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Coordinated Pitching Forces
by Dave
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Recently, I sat listening to a pitching coach discuss the attribution of speed to various parts of the windmill motion including the wrist snap, arm circle, and leg movements. The idea was that if you can attribute a certain percentage to each piece of the pie, that would tell you what to work on. To me, this is an over-simplistic, yet overly-complicated approach. Let me explain why I think that.
This coach claimed that he could calculate an approximate range of percentages applicable to the majority of pitchers' speed. He threw out some numbers he believed to accurately depict accurate averages. Then he showed us how this could be verified by arbitrarily choosing a pitcher, having her perform each function, clocking her with a radar gun, and then calculating the percentages of the whole for each.
Let's say that a given pitcher throws 50 mph. She performs a wrist snap and hits about 32. Then she stands with her body trunk motionless while making a throw with a full arm circle and hits something like 47. This translates into 32 over 50 or 64% for the wrist snap; 47 over 50 or 94% less the wrist snap (64%) for 30% attribution to the the arm circle; and just 100% minus 94% for anything and everything else. My numbers are not precise but I think you get the idea.
There is little question to me that the wrist snap is absolutely critical to speed in pitching. Obviously, it is critical to movement pitches as well but we're focused exclusively on speed right now. The arm circle is also an aspect which is obviously really important. These elements plus several others must be perfected in order to succeed in pitching. We go to this particular coach for a number of reasons not the least of which is his ability to explain how to improve wrist snap and arm circle. His emphasis on these two elements is well placed and he's excellent at getting results with the girls. But part of his point in the above exercise is to validate his opinion that leg drive and other pieces of the puzzle are unimportant. I disagree with that opinion.
The trouble with looking at anything in a vacuum is nothing much in our world exists in a vacuum. Wrist snap is important but measuring it involves isolating the motion. This coach had the girls stand with ball in hand, and their arms next to their side. He then had them simply snap the ball to a partner without using their bodies or any other part of their arms. It doesn't take a genius to say that nobody actually pitches that way. It isn't difficult to picture the snap part of the motion and recognize that it takes place within the context of an arm moving very rapidly. In other words, it isn't merely a girl's ability to snap her wrist that generates 64% of her speed. Rather it is her ability to do so while her arm is moving very fast which generates speed.
Maybe it isn't clear to you what I mean. The only way I can explain this is to give you an example. Go get into into the car and drive at or just below the speed limit (I can't advocate even to tournament parents that they exceed the legal limits!) on a major highway. At some point, there will be no cars around you. Roll down the window and stick your arm straight out into the wind - be careful, I don't want any decapitations on my conscience! Now do some arm curls and wrist snaps. It isn't quite as easy as it is with no force against you, is it? The point is, the force of air working against your arm while driving 65 miles per hour is significant enough to require far greater force in order to accomplish an arm curl or wrist snap than would be needed if you were parked on the street. And when you perform an arm circle, that kind of force, though less, is what your wrist is up against. This observation doesn't diminish the importance of the wrist snap but it complicates the physics quite a bit.
Further to the point I'm trying to make, when you perform your arm circle, you are similarly up against forces created when your body moves forward after pushing off the plate. Again, this force is not quite as strong as it might be if you were say standing atop a vehicle moving 65 (something I absolutely do not suggest), but the primciple is the same. That is, a pitcher does not make any of the movements elemental to a windmill pitch in a vacuum. Rather, all of the movements create a coordinated whole which is essential to produce significant force upon the ball and propel it at high speeds. Isolation of pieces of the movement is fine, in and of itself, as are exercises performed to strengthen individual pieces. That analysis is just not enough to completely analyze what is necessary to produce a fast pitch. Performing exercises for pieces of the whole is not enough either. And ignoring pieces is not something I could ever advocate.
When a girl pitches, she first gets her body into position to explode forward. Different coaches approach this subject differently and I tend to be uninterested in it. The bottom line to me is a girl approaches this in the way that feels most natural to her and provides the most relaxed and comfortable circumstance. The goal is going to be to propel the ball rapidly and any movement that involves an initial balanced state followed by a beginning shift in forward momentum is OK with me. Some girls twist, some bring their hands over their heads, some do very little at all other than to begin leaning forwards. I don't have an opinion about what is "best."
Once the body begin forwards, basically the shoulder open to the corner of the infield - in righties towards third base, in lefties towards first. The arm then proceeds overhead in as straight a line as possible along the power line towards home. It swings forward as the shoulders, hips, etc. begin to "close the door." Then, finally, the arm is alongside the body as the wrist begins to snap.
All of the motion which brings the ball to the release point has some impact on the eventual speed after it is released. The wrist is undeniably important. So is the arm speed. But also important is your entire body's inertial force created when all of your weight is thrown forward at some relatively high speed. Likewise, the manner in which your body's inertial forward force is converted into speed at your finger tips, via blocking - the door swinging on its hinges, etc., are also all very important. It is the unified whole, working together not the individual elements operating separately which generates speed.
Just a word on blocking since I seem to have glossed over that. When your body jumps forward, it has a force in proportion to its weight and the speed it is moving. When your landing foot comes down, you, like a batter on the front foot, push against the forward force of your body. This force causes a small part of the force of your body to be stopped and the remainder to shift to the other side, causing an increase in forward speed of the other side of your body. If you land with your left foot while your entire body is moving at say 20 mph, the right side of your body continues forward at something more than 20 mph. This effect is what happens when say you and a friend run side by side with your arms around each other's waists and then the friend suddenly stops. You end up getting catapulted forwards and in front of your friend! Your friend creates a "blocking." You are like a door on its hinges.
In certain respects, my discussion above about performing arm curls or wrist snaps while driving in a car is completely erroneous because in a real sense, a wrist snap is decidedly easier, requires less force, when your arm is propelled forward as a result of the conversion of your body's intertial force through blocking. Similarly, the final piece of the arm circle is sped up as a result of this. The same thing is evident when observing overhand throwing, batting, or any other force application in which the body is propelled forward, one side blocks, and the other side swings on a hinge.
If this were not the case, there would be absolutely no purpose to an outfielder performing a crow hop before throwing home. If her wrist snap or arm movement were the only thing necessary to propel the ball, she shouldn't take any stepo at all since this wastes time! Yet, forward body momentum, blocking, and follow through are all necessary components of many movements within this sport.
As a further point ot this discussion, if you were able to examine the muscular makeup and motions of all best pitchers collectively for the purpose of determining which elements of pitching were most important, I believe what you would find is no absolute pattern beyond some simple likenesses. First of all, longer arms provide a benefit of producing a circle of bigger circumference which basically translates into more speed. Yet the world's fastest pitchers are not necessarilly its tallest ones. Japan's Ueno is arguably the fastest pitcher and she stands far below the stature of a Finch or Osterman.
What the group does share is a higher density of well-tuned fast twitch muscles. That is, what produces speed is not muscle per se but rather fast twitch muscle. The best pitchers are not muscle bound but their muscles contain a high proportion of developed fast-twitch fibers.
Further, many of the world's fastest pitchers do indeed have well developed leg muscles. They do use their legs to propel the ball. Their eight-foot strides show that. Not every pitcher strides that far but many of the top ones do. Monica Abbott frequently lands out at the circle. So does relatively dimunitive Ueno. All these pitchers explode off the rubber, block, and so forth. Legs are important!
The top pitchers' core (abdomen and related areas) muscles are also well trained. And most importantly, all of the muscle groups are trained to work together to create a highly coordinated whole. This is an important point. If you explode off the rubber, then in an uncoordinated manner use your powerful arm to propel the ball while having weak leg and core muscles, what you get, regardless of the speed of the pitch, is ... injuries!
I am a bit of a history and anthropology nerd when it comes to watching TV. I've seen the Discovery Channel shows about Neanderthal man several times. At this point I might be able to write the script from memory! One of the important findings regarding Neanderthal man was the high density of arm bone in the right arm. Scientists view this as indicative of Neaderthal getting loads of exercise with his right arm as a result of learning to use a thrusted spear to kill prey. His right arm was highly developed from use. Development of muscle causes density of bone to increase. So our possible ancestor's right arm bone grew to support muscles developed from hunting.
Softball pitchers might be expedcted to develop similarly large right arms as a result of pitching so much. One would expect a pitcher's pitching arm bicep and forearm muscles to bulge and the arm to grow much larger than the glove hand side. But that doesn't seem to happen in an obvious fashion. Perhaps their throwing arms are much stronger than the other side but it doesn't appear as a hulking, muscle popping appendage. Pitcher's legs do tend to be a bit thicker than others'. And their overall strength is probably somewhat greater. But more important than any particular muscle or group of muscle's strength is the coordination of explosion of all of them.
In conclusion, it is OK with me if you do things intended to improve one aspect of the pitching motion. But do this in moderation. Time spent strengthening the hand, wrist, arm, etc. is important. But you need to strengthen leg and core muscles too. And the most important thing is to make sure you spend a large percentage of your time getting the whole of your body to work together.Labels: pitching
Permanent Link: Coordinated Pitching Forces
 
Be A Lioness
by Dave
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Several years ago, I had a conversation with someone whose child played ball for me. We were engaged in idle chit-chat but I was trying to bring the conversation around to a discussion regarding certain "drills" he could do with his daughter to improve her performance on the field. She was a fairly unathletic kid whose coordination was below average. I liked her and wanted her to succeed at the game. What I really wanted was for her to enjoy her time out here on the field - this was a rec league. I wanted her to feel comfortable with the kids on the team and not be self-conscious about her lack of playing ability. All she really needed was for someone to play catch with her a couple times a week for maybe 15 minutes each, roll a few grounders her way, maybe pitch a little soft toss. That alone (30 minutes per week outside of team practice) would have improved her hand-eye coordination enough for her to relax and have fun.
During our conversation, the fellow told me he jogged two miles every day regardless of the weather. "It's my favorite half hour of the day!" I told him I thought that was commendable. We moved on to other topics such as sports, weather, news, politics. After about 15 minutes of conversation I began discussing things like motor memory, how hard it is to hit a thrown ball, etc. I suggested to him that he work with his daughter on throwing, fielding grounders and other things which would make her a better player. The idea was not to make her into a college prospect but merely to enhance her enjoyment of the game. The idea was to do something sport-specific to improve her softball skills enough for her to relax out there.
He replied that he understood because "I'm an athlete."
I replied, "You are? What sport do you play?"
He answered back, somewhat comfused by the question, "I run - like I just told you a minute ago."
I, just as confused as he at this point, replied, "Oh, I didn't know you competed. I thought you just ran to stay in shape. What distance do you run?"
He smiled back at me, obviously just now understanding that I was a little dim-witted and said, "I don't compete. I just run, every day, two miles."
Later, in our now labored conversation, he told me he would have his daughter start to run some. "That should make her more athletic." I suggested to him that this too was commendable but it would not accomplish what I was getting at. She ought to run, if she likes it and can stick with a workout schedule. It'll be good for her. But what about throwing in the yard, fielding some grounders, taking a few hacks? He didn't understand.
I am constantly amused when folks who jog for cardiovascular health refer to themselves as "athletes." Please don't misunderstand me. That's a great thing to do. It takes a lot of discipline to go out and do your running on some sort of set schedule even when it is 10 degrees outside, the weather is otherwise bad, or you are tired, sore, whatever. It will do you a ton of good. I wish I had the sticktoitivness to do that. I'd live a lot longer and be healthier, happier, etc. But jogging two 15 minute miles does not make you an "athlete" regardless of the discipline required.
The prevailing definition of the term "athlete" is "a person trained to compete in sports; a competitor; someone posessing or acquiring traits necessary for sports, especially those performed in a competitive context." The very roots of the word refer to a contestant, someone who contends, as in for a prize, a win, victory, etc. The term is only in a very loose sense used to describe someone who performs exercises with the goal of improving or preserving one's health.
An athlete, then, is someone who competes. An athlete may perform the same cardio exercises the non-athlete does. Tell me that you run in order to prepare for competition and that you are trying to bring your 5K time down and then I'll call you an "athlete." Participation in an occassional run for charity in which your only goal is completing the distance is an entirely different story. But, if you compete, really compete, you are definitely an athlete. The "athlete" pushes himself or herself to run a bit harder than the casual jogger.
Moving back to the daughter of this "athlete," what she needed was to perform some of the basic moves required on a softball field and improve her hand-eye. No kid comes out of the womb making a perfect throw. I wouldn't go so far as to call the motion "unnatural" but I suppose it is fairly easy to say that the proper motion for throwing a ball is not something everyone can accomplish without some sort of instruction. Suffice it to say that many years ago when Russia tried to develop a baseball program, a New York Times sports journalist mocked how their program brought together all these superior, well-trained athletes who fielded balls, turned towards first and threw "like a girl." Nowadays that is not only a politically incorrect thing to say, but also rather wrong. Many girls throw balls far better than their male counterparts.
So what this girl needed was to: A) receive good instruction on throwing mechanics, B) someone to provide an opportunity to practice that motion, and C) loads of repetitions over a long period of time to gain hand-eye coordination, work on motor memory, and build strength in the appropriate muscles. Jogging, no matter how far, was not going to develop her softball skills. That was a story about a girl aspiring only to play ball at the lowest possible level. But the same principle applies to players at all levels.
The trouble with the mentality behind the notion that running long distances alone is sufficient to make an athlete a better competitor is, it just doesn't work. It isn't enough to be in good cardio-vascular shape, if you want to really succeed. In fact, many of the competitors we see on the field of play are not in as good of shape as we are and yet they beat us. We can see this in all sorts of circumstances.
The professional football player does all manner of work with weights, running and everything else under the sun. Then he goes to camp and gets in "football shape." Before camp, he is soft, though in tremendous physical condition. It takes him several weeks, sometimes as long as two months or more, to get in "football shape" despite all that tedious work he did in the off-season. Similarly, baseball pitchers who throw upper 90s in August come to spring training with a fastball in the mid to upper 80s. Their arms aren't yet in "game shape."
Another phenomenon we see which, while not directly related to "game shape" per se, is the apparently out-of-shape athlete who is very successful in his or her chosen sport. Examples of this are such famous athletes as Babe Ruth who, despite having a rather prodigious belly was often able to pitch back-to-back games. He also was one of the best hitters to have ever played the game. You can argue that perhaps Ruth's playing days were in the relatively early years of baseball, when the game was segregated, and he would not have been quite as legendary if he played today. But then how do you explain someone like David Wells? Wells had over 200 wins in the modern major leagues including one perfect game. And nobody, not Wells himself, would ever argue that he was the picture of great physical condition.
So being "in shape," as that term is usually intended, is both not a requirement of being a good athlete nor any guarantee that one will succeed. Please understand that I am in no way claiming that girls playing softball ought to be out of shape. To the contrary, I believe the better physical condition any particular player is in, the better that individual will play. But it is not enough to just be in generally good shape. I believe both Babe Ruth and David Wells could have been better players had they been in better physical condition. But where I'm trying to take this conversation is, traditional physical training is insufficient to prepare one for being a better softball player.
There are some very serious implications for this concept when one considers off-season training. A softball player can do all manner of exercise, free exercise, weights, running, static stretching, etc. during the entire off-season and not improve her game at all. That's because the particular muscle movements required by the game are not addressed by the standard workout regime. You could run 30 miles per day and that's obviously not going to improve your throwing. You could lift weights religiously and that's not going to necessarily improve your hitting power. You could perform all manner of exercise and it may or may not have any impact on your game at all. The reason for this is the specific muscle groups used in fastpitch softball are not being worked in a manner in which they will be used once you start actually practicing and playing the game.
Softball is a game of many, explosive movements made over a relatively long time, with fairly significant amounts of rest between those movements. Still, after a day of perhaps hundreds of explosive movements, a player is very tired. Players in the third or fourth game of the day find their bodies generally dragging but quite capable of making additional explosive movements should the need arise.
I use the term explosive perhaps too frequently but how else would you describe what is needed to pitch a ball, take a swing, field a ball, or make a throw from a relatively static state? The left fielder stands basically motionless, then runs something like 40 feet, retrieves the ball, and makes a throw nailing the runner at home, all within about 3-6 seconds. Then she goes back to what she was doing, just standing there, until the next play involving her occurs, perhaps 10 minutes or more later in the game. Base runners "sprint" ten feet forwards and ten feet back while taking a lead. Then they explode for 20 yards and come to a rest. This goes on usually for only as long as it takes to get them out after a fielder's choice grounder. Very seldom does a player sustain multiple movements successively over an extended period of time. There isn't a whole lot of lung usage. "Wind" isn't that important.
I have often read comments by folks loosely associated with softball, specifically with pitching, in which they recommend longer distance running for pitchers during the off-season in order to build their wind. The idea is that when a girl has to pitch more than a few innings, maybe more than a game or two, she is going to need "wind." Running long distances will give you wind. Therefore, distance running will make you into a better pitcher. Countless pitchers run distances for this reason. But does this actually make a pitcher better? Probably not.
The movement by a pitcher is, like the outfielder or baserunner, rather explosive. It is repeated with a much higher frequency rate than the movements of other players, except maybe the catcher in certain circumstances. It is a power move than is begun and finished within about a second. One's cardio-vascular system is not activated within that time period. And in truth, a brisk walking pace more accurately mimicks the pitching movement, in terms of the legs, than does running, particularly at relatively slow speeds. A pitcher seeking speed should concentrate on very rapid, movements performed in an explosive manner. If she seeks greater endurance, she should do a lot of these explosive movements over a long period of time with appropriate rest in between.
Similarly, outfielders and baserunners looking to improve their sport-specific running ought to concentrate on short burst running. If a player wants to improve her game three or four performance, she should do a lot of these explosive runs rather than doing long, slow distance running. If she decides to do long distance running in the off-season, she will come back to the sport in much greater shape but she'll still be tired in game four after running 200 x 20-40 yard sprints during the actual games. She'll have great wind but she'll never use it.
Emphasis in softball training should not necessarily be placed on building one's "wind." We often see high level softball and baseball players who get "winded" after running 120 or 180 feet. They were very explosive in that particular run. And they recover quickly afterwards. That's what the sport demands of its athletes. The way to develop the sort of short-burst strength and recovery of muscles is to use them explosively while requiring fairly rapid recovery, not to increase one's lung capacity and heart endurance while activating and strengthening slow-twitch muscles fibers.
All this having been said, nobody, not even the softball athlete, should just ignore normal health concerns when training. A girl with too much weight supported on her skeleton is going to move more slowly than she would if she were in better general physical condition. If she's in better condition, her system will handle recovery from explosive movements better than another person who is generally out of shape. But being in good shape is just not enough. And if she ignores sport-specific training, she will miss out on the opportunity to improve her game.
Sport-specific training focuses on the muscles one uses playing the particular sport one chooses to compete in. These muscle groups and their movements are not always evident to the individual athlete and this is where trainers are invaluable. A trainer whose sole job is to determine which muscles are involved in sport-specific movements and then figure ways to work these so as to develop the right kind of explosive capability, is a resource all serious athletes need.
Trainers make trade by being great observers of athletic movements. They earn their keep by devising ways to use these muscle groups in ways that increase explosive strength while also improving recovery. But not all trainers spend particularly much time focused on one specific sport. And they tend to craft their workout regimens so as to appeal to the broadest cross section of athletes in their area. If, in your area, 60% of all athletes play soccer, the local trainers may be focused on workouts good for soccer players. If you go to someone whose focus is soccer, you are going to be a better soccer player as a result of the workouts you perform but you may not be a better softball player! You need to be careful about who trains you and what their focus is.
To close this up, I want to point out something evident in nature. Lions are able to bring down large game by running it down over very short distances. If they are forced to run longer distances to track down their prey, they often fail. Lions just cannot run for very long distances. They get winded easily. Yet, to look at a lion, they are very muscular with not a lot of fat. Lions in the wild are arguably in pretty good shape. They can't run marathons. They are well suited to their chosen sport. The target species of lions often have great endurance. They can always beat a lion in longer races. They seldom get winded. But they often end up on lions' dinner plates. Be a lioness!Labels: Training
Permanent Link: Be A Lioness
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