It’s no mystery that one of the keys to successful pitching is a consistent release point. While I do believe that the term “repeatable delivery” is a bit of a stretch, and that many times inconsistency in your arm slot can be a major cause of difficulty in repeating your delivery, I believe we need to dig a little deeper and look closer down the kinetic chain to lower half pitching issues. Continue reading “5 Lower Half Pitching Issues Preventing a Consistent Release Point”
As a driven high school baseball player with hopes and dreams of playing college baseball your attention is constantly being directed towards sculpting yourself into the quintessential 5-Tool player. The 5-tools below are skills of the game that scouts are looking for in potential prospect(s) to help give their teams the greatest opportunity to compete and ultimately win a national championship.
The intention behind this article is to hone in on the first tool…. SPEED, and answer the question “WHY?”. Why is speed such a sought-after tool for scouts and offer you 3 things YOU can do to develop this skill. Continue reading “3 Pillars for Enhancing First Step Quickness”
It’s been a crazy year for everyone, but that didn’t stop us from continuing our efforts to develop great ball players while educating the community at the same time. Here are the top received blogs of 2020. Continue reading “Best of 2020… Strength Training, Pitching and Hitting Articles”
Having observed hundreds of pitchers on our Rapsodo Pitching camera during the past several years, it’s fair to say that there are a few tendencies that most high school and collegiate pitchers exhibit. While every pitcher is different with their skillset, we generally tend to observe similar opportunities for improvement in pitch movement.
In this first of three articles… Continue reading “What are the Most Common Pitch Movement Issues… And the Fixes”
A comprehensive arm care program for pitchers should be a part of every athlete’s routine. Although most pitchers think of the warm-up when it comes to arm care, a post pitching arm care and recovery protocol is just as important. We often get asked about arm care after a throwing session. Basically, it should involve 6 exercises that can easily done in less than 25 minutes and its primary purpose is to help restore lost mobility during an outing. Here’s a quick summary: Continue reading “Post Pitching Arm Care Routine for Pitchers”
Over the past few years, we have had hundreds of baseball players, specifically pitchers come through our facility. While they come in all shapes, sizes and technical ability, they all are looking to do the same thing, how to throw a baseball harder and do so safely working with a baseball throwing program. So, while this article is about how we build throwing programs, it’s important to highlight that the body has its own language and agenda, and you cannot learn it by only learning 3 or 4 words. You certainly can’t do it by slapping together some throwing drills with long toss and pull-down days. Continue reading “How to Build a Baseball Throwing Program”
Last week I posted a “before and after” shot of a proprioceptive drill that I use with our athletes to train anchoring the lower half in order to create a more stable platform at the hip and to actually allow the athlete to “feel” what we are attempting to train during a common throwing drill that we use with most of our throwers. It received such a great response that I decided to explain it in slightly more detail. You can view the post here: Continue reading “Creating Lower Half Stability to Create Upper Half Mobility”
Doesn’t matter the sport, everyone wants to be fast. Unfortunately, not everyone is, but everyone can surely get faster. This comes down to a few key principles, and it’s not just about running a faster baseball 60 yard dash. In this article, we’re going to review speed training for baseball players, position-specific speed and some of the techniques we use here at RPP to get our guys more explosive, so they can run faster on the field. Here’s a brief outline:
Let’s get into it…. Continue reading “Speed Training for Baseball Players”
Hip shoulder separation in pitching is a major contributor to efficient pitching and hitting mechanics, and a big piece of the puzzle to all things velocity. In this article, we are going to review the relevance of several metrics on hip shoulder separation using pitching biomechanics data charts as follows:
Continue reading “Pitching Biomechanics: Understanding Hip Shoulder Separation”
Whether we’re talking about throwing velocity on the mound or exit velocity at the plate, improving and better utilizing ground reaction forces with a lead leg block is paramount. Training the lead leg to both produce and accept force will help to create a stable base and facilitate hip and torso rotation up the chain. Continue reading “How to Create a Better Lead Leg Block”
