Most pitchers aren’t crazy about drills. They often have a right to feel that way. Most of the time they are not told the objective of drills so how can they realize the benefit? Many drills were simply copied from someone else because they looked interesting. Therefore, how can the pitcher extract a benefit from the exercise when nobody knows the why she is doing it? READ MORE ...

In the past two weeks we have worked with a couple of new pitchers who had shoulder pain so they asked if we could help. One of them was receiving medical treatment. In these cases, the cause was simple. They were lifting the shoulder during the circle in an effort to add more to the pitch. That caused it to “crunch” on the way down. You should never have crunching or popping in the shoulder during the pitch. The pain went away once we relaxed the shoulder, the ball moved faster, accuracy was improved, and the legs were able to engage more fully. READ MORE ...

That is probably not a good question to ask a father whose daughter had only two formal pitching lessons in her life. That’s right, for all that Angela accomplished, we only had two hours of pitching lessons, and both of these were late in her high school career when we wanted a second opinion on some things. People are shocked that we did it on our own. READ MORE ...

Often a girl will come to a lesson who is struggling to regain her form and we start asking questions. Turns out that she pitched four games in a day in order to try to win a tournament. Because the softball motion is different from baseball there is a belief that there is no harm physically. This may be true in some ways, but pitching too many games causes several problems. READ MORE ...

The last year has been a whirlwind as our company has grown so rapidly that we hardly have time to stop and think. On those rare occasions that allow time to reflect, we notice a pattern in the growth. The largest group consists of pitchers who are frustrated. They used to see improvement, but have stopped getting faster and better and can’t understand why. They come to us looking for answers. The second group comes from kids with nagging injuries who want to see if our approach may help them. We get excited about meeting both groups. Today, we will address those who have stopped improving. READ MORE ...

My daughter is good at keeping things in perspective. We were discussing a particular issue in the pitching motion of a student. She said I should not to see it as the kid is doing something “wrong”, but try to help her see if she could be “better” if she changed it. It was a great point. READ MORE ...

I often ask that question and get blank stares from new students. Where should you feel strong? Then, after a pitch, I ask where they felt tight? Normally they name places in the body where they should not feel tight. These are often places where tightness can cause injury. The shoulder in an obvious example, but there are several more. Tightness also is an indicator that you are using the wrong muscles. READ MORE ...

Many years ago I sought advice from the coach of a well-known team regarding my daughter’s pitching. He looked across the table at me and said, “Get her a pitching coach”. When I tried to ask why I couldn’t learn and grow and teach her, he was impatient and rather rude in saying I was wasting my time if we didn’t get her a pitching coach. I have always gotten a little satisfaction out of the way things turned out for us. READ MORE ...