The Labrum List

What a great thread!!!

 

Something near and dear to me: Use of the lower half in throwing a baseball. What do you guys see as maybe some common habits of pitchers with little to no lower body participation?

 

Nice to be able to learn and exchange ideas and thoughts with whom I see and judge as a EXPERT and he unlike many others would have you pay for their knowledge and advice...how sad and Kudos to ATC "if he really knows what he is talking about?"

 

Relying on arm strength alone

Unfortunately pitchers have been conditioned to do things that back down on athleticism. We have asked them to slow down, get to a balance point, don't reach the hand below the belt, shorten your stride, change arm slot, make sure your hand reaches directly toward second base, don't dip your back shoulder.

What this forces a young pitcher to do is rely heavily on arm strength. Pitching coaches have been conditioned to coach to a model of what they feel is the right way to deliver a baseball.

IMO, the pitching coach should do exactly the opposite... Try to see what the pitcher is, evaluate his strengths and coach him for who he is. Coach to prepare the pitcher physically, relay to the young pitcher how he can use his body more effectively.

Problems that occur with young pitchers and lower half seem to be two major problems.

1) the throwing arm initiates the bottom half. IMO the bottom half should engage the throwing arm. The backside leg is the beginning of the kinetic chain. It propels the body forward and begins the hip rotation toward the catchers mit. This engages the core (torque) and propels the throwing arm through.

2) Hard throwers have long strides, and they stabilize their momentum with their frontside leg. When young pitchers have problems, they are asked to shorten their stride. Don't do it! We want to hit with a bent front side leg. When the momentum shifts forward the frontside leg firms up (stabilizes) and propels the top half over.

I have some more, but I'm tired of typing.

 

No offense taken at all, Andro.

I suspect that you and I would agree that too many baseball coaches and trainers, at both the college and professional level, haven't taken full advantage of the wealth of information that has come on stream the last few years about the subject of pitching mechanics. Digital motion analysis has advanced experts' knowledge tremendously; and, if coaches/trainers haven't kept up, they're at risk of giving out information that are now known to be wrong.

Thanks, again, to you and ATC for bringing some of this knowledge to TBR.

 

While you're working up the kinetic chain, could you comment on what might be common weaknesses physically? In other words, do y'all see poor workout routines that could limit development, such as , "too much quad work", "too much bench press", etc. I guess a better thing to ask would be, do you see pitchers lacking in any particular area of strength?

 

wait a minute...are you saying that my coach when he came to the mound and said, "C'mon Braves...you ain't tired. Suck it up and be a man!"..HE WAS WRONG? Boy, where were you when I needed ya.

 

Upset with Andro...

I am upset with Andro... because he beat me to it!!! (kidding)

Read something I wrote on my website... http://www.athletictrainingandconditioning.com/Video_Analysis.html

This goes right with what Andro was getting at.... We have created multiple generations of "arm throwers".

One thing I look for in my video analyses is the TRIGGER. What moves towards home plate and with what type of movement speed. Slow robotic movements throughout the wind up and stride causes the arm to have no choice but to "pick it up" and pull the rest of the body through.

Got a question for everyone... we've all seen or heard about the right fielder or center fielder who throws 95 from the outfield. So what happens next? He is made into a pitcher. He is "coached" on how to pitch. All of a sudden his velocity goes from 95 to 85. Why? Is there some mystical force field once the outfield grass turns into infield dirt? No, of course not. We rob this outfielder of his athleticism!!! That's what happens.

How does an outfielder throw? He uses his whole body with a purposeful long stride with back leg drive.

 

Disconnect

Southerno1, I would say that hip flexibility would be a major problem. Most kids have some type of glut strength issue, or hamstring flexibility problem. In turn, leading to some lower back issues.

When we talk about the Kinetic Chain you literally have to think about it in terms of a chain. This chain cannot have a broken link or the energy that you create stops and must restart. I used the word disconnect in the title, that is exactly what happens. They disconnect from each other. Creating arm throwers. Which I posted earlier.

I would say that there has definitely been a movement for core strength in past years. Sometimes misguided it is still a positive thing to have your son do core conditioning.

Internal Rotation is another problem. I was reading OnePutt talk about his son doing Y's, T's, and W's which I think is a great thing. But then ATC, posted function, function, function... I couldn't have said it better myself. When there is a problem now, we all the sudden go back to a strength issue in the posterior. I don't always disagree. My point being is we have got to strengthen, but also work flexibility, balance of each of these, and rep the function that they perform to prepare the arm.

I guess I'm speaking pre injury vs. post injury.

 

Disconnect cont'd

One of the things that I see, both from an injury recovery and sports performance standpoint, is an issue with motor control. I am seeing athletes have difficulty with "turning on" the correct muscles to create the proper movement in an efficient way. Now the athlete can still perform the movement, but not in an efficient way - but in a compensatory manner.

Therefore, my philosophy has developed into proper motor (muscle) recruitment patterns before placing an external load (strengthening) of a particular muscle.

Here is the pyramid that I use for rehab and conditioning...

[FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]PERFORMANCE[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]KINETIC POWER[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]EXTREMITY STRENGTH[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]STABILITY / CONTROL[/FONT]​

FUNCTIONAL FLEXIBILITY​

[FONT=Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]EVALUATION/FOUNDATION[/FONT]​