Coach wants a longer stride

These are some good thoughts re stride length.   If you focus on moving the center of mass forward, your stride length will naturally increase (but focusing on just striding longer isn't helpful--the stride in and of itself won't increase velocity necessarily).

http://baseballthinktank.com/d...velocity-schlitz-no/

Sounds like he is lacking the core strength necessary to increase stride over 100%.  Without it his rotation to get on top of the ball may be lacking.  Get him on a good plyometric training program.  Watch his plant leg, too. A longer stride may mean he's bending the plant leg too much, resulting in lost velocity.

My son (2016 RHP) struggled with the adjustment as a freshman as well.  Same situation. HS coached was/is a huge fan of son's potential and has been around 35 years and knows his stuff.  Constantly talking about lenghthening stride.  No push back from us, just wanted it to come somewhat naturally and not mess withi his head.  Any way....light bulb went on this Winter with a new instructor who  introduced this simple concept:  "forget about striding further! just stride quicker".  Of course, the result is he is striding further and using his lower half much more...and it is still Jan. but we are seeing nice early results in velo.  Try that concept.

...addendum...Bum is exactly right.  I note my son's progress on this but would be remiss to not point out that he is absolutely stronger in the core, legs (due to plyo) and more flexible in the hips than he was a year ago.

As mentioned above stride length, in particular for young developing kids, is a function of leg and to some extent core strength. It will develop over time and conditioning. Actually pylo's won't necessarily help you all by itself, you need to get in the weight room with heavy squats and dead lifts and then once you have the leg strength built up,  then pylos for explosive development. It actually takes quite a while, I know my son was a string bean as a HS freshmen and his legs would not support a longer stride it developed as he physically developed. 

My questions are the following....

1) How long have you given this to see if it works before "having concerns"

2) You stated that you don't believe in a magic bullet that will increase him instantl are you stating that is whay they belive? Could it be you think they are using 

2) Is it causing harm to your athlete?

3) You stated that they have a great track record.  Why can't you just trust?

+1 BOF, My son was never tall by any stretch of the imagination. He did hit the weight room . He did exactly what BOF mentioned. He went to a camp and one of the coaches worked quite a bot with him on this. Coach said he was falling off the mound as opposed to pushing off. Once he understood the difference, his stride increased and his velocity followed. 

Today when a coach talks to me about my son, they always mention the length of his stride, in a good way. 

My advice is the same as BOF's. Get in the weight room and continue to work on it. Freshman year he was probably the third of fourth pitcher in the rotation, By junior year he was first or second depending on the match up.

The stride length is something that has come up a couple of times since the summer. My concern is as stated by other posters he may lack the necessary strength to execute a longer stride. As I stated earlier; his stride length has increase from 82-83% two years ago to around 95% now. His stride length has increased without a focus on how far he strides. Have read articles on the subject & guess I fall under the opinion of let it happen. Fear reaching out to achieve a certain length may be counter-productive. Not sure if over-reaching can cause injury issues. The mandated workouts are great; as mentioned earlier he's gained about 15 pounds in the last six months which for him is a lot. I do believe in the coach and don't want to "upset the cart". Truly believe if he continues to work hard and focus on momentum & explosiveness  (as well as strength training) his velocity will come along fine. Might result in a longer stride.

Just keep this in mind.   Your looking at a HS freshman.  I understand his loss of control / mark by trying a longer stride.  Do you wants immediate results (Great Freshman Year) or HS Career?  Fixes now will take time to mature and work.  If coach has credibility and shown proven results - then work the adjustment.

The short term loss hopefully will be overcome by LONG TERM success.  You don't to hear As a Frshman he was a stud and by Senior year just okay.  I would rather have the opposite and colleges don't look at a lot of freshman cause they nees to mature.  Be good when it counts.  No one will remember an average feeshman year.

Good points, BOF, but strong legs are as useless as "arm strength" without a solid core.  Anyway, work on both.

Billy....Great responses to my questions.  Makes perfect sense to me.

I agree with most of what has been said here in terms of the strength needed for the long stride.  I also like the article that was written on it.  

The first thing I thought about when reading the above line in the OP was that your son has done some things to lengthen his stride and maybe sped up his delivery to help achieve it.  However, maybe his arm is lagging behind with the speed of the rest of his delivery creating arm drag, which will lead to high pitches.  My guess is that when he's missing, (assuming RHP), he's missing high and inside or low and outside.  High and inside is the lag, low and outside is overcompensation and trying too hard to get the arm through.  Either way, the arm drag is real bad for the shoulder.

As you work on this, make sure your son is doing what he needs to get his arm up in a good position by foot plant so it is not dragging behind the rest of his body.  Maybe I'm wrong, no way to tell without seeing him, but based on the above statement, my guess is this is what's happening.

I had a chance to discuss stride length with a well known and respected pitching coach of an NCAA D1 baseball power.  He explained to me that stride length and arm action must match up.  He explained that there were basically three types of arm action from hand break:  a short action that cuts off the bottom half of the circle, the old "thumb to thigh" type action, and the action he referred to as "upside down" where the pitcher breaks down out of the glove and lifts (visualize an action like lifting a bucket by the handle with your elbow leading up/Tim Lincecum).  I've listed the "actions" from shortest to longest.

The reason, according to him, that Lincecum's stride length is 120% is because it has to be to match his arm action.  Watch a video, he gets upside down and drops the ball behind his right butt cheek.

But if the OP's son, or any pitcher, has a short arm action and tries to copy Lincecum's extreme stride length...you get mismatched parts and an inefficient delivery.

I thought this was very interesting.

Stride length is often times not well understood as it relates to the benefit from it, or negative effect of it.  Many coaches have heard stride length equals velocity....not necessarily true if not derived correctly. 

Stride length is a function of the momentum derived from coming out of hand break (the stride), the more momentum (speed) the longer the stride.  Simply holding your leg off the ground longer, or reaching out with the front leg may get your stride longer, but without the increased momentum, won't create the desired effect, in fact it will create a negative effect.  Without the momentum (speed) driving the longer stride, you will not have the ability to get on the front leg, and have the "flat back" or out in front release point....so you have the longer stride, but lost location and velo.

If your longer stride is a result of explosive momentum, then you are able to get over your front side, and achieve the higher velocity.  Most coaches know the verbal "cues",  however not all understand what the cues are really trying to achieve. 

It is not necessarily the long stride that results in the higher velocity, but rather that pitchers that stride 100%+ of their height are doing so because of their momentum / speed down the mound, along with resisting the urge for early external rotation.  What they should really be saying is lets get you more explosive out of hand break, and see if the increased momentum increases your stride length...typically if they can get more momentum at hand break, and resist the urge to rotate the hips too early, you will get the longer stride, AND the higher velo.

What Bum indicates relative to core strength, will come into play if you are unable to stabilize the front side into "front foot strike" with the increased momentum required to achieve the longer stride.  If that is the case, then core work is certainly what is needed.

BTW -- the OP states his kid is missing high, which drives home my post, that without the increase in momentum, he is not getting over his front side with his new found stride length, and effectively his release window is behind where it should be.

Great post, Bac Foot.  This explosiveness and the kinetic chain often complexes young pitchers.  Mechanics should be explosive but also fluid and loose.  It's all tied together.  Great legs, great core, mechanical instruction.

it's not just one thing.  Have a professional check it out.. don't self-diagnose!

As you imply, velocity is often increased when stride length is shortened. 

Nolan Ryan in his "Pitching Bible" said that a strong core helps transfer the energy from the legs to the arms. 

That's right.  It's the kinetic chain.

That's why a professional needs to analyze a pitcher.  There are many, many ways that kinetic chain can be broken.  Flying open.  Improper foot plant.  Improper alignment.  Wrong stride length.  Or all of the above.

IMO, increasing stride length over 100% is a technique issue (and maybe some stretching/conditioning if you're old like me).  Anyone can do it.

If you can't do it, you're not coiling/turning properly as you go forward.

An increased stride for the sake of covering distance is definitely not helpful. More efficient mechanics generally take advantage of a better use of momentum and rotation driving linear movement which tends to increase stride length. But not always - look at Justin Verlander!