Growing up my father took me to all of the pitching “gurus” in the area. From the guy who had a cup of coffee in the big leagues to the former pro scout who “invented hitting with wood bats.” I can’t say I’ve seen it all, but I’d argueI’m pretty darn close. When I started throwing breaking balls at an early age I was taught to “stab yourself in the stomach.” The more I’ve come across athletes the more I see this in their decel. Unfortunately, this queue couldn’t be more wrong. By “stabbing yourself in the stomach” you cut the down distance of your shoulder traveling towards home plate and do not allow your shoulder to internally rotate and your forearm pronate naturally. Check out what it looks like below.
The UCL is fragile. In fact, it only takes 30newtons of stress to tear your UCL but every time we throw a baseball, we apply60 newtons of stress to the UCL. So why does it not tear? Because our shoulder internally rotates, and our forearm pronates protecting our UCL. Want to know if you’re deceling your arm properly on your secondary pitches? One way to find out is when you spike a breaking ball it should kick back arm side. When we stab ourselves in the stomach, we increase the stress put on our forearm and medial elbow.
The second aspect of killing spin and break on a breaking ball contributes to athletes trying to generate break from their release compared to their full body. This may be considered low hanging fruit, but we see this all the time. The guy who has a great fastball but mediocre secondary pitches. Let’s say his delivery is relatively clean. But when you breakdown a video of his secondary pitches compared to his fastball you see that his intent/tempo substantially different and he generates energy from his lower half with his fastball well, but not his secondary pitches. More times than not this stems from pitching as a kid and being taught to “just throw strikes” rather than creating an out pitch. Don’t think this isn’t a relevant issue? Next time you or your athletes are playing catch, work your way in execute a double crow hop with your secondary pitches then try to tell me your secondary pitches don’t have more depth and action. To support this claim, Wes Johnson uses something similar with his athletes. Check out this piece by Lantz Wheeler here.
The final aspect could be that your supinated position needs work. In laymen’s terms, you’re getting around the ball too much. A few things to assist with this is to first make sure you’re gripping the ball to maximize yourRPMs. You can do this by tucking your ring finger underneath the ball so that when you take your thumb off the ball the ball does not fall out of your hand. Once you get comfortable with that position you can begin throwing a 7oz baseball or a softball with your breaking balls. This will change the shape of your breaking ball and add more depth and spin to it. Not only will it become sharper, but you’ll have a better feel for it as you’ll adapt to throwing breaking balls with different objects and ounces.
More Ways to Enhance Our Breaking Ball
1. As mentioned above, throw softballs and 7 oz baseballs to your glove side. This will create a better shape and spin to your breaking ball over time.
2. Long toss with your breaking ball. We picked this up from Ian Walsh and have seen some great success with developing secondary pitches with our athletes outside of Rapsodo and Trackman. Check out what it looks like here.
3. Throwing your breaking balls with Marshals and other decel drills. We’ve been prescribing this breaking ball progression for years now and have had a success with our athletes being able to command and enhance their breaking balls.
4. Double crow hops and turn and burn with your breaking balls. As mentioned above, this eliminates your lower half getting lazy and sustains the proper tempo throughout all of your pitches.
If you incorporate these progressions/tactics into your throwing regimen, you’ll see a definite improvement on your secondary pitches. For remote training or consulting, contact Training@Connected-Performance.com.