What Pitchers fail to consider?

The Truth about Pitching.

What you think you see isn’t what happens.

Human nature dictates, when you see something you don't understand, you come up with a reason for what you see.  When you see a pitching motion, you find a reason for everything you see, but, most of the time, the way you think about the pitching motion assumes things that don’t happen.

All too often, the facts contradict your slant on what you see happen. When you don’t accept a fact that can be proven true, you effectively block yourself from achieving success on the mound.

Here’s the truth …the messages your actions send to your inner ear determine your throwing arm path which sets the stage for where your next pitch ends up and how your pitch moves as it comes toward your opponent.

How Your Inner Ear Impacts Your Pitching Movements?

The Way Your Body Works

Your inner ear includes a sensory system that continually directs your subconscious mind how to take over and reposition your body parts to keep your body in balance.

Your inner ear makes sure you keep your hips level, your core upright and your weight centered within your “base of support”. When your inner ear senses even the slightest imbalance, your inner ear sends your subconscious a balance alert to take the required actions that’ll get your weight back to center.

Even pitching motion videos fail to tell the entire story.

Your inner ear processes information 500,000 times faster than your conscious mind. No matter how you want your body to move, when your inner ear senses an imbalance, your subconscious instantly overrides what you want to do and decides how your body will move.

Unless you know what to look for, even when you analyze a pitching motion video, you tend to perceive subconscious inner ear reactions as a controllable action.

As soon as you confuse a subconscious reaction as a controllable action, your inner ear will always change the way you want to move.

Your Inner Ear Reacts to Your Pitch's “Base of Support”

A typical “base of support”. 

With both feet on the ground, your feet are your “base of support”. Your inner ear uses your legs to center your weight within your “base of support”.

Single-leg “base of support”. 

With only have one foot on the ground, your “base of support” transfers from your feet to your knees. In this instance, to keep your weight centered within your “base of support”, your inner ear instinctively and continually directs your subconscious when and how to reposition your arms, legs and core.

Stable single-leg balance. 

As long as you maintain a distance between your knees and keep your weight centered within your “base of support”, your inner ear keeps your arms free to move any way you want.  From this balanced position, when you use an arm to twist your core, you automatically activate your inner ear to do what it must do to get your body back into alignment.

In pitching, when you end your front leg lift with your inner ear sensing single-leg balance, your glove arm remains free to twist your core which forces your inner ear to use an involuntary throwing reflex (a throwing reaction) to bring your body back to balance. The result becomes a “1-piece” reaction where your body and throwing arm work together to produce an effortless, limitless and sustainably excellent pitching experience.

Unstable single-leg balance. 

When you have only one foot on the ground and there no distance between your knees, your back foot becomes your “base of support”. With all your weight over your back foot, you won’t move toward your target unless you make some action that’ll tilt your weight to one side of your back foot. As soon as you move your weight outside your “base”, your inner ear is going to use your arms to counterbalance your weight shift.

In pitching, when, as you lift your front leg, your inner ear places all your weight over your back foot, to move toward your target, you’re forced to tilt your weight toward your target. Your tilt causes your inner ear to use your throwing arm to offset your forward weight shift. Only when your front foot gets on the ground and your inner ear senses your weight is centered between your feet does your inner ear free your throwing arm to complete your delivery. The result becomes a “2-part” delivery where, because your inner ear forces your throwing arm work independently without any meaningful contribution from your body, you go to the mound never really knowing what your next will do nor where it'll end up. 

What does a “sustainably excellent pitching motion” look like?

You end your front leg lift with your weight centered within your “base of support”. Your balanced position lets you use your free glove side arm to twist your core. Your twist begins a planned series of inner ear adjustments ending with an involuntary throwing reflex (a throwing reaction). As an inner ear prompted reflex, your throwing arm always shows your opponent a fastball arm speed, your consistently tiny release window is built to deliver every pitch directly into your target and, in the end, you challenge every opponent to solid contact with every pitch.

What does an “ordinary” pitching motion look like?

Because you end your front leg lift with your weight over your back foot, no matter how hard you want to make your throwing arm path more productive than you last, your inner ear will always disrupt the throwing arm path you want. Your inner ear involvement means you never know where your ball is going to end up and you never achieve the sustainably excellent results you know you have in you.

Either you manage your inner ear or your inner ear is going to manage you. It's your choice!

Skip Fast

Chief Learning Officer/Executive Director
Professional Pitching Institute

WWW: http://www.propitchinginstitute.com 
E-Mail: skip@propitchinginstitute.com
Cell or Text: 856-524-3248

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