If you have read phase I and II on “The Pitch” blog, you understand how critical proper pitching mechanics are to your success as a pitcher. You also know what happens mechanically up to foot strike. After foot strike it is important to keep all movements toward home plate. To ensure that you can apply this on the mound, please read on.

After foot strike your hips begin to rotate as your torso moves toward home plate. During this process there is a split second that you delay your shoulder. The longer you delay your shoulder the better. Keep your hips and shoulders separated and delay the rotation of the throwing shoulder while the torso continues toward home plate. This movement takes time and many repetitions to learn as it is more advanced. You want to get to the point in your pitching mechanics where your hips either stop rotating or have slowed rotating drastically before the throwing shoulder starts to rotate. This will maximize the transfer of energy to home plate.

When your shoulder finally starts rotating you want to make sure that you don’t drop your lead shoulder and your head continues in a forward motion toward home plate. I have found that many pitchers have great pitching mechanics up to this point, and mess everything up by dropping their shoulder and pulling their head to far to the left or the right; depending if they are left or right handed. Make sure that your shoulders stay “squared up” to your target and your release will take care of itself.

In Part I of Basic Pitching Mechanics You Should Know, I wrote about balance and posture ensuring that all of your momentum is going toward home plate. I also reviewed how to generate momentum to foot strike pushing off the ball of your pivot foot to start generating appropriate momentum.  You cannot push off very effectively on the heel of your pivot foot.  If you do, you don’t generate enough power and you remain off balance making it difficult to throw strikes and putting undue stress on your throwing arm. 

The next step to pitching mechanics is what is called equal and opposite.  At least that is what Tom House calls it.  He may have even coined the term, who knows.  That means that your glove arm is a mirror image of what your throwing arm is doing.  For example, if your throwing arm, at foot strike, is at a 90 degree angle, your glove arm will also be at a 90 degree angle.  So, whatever your throwing arm is doing your glove arm will mirror that.  You see many different styles of how to do this in my pitching mechanics e-book or the Pitching Mechanics DVD. 

The problem that many coaches have when they think they are teaching proper pitching mechanics is changing a pitchers natural arm slot or movement.  Don’t mess with a pitcher’s arm slot.  If they throw three-quarter arm slot, it is how they throw.  Leave it alone! Not everyone is genetically capable of throwing over the top at a 90 degree angle.  Most pitching coaches, even in the high school levels are still preaching the 90 degree arm slot.  It is not necessary for most pitchers.  In fact, most pitchers naturally throw at a three-quarter arm slot.

I was at a camp at The National Pitching Association a few years back.  A group of pitching coaches and I were discussing this problem with Tom House and Tom said, “Are you going to tell Randy Johnson that he is throwing the ball incorrectly because he doesn’t throw at a 90 degree arm slot?” “What is he going to tell you if you did?” I thought that was pretty funny, but what he said stayed with us.

To learn more about how to increase your pitching velocity, get your copy of The Pitching Academy: Pitching Mechanics DVD today!

One of the first steps to becoming successful with pitching mechanics is to ensure you have optimal balance throughout your delivery. It all starts with Balance and Posture to foot strike ensuring that all momentum is going toward home plate. If there is any inappropriate head movement up or down, left or right or any momentum going away from home plate, it needs to be taken care of. Most pitchers at any level have problems maintaining proper balance throughout their delivery.

Once you have established your balance, you need to make sure you have enough momentum going toward home plate. Most athletes who are new to pitching or learning pitching mechanics aren’t creating enough explosive power to foot strike. A pitcher should push off the ball of his pivot foot while keeping his head over his center of gravity, belly button, or slightly behind center of gravity while throwing. Many pitchers don’t have a long enough stride which inhibits their ability to create enough momentum in the first place. A short stride will also affect perceived pitching velocity. A pitcher who releases the baseball closer to home plate has more advantage over the batter because he has less time to react to the pitch.

To learn more about Pitching Mechanics, get your copy of The Pitching Academy pitching mechanics DVD Today!

Fructose Corn Syrup is horrible for any athlete. Sports drinks like Gatorade and Powerade are loaded with it! To get the best out of your body, avoid the sugar traps.

I heard the idea of Gatorade started when athletes were not replenishing their electrolytes fast enough while playing in the heat doing their two a days in Florida. Trainers started to put electrolytes in the water and the athletes replenished their energy much quicker. To get Gatorade to the market, they obviously had to load it with sugar because people don’t eat or drink anything anymore that doesn’t taste good.

Gatorade does have necessary electrolytes in it, but it does you more harm than good. If you read the labels on most sports drinks including vitamin water, owned by 50 cent, they are all loaded with sugar. As a pitcher you will do your body more justice by drinking water. You want to make sure what you put into your body is going to help you recover from your pitching workouts very quickly; Gatorade won’t do it for you. You will get a rush from Gatorade and other sports drinks for a few minutes, but 20 minutes after you drink sugar drinks you will feel weaker.

Unfortunately, every dugout I’ve visited in the last 10 years is full of these flavored drinks.

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Side note: Don’t forget to add core strength work into your pitching workout regimen.

As a pitcher it is important that you play long toss.  However, most pitchers are confused as to what long toss really is.  Most people think you are supposed to rear back and throw as far as you possibly can.  Long toss simply means that you throw at maximum distance and intensity with perfect pitching mechanics.  If this distance is only 80 feet, throw 80 feet.  The most common problem pitchers face with their pitching mechanics when throwing long toss is not maintaining proper balance keeping their head over center of gravity.

You see many pitchers try to strike everybody out these days.  Is that the best strategy?

No doubt strikeouts are great.  There is no better feeling as a pitcher than striking batters out.  But if that is always your strategy, you’re going to fail.  Playing baseball is like a physical game of chess.  Some batters you want to challenge, others you want to ground out or pop out depending on the situation.  Some pitches you throw are meant to get a batter to hit a grounder to second base to turn a double play.  I would rather throw three pitches an inning and have three ground outs than have three strikeouts.  As a pitcher you have to be concerned about pitch count; and if all you think about are strikeouts you are not a team player.

How often should a pitcher be throwing?  Are pitchers throwing enough?

Those are difficult questions.  Some pitchers are throwing too much, while others aren’t throwing nearly enough.  You might say, well, what is enough? Can you really put a number on it?  There is no perfect answer to this question.  Every athlete is different.  Again, a pitcher needs to condition to throw during the off season as well.  A pitcher should be throwing about 9 months out of the year in good or bad weather states.   You shouldn’t throw year round, your arm needs a break.  At the beginning of each year start playing light catch, long toss the end of January to mid-February, Start pitching off the mound a couple weeks before your season starts and make sure that you implement a regularly throwing regimen depending on when your going to compete.  If you’re a relief pitcher, your throwing schedule will be different of course.  Overall, a pitcher should throw 50-75 pitches (5 days a week) rotating from flat ground to the mound.  Also rotating from short-medium-long toss to throwing at full velocity off the mound each week.

What is the best advice you can give Little League coaches as they begin to work on pitching mechanics with their pitchers?

Get an education about proper pitching mechanics before you mess the pitchers up!  It is amazing to me how many coaches don’t have a clue about pitching mechanics.  I would advise them to get my pitching mechanics DVD to start with; it’s very basic and easy to follow.  A coach can watch it once and start teaching their pitchers from the feet up.   Most coaches just don’t take the time to learn the basic fundamentals about pitching.  They do great work with the kids, of course they spend good time and mean well, but most haven’t done their due diligence about pitching mechanics or pitching workout routines and it’s damaging to their athletes.

What types of lower body strengthening exercises are important for pitchers to add to their pitching workouts?

Pitchers need strong legs! That’s where their momentum starts; that explosive power toward home plate.  You need a combination of leg workouts that include agility exercises, plyometric exercises, stretching and so on.  Some of the best strength training exercises for your legs are side shuffles with elastic tubing, Leg presses, squats, lunges, side lunges, leg extensions, leg curls and calf raises.  I encourage my students to keep a variety of effective exercises, working out the same muscle groups so they don’t get bored of their pitching workouts nor will they plateau.    Do heavier lifting in the off-season and lighter lifts during the season with more repetitions to keep your stamina.

There seem to be more and more arm injuries these days.  How can they be prevented?  There are more injuries in the pre-season because many pitchers aren’t conditioned to pitch.  At a younger level, athletes play other sports, pretty soon the baseball seasons here and they throw once or twice before they tryout for a team.  Once you have a sore arm that early in the season, it tends to haunt you the rest of the year unless you give it a rest.  That’s one reason.  There are many!  I know in the high school level the pitchers are throwing long toss with their team the day after they throw 7 innings. Their coaches simply aren’t running a good program when that happens.  Throwing off a mound is a tearing down process on your arm.  A pitcher should limit the number of throws off a mound each week to about 100.  The point is you have to listen to your body, make sure you are very serious about pitching specific workouts, get with an experienced pitching coach and learn proper pitching mechanics.