Thursday, June 4, 2020

Stop Moving Down the Mound!


Instead of hoping your ball goes where you want, pitch location can become an expectation.

Knowledge Base:        Inertia describes an object’s resistance to change in motion.
Momentum describes an object’s movement.

Momentum Hurts Location

When your delivery is driven by your movement down the mound, your shoulder rotation produces yours ball release.

Unless your stride tempo is exactly the same from one pitch to the next, your release point will continually change, and you can’t know with any certainty where any one pitch will end up.

Inertia Produces Location

When, out of your front leg lift, you open your front shoulder, you spin down the mound, your foot plant stops your rotation and your ball release becomes an instinctive reaction.

Once you know how to duplicate your change in direction from one pitch to the next, you can expect your pitches to travel directly into your target.

Finding Location Solutions

With momentum, your location depends upon your stride tempo. Anyone can ask any Pitcher to make their stride tempo the same on every pitch, but we have yet to find a way to reproduce the same tempo from one pitch to the next.

With inertia, your location comes from ending your front leg lift with your weight evenly distributed around your core. Ending your front leg lift with your weight centered around your core is an extremely teachable skill. Therefore, instead of hoping your ball goes where you want, location becomes an expectation.

Want to know how to end your front leg lift with your weight centered around your core?  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.

Friday, May 29, 2020

Unconscious Pitch Results are Within Reach


Your subconscious brings your throwing hand through a very sustainable and extremely productive release window.

A Typical Movement Cycle

Every movement you make on and off the diamond follows this pattern.
  1. Balance - You always begin in a balanced position.
  2. Action - You make an action.
  3. Balance - Your subconscious gets your body back into balance.
  4. You begin the process all over again.

High-Level Results Begin with a Front Leg Lift

Balance - You end your front leg lift with your weight evenly distributed around your core.
  1. Action – You open your upper body toward your target.
  2. Balance – Your action forces your subconscious to use your throwing action to get your body back into balance.

Result – Your subconscious brings your throwing hand through a very sustainable and extremely productive release window.

Ordinary Results Also Begin with your Front Leg Lift

Balance - You end your front leg lift with your weight over your back foot.
  1. Action - Your only option is to stride toward your target.
  2. Balance – Your action forces your subconscious to use your throwing arm to balance your weight as you move down the mound, then, as you end your stride, uses your throwing arm to balance your weight between your feet.

Result – To complete your delivery, you’re forced to make a separate throwing action and, when your subconscious turns your throwing action into an independent movement, you never know where any one pitch will end up.

Finding Solutions

We teach Pitchers how to use their front leg lift to force their subconscious to deliver their pitches directly into their target.

Need help making this happen? 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.

Friday, May 22, 2020

A Biologically Based Look at Your Throwing Action

Failure to expect your pitches to end where you want means you need to pay more attention to your movements into your front leg lift.

The Evolution of Lower Body Engagement


The only way to truly maximize your lower body rotation is by balancing on one foot and opening your front shoulder.

When you do this, your spinning action tells your body you may be in jeopardy of getting hurt.
To stabilize the situation, your body places your front foot back on the ground.

When your front foot hits the ground, it’s your connection with the ground that causes your hips, when compared to your shoulders, to over rotate.

Your body’s drive to get your shoulders parallel to your hips forces your under rotated shoulders to catch up with your hips.

Your shoulders catching up with your hips whips your throwing hand into release.


Creating a Lower Body Throwing Action

Lower body engagement begins with your hands separating at the same time your stride begins.

Your hand separation opens your front shoulder and sets off the cascading series of events described above.

As a consequence, you see your throwing arm whipping into release, your ball ending up where you expect and you challenging the best hitters to make solid contact with your pitches.


Measuring Your Lower Body Involvement

Your lower body is driving your results when …

Your Motion - Your hands separate at the same time you begin your stride.
Your Results – You expect each pitch to end up where you planned.
Your Opponent - Your Opponent’s tendency is to miss your mistakes.


Finding Solutions

Failure to experience any of these indicators means you need to pay more attention to your movements into your front leg lift.

Need help with your front leg lift? 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.

Thursday, May 14, 2020

5 Confidence Builders


Follow these simple recommendations and, rather than trying to produce the results you think you need, have the confidence to be the best version of yourself and know, with the right focus, you have what it takes to succeed against the best hitters at the highest levels.

Use these 5 confidence builders to remove the toxicity from your pitching and give yourself the confidence required to experience more success every time you take the mound.

     Stop living in the past.
Learn from the past and always move forward.

     Learn to control and manage your thoughts.
Stay focused on the movement patterns you know produce the best results.

     Use trends to improve.
Instead of making arbitrary adjustments, use your performance trends to pinpoint areas needing improvement.

     Adjust your footwork.
Anytime you want to improve, begin by changing your footwork, then use your results to measure your adjustments and work from there.

     Never beat yourself up.
You’ll always experience ups and downs, but, overall, when a larger portion of your pitches end up closer to your target than in the past, you are getting better.

What's in your future?

Follow these simple recommendations and, rather than trying to produce the results you think you need, have the confidence to be the best version of yourself and know, with the right focus, you have what it takes to succeed against the best hitters at the highest levels.

Want to have the confidence to expect every pitch to go where you want with the late stage movement you need to succeed? 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.

Friday, May 8, 2020

ONLY ONE PITCHING APPROACH PRODUCES SUCCESS!

With an Inside/Out approach, you stop trying and start producing the elite pitching results you always dreamed you have.

Managing the way you think to move produces better, more sustainable, pitching results than trying to manage the way you see your body move.

The Most Elite Pitchers Use an Inside/Out Approach

When examined closely, 5% of all Pitchers use an Inside/Out process to achieve the elite pitching results you dream of having.

An Inside/Out Mental Process lets your foot placements (the outside) use your body’s inherent reaction patterns to drive your results (the inside).
  • Your foot placements drive your body position at the top of your front leg lift.
  • Your front leg lift body position determines your throwing arm path.
  • Your throwing arm path impacts where the pitch ends up.

With an Inside/Out approach, you stop trying and start producing the elite results you always dreamed you have.

The Rest of the Pitchers Use an Outside/In Approach

Until examined more closely, you represent the 95% of all Pitchers who  use an Outside/In Approach to try and manage your reactions (the outside) as if they were controllable actions (the inside).

Typically an Outside/In Approach deals with the movements you see as you move from your front leg lift into your release.
  • When you experience an unacceptable result, you think to adjust your arm slot.
  • You use trial-and-error to figure out the arm angle that’ll improve your last pitch results.
  • Finally, you use muscle memory to reinforce your new arm slot.

With Outside/in Approach, you feel like you’re always wondering where your next pitch is going to end up.

Effective foot placements produce remarkably consistent results

Your foot placements supply the prompts guaranteed to produce 5%’er results. If you’re a Pitcher or a Pitching Dad who wants to know about their current foot placement, 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.

Thursday, April 30, 2020

How to Experience Instant Pitch Improvement


By using the cues your biological need to stay in balance shows us, we teach you a dynamic front leg lift position that sends your ball where you want and with the ball movement you expect.

You want any change to your motion to do two things.

First, you want to feel like your release is less restricted. Second, you want to see a larger portion of your pitches travel into your intended target.

Balance predicts these outcomes.

The more your biological need for balance keeps your throwing arm free to react to your lower body activity, the less restricted your motion feels and, better yet, the more you can expect your pitches to end up going where you want.

On the other hand, the more your biological need for balance uses your throwing arm to offset your stride, the more stressful it becomes to get your ball to end up where you want.

Leg lifts and balance

When your leg lift ends with your back knee to the second base side of your back foot, you can spin into your stride, use your throwing action to keep your body in balance and, on a regular basis, can expect your pitches to travel into your target.

Contrary to this, when your leg lift ends with your back knee over or in front of your back foot, you have to stride toward your target, you use your throwing arm path to offset your stride and you never know where any one pitch will end up.

How to guarantee sustainable improvement

Your “leg lifts and balance” indicate the right changes to your front leg lift is certain to improve your results.  Knowing this, the only way to change your front leg lift becomes adjusting your initial foot placements.

The best news is that simple changes to your foot placements are very measurable and incredibly repeatable and, with the right footwork, your improvement is guaranteed.

Failure is not an option

Our “Winning Pitch Location Strategies©” teaches you a dynamic front leg lift position that sends your ball where you want and with the ball movement you expect.

Struggling with your results? Wasting time experimenting with your foot placements? Ask us for help!

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.

Thursday, April 23, 2020

Pitching Balance Guarantees Sustainability

My “Winning Pitch Location Master Strategies©” will teach you how to use your hand separation to produce the pitch location required to compete at the highest levels.

What is your sequencing?

Next time you look at your motion, focus on your front leg/hand separation sequencing.

When, after you begin your stride, your hands separate, you know your biological need for balance is using your throwing arm path to offset your stride.

When your natural need for balance takes over your throwing arm path, you cannot possibly know with any certainty where any one pitch ends up.

As a result of your stride coming before your hand separation, whether you realize it or not, every pitching session is spent TRYING to figure out a way to control your biological drive for balance. 

The solution is not as simple as you think.

Contrary to widely held beliefs, no one has the will power to simply demand your hand separation to come before your stride.

However, you do have the power to better manage your biological need for balance.

Right now, it is your biological need for balance that ends your front leg lift with your weight over your back foot.

With your weight over your back foot, you have one choice … stride and use your arms for balance.

Therefore, you change your stride/separation sequence by making your weight distribution into your front leg lift more efficient.

Do this and, instead of striding out of your front leg lift, you come out of your front leg lift with your hand separation triggering your stride.

What is in your future?

If you can’t find a way to get your initial legwork to change your hand separation/stride sequence, ask me for help.

My “Winning Pitch Location Master Strategies©will teach you how to use your hand separation to produce the pitch location required to compete at the highest levels.

Want to know more? Contact me through the Pro Pitching Institute website.

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.