How To Quickly Improve Pitching Mechanics And Velocity In Hours Instead Of Weeks

by Dick Mills on December 05, 2009

Improving pitching mechanics is the real secret to boosting pitching velocity while reducing the risk of pitching arm injuries.  However, it starts by understanding how the body produces pitching velocity and not the arm.  As Giants' Cy Young award winner Tim Lincecum says: "My arm is along for the ride."

And it starts by the pitcher having awareness of what his body is doing and whether change is occurring or not. Without videotaping seeing that is impossible. 

This video shows a comparison a 16 year old lefty's mechanics from one day to the next..  He and his father came to our Scottsdale, AZ facility from Mississippi in Nov. 09 for a two day session.  These adjustments occurred within a four hour time span from one day to the next.

Making quick mechanical adjustments can be accomplished only when the instructor (or parent) understands how a pitcher's body is supposed to work to produce power so the arm can be used for control. And any parent can easily learn how to do this whether they ever played baseball or not.

Why Don't All Instructors Use Videotaping To Help Create Quick Changes?

These types of quick adjustments should be common place at every high school and college as well as every baseball facility in this country...but they are not because instructors have not studied mechanics and therefor see no justification for videotaping.  Instead instructors continue to produce slow and robotic pitchers because they believe pitching drills improve mechanics when research has proven they do not produce long term change. 

However, video analysis and videotaping have proven to be the most powerful "magic bullets" when it comes to helping pitchers of all ages make quick mechanical adjustments that can create big improvements in pitching velocity.  And these adjustments can occur in just a few short hours instead of weeks or months as well as creating lasting change.

Why does video analysis and videotaping during lessons work so quickly. Because mechanical changes can only occur when the pitcher has the awareness of what he is doing with his body and fully understands how his body should work efficiently. Change occurs first in the pitcher's brain which then tells the body what it needs to do to create the change in movement.

So instead of mechanical changes or velocity improvement taking weeks...they can take just hours.  And yet parents are wasting thousands of dollars every off-season using pitching instructors who would rather guess than be accurate in their assessments by videotaping.  Every parent should demand that their son be videotaped and that they get a full written assessment of his mechanical strengths and weaknesses along with reasons for proposed changes.

These are some of the important aspects I have been focusing on in our Explosively Pitching DVD program since 2004.  We teach parents how to help their sons use their bodies to pitch instead of just their arms. Not only does this improve velocity but reduces the risk of arm injuries.

See our Holiday Discounts on our instructional DVD's:  http://www.pitching.com/products/

"I had spent several hundred dollars on a pitching coach who was leading my son down the path to ruin. He embraced every failed philosophy and technique you've identified - long toss, towel drills and more drills ad nauseum. My son's skills were deteriorating. When I found your website and read your report, I sense intuitively your words had merit and deserved further study."    Mark Smith, Downers Grove, IL