Youth Pitching Mechanics

By Coach Todd Williams for YouthPitching.com

The goal for any Little League coach or parent is to keep the game safe, simple and fun for their young pitcher(s).

That's what we're aiming to do with this pitching lesson on developing better youth baseball pitching mechanics.

When it comes to teaching pitching to 8-12 year olds, I generally encourage Little League age baseball players to pitch from the stretch all the time, not the full windup.

There are a couple of reasons for this. But the most important is simplicity: when pinching from the stretch, many younger pitchers find that they are more consistent throwing strikes and repeating their delivery.

In short, pitching from the stretch allows most of the major parts of the pitching delivery to be developed correctly, and muscle memory built in before bringing another piece of the pitching puzzle.

It's kind of like putting the frame (or outside) of a puzzle together before working on the middle. Take it in stages, and don't try to fix everything at once. These areas could be broken down even further, but by using these as a guide you won't get caught up over-analyzing every detail. Remember, pitching needs to be fluid, not 'mechanical'.

It's understood that through all of these stages the head and eyes are always important, such as the eyes never leaving the target, the head and eyes staying close to level as possible through the delivery.

• Mental (routine, focus & even keeled)
• Set-up
• Rocker step and lead leg lift (pitching from the stretch won't have a rocker step, but a routine as well)
• Balance
  
• Hand position (mitt and ball)
  
• Lead leg down and hand separation
  
• Weight shift (body movement)
  
• Arm action
  
• Shoulders
  
• Lead foot plant and knee action
  
• Back (post) foot action
  
• Hip rotation
  
• Release, follow-through, and Finish

Mental: Have them develop a routine, what they do between every pitch, both mentally and physically. What's the situation, how many outs, the count, what to do if the ball is hit to them, and approach the mound the same all the time and develop a style and routine that helps put the whole pitching process of mechanics and the mental in motion.

Set-up: On the mound they need to clear their mind visualize where the ball is going and freeze for a split second to 'dial in' on their muscle memory and target. Gripping the ball and placing it in the mitt the same way each time is part of this routine. The ball should not be placed in the back of the hand, it should be on the last 2 knuckles of the longer fingers, and not squeezed to tight. Throwing balls well short of the mound is one sign of squeezing the ball to tight. We tell our pitchers: 'Find a dime', they know to instantly look at the catcher's mitt, and visualize a dime in the mitt, not the whole mitt. This helps get them focused.

Rocker step and lead leg lift: From the stretch, they need to get on the mound in the stretch position, we like the lead leg about 2-3 feet in front of the mound and the ball in the pitchers hand. They first focus, take a breath, move the lead foot back to the mound at the same time the hands comes together about chest high, and a pause and focus: 'Find the dime'. Then lead leg lift naturally and without a jerky motion preferably the knee goes between the belt and chest high and hands together (not against the chest, but a couple of inches from it. IMPORTANT: The balance portion at this stage is critical to the overall pitch (our guide shows you the good, bad, and in between of these areas, what to watch out for, and how to correct any flaws).

From the windup, the (what will be) back or lead foot should only go back and a little to the side about 3-6 inches. Any more than this gets the body out of balance and starts a (what I call) negative sequence, where for the rest of that pitch, all of the moving parts are having to get re-balanced and in proper timing (which usually doesn't happen) to make the pitch. From the windup the sliding the back foot into position on the mound and the swivel action of the hips to get the body turned sideways on the mound is an important part of the process to staying in balance, and not swinging around too far so the back faces the batter. IMPORTANT: The balance portion at this stage is critical to the overall pitch (our guide shows you the good, bad, and in between of these areas, what to watch out for, and how to correct any flaws).

Balance: Balance is one of the most critical parts that must be mastered for consistent control, velocity and reduced arm stress. Our guides have some easy drills to make this happen fast.

Hand position (mitt and ball): The ball hand and mitt should stay together until the lead leg starts to move down, remember, leg goes down, hands go apart. The hands should stay about chest high (for timing reasons) until they separate.

Lead leg down and hand separation: The lead leg goes down and out, not out, over and down. The toes should hang down slightly. If the heal of the lead leg is down, this can open the hips and shoulders too early and cost your pitcher velocity, control, and a sore arm. There's several important aspects of the lead arm and pitching arm during separation that are shown in our guides and the affects of what happens with variations of this. The hands do go in opposite directions, but not like the 'karate kid', the lead arm stays a little bent and using the elbow as a site to the target, the pitching arm goes back towards 2nd with the thumb under the ball and the ball moves from facing 2nd base to rotating as the arm moves into the 'High-L' (or cocked) position. Careful: You hear some coaches say: 'throw over the top', this is wrong, it create imbalance and puts stress on the rotator cuff. The pitching slot is best around a ' position. We have some good drills to help your pitcher develop the lead leg down and out sequence. You'll gain access to our video library that shows some of these drills in action.

Weight shift (body movement): 'Staying back' over the back (post) leg as long as possible while maintaining good balance and body position is one of the main ingredients to power and velocity. Staying back and not moving our in front too early harnesses the power in the hips until the lead foot plants, at that moment is the 'uncoiling' of the spring (hips), and if the sequence has proper timing and the pitching arm and shoulders are in the right position, maximum velocity and control will be seen. If the top of the body moves out too soon then most of the power from the hips is lost and places the additional load on the shoulder.

Arm action: The pitching arm should be moving in sequence and timed to be at the 'high-L' at foot plant. If the arm is too quick or too slow there's loss of power and stress on the arm. The part of this sequence is better seen in our guides. It's important that the pitching elbow from the 'high-L' to just before release be at or slightly above shoulder height. IF it's too low there's loss of power and a lot of stress placed on the elbow (ulnar collateral) tendons. If the elbow is too high it pinches the rotator cuff and creates stress there as well.

Lead foot plant and knee action: The lead foot should stride out to a long, but comfortable stride length. The foot should land on the ball of the inside part of the foot pointing slightly towards the right hand batters box. It should land on a line from the post (back foot) towards home plate. If it lands too far to the right the shoulders (for a righties) are too closed and they're throwing across the body which reduces velocity and puts a lot of stress on the shoulder. If it lands too far to he left of the line, the shoulders will be pulled open too soon, reducing control, velocity and brings on a sore elbow. We have some excellent, easy drills (in our guides and our video library) on how to train the lead leg to land properly with the correct amount of front knee flex. IMPORTANT: The front knee is important as well, it needs to have some flex at landing without 'caving in', and not too rigid which forces the upper body from being able to follow-through properly, forcing the pitching elbow to come from over the top which puts a lot of stress on the elbow, and usually pitches high in the strike (or ball) zone.

Shoulders: The shoulders (head and eyes too) need to stay in line from 2nd towards home until foot plant. A very typical flaw is the shoulder opening up too soon before foot plant causing erratic control (usually low and outside) and arm stress.

Back (post) foot action: IMPORTANT: The back foot does NOT push off the mound. Even though that's how I was taught in little league and I still hear coaches saying: 'push off for power'. Pushing off does just that, it pushes the upper body out too fast and now the entire sequence is in that thing I said earlier called: 'negative sequence', meaning the body is now, before it's even had a chance to get started is out of sequence (negative), and the body and muscle memory and mind will have to adjust (which usually doesn't happen) to get everything else back in sequence somewhere down the delivery road. The back foot is pulled off the rubber from the hip action. If the foot drags off the mound you lose power. We have a good drill to help develop this foot action in our video library you'll also have access to when you invest in our guides and your pitcher.

Hip rotation: As the foot plants and the shoulders stayed closed, the hips explode the pitching arm through the 'pitching slot' (angle) to release and pulling the back foot off the mound, actually rolling it onto it's outside top of the toes and then the back foot pops up and out. IMPORTANT: Even with the hips rotating and the release, the head, eyes, and shoulders should be as close to level as possible to keep good balance and allow a proper finish for the arm and put them into a good fielding position.

Release, follow-through, and finish: The release should be out in front of the head, and the wrist should snap through after release and follow a circular line from release down between the plant knee and ankle. They should not 'short-arm' the pitch or 're-coil' the arm like using a yo yo. The finish allows the energy and stress in the shoulder, elbow and wrist to be dissipated instead of just jamming on the breaks. This proper follow-through and finish is vital to consistent pitching and for reducing arm stresses.

Pitching is one of the most over-looked and under-studied position in youth sports. This isn't meant to offend anyone, but the truth of the matter is that 95% of youth coaches and parents don't understand pitching mechanics, what to look for, what's important, what's not, how to improve them, and the results that poor mechanics has on success and possibly life-long arm injuries.

Pitching starts from the bottom and goes up, it's not about brut strength, working out, standing on the mound, raring back and pushing off the mound to get power. Most of the power comes from between the thighs and hips, the arm is along for the ride (but also needs to be in the right spot at the right time to generate maximum power and low stress).

Most young pitchers that dominate because of power, rarely even make it in high school. It's the kids that are working on their mechanics, control, mental, and overall pitching that make it anywhere.

Most either decide that their child will only be pitching for a few years anyway, so why worry about it, or the hopes that the coach can help, and on the flip side the coach hopes the child already knows how to pitch. I'm here to tell you it's not that difficult to teach and/or for the pitcher to learn and improve. As with many sports we could list a ton of drills and tips, but for young pitchers 8-18, there's only a few simply drills needed, and a few things to really work on to make dramatic improvements fast.

It's nice that kids want to emulate certain big league pitchers (or hitters), but in reality, each player has a body type that will allow or disallow certain flexibility in the body, and this will impact somewhat their general overall form. There are certain areas that need to be watched, not only for performance reasons, but for arm injury purposes as well. Our pitching guides point these things out very clearly with a sequence of pitching mechanics taken from video and made into still images. Every pitcher will have subtle little things they do differently and you shouldn't force a certain 'look' onto a pitcher. A lot of it has to do with comfort and a natural flow of body movement that their body will allow.

The body can be trained to do most, if not all of the major mechanical phases properly, but there is some flexibility in each phase that allows a pitcher their own identity.

We spend as much time talking about flexibility, stretching, proper warm-up, conditioning and treatment as we do the actual mechanics, those areas are often over-looked by 90+% of coaches, and these areas have a direct impact on the improvement, success, and reduced sore arms as anything else. Even for an 8 year old, getting them into a routine, just like brushing their teeth before bed, putting on shoes to go outside (at least during the winter), and other routines will build a pitchers confidence as well because they'll understand that this is a part of pitching. Many are afraid it will make them look like they're taking young pitching or winning too serious so they don't. Believe me, if other parents see you enforcing a routine, they'll want their kids playing for you.