Baseball Parents Beware—Why It’s Tough Hiring A Qualified Baseball Pitching Instructor

by Dick Mills on December 11, 2004

How should you as a parent go about trying to find a qualified baseball pitching instructor for your son?

This should be a very well thought out decision because what the instructor teaches your son could have a huge impact on his future pitching performance. The problem is not finding one…but rather finding one that is qualified. Finding an instructor who has specific knowledge of biomechanics rather than just personal pitching experience. Personal experience in sports has not proven to be an effective means of teaching a student.

So of course one of the rages right now in youth baseball is the ability for parents to hire a private baseball pitching instructor or have their child attend a local baseball school to get regular pitching lessons. The costs will range anywhere from $30 an hour up to $50 for a 1/2 hour. The idea being of course is that the instruction will help the baseball pitcher improve so he is able to continuously move to the next level. But of course many frantic and fanatic parents are looking long term beyond Little League to not only just making the high school team…but getting the rare baseball scholarship and even beyond to the big dream of getting drafted into pro baseball and then pitching in the big leagues.

The same interest of instruction was popular about 15 years ago in the gym or health club industry where members could hire personal strength trainers to help them improve their strength and fitness. My wife Ginny was one of those trainers. The problem was in finding a qualified instructor since just about every "muscle head" who had every weight trained to build their own body… felt qualified to be your favorite trainer.

But shortly after the clubs saw the liability problem, a host of certification organizations popped up so that trainers would not give poor training advice that could lead to injury or health improvement. But not all trainers decided to go through the certification process and some clubs did not even require it. Those members of the club who hired the uncertified trainer were taking the risk.

My wife Ginny decided to seek certification from The American College of Sports Medicine…considered the toughest of the certification organizations because they went deep into sports science and physiology. There certification process required week long classes and lots of extra study in order to pass the two day oral and written test to reach certification status as a health and fitness instructor. Most trainers chose to get certified by other organizations because the required study and test were much easier to pass.

This however is very unlike what goes on in baseball when parents are seeking to hire a private instructor. The qualifications are similar today in baseball pitching instruction…where the "muscle heads" felt their experience in training their own bodies was sufficient to help a client improve. It's the same with the large majority of baseball pitching instructors. Their experience as either former college or minor league pitchers becomes their "certification"—their badge to guarantee that parents seeking pitching improvement in their sons will get what they pay for.

In the large majority of cases parents and aspiring successful pitchers are getting far less than what they are paying for and don't even know it. We know this because as a business that has been selling every facit of baseball pitching instruction since 1995… to coaches at all levels and to parents …we hear the stories weekly from parents calling us who were disallusioned. They thought the instructors experience was enough to insure good instruction. They found out that after a few lessons that they what they were paying for during many lessons…was an expensive bullpen session—with little ongoing instruction. And poor communication between the instructor, the student and the instructor and parent.

Baseball pitching experience…even those who have played at the professional level is not necessarily enough to qualify one as a teacher of pitching. Most former pitchers will teach the student what they know or what worked for them or in some cases… or what they have heard from other instructors. Little real study of current researched biomechanics of pitching goes on after hours to insure that that the instructor really knows what he is talking about.

Trying to copy what someone else has done to become skillful at pitching is a poor way to learn and usually does not work.

So the least important qualification of a baseball pitching instructor is that he played college or professional baseball. I tell you this from my experience. I played six years of professional baseball at every level including three years on the big league roster but only had a "cup of coffee" in the big leagues.

Did that experience provide me with the knowledge I now have of pitching biomechanics and training and conditioning? Absoutely not. However, looking back I can understand that I did no weight training or long toss in order to throw with above average velocity…as did most of my teammates in both college and six years of pro baseball since the advent of weight training did not begin until about the late eighties or early nineties.

The experience of professional baseball is certainly helpful for a number of obvious reasons because I pretty much know what pitchers are trying to feel and what they are thinking about when they are preparing for a game or standing on the mound in a tough situation. Professional experience can also help with pre-game preparation.

In most cases former players…especially who played professionally can help pitchers with grips, how to throw certain pitches or strategy and sometimes with parts of the mental game. However, the large majority do not understand biomechanics or training principles.

Honestly, very little of my professional experience gave me the tools to produce our pitching instruction program over the years of over 20 videos initially…now put onto 8 DVD's, over 10 audio CD's, two books, and over 800 pages of monthly newsletter information. I got that the old fashioned way…I studied it just like I studied to get my BA degree. And have yet to stop consulting with sports scientist and trying to find better ways that make sense based on sports science training principles rather than typical baseball dogma.

So the question that parents need to ask their potential baseball pitching instructor is not…what is your experience…but rather: How do you know what you know? Where did you get your information?

Ask them pointed questions such as:

• Do you plan to do an initial video analysis and show us what you feel to be his mechanical problems? And how often do you do follow up video analysis so we can see the progress? If they say they do not do a video analysis you do not need to have them answer your questions. Immediately look for another instructor…pronto. You have just found someone who is unqualified to help your son…despite his background and experience in pitching.
• What exactly are my son's problems and how will you help fix them? What exactly will you be teaching my son?
• Will you give him homework…techniques that he may be able to work on by himself?
• Are you in favor of drills and why since pitching is a simple two phase motor skill with no natural breaks? Won't drills actually disrupt his ability to develop a smooth delivery? (lot of drills is a clue that the instructor does not really understand mechanics. It is smokecreen. Drills are mostly only applicable to beginners. The faster the pitcher gets away from drills the better and more comfortable his delivery will become.)
• Could you explain to me and my son how power is created in the pitching delivery?
• Is it necessary for him to get stronger in order to throw harder? If so how is it that Little League pitchers without any strength training are able to throw the equivilent of 90 mph…since they do not strength train?
• Should my son's stride be long or short? (If he tells you that stride doesn't matter or wants to shorten your son's stride…immediately find another instructor. He does not understand one of the big reasons that pitchers like NolanRyan threw so hard with a stride length unusually long of 100% of his height. The large majority of hard throwing pitchers at the professional level use a long stride. Most pitchers should try to attain a long stride in the 85-90% of height range.)
• Do you believe in weighted baseballs…if so why? If he says he believes in weighted baseballs and will be integrating them into your son's practice routines…find another instructor. He does not understand that pitching is not about arm strength but about how quickly the pitcher can put all his muscles on stretch…like a big rubber band. It's about explosiveness…how quickly you can move body parts…not strength any more than golf is about strength. Pitching is a full body activity. The big muscles move the smaller ones…like the arm.
• How long will it take to fix my son's problems? (To make any headway at all it is going to take a minumum of 10 lessons…usually much more to get your son on the right track…if you are lucky enough to find a good instructor. Then your boy will need continuous booster sessions from year to year as he grows. So your investment is lessons will more than likely far exceed $500 in the beginning.
• What kind of feedback will you expect from my son so that you know that he is understanding what you are trying to communicate?
• What kind of ongoing communication will we be getting on his progress?

Those questions should give you a good basis to understand if you feel that a particular pitching instructor is qualified to help your son make progress in improving his pitching performance.

One of the purposes of our instructional program… besides helping parents teach pitching to their son is to also use our program to help evaluate whether your son is getting good instruction from his instructor.

Hiring the wrong instructor could prove to be disasterous for your son's pitching career.

There are many good pitching instructors out there who are very dedicated. Look long and hard to find a good one.

If you have questions about this post or on any phase of pitching—mechanics, strength and conditioning, mental training, strategy send those questions to dickmills@gmail.com and I will answer them here.

If you want an explosive body and explosive mechanics you need to get my Free Report from my website www.pitching.nexcess.net/. We won't waste your time. We show you how to recognize exactly what is holding back most pitchers…find the problem—fix the problem. I show you a comparison between two high school pitchers and a major league pitcher who throws mid to upper nineties. You will see the biggest problem that reduces velocity in the majority of pitchers.

(If you are a high school or college coach, ask for our special Free Coach's Report.)

Copyright 2004 Dick Mills and All About Pitching. All rights reserved. With credit given all parts of these articles may be quoted. Do not reproduce without written permission.