Teaching Kids How To Pitch Is Made More Difficult By Baseball Pitching Myths

by Dick Mills on October 20, 2009

In order for kids to become skilled as pitchers, they must learn how to pitch by doing more practice pitching than is currently believed.  This is according to the most recent sports science research.

Right now baseball coaches and instructors are recommending too many practice activities that do not transfer to helping a pitcher improve...such as long toss, towel drills or doing more flat ground pitching and less mound pitching.  Or throwing bullpens at less than game intensity in order to just work on control or mechanics. Neither works.

Sports science research has proven for example, that using long toss to try to build arm strength is mostly a huge waste of time since arm strength is not much of a factor for improving velocity or reducing the risk of injury.  And yet, even major league pitchers have been led to believe arm strength is important when research clearly says that it is the body that produces velocity while the arm is used mainly for control.

In other words if you want kids at all levels, from Little League through high school and college, to reach their full potential any practice activity that is different than mound pitching or game pitching will not help a pitcher improve. 

This is all based on common scientific principles that are followed much more regularly in other sports but not baseball. 

One such sports science principle is the Principle of Specificity that simple states that  practice activities must be just like game competition.  For pitchers,  that means any variation from mound pitching or game speed pitching, will not help that pitcher improve his pitching. He will get better at the practice activity such as long toss or doing towel drills but those practice activities will not help his pitching when he gets into a game and has to face hitters. In fact, it will detract from him improving his mechanics.

The pitcher ends up with  two different sets of mechanics - one he uses in practice and one he must use in a game. How will he get more skilled for game pitching by practicing different skills during practice? 

The Principle of Neuromuscular Patterning says that even slight orientations in the speed of execution of the "same" skill will produce a totally different mechanical result.  For example, doing pitching drills at less than game speed or game intensity is not beneficial since the slower speed of movement while doing the drill is interpreted by the body and mind as a completely different skill.

This is why pitchers should never throw bullpens at less than game intensity or should never slow down their delivery to work on ball control because essentially this will reduce velocity potential.  When the pitcher gets into the game and has to now throw a fastball, the control he worked on at slower speeds will not help him. If pitchers need to improve control they need to do more target practice to the same location over and over throwing many more pitches than is previously believed by coaches.

Based on the current sports science research do you really want pitchers to get good at practice activities that they are not able to use to help them improve?  Of course not.

Do you want pitchers that are good at long distance throwing or doing towel drills or do you want pitchers who can learn to throw downhill at a specific distance in order to get hitters out.  No pitcher will be rewarded for having great towel drill mechanics or long distance throwing mechanics.

Pitchers get better only by doing a lot of pitching while being videotaped so the pitcher and the instructor or parent can see improvements or faults. That is the feedback needed for improvement.

If you waste time on pitching drills, long toss, weighted balls or lifting weights you will lose velocity and the opportunity to reach your full velocity potential.  It is all about mechanics and of course being functionally fit to pitch. It is not about strength.

This 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. Not only does this improve velocity but reduces 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