Pitching Chat

This past Sunday, I had the opportunity to join Josh Boggs of PitchMechanics101.com for his weekly Pitching Chat Podcast. We were able to touch on the article I wrote for his site, Stacking the Hips, as well as hip and arm mobility, the Inverted W and developing as a coach. Big thanks to Josh for letting me come on his show and share some of the things we teach in our program. Have a listen!

 

You can follow Josh on Twitter @PitchMechanics and listen to past episodes of the podcast here.

Until Next Time...

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Stacking the Hips

Want to generate momentum and great direction down the mound? “Stack ‘em”! 

This is a common statement our pitchers will hear me say, in our program we talk often about stacking the hips (hip drive, pelvic loading, etc.). Now the first question to answer is why do we talk about it and what does it do for you?

In an ideal delivery, the hips work separately from the torso during the stride phase. A disconnection needs to occur for proper torso rotation to take place. The hips have to go first, with the torso close to follow. Some of the verbal cues [which I try not use a ton of] are, “show the back pocket” or “drive the back hip through the front hip”. For the record, I'm more a fan of pitchers physically learning how to move, rather than learning how to listen [to cues]. When done correctly, the athlete should feel either a pinch in the back hip and/or pressure on the inside part of their lead leg.

In a recent #PitchingChat, Marcus Stroman was brought up, how his hips load before peak leg lift is achieved. I think Stroman is a great model for momentum, mainly because of the force he creates into the ground - he creates diagonal force into the ground, rather than vertical:

Glove Side Connection

Recently I purchased a product for our pitching staff that I had gone back and forth about, and know many other coaches who have said and done the same. The Connection Ball, coined by Ron Wolforth and the Texas Baseball Ranch made it's way into our pitchers' bag this spring. I know a few pitching coaches off the top of my head who use this faithfully and others who won't touch it. For a while I'd been on the fence, but I had been look for a physical way that our pitchers could emulate strong glove sides. I'm not going to get into the "glove pull" or "glove blocking" debate, cause I don't necessarily teach either. What we talk about in our program, are strong glove sides and good spinal stability.

FYI, spinal stability doesn't have to mean a vertical torso at ball release. Two different cases of stability, one vertical and one not so vertical:

I'd say both of these guys are pretty good...

External Rotation, Developing and Stretching

I recently had a conversation with one of our players about manually stretching the external rotation (ER) of the throwing shoulder, and why we don't do it in our program. Per Eric Cressey and CSP, "Want to irritate a labrum, biceps tendon, or the undersurface of the rotator cuff? Stretch a thrower in extreme external rotation and stimulate the peel-back (forearm lay-back) mechanism." He also goes on to outline some alternative ways and drills to increase ER like improving scapular retraction as well as thoracic spine mobility, and last but not least...throw more! Says Cressey, "Pitchers gain a considerable amount of glenohumeral external rotation over the course of a competitive season simply from throwing."

I like this quote from Phil Rosengren of BetterPitching.com on manually stretching into ER, "So when you think about it, actively stretching your arm where it's already getting loose on its own doesn't make much sense. You're just creating more instability in the joint, putting you at greater risk of injury." See the full article here.

Maintaining Strength Training

Yesterday the 2015 season began for the Defiance College Baseball team. In addition to team practices, the coming weeks of our own version of Spring Training will include not only individual workouts for pitchers, catchers and position players - but also time devoted in the weight room as well. So I thought I'd give a little insight into how we manage the strength component of our program during the season.

Our position players and pitchers [including dual guys] lift in two separate groups, two days per week - so that we're able to effectively manage the space in our weight room. Positionals typically lift after practice [Monday & Friday] while pitchers come in during the day [Tuesday & Thursday] to get their lift in. The program that we outline is derived from Eric Cressey's High Performance Handbook. Eric Cressey in my opinion, is the top resource for coaching strength & conditioning in overhead athletes.