn’t. Good trainers have been doing for years what he is now introducing as revolutionary, and the training isn’t nearly as complex as he makes it out to be…case in point: he pulls out a chart of Dustin Ackley’s power curve, then a minute later shows one of their players doing lateral hops.  Wow! All that technology boils down to…..lateral hopping. Lateral hopping is a good plyometric for pitchers but lets, please, not act like it’s never been done before. That could have been prescribed without dropping a dime on sophisticated software.

And take a look around this “bare” weight room. Little equipment? Hardly; they just removed the superfluous machines that no good trainer would keep around. The good things (and heavy, at that) are still there – squat racks and a lot of dumbbells. And the pulley systems are pretty expensive, despite being minimalistic, so I don’t like them pretending like it’s the gym Rocky trained in.

But Hooray for the Mariners, they do seem to have found someone who at least knows something, even if he is playing it up a bit too much.

A working knowledge of the anatomy of pitching and throwing is important for every player and coach to have.  The more informed you are about your body and how it works, the more you can control your training and adjust it to get maximum results.   Once a player realizes where he needs to be strongest to throw harder and decrease injury risk, it is often easier to motivate them to do the additional work.

So, today we’re going to discuss the main upper torso and shoulder muscles that accelerate and decelerate the baseball…

Anatomical Terminology

Anterior: in or toward the front of the body (when divided by the coronal plane)

Posterior: in or toward the rear of the body (when divided by the coronal plane)

Internal Rotation: to bring toward the body’s midline by  joint rotation. (When the arm is abducted, this brings the hand forward)

External Rotation: to carry away from the body’s midline by joint rotation (When the arm is abducted, this brings the hand backward)

Adduction: to bring toward the body’s midline on the coronal plane (ex: bring hands to your sides

Abduction: to move away from the body’s midline on the coronal plane (ex: raise arms to the side)

Medial: (describing the position of a bodypart) toward the midline of the body

Lateral: (describing the position of a bodypart) away from the midline of the body

The Accelerators

Most of the upper body and shoulder muscles that accelerate the arm are internal rotators. They take the arm from…

1. Subscapularis

Subscapularis (Anterior View)

The most powerful muscle performing a given movement is called the prime mover, or agonist. The prime mover of internal rotation is the subscapularis, which is a member of the “rotator cuff” group.  This muscle covers the anterior portion of the scapula (shoulder blade) and inserts on the lesser tubercle of the humerus (upper arm).  The subscapularis, along with all of the rotator cuff, contributes in stabilizing the shoulder joint which helps prevent injury.

2. Teres Major

The Teres Major is another internal rotator, which originates on the posterior aspect of the scapula and inserts on the medial lip of the intertubercular groove of the humerus.

Muscle action can be figured out by knowing the origin and insertion, as they act just like hydraulics – lengthening and shortening to create movement.  Since the teres major inserts on the front of the humerus, when it contracts the arm will rotate internally. Read the rest of this entry »

Picture this: You set a goal to bench press 200 pounds.  To accomplish this goal, once or twice a week, (maybe three times) you go into the gym and bang out 5 hard reps of bench press and call it a day.  Would this manner of training get you to your bench press goal?  No way.  Why?  Because your muscles aren’t getting enough of a stimulus to grow or get stronger.  Duh.

Throwing is the same way: throw sparingly and you won’t develop your arm to its potential.  Throw often and your arm will be strong and durable.  Ever see an infielder, especially a catcher, go down with arm problems?  Probably not too often. But if you’ve been around baseball long enough, you’ve surely noticed that outfielders complain about their arms hurting as much as anyone.  The reason for this is that outfielders infrequently throw, both in practice and in games, and when they do it is often with maximum effort.

Why, physiologically, does throwing a ton make you throw harder?  Your body just recognizes the need to build strength because the muscle group is consistently stimulated.  This is why climbers have incredible hand strength, and cyclists have monster calves and thighs.  They’re both just doing what they do for hours a day, and their bodies respond by sending the muscular reinforcements.

Pitchers should not consistently go hard and rest on alternate days.  It’s stressful, the arm doesn’t learn to recover quickly, and the repetition needed for growth isn’t there with too many off days. Off days are needed every week, but limiting them to 1 or 2 is ideal, and the other days should be filled with high volume, low intensity throwing to keep your muscles working. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s extremely important to pitch using the information a batter provides.  On a basic level, this is just understanding what a foul ball means.  If you throw your best fastball down the middle, and the batter fouls it off to the opposite field, he is late.  If he pulls that same pitch, he is early.  To the batter who is late, you force feed him your fastball and move it in on his hands if he starts to catch up.  If he is early, it’s probably time to show him an offspeed pitch. 

By giving a late hitter an offspeed pitch, or something away in the zone, you’re doing him a favor by accommodating his inferior (in respect to your velocity) batspeed.  By throwing offspeed to the early hitter, however, you are exploiting the fact that he is not keeping his hands back long enough in the zone. Read the rest of this entry »

If I have learned one thing from my psychology and philosophy classes, it is to recognize bad experimental design and flaws in logic.  Chris O’Leary, in his pitching mechanics analyses, is subject to both of these problems and presents superficial and baseless arguments.  This is disconcerting because many pitchers read his blog, fall for his arguments, and go about tampering with their mechanics in fear of his false prophesies.   Read the rest of this entry »