Transcription
Hi, Phil Schoenberg and Jill Stevens for Fast Pitch Power.
Today, I want to talk about something very important. We discuss it a lot, but maybe not in the exact way we're going to describe it today, which should be very helpful for all of our young developing pitchers and even our more advanced pitchers.
And that's hand path—the path of the arm circle, the plane that your hand is on throughout the entire movement of your pitch. The front side of the circle, the top of the circle, the back side of the circle, and through it.
It is very, very important that your hand path remains pure. What I mean by pure is that it stays on the correct plane for you to generate maximum power without sacrificing command of the 17-inch square, 43, 40, or 35 feet away, depending upon how old you are.
It is critical that that hand path remains pure. So how do we do that? We accomplish that by understanding the relationship of our body, our pitching hand, and our pitching elbow to the power line—this white line coming straight down.
Let's just talk about a fastball down the middle of the plate, coming straight down the pitching lane, right down the middle of home plate.
Coach Jill is first going to demonstrate coming off of the pitching rubber and understanding the sequence. There is a reach phase, then there is a track phase, and then there is a fire and drive phase. All of those phases have to be hit with your body in the correct position in order to maintain the correct hand path, which, as we just talked about, is essential for commanding that 17-inch square with maximum speed and power.
So, Coach Jill is going to show that sequence. Reach.
Now, look at the position that Coach Jill is in. All of this is very important. The stride foot is at about a 20 to 25-degree angle to the power line, about an inch or two to the left of the power line.
It is really important that that stride foot, if you're a right-hand pitcher, lands to the left of the power line. If you're a left-hand pitcher, your right foot lands to the right of the power line.
With your dry foot, Coach Jill's situation—her dry foot toe and knee are forward, her heel is up off the ground, and you can see that this part of her hip is facing forward. This is what came off the pitching rubber first. This is what led her body forward, not her face.
Her hips exploded under her shoulders and enabled her to get into this position that gives you the ability to keep that dry foot toe and knee forward and to easily get it through when you do your drive through.
Now, you'll also notice that Coach Jill is reaching out, and if you're the catcher, both hands are covering her catcher's glove. That's how you're going to establish a throw zone, pointing at your target.
From this point, also notice—very important—I don't really care how you come up the front side of the circle, palm down. I prefer a handshake position, a little bit more pronated for a handshake position, but your elbow needs to be pointing to the ground. That's what's critical.
So, it's more critical coming down the back side of the circle that your palm is up and your elbow is down. If you can accomplish that by coming up the front side of the circle this way and not losing the purity of that arm circle, that's fine.
So, you'll notice Coach Jill's elbow is pointing to the ground. Now, Coach Jill's going to track.
Now, you will notice that Coach Jill tracks, but I want you to pay really close attention here. If I put a dot here—I have it on my own shirt, but Coach Jill put it there—if I put a dot here and a dot here, you can see that you don't want that to disappear.
If I get into this position and my hand is now coming from behind my body, I am not taking a pure path to my target. I'm going to sacrifice speed and command both because in order to hit that 17-inch square, I just can't throw the ball anywhere I want. I have to hit that 17-inch square; otherwise, it's a ball.
Every pitch I throw is going to be a ball. So, I need to command that 17-inch square with maximum speed and power. I have to make sure my body is in the correct position, and we're talking about a fastball down the middle of the plate.
So, this and this never leave the power line—not up the front side of the circle, not to the top of the circle, not coming down the back side of the circle and through.
When you establish your throw zone, that is pointing at your target, once that stride foot touches the ground, you fire to the end of it and drive straight through. If that throw zone hasn't moved and your hand has stayed over it or in the throw zone, your throw zone—if you bend it in the shape of a circle—that's your arm circle directly over the power line.
You are going to command that strike zone with maximum speed.
There is a really great drill, which Coach Jill calls the upper and lower body isolation drill.
The upper and lower body isolation drill teaches you that there is a separation between the movements. There is subtle rotation in the delivery of the pitch, but the movement of your lower body and your upper body can be independent of each other.
So, if I have my hips in this position, I can move my shoulders without really moving my hips, and likewise, I can move my hips without really moving my shoulders.
I want you to understand that there is a separation between your hips and your shoulders, and all of that adds to your ability to keep that arm circle pure.
So, Coach Jill's going to show you that drill.
Okay, going to step into her landed position. She's going to start out in the reach phase as though she just exploded off the pitching rubber. Notice everything's square.
Now she's going to track, and now she's going to touch her glove a second time, and now she's going to touch her glove a third time, and now she's going to do a circle.
You will notice when she's done that the repetition of coming around with your body in the correct position. Notice when I track—I haven't tracked now. I'm not reaching and tracking as one thing. The reach happens first.
Now, you're not stopping, so there is not a lot of time in between them, but each of the phases has to be hit: the load phase, the reach phase, the track phase, the fire and drive phase.
Your body must be in the correct position in order to maintain the purity of that arm circle, which is critical to commanding the strike zone with maximum speed.
So, let Coach Jill show you what happens when you don't track at the right time, when you pre-track, or when your hand comes off the power line or off the throw zone, and what happens to the purity of that circle.
Jill will demonstrate.
Okay, so now Coach Jill has tracked way too soon. Her dry foot is now sort of collapsed. I'm really bad at pre-tracking; I don't know really how to pre-track.
But the most important thing you're seeing here is remember those two dots on her shoulder and her head? Well, they're gone now. You can't see them, and that means that her ball is coming from behind.
Here's her plane, but her ball is way over here. Actually, she's going to get it back there. She's going to rotate her body, she's going to bring her elbow out, she's going to swing her arm around, she's going to probably come from over her head, and the purity of that circle is lost.
As soon as you lose the purity of that arm circle because your body is not in the right position or you don't understand the relationship of your hand and elbow to the power line and how that relationship has to be maintained, command and speed are sacrificed.
It can't happen any other way. I don't care if you're throwing the ball at 75 miles an hour; you can't hit that 17-inch square where you're supposed to hit it. You're going to be sitting on the bench. I don't care how fast you're throwing the ball.
So, it's really, really important to understand that relationship. Unfortunately, these things don't happen in isolation. It's not just your arm that is delivering the ball.
All of the elements of the pitch—your reach phase, your track phase, your fire and drive phase, how you position your body, where your feet go—show once more, Coach Jill, when you come off the pitching rubber what you should look like when you are in the reach phase and then the track phase.
What you should look like.
Okay, here's Coach Jill in the reach phase again. Everything is square. Now, this is not going to happen in sequence like this when you're pitching. It's all going to happen in continuous fluid motion, but she's going to hit this spot before she goes to the next spot.
Track. Now she's got her body in the perfect position to establish a throw zone pointing at her target. Fire, firing, and driving straight through.
Now you'll see that because of her body position, because of the purity of her arm circle, she was able to fire that ball right down that power line and into the catcher's glove because that's where she pointed her throw zone.
The stability of that throw zone was maintained all throughout the phases of the pitch, and she commanded the strike zone with maximum speed.
I hope that this has been useful for you. It's really important, and we want to hear your comments. We want to know what your struggles are so that we can address them.
If you want a full explanation of that upper and lower body isolation drill, because there are a lot of critical movements, it's on Fast Pitch Power Plus. So, you're definitely going to want to make sure you check that out.
Talk to you next time.