Arm dragging when pitching

Video. Where are you landing. 90% of the time I see this, the culprit is landing off the centerline toward the glove side.

Your flying open likely starts a lot earlier in your mechanics.

 

1. Start by just throwing from the stretch.

2. Do a bunch of "hip drills" (look it up) against the fence and then have someone hold your hip as you drive toward the plate.

3. When driving toward the plate think about showing your heal cleats to the batter.

4. On you glove hand keep your thumb pointed to the ground, and then rotate up as you drive toward the plate.

5. After you work on these things then draw a line in the clay directly toward the plate and see where you land consistently. 

 

You can not work on all of these things at once, but take them one at a time and then ingrain them in your delivery without "live pitching". I would only throw from the stretch for a while until you get it right. 

 

Good luck!

One more thing to help fix arm action is to throw "long toss" from your knees. You will be surprised how much better your arm action becomes after a few weeks of this.

 

I remember having issues with my front side flying open twice. Both were fixed using some of what BOF and Root stated above. The first was at a young age (13) and it was just developing the habit over time. I basically had my glove side arm sticking out, slightly bent, and as I landed with my front foot and began to rotate my trunk, my lead arm was still in the same position lazily and I was opening up too soon (among other things).Hard to explain, but it was like the lead arm was just hanging and the explosion of my rotation and throwing motion pushed it open. It wasn't solid and firm so the power of everything else made it fly open.

 

It got pointed out and I spent the next few weeks doing a lot of shadow drills/standing in front of the mirror to really emphasize, as my trunk was rotating focusing on tucking that lead arm in and almost driving it into my left hip. This sounds exactly like what BOF is talking about on number 4 on his list. Once I got in that habit, everything got better from velocity to command. Also as BOF mentioned, I believe that starting your daily catch routine from your knees, on both facing a buddy, and back knee down, front knee bent at 90 degrees in front of the rear, and focusing on a solid lead arm/follow through also helps.

 

The second time was in college and it was quickly diagnosed as being related to where I was landing. It was fixed fairly quickly by doing shadow work without a ball every day. I'd draw a line where I needed to land and did it over and over. I'm more of a visual person, so without seeing you throw, I cant offer much more.

 

EDIT: In this day of smart phones with video, why don't you have a family member, teammate or coach film one of your bullpen sessions. With a basic knowledge of pitching you may be able to see where what the problem is on your own, or a coach may. Sometimes it is something very minor that can throw you all out of wack.

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Many / most times a pitcher will fly open is due to the front leg action...which will directly impact the arm action.  Utilizing legs can mean different things.  Opening with the front hip will cause you to pull off center line, open shoulders early, and always miss arm side.  Telling someone to stay closed is almost futile or forced if you are opening with your front leg....front leg should stay closed / online with your power line, then the back hip will fire which begins the chain with the subsequent body movements following as a result.  Front leg that opens (points towards home early causing the back hip to passively open, or the swinging of the front leg out and around causing the same issue) will normally be the culprit of what you describe.  All hip rotations are not created equal...very similar to the hitting mechanics...should be a "hinged gate" not a "revolving door".

 

Submit a video, and can confirm.

I actually took video last week and after watching it I feel like the reason I felt my arm dragging was because of my back knee collapsing and everything after that flying open. It was recommended to me that a way to solve this to is have more trunk lean, which would cause my center of mass to go to my hips, and not my back knee. But since I have been getting more trunk lean I feel that I am even more out of line and that my back knee is still collapsing. I was wondering what your guys thoughts were on this and if you possibly had any idea on how to help me. I will also add a link to the videos I shot. https://www.youtube.com/channe...exqsdzvMCGt1-IC6uPhA

Your front side could use some fine tuning and guys who have been working with players hands on can chime in, but I think your biggest problem is clearly your lower half.

I think the big reason your balls are sailing is your front foot is landing what looks like 10-12 inches to the left of where your back foot is when you stride. Draw a line straight from where your back foot is on the rubber toward home plate. Or use athletic tape if indoors. Really focus on how stepping straight feels vs stepping the way you are right now. Stepping straight you will feel it in your abs, your core. The way you are throwing you are going to feel strain on your back muscles.

So yes, your arm is going to drag, your front side is going to be soft, your core, hips, and legs are going to be used minimally, if at all, you arent going to be following through and really exploding toward the plate. You are consistently going to struggle keeping the ball down and you are going to lose a lot of velocity. Your weight is falling toward the first baseline.

when your bottom half is off and lazy, everything else will follow the same.  There were a few other things I saw (the others may want a side view too) but I would really work on fixing your landing spot first and foremost and then reassess everything else once u get that straightened out

You are not flying open. Take a look at your front bullpen shot. At :30 in you can stop on a frame where your front foot lands. Two problems here. One, as mentioned above, you're off line. The bigger problem is that your hips are completely closed. At footstrike, your shoulders should be completely closed, but your front hisp open. Neither your back hip nor your shoulders should begin firing until your front foot completely strikes the ground. You get absolutely no hip/shoulder separation. Here's where BFS and I disagree and I also disagree with most common instruction. It does not matter how you get the hips open, just that the hips are open and the upper body closed at footstrike. here is Tim Lincecum at footstrike (actually a split second before):

 

 

 

Look where his hips are. Now look where your hips are. Now take a look at that front shot again. Look at your knee. See how it is pointing off toward first base? It should be pointing stright at the plate. What happens with you is that you don't get your hips opened up, so as you begin shoulder rotation, your knee is still drifting into that straight base position. This means you are not firing from a solid base, as you should be, but rather from a shifting, rotating platform (your front leg). Take this one step at a time. First, find a way to get the hips opened up at footstrike and take care of that off-kilter stride - stride straight from your back foot. Once you have this, you may find you have a tendency to start your shoulder rotation early, so now you'll have to develop some mechanism for holding shoulder rotation back until footstrike. One step at a time.