All About Pitching

How Flat Ground Pitching Reduces Pitching Skills

Most baseball coaches today advice the use of flat ground pitching helping fully developed pitchers stay injury free. So they recommend flat ground pitching to reduce stress to the arm and body.

Of course there is no scientific evidence that flat ground pitching has any value except to enhance flat ground pitching. This could only mean then that flat ground pitching has no value for improving pitching performance or reducing the risk of injury. If it does not help improve performance then it must then be a waste of valuable time that pitchers will never get back.

Let's examine flat ground pitching more closely. Pitching on flat ground requires completely different mechanics than pitching downhill from a slop or a pitching mound. Everything about it is different.

On flat ground the stride is shorter because the pitcher is not able to use gravity or drive his body downhill which is much easier to do when pitching from a mound. The throwing arm will be in a different position because the arm will have less time to get into its normal throwing position.

The timing of the pitch is different. There is more to it but essentially the timing of the parts of the body is totally different on flat ground than when pitching from the mound. And of course all the forces are different.

So essentially we have two different kinds of pitches. A flat ground pitch and a pitch we execute from the mound.

The question that coaches and pitchers should be asking is—why would you practice one completely different activity if it did not improve the skills of pitching in the game. Do pitchers really want to have two different sets of mechanics…one for practice and one for games? How do game skills against hitters improve by practicing something that is essentially different than what they will do during a game?

How does a pitcher ever gain the feeling of an exact release point during a game against hitters using all his various pitches when he will be practicing a completely different release point when pitching from flat ground pitching.

The other argument for flat ground pitching is that it is believed to be more stressful on the body since there is more force produced upon landing when moving the body downhill. This may be true, however, if you don't practice moving the body downhill, whether it produces more force or not upon landing, how will the body get used to or get trained to feel that extra force when pitching in games. How will the body learn how to stabilize itself upon landing if it is not practiced?

Why Flat Ground Pitching Is Not Less Stressful Than Mound Pitching

Most coaches also argue that flat ground throwing is less stressful on the arm so by doing it you can save the arm for the game. The fact is that pitching on flat ground is actually more stressful on the arm because the body cannot generate as much energy therefor it must come from the arm. So we have another myth that coaches continue to keep alive…that doesn't make any sense.

I heard that one D1 coach on the eastcoast actually removed all his practice mounds because of the beliefs about flat ground pitching being less stressful. So now he has all his pitchers practicing on flat ground to get ready for game where they will have to pitch from a mound. So his pitchers never get to practice the skill of pitching from the mound. They essentially practice a completely different skill to get ready for game competition. This is idiotic to say the least. And acually more stressful on all the pitcher's arms.

It must be remembered that pitching is a discrete skill that requires practicing those mechanical skills in order to maintain proper timing. When a pitcher makes an almost effortless smooth-feeling high velocity pitch, that requires proper timing. A smooth-looking pitch is the result of proper timing of those mechanics. If a pitcher is herky-jerky we know his timing is off.

The problem today at all levels is that coaches don't seem to understand that pitching is a movement skill that requires a high volume of practice…just like golf or tennis. And yet we have coaches advising pitchers to practice a different set of skills than will be required when pitching against hitters…such as flat ground pitching.

It should be quite clear then that no amount of flat ground pitching can ever help a pitcher improve his game pitching.

If baseball coaches don't understand this one essential idea for helping pitchers improve which is to have them do in practice what will be required to do in a game against hitters…we should be very cautious then of which coaches we listen to about pitching in general.

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