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quote:
Diminishing returns? The longer the stride the harder it becomes to rotate the hips.

Whats more important the stride or the rotation?


Stride and rotation are both important. As well as arm speed, etc. It is a combination of things. I somewhat disagree with the statement above about the hip rotation. Overstriding is a problem, for sure. Too short a stride leads to alot of other timing and power issues.

I always recommend 5 1/2 of your own footlengths from the rubber. This may adjust 6" one way or the other. This allows for rotation into footplant.
quote:
Originally posted by nd943:
After looking at several different mlb player's strides and doing some research I feel mine is too short. Am I correct and what is the effect of having a short stride?


I think the whole premise of your question is wrong.

So your stride is shorter than average. Who cares? Is it causing you a problem?

If it's not broken, then why fix it (and risk breaking something)?

I'm sure your mechanics are different than those of most professionals, but no two professional pitchers have the same mechanics.
You can find the right stride length for yourself quite easily. Go through your widup and then stride as far as you can. If you can land on the flat of your foot, you are not going too far. If you are landing hard on your heel, then you have gone too far. This will be dictated by how flexible your are with your lower half. Go as far as you can and still land on a solid flat foot or even the ball of your foot. If you can do that, you won't have any trouble rotating either.
Hmmmm.... sounds like a hard and fast rule to me..
quote:
You can find the right stride length for yourself quite easily. Go through your widup and then stride as far as you can. If you can land on the flat of your foot, you are not going too far. If you are landing hard on your heel, then you have gone too far.


Then again hard and fast rules are hard and fast

Big Grin

How about backing up and using some chaining to go through things.

I would start with arm action, what does your arm action look like?

Then, how do you feel about your rotation, is it powerul?

A video clip is the best way to do this.
MoJo, How about answering the young man's question about his stride length!!! You can drill him on arm action in another thread. Hip rotation is no problem unless you are landing hard on your heel.......like Mark Prior. If you land on the flat or ball of your foot, you won't have any problem rotating.......if you don't believe me, just go out to the mound and try it.
Last edited by bbscout
quote:
Originally posted by bbscout:
Hip rotation is no problem unless you are landing hard on your heel.......like Mark Prior.
Scott Kazmir is another example of a pitcher who lands on his heel and I wouldn't say he has any hip rotation problems. I think how your stride foot/leg is getting opened into foot plant is more important then whether or not you're landing on your heel.

Jason
You sign the guys who land "hard" on their heel, and I will sign the guys who land flat or on the ball of their foot.

Line up all the young pitchers in the neigborhood and have them stride out to a position where they land hard on their heel and then see how they rotate.You can use an example like Kazmir if you wish and I will use examples like Ryan, Maddux and Clemens.
nd943-

For starters, I agree with Bighit15….good place to begin no matter what mechanics you use….unless you’re one of those kids with size 15’s

Landing “hard” on the heel may indicate problems such as crashing into foot plant. But the action of landing on the heel first (as opposed to landing on the toe first) is not a detriment to opening the hips into foot plant. There are high velocity pro pitchers that use the heel to toe action as a means of opening their hips late into foot plant.


captain
quote:
Landing “hard” on the heel may indicate problems such as crashing into foot plant. But the action of landing on the heel first (as opposed to landing on the toe first) is not a detriment to opening the hips into foot plant. There are high velocity pro pitchers that use the heel to toe action as a means of opening their hips late into foot plant.

My son lands flat. He used to crash his heel. We tried to get him to land ball of foot, but it didn't work for him. A lot of pitchers land heel to toe without crashing. He has size 14, but he is 6'5". greenwinky

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