I was going to post this in the pitching thread but think it has more relevance in the pre-HS section so I am posting it here.
My son had a huge breakthrough this week that I thought I would share for the benefit of others with young, tall, developing pitchers – or for that matter all young pitchers. For background he is now 15, and a hair over 6’3”, 170lbs and has always had a long slender frame. Because of this he has never really been able to get out over his front leg properly as his legs could never support him correctly in landing. He has had good pitching instruction and I have had two different coaches tell me not to worry about it saying that when his body filled in with his frame he would get the necessary muscle mass for landing support. That said - it has been bugging me for several years as he has always been a little stiff on landing has never really come through the ball properly.
We shut him down in late July and he started on a 12 week strength training program, with focus on his core and leg strength. He threw his first bullpen this week and the results were amazing. He is striding out, landing properly, and finishing through the ball like he never has before. His velocity is up significantly (visual - we will gun him later) and he had a nice downward plane on the ball. His coach just stood there looked at him not saying a word for about 8 fastballs and then just said “wow that was nice”
I guess the moral of the story is to have patience and realize that it takes time for kid’s to develop and not get too overzealous and push them beyond what their body can handle. We waited on the weight training until puberty, we have managed his pitch counts, and we did not push him to soon into travel ball. Set your sights out beyond a game, season, or a year and be patient (trust me this is really hard) if you keep at it your son will be rewarded.
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