A Baseball Pitching Drill That Helps Teach 'Leading With The Front Hip'

On LetsTalkPitchng.com, we recently had some discussion around baseball pitching drills to help promote proper pitching mechanics of leading with the hip to generate momentum. Here's a pitching drill called the Hershiser Drill that helps teach leading with the front hip and keep head and shoulders slightly behind the front hip.

You stand sideways to a padded wall or chain link fence with your glove side shoulder facing the wall/fence. Then you lift your knee and push your hip or back pocket into the wall. The hip or back pocket should be the first and only part of your body to touch the wall/fence. You can reverse rotate the shoulders as if you're "showing your number" to help.

Start with your pivot foot about one shoe length from the wall/fence. Then progress to the pivot foot being two shoe lengths from the wall/fence. Wear a glove. And practice pushing the hip early - before peak of knee lift or even right after the stride foot lifts off the ground.

Have A Mirror? Here's A Simple Baseball Pitching Drill

If you're a youth baseball parent or coach, the following drill can be a useful tool in helping your young pitcher(s) develop a "feel" for his mechanics.

Pitchers can get in front of a full length mirror and practice their perfect delivery 100 times a day. Take 10 seconds from start to finish for each repetition, and really think about each phase of your motion.

Watching yourself in slow motion, thinking and executing as you relay information to every muscle you are using is a great way to learn the fundamental skills of pitching.

The self-discipline and concentration in this muscle memory exercise can help youth pitchers establish a strong feeling of purpose and strength of mind, both of which are key in his development.

Pitching Drills For Little League

The following baseball pitching drills are for little league baseball pitchers.

Follow Through Drill For Little League

It's used to follow through properly, and effectively. Stand in front of a chair with your stride foot in proper landing position. Place your Glove arm side leg on the chair with the inside of your foot. Come to the set position and break your hands then (if able) throw to a target. This drill forces you to bend your back and follow through with your back leg.

Kneel Drill For Little League

I used this to warm up both in high school and college. An easy way to establish muscle memory on all of your pitches when locating which makes repetition of mechanics that much easier.  Kneeling with your glove arm side leg off the ground go through the normal throwing motion with your chest ending up out over your glove arm side knee. This helps with follow through along with most of the upper body action in your pitches.

Spot Drill For Little League

An easy way to establish muscle memory on all of your pitches when locating which makes repetition of mechanics that much easier. When throwing bullpens, spot from a 60-75% throw. 3 low and inside 3 high and inside 3 low and outside and 3 high and outside. Do this with ALL of your pitches.

Leg Swing Drill For Little League

This one is just used to slowly warm up and take the legs away from throwing which allows one to focus more on the muscle memory aspect of the chest and waist. The Leg Swing drill is for the pitchers who kick their leg up rather than lifting. Some people prefer the kick so not everyone will be able to use these. Start from the stretch with your lead leg BEHIND your plant leg. Lift up to the balance position and proceed with the throw. This can also help to teach leading with the hips.

[Thx, Hoysauce]

Consistently Missing High In The Strike Zone? Here's A Simple Fix

If you're having trouble throwing strikes and are consistently missing high in the strike zone (in other words, you're not consistently throwing good low strikes at the hitters' knees), LetsTalkPitching.com member redsox8191 recently posted this suggestion:

"My son went to a pitching clinic just this past Sunday with Coach John Bagonzi. In it, he stated that if you are missing consistently high you should try to extend your stride a bit. He said that one inch increase in your stride length can equal 7 inches lower by the time the ball reaches the plate. Try to increase your stride length just a touch."

The Towel Drill ... Use It Or Lose It?

Here are a couple of responses from two Div. 1 pitching coaches, to start the conversation. What do you think about the towel drill? Should baseball pitchers use it as a tool to improve pitching mechanics ... or lose it and focus on other pitching drills or training methods?

Comment #1: Towel drills are old school. "Reaching out to a measured 5 heel to toe steps to target at waist height" is the worst thing to happen to baseball. Hate it! New thought of hitting target approximately the same area of release, neat drill but little carry over. If the individual is not throwing a baseball or incrediball etc. there will always be a tough time in the action. Work should be applied to the pitching process; we don't throw towels though my current fastball may resemble it.

Comment #2: Lose it..... I think the towel drill forces the pitcher to become too linear in the delivery.  I do think you can use it to help the pitcher with glove side/throwing side symmetry (ex.- a pitcher who has a longer arm swing, but very short glove side)In this case, by trying to reach out, the pitcher is forced to expand with glove side, promoting symmetry and timing.  Otherwise, the traditional towel drill has very little carryover to actual pitching.

Can This Hockey Drill Help Baseball Pitchers Learn To Stride Properly?

You be the coach on this one... As you know, teaching the mechanics of proper leg push to younger baseball pitchers can be tricky. Do you think this hockey drill could help?

To help frame our discussion, here are some pics of major league pitchers striding...

Hideki Okajima
  (He's a lefty, so he strides with the side of his front foot
  facing the target and his toe pointed toward 1B.)

Hideki Okajima

Gary Majewski
  (He's a righty, so he strides with the side of his front foot
  facing the target and his toe pointed toward 3B.)

Ricky Nolasco

Curt Schilling

Carlos Silva

Kip Wells

Post your responses in the "Comments" section below.

If You Do Pitching Drills, Will You Lose Velocity?

Do sprinters lose speed walking? Sometimes it helps to work on the pitching delivery without thinking about location.

[Thx, Emo]

My Thoughts On Flat-Ground Pitching

For younger pitchers, flat ground work is becoming more and more popular. Flat-ground training offers the opportunity for higher numbers of repetitions at relatively greater safety. Research shows that pitching off a mound can put up to 5 times the body's weight of pressure on the pitcher's joints. Working on spotting the baseball from flat ground is smart and can particularly save some added stress on a youth pitcher with an inefficient delivery.

"Dialing down" the fastball is also important when working on locating the fastball in skill work sessions. I have made many mound visits where I will simply ask a pitcher to start throwing his fastball at 85-90%.

Having said this, though, a balanced amount of mound training is important for youth pitchers. Remember, we all pitch from mounds in games. Pitching from mounds in practice teaches pitchers how to handle the slope and develop a comfort zone for it. Mound work also encourages a more natural stride (because you have gravity working for you), a more natural release point and better overall timing.

The older and more advanced a pitcher is, the less flat-ground work is helpful or recommended.

Pitching Drills: Knee Kick Drill For Baseball Pitchers

To teach pitchers to stay tall during their pitching motion, practice the knee kick drill. The coach should stand to the side of the pitcher but near enough that they can touch with the coach's arms extended.

The pitcher should take his balance position, with the knee kicked in the air. The coach measures where he wants the knee to end up at its highest point and holds his hand there to measure.

Then, without a ball, the pitcher goes through his pitching motion, making sure to kick the coach's hand with the top of his knee at his highest point in the kick.

If the pitcher is consistently not kicking the coach's hand, he needs to work to stay tall during the entire motion.

Crumpling down together will keep the pitcher from putting his whole momentum into the pitch.

Developing Arm Speed For Pitching

In this post, I want to focus on how to develop arm speed for pitching. Because of what I do, I talk to guys all the time about teaching pitching mechanics. I ask guys what they teach to increase arm speed. Some guys say weight transfer is very important, others say it is rotation. When I work guys during private instruction, I emphasize both as being important.

I strongly believe arm speed is correlated with how fast your body is moving toward home plate, and I think speed and force is increased by a complete rotation of the upper arm, just like a swimmer using a "crawl stroke". I think circling the upper arm is an effective way to generate arm speed because it allows the arm to externally rotate back before the pitch.

On eteamz.com, Gary Adams UCLA's former coach, has a basic drill on doing arm circles with 1 baseball in each hand focusing on the speed of the arm. Then, he talks about working up to 2 or 3 baseballs in each hand, while doing the circles.

If I could pick one sport all my pitchers could participate in when not playing ball, it would be swimming. Can you think of a better sport that promotes arm and force behind the speed? But again, ultimately proper mechanics go a long way in arm speed as well as long tossing.