Towel Drills For Pitchers,

can someone explain them? Thanks!

 

Some Towel Drill Input

Wildcat,

The towel drill is a great way (in my opinion) of repeating the throwing motion and delivery without adding the stress of throwing a baseball. Especially when done on a mound.

For the drill, take a t-shirt by the sleeves. While holding the sleeves, flip the shirt over a couple of times so that it looks like a rolled up newspaper. When you've done that, grab the t-shirt in the middle as if you were gripping a baseball, so that you have about 10-12 inches of shirt on each side.

Mark off a spot on the ground that he can use as a consistent starting point.

From there, find an object (chair/bench/stool/your glove) and place it at about his waist high. This object should be about four of his shoe sizes in front of where he lands in his pitching delivery.

Now that you have the drill set up, there are a few things that you can do. You can have him start off on both knees (slightly closed, not squared to the target) and have him work on twisting and remembering the feeling of breaking his hands and releasing out front.

You can also set him up in the "power" position. This is when he has landed, has his glove pointing at the target and arm up ready to throw. Start him there and have him feel his hips open first, shoulders firing after staying closed as long as possible. Again, hitting the object with the towel will help him work on releasing out front, as well as repeating his release point (vital to command a fastball)...This is also the point when you can work on the back leg following through. The order of "firing" should be hips, front shoulder, arm, back leg, finish.

And finally, you can begin working on the stretch and windup motions with the towel drill. Pay attention to his head and glove during these drills. If you've ever seen me pitch, you'll know that I am the last guy that will try to breed robotic pitchers. But there are a few common denominators in pitching, and two of them are the head and glove. The hit must stay as still/level as possible. And when the front shoulder begins to fire, the glove needs to rotate and stay in front of the torso.

Hope this helps. Again, this drill has worked for me. There are also people who are not fans of the drill. Try it out and determine for yourself.

Woody

woody20.blogspot.com

 

Well done Woody ...

One of the frustrating things I found as a pitcher was that I couldn't practice my "skill" every day...couldn't take 200 ground balls or 200 swings vs live pitching. This is what makes these "dry" (without ball) drills so valuable, to be able to simulate the pitching motion on a daily basis...really helps maintain good rhythm & balance, which are keys to establishing consistent, repeatable, mechanics.

One other suggestion...consider doing them in front of a mirror, great way to reinforce not only how the motion feels but how it looks !

 

Maybe it's time for Woody to break out his "Hollywood" shades and add a video to his blog! The towel drill would be much easier to understand for newbies if they could see how it works...

"Lights! Camera! Action!"

 

This is a drill that Alan Tyson (Local Physical Therapist) has all his students as well as patients do. IMO it is a must do for all pitchers of any age!

 

Thanks Woody,

I saw the towel drill on your blog but wasn't exactly sure how it worked. Me and my son have enjoyed reading your blog. Keep up the good work and good luck in the future.

 

Excellent explanation of the towel drill. A few thoughts to ponder: Instead of a towel, get a 3/8 inch dowel rod and measure it the length of the athlete's arm from arm pit to the tip of the middle finger. Wrap some athletic tape around one end of the stick to create a golf ball sized ball with the tape. Also wrap 3 or 4 small strips evenly spaced down the dowel rod to add some stability when the "whip-like" effect is created in the drills. The stick is used in place of the towel during drill work. The athlete should grab the end of the stick with the ball between the pointer and middle finger of their throwing hand. The ball will not allow the stick to slip out of the hand. The theory behind using the stick is that it is somewhat lighter than some towels that are being used and it creates less drag force. I always heard if you want to be quicker to train quicker. The reasoning behind getting the stick to match the athlete's arm length is to get extension in the correction direction. The pitcher wants extension to the target, not extension down to the ground or less than 60' 6" in front of them. Body posture in a pitcher has a direct correlation to repeating their release point. The stick does not allow the athlete to have his chest pointing to the ground at release. If that occurs, the stick will break. Yes, the chest does have to extend somewhere out over the stride leg knee, but it is not pointing at the ground at release. In understanding that each athlete is different, I will give some figures that should be taken with a grain of salt. I believe the release point happens about 4 to 6 inches in front of the athlete's cap bill. This varies from athlete to athlete. In saying this, understand that balance, stability and direction all have effects on repeating the delivery, but the reason pitchers should be balanced, stable and have a good direction to the target is to allow them to repeat their release point. To give the athlete feedback on how consistent their release point is, a partner should be added to the drill. This can happen on the bump or on flat ground. Get a consistent starting spot if peforming the drill on flat ground. Allow the pitcher to go through his delivery a couple times and get the partner to find where the cap bill is at release. The partner will then position the middle of his body and nose 4 to 6 inches in front of the cap bill. If this drill was being done on the game mound and the pitcher was a RHP, the partner would be standing on the 3b side of the dirt facing first base. The partner without the stick will close his eyes and allow the pitcher to go through his full delivery with the stick. The partner will not be able to see, but they want to hear when the start of the "whip-like" sound effect from the stick starts to happen and when it is at its loudest. The partner will then immediately put one finger up in the place where the sound was loudest. Ex: Pitcher goes through his delivery and the partner raises his finger in front of his left ear. Next time the pitcher goes through his delivery the partner raises his finger over his right eye. The third time the partner raises his finger in front of his nose. This gives feedback to the pitcher on how consistent his release point is. The pitcher should look for his partner to throw up his finger from his left eye to his right eye. That is a small distance and will help the pitcher to understand and feel the consistency of their release point.

When doing the stick drill without a partner, have the athlete's eyes facing a target at 60' away, or visualizing a target so that they get the proper extension in the correct direction: to the target and not to the ground. This drill can be done in a variety of different positions in the delivery, and and can also be done with a back side or front side intent.

What the athlete, partner, or coach will find is that when the pitcher falls to the plate, or allows his head to creep forward in the delivery the release point will be consistent to him doing this action. When the pitcher feels he has a sound delivery and allows his hips to rotate first then front shoulder and arm and then follow through, the release point will be consistent to those actions as well, giving correct feedback to the pitcher.

Hope this gets the baseball brains up and moving!

 

To be honest, I'm sure this is great advice, but reading it gave me a headache.

 

Somehow, I don't think Bob Gibson or Sandy Koufax ever did this. Drills are great, but they need to be simple so they can be easily repeated and done consistently (often). You can achieve desired results from simple drills, like the towel drill described by Up and In.

 

An excerpt from Branch Rickey's Little Blue Book. This was his personal scouting report on Sandy Koufax, page 30 down at the bottom. "This boy comes nearest to perfection in pitching as anyone in either major league at the present time. He has more speed than Spahn and almost perfect control of a slow curve, that really curves. He also has an exceptional fastball and occasionally throws a change-up off the fastball. He has four different pitches. The best thing about Koufax, that really makes him a great pitcher, is that he uses all four, three of them constantly. This fellow has so much stuff and has such perfect control that I am almost compelled to believe that the way to beat him is to let everybody hit every cripple even to the point where our extra base hitters would hit with three and none. Koufax is not likely to walk anybody. This is the first time in six-odd years that I have ever said anything of this sort about an opposing pitcher" Sandy Koufax had a 165-87 record in 12 major league seasons and compiled a nearly 3-1 ratio of strikeouts to walks. He is in the Hall of Fame.

Not all of us work with a Sandy Koufax on a daily basis. The stick is in place of the towel with a different intent. The simplicities of the drill lies within the fact that the athlete doesn't have to think about it, it allows them to feel what they are supposed to. Our job in reading the article and information that we read daily is to understand it and be able to communicate it to the athlete and simplify it in our own words. We may have to simplify more from athlete to athlete, or even talk more in depth about it to another athlete.