Hip Separation

I haven't looked at the clips, but if you're talking about the hips opening up, they are supposed to open up at or by footstrike. This is almost an absolute among top pitchers. Go to youtube. Pull up your favorite pitchers and stop the video at footstrike. You will see almost universally that the hips are completely open at footstrike. Hips open at landing is something you strive for, not something you retard.

root,

Yes, I've seen them at foot strike, but my 2018 has them opening a bit earlier it looks like...maybe there is too much connection in between the top and lower half.  let me know your thoughts if you get a chance to look at it.

I just took a look. His hips are fine. If anyhting, he doesn't get them opened up enough by footstrike. His problem is with the upperbody. The shoulders should be completely closed at footstrike. He's opening them up almost halfway by the time his landing foot hits. I'd leave the lower body alone and have him work on waiting much longer before starting the rotation in his shoulders. One possible way to do this is with a later handbreak. I fix this in a more dramatic way that I don't recommend because it gets a lot of criticism. My own son brings the ball completely behind his back. I did this because he just wasn't comfortable with a later hand break.

As to the hips. The traditional teach is that the hips should stay closed as long as possible in order to gain rotational momentum. However, there is nothing that backs this up. I've come to believe that the important thing is that, at footstrike the hips be open, the shoulders be closed and the arm be in full cock position. How you get there doesn't matter and any rotational momentum gained from twisting the hips at the last minute to reach this position is momentum in an unused direction.

I really don't see a problem with the lower half...granted it is only two very short vids.  Does he throw or "miss" high a lot?

gonna see how the later hand break goes...maybe that will delay it a bit. 

Thanks!

For most kids, simple recognition will get it done. Take his video and download a video of a good major leaguer from youtube. Show him a comparison of where the shoulders are at footstrike and he might be able to self correct it himself. A video is worth a thousand drills - especially when a pitcher doesn't completely understand what it is he's doing wrong.

Most have been typing the same time root was.....the reason I asked if he was missing high, is that it seems that he has a pretty obvious "tilt" in his shoulders, but definitley agree that the lower half looks fine

he usually stays low in the zone, but this is only during our throwing sessions...really hasn't pitched much this year...maybe 11 total innings (3 this fall).  His tilt used to be really bad two years ago, but has corrected the it as he's gotten older...still has some though.

philly

Took a look, and hips don't look too bad, but arm action is not ideal.  Take a look at photos below taken right at foot strike...although the next couple of frames later you do see the arm layback, he is likely lacking some power from his starting position being outside of 90 degrees, plus puts more strain on the elbow.  Look at second photo with Greinke....both your son and Greinke like to reach out with the front glove arm, however for some that do this, they tend to have very long throwing arm actions, which in your son's case makes him late from getting to the full cock position. 

I agree with roothog that your "BACK" hip should fire just prior to foot strike, while the shoulders are still back, this is more of a non-teach, and a function of sequenced body movements....in other words, you don't actively while in the pitching motion decide to fire hips, then fire shoulders...

thanks for pointing this out...something he can work on this winter. still trying to look for drills that will help in addition to the video sequences...hoping something is out there.

I took a quick look and agree with Bfs, I see more issues with his arm action. He can work on this by getting on his knees and "long tossing" Just one way to help develop good arm action. Also a weighted ball program will help develop this which he can do this winter. I also don't like his glove side flying up and open, I would have in concentrate a little on keeping his thumb down and this will prevent it from flying open. Other than that he looks decent, he will improve naturally over time as he fills into his body. Sometimes us dads (and coaches) try to get our kids to do things they are not physically developed to do, sometimes over analysis does more harm than good. Good Luck.

I agree bottom half looks fairly good but he initiates his shoulder rotation too early. I think you might suggest that he not throw the ball until his front foot is on the ground. The delayed shoulder rotation may go a long ways towards improving the arm action. It should also allow him to reach extension sooner and faster with his front leg which should generate more power. It appears to me there is slightly less than optimal bracing in the front knee.

Good luck,

Ted

I like what's being said here but I don't think that something back foot slider said is getting enough attention. BOF hit on this as well, and had a lot of great advice for you.

I like the comparison to Greinke, and it would be a good idea for you to look at the video that picture came from.

The bottom half looks very similar, and I agree with others that the hips look pretty good. The major difference is that your pitcher's arms (both of them) remain "disconnected" for too long.  

In my opinion a big part of this for him is his glove side.  After it flies out and up, it just sort of dies and falls down by his side.  Watch Greinke again in that video and notice how his glove behaves in a similar way upon hand break, but much more aggressively and "connected" as he gets close to foot strike. His glove arm is not just "along for the ride" or "passive", it's taking action to begin balanced rotation of the shoulders around the spine. This is one way to truly "rotate" into the throw, rather than just "turning" into the throw.

I am not advocating "pulling" the glove in any direction at all, simply to activate it a little better to provide more strength to the front, which will translate to the throw. 

I agree with others that the shoulders are starting a little too early, and I really believe the front side's "falling to the side" is a cause.  I haven't posted here before and I can't figure out how to post a picture, but stop the video on the exact frame of solid foot plant. 

If I do that, and cover the top half of the pitcher, I see a really good position.  However, the top half in that frame has leaked a lot of energy and lost it's rotational power. There may be more than one reason why, but it's very common for a weak glove side to cause this.

It's my opinion that the glove here is just leaking to the side, pulling the front shoulder with it (thus opening the shoulders prematurely), and creating a less than optimal connection to the body.

I really think that if you get some more useful rotation and connection from the front side, it would really help the shoulders be more delayed (by not being pulled early) and I think it would also help him throw a little more downhill.

Some things that might help;

1) simply work on a more aggressive/connected glove side.  Hold a 2 pound med ball in that hand when you pitch, and practice bringing it into the body a little better.  It will change upper body rhythm a bit, so work on drills which sync the arms in the new rhythm. Also, as HOF said, if the thumb stays "down" it will help.

2) start hips toward home slightly earlier, a lot of his weight is still on top of his post leg as the knee starts down, so he can start the hips a bit sooner.  Faster hips equal better connected extremities. Draw a line straight up from where you think most of his weight is at hand break and do the same with Greinke.

3. Strengthen the core.  He looks strong and if you're doing med ball work keep doing it.  The first stabilizer in the process of transferring energy (to be general) is the legs, the second is the core.  If the core is not trained as a stabilizer properly (not just linear strength like crunches, but rotational stabilizing like TAP's slam net and other med ball stuff), energy from his good bottom half will leak.  I think the leak is happening because of poor lead arm action, but this is another place to look.

He looks really good to me, he just needs to keep working hard. There are some ways to work on the hips like you're talking about but it's a little complex to describe here, and I don't see a reason to work on them until the upper half is working.

Feel free to contact me if I haven't communicated effectively, consider what I've said as simply one more opinion in the middle of all of these other great ones.  Hopefully you can use a piece of it.  Good luck out there! 

Thank you for everyone's posts...hopefully this winter he can work out some of the kinks. 

Welcome Baseball Brains, that is some of the best pitching advice I have seen here in a while. Stick around, I think you can help some kids here.

I would add one more thing that for many HS kids (particularly tall thin kids)  the lower body (and core) does not have the strength to support the proper landing and rotation action so on top of the poor glove side control,  the body naturally opens up early since they don't have the strength to support where ideally they should be. So often "pitching professionals" offer all kinds of advice on how to fix this, but the root cause is really waiting for the normal development of the body as well as a good strength and conditioning program. This process takes years not months and instead of letting a kid throw based on his body's ability to support a landing ability and spending time in a good strength and conditioning program parents spend a bunch of money with a pitching coach that really is not going to change much until they have the strength to support what they should be doing. 

Anyway the OP's son looks pretty good and if he takes some of the advice here he should be fine.

I'm going to disagree with you a little bit here. You nailed it when you say that a lot of pitchers at the HS level and below open the shoulders way too early. I have a reputation for being able to make immediate increases in velocity with pitchers and this is where the most immediate increases can be found. I've never had a problem with pitchers of any age with teaching them to keep the shoulders closed until footstrike or to get the hips open at landing. For some it takes more time than others, but I don't think it's a strength issue as much as just a timing and flexibility issue. I guess my point is that you don't need to wait around for physical maturity. Physical maturity does indeed magnify the effects of good separation, however. My method is to start by teaching them how to get the hips open at footstrike. This means that the pivot foot has turned completely over at landing and the pivot knee is pointing down.

After I've achieved that, I move on to finding a mechanism that will keep the shoulders closed until the landing foot hits. That mechanism is different for different pitchers. For some, it's as simple as delaying breaking the hand. For others, I use something different. After those two mechanics are corrected, I'll go fine tuning other things. For example, the OP's video shows a pitcher with far too much anterior tilt. Compare the tilt in his video at footstrike with that of Greinke above. You'll notice the OP's kid is tilted back while Greinke is already building momentum down the mound.

Thanks HOF, I've prowled around for a long time but never been part of the discussion before. Myself and a couple of my friends are doing some more writing these days so I figured I'd finally jump in!  

As far as how to coach this particular aspect of the delivery, it really depends on what the problem is.  

I always look to see if the core stability is where it needs to be before I make any plan for a pitcher. Among other things, but I don't want to wander too far off topic.

In my opinion, putting mechanical advice on top of a body that can't physically handle it, is more of a band-aid than anything else.  They may hold it together temporarily, however if their body isn't strengthened correctly their mechanics will often break down again.

In addition, teaching mechanics that add a lot of velocity to a body that doesn't have a good foundation of strength, mobility, flexibility, and stability, can obviously be dangerous.  Velocity training, in my opinion, has to always start with body/movement training before mechanics. At the very least, it should include very strong doses of both.

Short term velocity gains can be achieved with mechanics-only training, but long term health and the ability to sustain those gains can be compromised in the process if the underlying body is not properly trained to support it.

Sometimes weaknesses are due to immature physical structure (with younger guys in particular) and sometimes it's due to ineffective training models, often it's both.  The physical maturation part can certainly take years, and that message is a good one for a lot of kids out there to hear.  Success in baseball is a process, not an overnight accomplishment.   

If the kid doesn't have any of these issues with strength, then Roothog66 is right on and giving great advice.  In this instance, I think it's good advice.  As has been discussed, this pitcher looks strong.  I still start with strength/stability training, but mechanics training is effective and appropriate if the kid has proper physical characteristics. 

To be clear, I'm not disagreeing with either of the last two posters, I just think it's important to understand the different focus.  I agree with HOF that an awful lot of pitchers lack the proper physical fitness to be a good pitcher, this is something coaches need to work a lot harder on in my experience.  I think this pitcher is ready for roothog66's excellent advice, I just wanted to point out that some may not be.

Great discussion, the pitcher in this topic should benefit from it a lot.