Add To Your Pitching Knowledge

 

Balance

It’s a known fact that your body is either in balance or moving to get itself back in balance.

When you push off the rubber, you drive down the mound, use your throwing arm for balance, and lose control of your throwing arm into your release.

There’s another, more effective, pitching model.

The Best Pitchers Rotate Down the Mound and Use their Throwing Action to Get Back in Balance 

Rotating down the mound occurs as a result of you letting “your lower body” drive your motion.

• An Alternate Storyline - Place a light weight on the end of a string, and slowly twirl the weight around your hand. Every time the weight completes a circle, the weight comes through the same spot and, even with a minimal hand action, produces so much energy that you’d think twice about putting your hand in the weight’s path.

• The Pitching Elements within This Storyline - The string represents your throwing arm.
  - Your forearm and hand relate to your core. - The weight coming through the same spot all the time symbolizes your release window. - The energy the weight generates relates to your throwing arm whip

• Rotating Down the Motion - When you end your front leg lift with an upright core, you can open your front shoulder to begin your rotation down the mound.

• Your front shoulder spin whips your throwing hand through the same spot on every pitch. Duplicate your front leg lift from one pitch to the next and you can expect your throwing arm to whip your pitches into your intended target.

• Where can you see this? - Watch how frequently a Big-League Pitcher at the top of the Team’s depth chart delivers their pitches into their intended target.

If you move down the mound, can’t know where any one pitch will end, then let's talk.

Skip Fast
Pro Pitching Institute
“Winning Pitch Location Strategies©” Author/Coach
E-Mail: skip@propitchinginstitute.com
Cell or Text: 856-524-3248
#ElitebyChoice

Copyright © 2020, Pro Pitching Institute.

Is your Coach holding you back?

 

A Pitcher quickly finds out when he asks his Coach this question ... “What can I do to get my lower body more involved in my motion?”

1. “I’M NOT SURE, BUT . . . “
For starters, it’s okay not to be sure how to teach lower body engagement. But saying “I’m not sure” undercuts a Coach’s credibility and isn’t something a Pitcher wants to hear.

2. “SORT OF” OR “KIND OF”
When a Coach says, “I sort of think” or “I kind of suspect,” it’s clear they don’t really know how to teach lower body engagement and, as a result, is holding back your development.

3. “MAYBE,” “POSSIBLY,” AND “POTENTIALLY”
“Maybe,” “possibly,” “probably,” “basically,” “largely,” and “hopefully” are all phrases that smack of doubt. When you hear these phrases, the Coach flat out doesn’t know how to get your lower body more involved. 

4. USING THE PAST TENSE WHEN YOU MEAN THE PRESENT
“I thought I should mention that . . . ” or, “I was thinking we should . . . “? are ways to present concepts without knowing the answer. Compare these past tense phrases to these clear messages “I want to mention . . .” and “I think we should . . .”. When your Coach answers your questions in the past tense, your pitching career might not go in the direction you want.

5. TELLS YOU HOW TO ENGAGE YOUR LOWER BODY.
Once you make the adjustments your Coach recommends and throw your first pitch, the fact you use less effort to deliver your pitch into your target tells you that you want to keep this Coach on your side.

If the 5th option sounds good to you, let's talk.

Skip Fast
Pro Pitching Institute
“Winning Pitch Location Strategies©” Author/Coach
E-Mail: skip@propitchinginstitute.com
Cell or Text: 856-524-3248
#ElitebyChoice

Copyright © 2020, Pro Pitching Institute.

Your Future is Written in How You Think About Your Lower Body

 

You have two choices …

1.    Treat your lower body as a separate action or

By treating your lower body engagement as a separate action, you tend to rely on your stride tempo to send your pitches into the strike zone. When your stride tempo drives your command, your stride tempo becomes something that can’t be guaranteed from one outing to the next.

2.    You treat your lower body as a reaction .

By making subtle adjustments to your front leg lift position, without thinking about it, you  add your lower body to your current motion. By doing so, your throwing action becomes a physical reaction to your lower body activity, and, as a physical reaction, you can  expect your pitches to travel directly into your Catcher’s mitt. Better yet, you turn into the dominant Pitcher everyone wants on their Team.

If you want to turn your lower body engagement from something you do into something that happens, contact me.

Skip Fast
Pro Pitching Institute
“Winning Pitch Location Strategies^©” Author/Coach
E-Mail: skip@propitchinginstitute.com
Cell or Text: 856-524-3248
#ElitebyChoice

Copyright © 2020, Pro Pitching Institute.

The Survey Says … Pitch Command

A survey of 120+ College Coaches and some Travel Ball, High School and Private Pitching Instructors asked participants to rate the most important pitching-related factors.

When asked to rank these factors in the order of importance, this is their response.

Command - 81%
Movement - 18%
velocity - 1%

This survey contradicts the myth that velocity is what Coaches want to see. Coaches are looking for Pitchers who can locate their pitches within the strike zone over Pitchers with lights-out velocity.

Lower Body Engagement Drives Command.

Getting a Pitcher’s lower body to drive his results isn’t a conscious action. Lower body engagement is something a Pitching Coach adds to a Pitcher’s current stockpile of skills.

Once added, a Pitcher produces the command that’ll tease influential baseball people to sit up and take notice.

Experience Fastball Command Today

By adding a Pitcher’s lower body to their current delivery, the Pitcher’s body flows into release, a Pitcher’s command becomes much more sustainable and the Pitcher attracts next level attention.

Need better command? Need better lower body involvement? Want to attract next level Coaches? Let’s talk.

Skip Fast
Pro Pitching Institute
Instant Fastball Command Author/Coach
E-Mail: skip@propitchinginstitute.com
Cell or Text: 856-524-3248
#ElitebyChoice

Copyright © 2020, Pro Pitching Institute.

The Orchid Hypothesis

Even with flaws, any individual’s pitching is as hardy as a dandelion; able to take root just about anywhere and, when ignored, come back year after year.

Anyone can grow a dandelion, but only a Pitching Coach who nurtures their dandelion with neurological, physiological, and psychological science can build the delicate, mysterious orchid called predictable fastball command. 

Coaching Today

The notion a Coach can grow an orchid contradicts how most Coaches teach pitching today.

 Most Coaches, even Professional Coaches, haven’t taken, don’t take, the time to discover the science behind pitch location. If they did so, the orchid would take over the dandelion as the standard for fastball command.

The Next Generation of Coaches

That’s why Pitchers we work with get so excited and are so appreciative when we show them how easy it is to expect each pitch to travel into their target.

We believe, for the health and welfare of Pitchers everywhere, it’s time for Coaches to take the science behind pitch location more seriously.

By doing so, more Coaches will turn dandelions into the orchids you see at the top of every Big-League depth chart.

Experience Fastball Command Today

We use 5 easily executed, simply presented skills to guarantee fastball command.

Not satisfied with your pitch location. Let’s talk.

Skip Fast

Pro Pitching Institute

Instant Fastball Command Author/Coach

E-Mail: skip@propitchinginstitute.com

Cell or Text: 856-524-3248

#ElitebyChoice

Copyright © 2020, Pro Pitching Institute.

 

Work Smart, Not Hard

During a pitching motion, every time a Pitcher shifts his weight his body will self-correct and every self-correction will change his throwing arm path.

It’s physically impossible to stop a Pitcher’s self-corrections, but it is possible to manage them.

A Pitcher Works Hard When His Self-Corrections Manage Him

A Pitcher who works hard is trying to figure out a weight shift pattern that’ll take his throwing arm through the same path on every pitch.

On an outing by outing basis, a Pitcher eventually finds a productive arm slot, but, since there’s no way to duplicate this feeling from one outing to the next, dominant back-to-back outings become few and far between.

A Pitcher Works Smart When He Manages His Self-Corrections

A Pitcher who works smart works with someone who’s trained to make his throwing action his only self-correction. By doing this, his throwing arm comes through the same path on every pitch, and he can expect his pitches to travel directly into his target.

A Pitcher who uses his throwing action as his only self-correction turns his pitching results into a repeatable physical reaction.

With the Right Coach, a Pitcher Manages His Weight Shifts

The right self-corrections at the right time lead to pitches traveling directly into a Pitcher’s intended target. To the trained eye, a Coach uses a Pitcher’s disruptive weight shift patterns as a tool to make the Pitcher’s only self-correction his throwing action.

Our programs instantly spot disruptive throwing arm self-corrections. Instead of working hard, we give the Pitcher a simply executed and amazingly effective way to permanently change his movement patterns, and, by doing so, transition a throwing arm self-correction into a  desired, lower body-prompted, throwing action self-correction.

Not satisfied with your results. Let’s talk.

Skip Fast
“Lower Body Driven by Choice, Not Chance”

Pro Pitching Institute
“Law of Self-Correction^©” Author/Coach
E-Mail: skip@propitchinginstitute.com
Cell or Text: 856-524-3248
#ElitebyChoice

Copyright © 2020, Pro Pitching Institute.

The “Law of Self-Correction©” Guarantees Pitching Success

The “Law of Self-Correction^©”.

After 25+ years of working with Pitchers, an “ah-ha” moment produced one simply presented, all-inclusive statement that explains what happens in ALL pitching motions.

The “Law of Self-Correction^©”

“A Pitcher’s pitching results are dictated by the way his body self-corrects his weight distribution.”

After applying the “Law of Self-Correction^©” to thousands of pitching motions over many years, Pitchers can be guaranteed it’ll optimize their pitch location, enhance their throwing arm speed, and ace any statistical benchmark anyone wants to throw their way.

The “Law of Self-Correction^©” Has a Solid Scientific Foundation

You already know about “Self-Corrections”
Your “self-correction” reflex is at work every second of every day but is most noticeable when your arms seemingly take on a life of their own.

You typically lose control of your arms when you walk a balance beam, walk on slick ice, steer a bike over a mountain trail, step on a pebble with your bare foot, take a bad step, walk a tight rope, etc., but it especially happens when a Pitcher makes a throwing action.

What are the factors behind “self-corrections”?

Environmental and physiological factors combine to produce your “self-corrections”.

●     Gravity keeps your body anchored to the ground.

●     A carpenter level-like mechanism within your inner ear monitors gravity’s impact on your weight distribution.

●     When your inner ear senses a weight shift, to get your weight back in balance, your body “self-corrects”.

In terms of a Pitcher’s “self-corrections”, when a Pitcher dissect his delivery, a tremendously complex pitching motion becomes extremely easy to understand. Better yet, “self-corrections” give ALL Pitchers, both young and old, a very concise, yet easily executed, road map to their Big-League pitching success.

Want to put the “Self-Correcting Principle^©” to work for you? Let’s talk.

Skip Fast
Pro Pitching Institute
Self-Correcting Principle^©” Author/Coach
E-Mail: skip@propitchinginstitute.com
Cell or Text: 856-524-3248
#ElitebyChoice

Copyright © 2020, Pro Pitching Institute.