Example Program and Breakdown
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EXAMPLE Breakdown
A pitcher reached out to us, requesting advice, guidance and a new pathway for his training. He is in the middle of an arm-slot change and wanted a new perspective on where he was at mechanically.
First Impression:
Athletic Mover
New Arm Slot
Powerful in Rotation
Overall Movement Qualities:
You move very fluidly and athletically throughout the entire delivery, you do a lot of things really well from an athlete standpoint that allow you to have a high ceiling as a thrower. However, you lose the high ceiling potential when you start to look at the timing of your throw.
As you can see in the picture above your pelvis is extremely closed at footplant. You create an exceptionally high amount of pelvis rotation, which is elite for throwing hard. But this rotation occurs too late. The ideal way the delivery works is that your pelvis is supposed to rotate forward, pulling your upper body along for the ride.
Pelvis → Torso→ Arm
However, since your pelvis rotates too late in the delivery you are not able to properly transfer it to the upper body and deliver the ball. It is sequenced more as if your pelvis and torso go at close to the same time (relatively), you make up for this by being really strong in rotation and a good athlete, but with the goals of being a big leaguer, we need everything we can get out of your delivery.
This image is from the frame where your back leg finally turns over. Your torso is open and thus you aren't able to apply the full rotation into the ball. You are shortening the window of time you can really put force into the ball. Being able to throw 92-94 from this position is very impressive, and makes me believe your ceiling is really high.
With your pelvis being late to rotate, your upper half has to throw itself into rotation and open early in order to deliver the ball. This leads to early rotation of the upper half, and your torso rotation speed is far below where it should be because of this. You do a really good job of holding back your torso into foot-plant, however your back leg/pelvis take so long to rotate that it cannot hold itself back long enough to properly time up.
Overall, you move well, but fixing the timing of the pelvis rotation in order to better “slingshot” the upper half into ball release is the final piece to you being an elite thrower.
One last mechanical piece, I think that you try and force a little bit of counter rotation with the upper half. Sometimes when throwers try and do this to stay closed with the upper half it blocks the lower half from rotating. This would seem to fit into your mechanical profile. Instead of trying to close off, you could simply have the thought of trying to stay neutral for as long as possible.
Plan of Attack
First point of emphasis if getting your pelvis to rotate before foot-plant. This is the major piece holding you back and is likely causing the other issues in your throw. Everything we have discussed to this point is relative to where your pelvis is. Your torso is open relative to when the pelvis opens, etc.
Your Plyo drill progression will be simple
Kneeling Throws
2 Sets of 5 with Green plyo and Blue Plyo
If the green is too much, you can go blue/red
Catch Play
To tolerance
MOUND PLYOs
Split Stance
1 set of 5 Throws: 7oz 6oz
Roll in
1 set of 3-4: 7 oz 6 oz
Keep pelvis facing target, try to keep the torso back through foot-strike
Do not get overactive with the back leg, feel a “dead back leg” otherwise can lead to really pushy lower half
Janitor Drill
1 set of 5 throws: 6oz 5oz 4oz
Focus on being preset with counter rotation of the pelvis but a more neutral upper half.
Bullpen/Live
Mondays 15-20 easy
Fridays whatever live AB’s requires.
I recommend 3-4 hitters. No need to crush volume when you're in pre -eason and not building up to be a starter.
PLYO Types:
Full:
All 4 Drills: Kneeling, Split Stance, Roll In, Janitor
Main 2:
This is for light effort days, strictly do the Kneeling throws and the Split Stances.
On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, don't do them on the mound.
THROWING SCHEDULE
NOTES:
If you prefer to throw on Sundays instead of Saturdays, you can just move all of your Saturday work to Sunday and take Saturday as a full off day. However, one of the two days should be fully off.
Be careful with the plyos on wednesday. It says full, but please stay below 80% effort. The most important thing you can do between Monday and Friday is recover and allow your body to rest up in order to have maximal output on Fridays live AB’s.
On Mondays, don't go full 100% effort. However, if the arm feels good and on the last 1-3 reps of each drill you want to get close to full go that is alright. Listen to your arm and be smart.
During catch play, if you feel inclined to do these drills in your catch play I think that would be a great idea. If you prefer catch play to be loose and athletic that is fine as well. However, i think sloppy low effort catch play doesn't help anyone and being able to stay constrained allows low effort reps to carry more value.
SWEEPER NOTES:
Really solid shape, however the velocity is lower than it should be. I believe that with the lower slot you might need to change the seam orientation in order to create more horizontal and higher velocity.
Sending you grips to fix this will likely require some tinkering, Next bullpen session try to get some slow motion video of release.
Old Grip:
In my opinion, you are a little high on the seam. I think that lowering the seam orientation will allow you to get more horizontal while coming through the ball more. Being able to create more horizontal without having to get all the way around the ball will let you try and throw it harder while holding shape.
New Grip: Fingers together Whirly Orientation
Getting closer to the middle point of the baseball could match your new arm-slot. This grip is pretty popular for people with your movement profile and arm-slot so I believe this could be a winner. Try and get a release video of your next bullpen and let me know how it goes.
CONCLUSION
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John