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Reply to "Timing pitcher's stride"

Originally Posted by BOF:

I am not too sure about this. Effective pitching is a summation of a bunch of complex movements ending with the release of the baseball. I am not sure I would want a pitcher thinking about generating the fastest stride to generate velocity. These may be touch points, but pitchers need "keys" that trigger them to repeat a delivery that is consistent and effective.At least for my son it is about drive foot placement, hip drive in a very specific way, landing foot position, arm break, glove side placement, and some other arm touch points. If simply driving to the plate faster equals higher velocity then everyone would just have to leap to the plate as fast as they could and they would throw hard. 

 

I am not sure if I understand what would be done with the data to change behavior, and how it would be implemented. I am not an expert just an observer, but it seems like there are a lot of other things to focus on.  

Of course there's more to it, but momentum is a much ignored factor and it's a big one. Here's the analogy I like to use. Most tend to agree that velocity is more about body action than arm action - the arm and hand are the end of the kinetic chain. Picture yourself standing on top of a car moving down the road. The car hits a brick wall. Now, you are going to fly off that car, the only question is how fast are you going to fly off that car? Your coming off that car with a much greater velocity if the car is traveling 50mph than you are if it's going 20 mph. The baseball coming out of your hand is the same as you flying off that car. The minute you brace your body with the stride foot, stopping momentum just like the car hitting the wall, you have ended the forward momentum of your body and it is transferred to your arm and hand. When the arm and hand halt momentum, the ball flies out. It only follows (in fact must follow by the laws of physics) that the faster your body travels, the faster your arm travels and the faster the ball travels.

 

Is it the only important part of velocity? Of course not. But, it is one thing you can easily change assuming your velocity off the mound isn't that great to begin with.

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