New Pitching Drill
Today we had pitchers and catchers practice and I discovered some great new drills from the Ohio Fastpitch Connection.
The drill we implemented today was a variation of the walk-in drill. For those of you unfamiliar w/ the walk-in drill here is how it works:
- Stand about 2 steps behind the pitching plate.
- Walk towards the plate and “walk in” to your motion.
- Pitch as normal.
What this accomplishes is getting your pitcher’s motion moving towards the plate. So often they want to simply pitch w/ their arms and they forget almost all of their power is derived from their lower body. This is a great drill to do every day!
The variation I found at the Ohio Fastpitch Connection was combining the “walk-in” with the “long-toss” drill. For those that don’t know about the long toss drill it is simply extending the throwing distance between the girls every five minutes or so and have them throw long. They should not “whip” the ball, but should throw “over the top” with smooth, flowing, motions.
Combining the long toss w/ the walk-in was a very good drill. We started about 20′ apart and slowly backed them up to a distance of 60′. By the time we moved to the 40′ pitcher’s plate, they thought it was short and every one of them threw harder! This is a great drill I will use very often in the future.
Do you have a pitching drill to share? Post a comment below and let us know about it.
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Riseball:
To practice throwing a good riseball, the back of your elbow should come by your side at release. When releasing the ball, drive the fingers underneath the ball. This way you get tight rotation on the ball. Nothing is better than live pitching practice!
Awesome! The “doorknob” drill is a good one for learning the riseball. Simply stand there and put your elbow against your body and throw the ball up about 6″ with a motion like turning a doorknob. It works well to program the motion into your brain.