The Split Perspective of Separation
February 17, 2009
Separation is a major component to developing top velocity and longevity. Separation means having separation from your back hip to back shoulder. Notice the picture here of Felix Hernandez. His back hip is pointing towards home plate and his back shoulder is pointing towards second base. This creates torque in the core. You can see the stretching in his jersey around the stomach area. Having more torque in the core instead of the shoulder of the arm will lead to more velocity and a healthier arm.
The best way to achieve separation is with your hips. You must understand that there is a delay from your hips to shoulders. This means your hips start first and your shoulders hold and when your hips stop, your shoulders commit. Just like the picture above, you must see the component “Separation” as a split perspective. Your lower half and then your upper half. Your lower half works first, then your upper half follows. Most young pitchers do this in reverse. This will cause arm problems and poor velocity. This happens because if the upper half starts first then the lower half is left behind and has no opportunity to be used.
I recommend you take a picture of yourself during the point of “Separation” and cover up first the upper half of your body in the picture. You want to see your hips completely open to the target like the picture above. Then cover your lower body and you want to see your shoulders in line with the target like the picture above. If you do not see good separation then you need to work on getting your hips moving faster while delaying your shoulders until just before front foot strike.
Notice the picture here of Mariano Riviera. The greatest closer in the game. His hips have started his delivery and are driving towards the plate while his shoulders stay back. His arms are relaxed and waiting for his hips and legs to reach full stride, before the shoulders are ready to fire. The shoulders must fire after the back leg has triple extended and the back hip has completely committed to the target. This is the point of Separation.
This split perspective is essential to developing good separation. You must see this as a split second delay in your lower half to upper half and the hips leading the process. This is a challenge to learn and perform well but this component alone is what separates average pitching from above average pitching. Combining good “Separation” with a total body Olympic style strength and conditioning program, equals a Top level Pitcher.
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Loading ...Written by Brent Pourciau · Filed Under Pitching Articles
Tagged: combines, conditioning, deliveries, felix hernandez, foot strike, full stride, game, hips, learning, left behind, legs, longevity, major component, mariano reviera, performance, perspective, pitch, pitcher, pitchers, pitches, pitching, program, second, separation, shoulders, stomach area, strength, stride, target, torque, Velocity
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What I feel is so very important concerning the very intricate, informative messages, video clips and deeply detailed pitching, training and rehab.methods is that all of Brent’s information comes from personal experience of either self application and/ or becoming an excellent student while acquiring his vast pitching knowledge, To me what makes his story so unique is that at 18 yrs old he personally went the gamut from damaging his rotor cuff etc. to the extent of being told that his injury would never heal well enough for him to be able to adequately pitch again, to full rehab. success and went on pitch again in professional ball, He accomplished this by taking a very positive attitude towards rehabilitation to some very knowledgeable people who taught him what to do on the physical aspects along with learning about the two most important body movements which allows pitchers to use their whole body from the ground up which is, “ARM PREVENTATIVE INJURY,” “HIP AND SHOULDER SEPARATION,” pitching is a side ways movement to front foot touch down with a stride length of at least matching one’s body height then as “TED WILLIAMS” taught us many years ago, and still stands,”LETTING THE HIPS LEAD THE WAY,” “HIP AND SHOULDER SEPARATION,” with shoulder rotation following, Then bringing the throwing shoulder and arm on through to the release point following through on down into a good flat back fielding position, letting the arm stay down and relax which alleviates the enormous tension, strain and abuse created within the arm and all other body parts effected by the throwing movement and also allows the enormous power and energy built up during the throwing motion to dissipate into the larger muscles of one’s lower body instead of dissipating into the smaller muscles of the upper body/ torso which in turn allows the arm, shoulder and other body parts effected to recover and become ready for their next sequences of pitches.
If players, parents, coaches and potential coaches would take the same type of positive attitude towards the learning process as Brent has done them and their athletes would benefit tremendously.
I sincerely thank Brent for feeling that my knowledge is good enough to write various baseball articles covering different aspects of the game. on his web. site.
Don Ervin.
Springfield, Mo.
kom_ervin@yahoo.com