Why Pitching Mechanics Is Far More Important Than Baseball Pitching Velocity

Since the advent of the internet the biggest emphasis seems to be on developing more baseball pitching velocity. Weighted balls, having been around now for over 30 years, have reappeared again, which seems to happen every few years or so and mostly because of websites who believe they work but never explain how.

I have still yet to see it explained how weighted balls are supposed to work to produce more velocity. The advocates don’t even know and cannot explain one legitimate reason or a sports science principle that confirms how they produce more velocity.

You see people have come to believe unfortunately, even more so now, that baseball pitching velocity is all about the arm. They believe that if you build arm strength then velocity will come. Or if you develop a certain arm action that pitching velocity will come. Or that if you do certain exercises that pitching velocity will come. Or that if do weight training that pitching velocity will come. Or that if you do more long toss that pitching velocity will come.

This dogma or baseball pitching lore runs rampant at all levels right up to professional baseball. And what is interesting is that there is no evidence that any of those things will build velocity on their own. None! The weak studies that were done with weighted baseballs would never pass scientific muster.

Baseball pitching velocity has been proven by biomechanists, using 1000 frames per second video, to be all about the summation of all the body’s forces together that finally pull the arm through at high speed. Pitching velocity is ultimately about how fast the pitcher can get his trunk to rotate…to deliver his arm.

But trunk rotation speed is all about how much energy the pitcher can develop and transfer from his lower body to this trunk. If his lower body is slow…then his trunk rotation speed will be slow. If his trunk is slow because his lower body is slow then his arm speed will be slow and so won’t his velocity.

Developing more baseball pitching velocity is about using pitching mechanics that allow the pitcher’s body to put as many muscles on stretch as quickly as possible. In order to do that pitchers must learn how to shift their weight so that they gain the benefit of a long stride while putting the trunk into the correct position to deliver the arm.

Ask yourself how then will focusing on the arm help the pitcher develop more forces that propel the arm? Won’t work. The focus must be on developing more efficient pitching mechanics that allow the body to move faster so that the arm will speed up.

Anything that slows the pitcher’s movement down will slow down his arm speed and his velocity. Throwing weighted balls or going into the weight room will not help put more muscles on stretch faster because both forms of exercise actually produce slowness and only work certain muscle groups. And if you teach the body to train slower it will be slower.

Throwing weighted baseballs provide no benefit to helping produce a faster moving body that will put muscles on stretch faster. But they can slow the pitcher down.

This may be one of the several reasons why professional baseball could care less about weighted balls. They just don’t make sense and they do not work for a fully developed pitcher. They only “seem” to work for pitchers who are growing or who are not well trained. The only reason that weighted balls appear to work is that because the pitcher simply throws more often than maybe he did before.

Pitchers who want to throw harder should work on developing better pitching mechanics and on doing exercises that are explosive so that the body learns how to put more muscles on stretch faster. Then if the pitcher wants a better fastball he must work on using those mechanics while throwing more fastballs at higher intensity.

But don’t sacrifice mechanics for velocity because that is how pitchers end up with arm injuries. Pitchers as they are developing should focus on making fewer and fewer errors with their mechanics as they continue to challenge themselves to put more force on the ball while throwing to a target…since pitching velocity without control is useless.

Dick Mills

If you have questions about this blog 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 at 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.)