Stop wondering how to improve your command!

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve discussed “biomarkers”. Now, let’s look at how to use your “biomarkers” to improve your command.

All roads lead to your foot placements.

By following your “biomarkers”, you instantly discover how to make yourself more competitive at your current level and beyond.

1.      Your body position at the top of your front leg lift is a physiological reaction (or “biomarker”) to your initial foot placements. As such, the only way to manage your body position at the top of your front leg lift is to change your initial foot placements

2.      Your arm, leg and hip movements as you move down the mound are physiological reactions to your body position at the top of your front leg lift. Accordingly, the only way to manage the movements you see as you move down the mound is to alter your body position into your front leg lift.

3.       Your results directly relate to how your subconscious uses your throwing arm path to, as you move down the mound, get your body back in balance. Consequently, your throwing arm path becomes a physiological reaction to how your body moves down the mound.

Based on what these “biomarkers” tell you, the only logical way to simply and permanently change or improve your results is to ADDRESS YOUR FOOT PLACEMENTS.

These are the foot placements that’ll instantly elevate your pitching results.

Without seeing your motion, without asking you to change anything within your motion and after you make these foot placement changes, you’re going to reduce how far and how often your Catcher moves his glove to receive your pitches.

From the stretch, begin your motion with your feet no wider than your hips.

This simple adjustment makes your subconscious less likely to need your throwing arm for balance and, with your throwing arm less involved with your balance, more likely to come through a much smaller and more consistent release window.

From your wind-up, to minimize any hip sway and keep your movements more vertical in nature, we teach “toe-heel, heel-toe”. 

You begin with your front toe in line with your back heel and your back heel in line with your front toe. To begin your motion, you simply place your back foot in front of the rubber, lift your front foot off the ground and then watch more pitches finish closer to your Catcher’s glove than ever.

When you realize something as simple as a change your foot placements helps your command, please let me know by sending me a short email.

Are these recommendations a universal fix?

Unfortunately, no, but they do represent a great starting point.

Your foot placement goal is to use your “biomarkers” to take away any reason for you to use your throwing arm for balance as you transition from your foot placement into your front foot lift.

Should you want to fast track your foot placements, please feel free to contact me.

Thanks for your time and remember … you are the pitcher you are because you’re listening to paint-by-number pitching solutions.

Skip Fast

Expert Pitching Coach
Professional Pitching Institute

WWW: http://www.propitchinginstitute.com 

E-Mail: skip@propitchinginstitute.com
Cell or Text: 856-524-3248

Copyright © 2018

Do you control your “fight or flight” responses?

Anytime your subconscious perceives an imbalance, your “fight or flight” response produces a physiological reaction.

Within your pitching motion, these are the 4 factors that determine how your “fight or flight” response reacts to your movements.

1. Your “resting” state – Your body is at rest when your body is in balance. 

2. Your conscious mind – As long as your body is at “rest”, you can move your limbs in any way and direction you want. 

3. Your subconscious mind - Your movements instantly demand your subconscious respond your new state of balance. Until your body is back in balance, your subconscious mind takes complete control of your body’s movements. 

4. Your “Biomarkers” – Your “biomarkers” represent the physiological response to your movements and, because your subconscious mind processes your balance status 50,000 times faster than you can think, your “biomarkers” give a knowledgeable onlooker spot-on insight into your movements. 

When your Coach knows how to interpret your “biomarkers”, he can control your subconscious reactions, progressively shrink your target area and, in the end, turn your ability to deliver every pitch directly into your Catcher’s target into its own “biomarker”.

Dismissing these realities is a huge mistake!

Ignoring your “fight or flight” response means, despite your best intentions, you’ll never really know where any pitch is going to end up. With your subconscious processing information 50,000 times faster than you can think, conscious movement corrections can only come from managing the messages your movements send to your subconscious.

It’s how we manage your “fight or flight” prompts that separates us from other Pitching Coach. To fast track your “fight or flight” management, contact us.

Skip Fast

Expert Pitching Coach
Professional Pitching Institute

WWW: http://www.propitchinginstitute.com 

E-Mail: skip@propitchinginstitute.com
Cell or Text: 856-524-3248

Copyright © 2018

“Biomarkers”: Your foolproof path to elite pitching command!

This is your body’s reality.

Every time you move, your body produces a predictable “biomarker” (a “biological” + “marker”) telling you how your movement impacts your balance.

As an example, you walk a balance beam and swing one foot away from the beam, to offset the weight shift created by your foot movement and without any conscious thought, your head moves in the opposite direction away from the beam.  

Your head’s response is a “biomarker” and is used in one of 2 ways …

1. Informational - Your head position relative to the beam tells you there’s a weight shift on the opposite side of the beam. 

2. Decision-making – By managing your foot movement, you determine your head placement.

Your foot placements produce essential “biomarkers”.

Something as simple as your initial foot placements tell you everything you need to know about the “biomarker” patterns and results that’ll follow.

Your foot placements force you to complete your front leg lift with one of these three “biomarkers”.

1. Your back-knee ending up over your back foot signifies your weight is over your back foot. 

2. Your back-knee settling in front of your back foot tells you your weight is in front of your back foot. 

3. Your back-knee finishing to the second base side of your back foot means your weight is centered just in front of your back foot.

Your foot placement “biomarkers” determine your results.

Your weight over your back foot.

To move down the mound, you make some action that’ll shift your weight toward your target (a “biomarker”) and, as you move down the mound, to offset your forward weight shift, you lose control of your throwing arm path and your command (both “biomarkers”).

Your weight ends up in front of your back foot.

With your weight in front of your back foot, gravity takes over your movement down the mound. You use your throwing arm path to try and keep your body in balance and, as above, you lose control of your throwing arm path and your command (both “biomarkers”).

Your weight is centered just in front of your back foot.

With your weight centered around your core (another “biomarker”), instead of moving down the mound, you use your current throwing action to keep your lower body attached to your upper body (a “biomarker”). Instead of using your throwing arm to keep your balance, you use your throwing arm to get your body back in balance (a “biomarker”). With your body pulling your throwing hand through the same tiny release window on every pitch (a “biomarker”), you expect every pitch to travel directly into your Catcher’s target (another “biomarker”).

How to make your time more productive.

Your “biomarkers” are separate from your actions. The instant you begin treating your “biomarkers” as a controllable action becomes the instant you begin spinning your wheels. The only way to change any “biomarker” is to adjust the actions associated with it.

Once you completely understand the power of “biomarkers”, you understand every “biomarker” relates in some way to your front leg lift body position. Armed with this information, instead of wasting your time trying to change the way your “biomarkers” look, you merely adjust your front leg lift and, without stressing over your movements, know you’ll challenge every hitter on every pitch (another, and perhaps, your most important “biomarker”).

To fast track your “biomarker” management, contact us.

Skip Fast

Expert Pitching Coach
Professional Pitching Institute

WWW: http://www.propitchinginstitute.com 

E-Mail: skip@propitchinginstitute.com
Cell or Text: 856-524-3248

Copyright © 2018

Hand Yourself Elite Pitching Command

This is your body’s reality.

Your body is driven to use your arms to maintain your balance. Your hand separation tells you the exact moment you begin using your arms for balance and, armed with this information, reveals how you can improve your command.

During your motion, your hand separation tells you your throwing arm path is either …

- An out-of-control reaction or
- A planned reaction to a well-choreographed upper body movement.

You can’t afford to lose control of your hand separation.

When your hand separation becomes a balance-promoting reaction to your stride, you can only hope each pitch ends up in your target and here’s why?

- In this instance, to move down the mound, you must stride.
- To offset your stride’s forward weight shift and to keep your body in balance, your hands separate.
- Until your front foot gets back on the ground and your body gets back in balance, your hand separation indicates your throwing arm path is out of control.
- As a result, you lose the natural ability to deliver more than 2 pitches in a row into your target.

By realizing your hands separate after you begin your stride and your hand separation directly relates to your starting position, getting your hands to separate before you begin your stride means your focus turns toward your starting position.

To produce elite command, your hands take you out of your starting position.

When your hand separation becomes the first thing you see as you move out of your starting position, you expect each pitch to travel directly into your target and here’s why?

- By ending your front leg lift with your body in balance, your only alternative to move down the mound becomes a choreographed upper body rotation.
- By association, as you move out of your starting position, your upper body rotation makes your hand separation the first thing you see happen.
- As you move down the mound, your instinctive urge for self-preservation senses your rotational imbalance and, to protect you from falling on your nose, places your front foot back on the ground.
- With your stride interrupting your body’s twisting action, the only way to restore your balance becomes using your throwing arm to make a throwing action.

Your spontaneous throwing reaction continually brings your throwing hand through the same productive release window and, consequently, delivers every pitch directly into your Catcher’s target.

To fast-track the adjustments required to have your hand separation take you out of your starting position, contact us.

Skip Fast

Expert Pitching Coach
Professional Pitching Institute

WWW: http://www.propitchinginstitute.com 

E-Mail: skip@propitchinginstitute.com
Cell or Text: 856-524-3248

Copyright © 2018

Stride into pitching greatness!

This is your body’s reality.

Because your body is driven to keep itself in balance, your initial foot placements determine your stride. When you come into your starting position with ...

• A front-to-back movement and a tilted core, your stride moves you down the mound.
• A front leg lift that promotes an upright core, your stride becomes a response to an upper body spinning action.

When pitching, you really don’t want your stride to be an action.

When you put your body in a position where your stride shifts your weight from back-to-front, you can only hope each pitch ends up in your target and here’s why?

• With your starting position giving you no alternative but to shift your weight from back-to-front, to maintain your balance, you're forced to use your throwing arm to offset this forward weight shift.
• You continue using your throwing arm to keep your balance until your body gets back in balance.
• While you’re using your throwing arm for balance, you lose complete control over your throwing arm path.
• Besides having no control over your throwing arm path, you also lose the ability to deliver more than 2 pitches in a row into your target.

The longer you fail to control your throwing arm path, the more you’ll miss your target over the plate. The more softballs you serve up, the more reasons you give baseball people to decide your competitive pitching career should be over.

When pitching, you really need to make your stride just happen.

When you end your starting position with an upright core, you expect each pitch to travel directly into your target and here’s why?

• Your vertical core gives your body an axis around which to rotate.
• When you come out of your starting position with an upper body rotation, to protect you from falling on your nose, your instinctive urge for self-preservation places your front foot back on the ground.
• With your stride interrupting your body’s twisting action, the only way to restore your balance becomes using your throwing arm to make a throwing action.
• Because of this spontaneous reaction, your throwing hand continually comes through the same productive release window and, consequently, delivers every pitch directly into your Catcher’s target.

By making sure you end your starting position with your core in an upright position, you use your reactionary stride to challenge every opponent with pinpoint command, deceptive throwing arm speed and late ball movement.

If you want to know what it takes to end your starting position with your core in an upright position, contact us.

Skip Fast

Expert Pitching Coach
Professional Pitching Institute

WWW: http://www.propitchinginstitute.com 

E-Mail: skip@propitchinginstitute.com
Cell or Text: 856-524-3248

Copyright © 2018

Can you shoulder better pitching results?

Your instinctively shoulder/hip alignment impulse. 

•         By body has a subconscious response to keep your shoulders over your hips.
•          Whenever your shoulder/hip alignment is off, your body’s priority becomes getting your shoulders and hips realigned.

A Dynamic Motion Taps this Impulse.

You end your front leg lift with your shoulders over your hips, and your weight centered between your knees.

•         Action: Your starting body position allows you to create a lower body rotation that brings your back hip closer to your target than your throwing side shoulder.
•          Effect: As a reaction to your movement out of your front leg lift, you’re force to instinctively bring your throwing side shoulder toward home.
•         Result: Your back-shoulder movement causes you to spontaneously whip your throwing arm into your ball release.
•      Outcome: Over time, you expect each pitch to travel directly into your Catcher’s mitt.

Because your throwing action is a reaction to the shoulder/hip alignment you intentionally create, your motion allows you to send more than 2 pitches in a row directly into your Catcher’s target.

A Stationary Motion Works Around this Impulse.

You end your front leg lift with your shoulders over your hips, and your back foot supporting your body weight.

•         Action: Unless you make some movement that’ll take you into your stride, you won’t move out of your starting position.
•         Effect: As you move down the mound and complete your stride, your shoulders remain over your hips.
•         Result: To complete your motion, your throwing arm works by itself.
•         Outcome: Because you turn your throwing action into an independent event, you never really know where each pitch will end up.

Because your throwing action has nothing to do with your shoulder/hip alignment as you end your stride, you’re always struggling to produce the results associated with a more dynamic motion.

If you want to know how simple it is to replace your stationary starting position with a more dynamic starting position, contact us.

Skip Fast

Expert Pitching Coach
Professional Pitching Institute

WWW: http://www.propitchinginstitute.com 

E-Mail: skip@propitchinginstitute.com
Cell or Text: 856-524-3248

Copyright © 2018

Pitching – Is your weight centered between your knees?

How does your body define balance?

Let’s say I ask you to jump on a balance beam and, as quickly as you can, touch your nose.

- At first, you can’t control your arms. - You take a couple of deep breaths to let your mind settle your body over the beam.
- Once your mind senses you no longer need your arms for balance, you touch your nose.

I know I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already realize, but, by digging into this “settling” process, you’ll walk away with a better understanding why you struggle with your command.

Your “settling” process creates a sense of “stability”.

Your “settling” process. 

·       - Without thinking about it, your mind automatically centers your weight between your knees. - At the point where your mind senses your body is in balance, your knees are going to form a “diamond-like” shape.

“Stability”

- “Stability” is seen when you center your weight between your knees (your “diamond”). - “Stability” allows you to decide how you’re going to move your body. - You feel “stable” when you no longer need your arms to keep your balance.

Let’s prepare your body for your front foot lift.

·      - In the last blog, we recommended starting your stretch with your feet one baseball width apart. - From this position, you bring your shoulders down to your heels. - When done properly and as a reaction to your shoulders coming down to your heels, you see your legs/knees form a “diamond”.

Your “diamond” puts you in  a position to complete your front leg lift with your weight centered between your knees.

- By placing your weight between your knees, you lessen the chance you’ll need your throwing arm for balance and - As a result, you increase the possibility each pitch will end up closer to your intended target.

If you want to know what’s stopping you from “balancing” and “stabilizing” your motion, contact us.

Skip Fast

Expert Pitching Coach
Professional Pitching Institute

WWW: http://www.propitchinginstitute.com 

E-Mail: skip@propitchinginstitute.com
Cell or Text: 856-524-3248

Copyright © 2018