The Hip Slide to Pitching Velocity
February 12, 2009
The biggest problem I find in young pitchers is that they have poor separation in hips to shoulders. There are many articles on this site covering the pitching component “Separation.” It is so important because having separation from your back hip to back shoulder before the shoulders rotate to the plate, is critical for velocity and the health of your arm. What “Separation” does is it builds core torque. It puts more torque in the big muscle groups of the core, instead of mainly in the small muscle groups of the shoulder.
Most coaches do not coach “Separation” because it is a challenge. The only way to coach this component and to perform this component correctly you must focus on the “Hip Slide.” What I mean by “Hip Slide” is that your hips should be seen as a slide or car and when you first lift your leg to start your delivery, the slide must start down the mound. Everything else on your body must stay back while the slide is heading down the hill. Therefore the faster you can get your slide down the hill while holding everything else back, the faster your velocity. It is also just as important to velocity if the slide comes to a complete stop at front foot strike. The hips/slide must stop, so the momentum it generated, is transfered up the core, into the shoulders, into the arm and finally the ball. The reason you must focus on the hips to develop “Separation,” is because if the hips move faster than the shoulders, you will create good “Separation” naturally.
Driving your slide down the hill as fast as possible and slamming the slide into your front leg to completely stop its momentum, is your best opportunity to generate your potential top velocity. It is also just as important the distance the slide covers before it is stopped by the front foot strike. This distance is called your stride. A good stride is at least your body length. A good stride means that you had more time to generate momentum before front foot strike.
When your slide is building momentum down the mound while you are holding everything else back, which is called “Loading,” this will increase your stride length. The best way to perform this is by “Loading” hard on your back side until your back knee starts to straighten out. Once it begins to straighten, you must triple extend your back leg, to add that last push to your slide which will build more momentum and increase your stride. Read my article “Lift for Show, Load for Doe” to learn more about the “Load.”
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Loading ...Written by Brent Pourciau · Filed Under Pitching Articles
Tagged: coach, deliveries, doe, faster, foot strike, generations, harding, health, hip slide, hips, least your body, legs, load, momentum, muscle groups, muscles, performance, pitch, pitcher, pitchers, pitches, pitching, separation, shoulders, slams, slide down, stride, timing, torque, transfer, Velocity
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This article is great and i really love how you have the slow motion video of the pitcher. It really gives you a good understanding of what to do when your reading the article.
I think I understand the hip/shoulder seperation but what hapens when it is done too early?
Timing is everything in baseball. Good hip to shoulder separation means when your front foot lands your back hip is open to the target and your back shoulder is closed. If you separate to early but still land with good hip to shoulder separation this shouldn’t cause problems. I just believe it is very unlikely that you can do this. If you have footage of this please send it to me and I will do an analysis.
heres the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuOMJFDVVac
this is a better one i think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rogLbUaprf8
I am working very hard right now to get better and I plan on getting your ace pitcher handbook to get at an advantage and be able to make varsity this year for high school.
The video is set to private. Make it public and I will do and analysis for you.
It is public now
Here is your analysis.
http://topvelocity.net/forum/mechanics-and-analysis/patrick-pitching-analysis/
thanks Brett for the analysis. I am now working on pushing off the mound harder and have also started lifting my front leg up higher. When I lift my leg higher I feel like it is easier to push off the rubber and to lead with my hip. My stride length has increased by about 5 inches when I do it right and my front leg also starts to straighten also. After I get that into muscle memory I will work on scalp loading also. The analysis has really helped so thanks again.