7 Ways To Improve Pitching By Using Proper Pitching Practice Techniques
by Dick Mills on August 06, 2009
How often pitchers practice their pitching mechanics and how much they practice their pitching will determine how successful they become as pitchers.
I believe today that over 50% of a pitcher's time is wasted on practice activities that do not lead to improvement...such as lots of pitching drills, weighted balls, flat ground pitching or even long toss.
Pitching is first and foremost a skill activity. If that skill is not practiced often enough or in sufficient volume then most pitchers will not improve to the best of their ability.
Here is a checklist of what pitchers should focus on and what pitchers should practice if they want to improve their mechanics, velocity and their control:
- Learn which mechanical faults reduce velocity and control and which might add stress to the arm. (without knowing the 21 common mechanical faults that reduce velocity and control pitchers may end up practicing those faults and getting worse instead of better.)
- Videotape the pitcher from three angles and write down which faults need to be eliminated
- Work on one fault at a time starting from the beginning of the delivery since eliminating errors in the beginning can improve other faults that occur later
- For those pitchers who pitch from a mound during games, only practice from the mound most of the time. Flat ground practice should be limited since it does not transfer to mound practice.
- Focus on making a positive changes in mechanics during each session. You must use a camcorder in order to see whether there is improvement or not.
- Put the pitcher into the correct finish position, ball release, landing and starting position so he can create a mental movie of the correct delivery that he wants to create. Using other pitchers with good mechanics as good examples can be helpful.
- Practice in blocked sets of pitches such as 5. Have the pitcher focus on making the change prior to each practice pitch by mentally seeing the change occur prior to each pitch. Then look at the video after the 5th pitch to see what occurred. Continue that for several blocked sets of pitches focusing on eliminating one mechanical fault at a time.
During the season I suggest that pitchers pitch in one game and have two practice bullpens since the game provides the feedback for what needs to be improved.
During the off-season pitchers can practice two or more times a week as long as they are getting enough recovery time in between sessions.
The problem is most parents and coaches focus on making too many changes during one session. This is a big mistake and may cause the pitcher to get frustrated because he can only consciously think about one thing at a time.
The more often a pitcher practices by getting feedback from videotaping, the quicker he will improve. Despite what most coaches and instructors teach, sports science research has proven that pitching drills are not a beneficial tool for improving pitching mechanics.
For pitchers to improve changes must first occur in their brain from knowing what they should be focusing on changing. Change does not occur by mindless practice of a particular drill.
One other thing that is important. Most baseball coaches and parents do not understand that a much higher volume of practice is required in order to make major improvement since pitching like golf is a skill activity. This is why not practicing pitching enough or practicing something that dissimilar such as long toss, will not help a pitcher improve to the best of his ability.
How to practice properly is what 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. How to throw bullpens to improve velocity and control while reducing the risk of arm injuries. http://www.pitching.com/products/
"My 14 year old son's velocity jumped 12 mph, his control improved dramatically and his arm pain vanished. For the first time since he has been pitching, he finally understands what he is doing...what causes the ball to do what it does and how his body functions to be effective...now that is priceless."
Mark A Smith, Downers, Grove, IL
