The physical aspects of baseball are important, but nothing can make you a high level player quicker than a solid mental approach. In this article I am going to give an intro as to what we at CSB™ believe to be the correct way to approach the game mentally. Mental toughness in baseball is what separates players beginning at a young age. Having a mental routine that you go through every day will boost your performance on the field. Many players push the idea of the mental game of baseball aside, which in turn will limit their progression. Core Savvy Baseball™ Intro to Mental Progression: 1. Control Your Focus : The biggest part of being a successful baseball player is the ability to stay focused on the task at hand. The best way to do that is to focus on one pitch at a time. By breaking down the game pitch by pitch, our mind will remain in the present moment and extremely focused. Staying sharp throughout the course of the game can mean a win or loss for the team. We need to always remember that we have an obligation to our teammates to stay focused. The game is always bigger than just you. 2. Be Patient : Baseball by nature is a leisurely-paced game. We need to remember that we can't hit a 5-run home run. Everything is not going to happen at once so we must remain patient and poised throughout the game. It is very important to understand that sometimes we need to tone down our emotions or aggression on the diamond. A great way to do relax our minds is to practice breathing techniques. Breathing is one of the few natural ways to relax our body and mind. Taking a deep breath before each pitch of an at bat will sharpen our focus by lowering our heart rate. "Our Patience will achieve more than our force" - Edmund Burke 3. Confidence Through Visualization : There is no better way to gain confidence as a baseball player than through visualization. Your mind does not know the difference between you visualizing yourself hitting a home-run and you actually doing it. This means that if we take just five minutes out of our day to visualize ourselves succeeding, we are actually doing it. "Mental Repetitions" are what some coaches like to call them. You can visualize yourself hitting a walk off or pitching a perfect game. This is the key to unlocking our true potential. Solid visualization will result in a boost of confidence. At CSB™ we call this technique using the law of attraction. "We are like magnets. You become AND attract what you think" - Rhonda Byrne I highly recommend this book to any player who wishes to play beyond little league. In my professional opinion, it is the most comprehensive book ever written on the mental aspects of any sport, let alone baseball. Reading this book front to back a couple of times will instantly make you a better baseball player. All of our students at Core Savvy Baseball™ are required to read parts of the Mental Game of Baseball each week.
Core Savvy Baseball Mental Pillars to Success 1. We do not judge ourselves on wins and losses. Baseball is a team sport and we cannot control what our teammates do. 2. Control what you can control. You cannot control who you play, the weather, pitch location or who will be umping. Stay mentally tuned in to what you can control (pitch selection for example). 3. Do not expect to be perfect. You will make errors and strikeout, sorry to break it to you. It is what we do right after an error that defines our character. Do we crumble? Or pick ourselves up and get ready for the next pitch? 4. Always remember you are not just a ball player. You are a son, grandson, friend and a leader. Playing ball is just one thing that you do well as a human being. Nothing that happens between the lines should ever make you forget your values. 5. Baseball is like life. Stuff happens. Always remember that no matter what happens during the course of a game, it is just that, a game. Keeping our perspective is a great way to stay mentally acute in baseball and more importantly in our daily lives. **We will break down the next part of the CSB™ mental Progression in later articles so stay tuned.**
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Ok now lets finish up the last two absolutes to pitching. I want you guys to remember that these absolutes are not up for debate. They are the pillars that the philosophy of pitching rests upon at Core Savvy Baseball. If you want to achieve greatness, take these pitching imperatives to heart and internalize what I'm teaching you. Before hand, if any of you readers out there have any questions about what I'm writing here, or in another post, feel free to ask by sending us an email at coresavvybaseball@yahoo.com. We are just about to get into the good stuff, and Im excited to let you guys in on what the big leaguers do. The things that build velocity, control, and straight up nastiness. This is where the money is made! Get excited and ready for the most important Core Savvy pitching lesson yet. Lets start right where we left off, at Equal and Opposite Hands. Now would be a good time to go read the previous pitching article if you haven't already. They are all tied together and would be most effective if read in order. Foot Strike To piggyback from our last article, it is important to keep your equal & opposites up to the point of foot strike. Foot strike is the next absolute we will be talking about and is the process of when the front foot lands. We will look at is not just foot strike, but everything that creates an overall good position at foot-strike. "You can't throw the ball until that front foot hits the ground."-Nolan Ryan Now this might sound like and obvious fact, but Nolan Ryan is addressing a much bigger problem here. When looking at the pitching delivery as a whole, it goes from smooth-to-violent. The violent part of the delivery begins as soon as the foot hits the ground. Many young pitchers, that don't know any better, get violent before foot strike when trying to increase velocity. Some examples include the arm stab or shoulder tension . The violence that I'm talking about is completely generated by the core. Notice in the picture of Roger Clemens how his foot is down, while his throwing arm lays back, relaxed. This is how the core works at top performance. If you try to initiate either the arm or core before foot strike, be prepared to miss above the strike zone all game. Not to mention the strain it will put on the elbow and lower back. Another characteristic of good foot strike position is keeping the front side closed. A common piece of pitching advice is to keep the shoulder closed, which almost every pitcher has heard at some point. This is one of the conventional wisdoms of pitching that is actually effective. The longer a pitcher can stay closed, the more torque he will generate at foot strike. If you've ever heard that your front shoulder is "flying open", this is another common fault in trying to throw early or before foot-strike. Not only does this take away from a pitchers control, but is doing the exact opposite of what the pitcher thinks he's doing, throwing harder. Look at this picture of Pedro Martinez staying perfectly closed all the way up to foot strike. What is great about keeping your shoulder closed is it simultaneously keeps the hips closed as well. If you are throwing properly the hips will be the first to rotate, so it is still important to think shoulder closed for as long as possible. The process of the hips clearing before the shoulders is a concept called hip-to-shoulder separation. This concept is what makes foot strike so important. Hip-to-shoulder separation has been proven to be responsible for 80% of the velo created in a delivery! This is an advanced concept that I only teach to players that I feel are ready to make the most of this knowledge. For me to talk to a little leaguer about this would be like me teaching calculus to a 5th Grader. Some knowledge is only helpful when the mind is ready to hear it. For this post I will simply explain what the concept means, but leave the details of how to improve it for a more advanced post. What I want you to do to the picture of Dan Haren (above) is to first draw and imaginary line through the left hip and out the right hip. Next I want you to draw another line from the center of his head through the right shoulder. From a birds eye view, the angle that these lines create is known as hip-to-shoulder separation. Just as the name states, its basically the separation that the front hip gets from the throwing arm shoulder. Now don't let the glove hand fool you to think he is opening up, his shoulders are still more closed than his hips. Look at how Haren's hips are basically squared up to the plate, while his throwing shoulder is laying back. This rubber band effect that the torso has on the upper body is what torque is all about. Think of it like a slingshot, where the hips create the tension and the upper body has no choice but to come through at a high velocity. Now that we have covered how to properly position yourself at foot strike, we now will move on to the last absolute in the Core Savvy Pitching Philosophy. Lock Up Absolute #3 addressed most of the keys for increasing your velo, but now we will be talking about how to harness it. Locking up is a combination of a few things happening during the last moments of the delivery that give a pitcher that pin-point control. I tell all my lessons upfront, "Sure I can increase your velo by about 5 mph, but if you can't control it then theres no point in me teaching you in the first place is there?". This sets the tone for all my pitchers, to show what I find most important . One of my more experienced lessons was hitting 90 mph near the end of a summer full of lessons (my glove hand had just about enough by that point). What I was more proud of was his desire to be able to locate it. Many kids out there would be happy to ever hit 90 mph but I respected his mid set of "So what?". Being able to locate that 90 mph transforms a thrower into a pitcher. So now let me start off with the different aspects of locking up. As some of you have probably figured out, locking up is simply a way of saying "Lock onto the target". By this, I mean that your chin needs to be in the catchers mitt. Yes, I want you to try to get that chin as far out in front as possible. Keeping a steady head, and getting it over your front foot is crucial in having control. Notice how Maddux's chin is tense as he is mentally sticking it in the catcher's target. If his feet were showing in the picture, it would be safe to say that his chin would be at, or just over his front foot.
The second part of locking up has to do with release point. Releasing the ball as far out front as possible is another crucial factor in having perfect control. It also is when the pitcher is using the last bit of his arm strength. Having this last bit of snap at the end of his pitch prevents the hitter's dream of a "pushed fastball". When using this last bit of wrist snap, it should feel like you are placing the ball in the catchers mitt. The average Major League pitcher will release the ball 8-12inches out in front of their head. Greg Maddux shows just how far a pitcher is able to get both his chin and release point as close to the target as possible. Man it gets me fired up just talking about this stuff! LIke I said before this where you make your money! Scholarships and pro contracts are given to the ones who master these absolutes. So start now, no matter how old you are and fulfill your potential. Hey maybe try a Core Savvy pitching lesson if you really want it! CSB™Terms Defined: Arm Stab: A violent movement down with the the throwing arm as the hands break Shoulder Tension: When the shoulder blades pinch together prematurely as the hands break. Velo: An abbreviation for velocity This is a topic that I have wanted to write about for a long time. I have heard many different ideologies when it comes to two-strike hitting. In this article I want to give our readers an idea of the process from beginning to end of hitting with two-strikes. At Core Savvy Baseball™, we have broken down the art of two-strike hitting into a science. Mental Adjustments: At CSB™ we teach all of our students the mental side of the game. When it comes to two-strike hitting, our mental approach is the first step. When hitting with two-strikes we want to have a fighters mentality. Imagine ourselves with our backs against the wall in an alley, the only way out is to fight. I cannot stress the idea of having a fighters mentality enough because it definitely seems to be something that todays players have forgotten. Willie Mays called baseball "violence under wraps" and "disguised combat". This is first step to being a great two-strike hitter. The next mental adjustment we teach at CSB™ necessary for becoming a dominant two-strike hitter is the ability to look fastball and adjust. In no other situation would we ever suggest this approach with the exception of two-strikes (we will go over quantitative pitch selection in future CSB™ articles). As hitters we need to mentally put the idea in our heads that taking a called third strike is unacceptable. I see far too many coaches who do not understand the ramifications of teaching kids that taking a called third strike is ok. Physical Adjustments: Along with the what I believe to be the more important mental side of two-strike hitting are the CSB™ physical adjustments necessary to be successful. Core Savvy Baseball teaches all of our players to choke up on the bat as the first physical adjustment. This is for the sole purpose that a shorter bat length equals more bat control. The next step we teach our students is to put your back foot on the inside line of the batter's box. Essentially we want to move closer to the plate with two-strikes for more plate coverage. Also, crowding the plate with two-strikes will often make the pitcher leave a good pitch in the hitting zone because of the visual change he sees from the mound. The next physical adjustment for hitting with two-strikes is to widen out. The reason we teach our players to widen their stance is to gain balance, which in turn will eliminate head movement, making the baseball a lot easier to gain vision on. Another reason that we want to widen our stance with two-strikes is to get lower to the ground. This will give our eyes a slightly easier time gaining vision on the baseball. Two-Strike hitting ultimately comes down to using rotational mechanics to stay inside the baseball. If a player is able to conceptualize and understand the CSB™ rotational mechanics, the only thing stopping him from becoming a great two-strike hitter is his mental approach.
From the second the opposing pitcher takes the bump, Core Savvy Baseball™ teaches our students to ask themselves two questions: 1. What pitches is he having trouble getting over? 2. What is his strike-out pitch? Both of these questions are necessary to ask yourself if you want to be a great two-strike hitter. By understanding the pitches that the guy is having trouble getting over, we can narrow down what he is going to give us to hit with two-strikes. Obviously, knowing the opposing pitchers' "go to" pitch is something that is crucial for hitting with your back against the wall. At Core Savvy Baseball™ we call this doing your pre at-bat homework. I cannot stress the importance of the pre at-bat homework enough because if it is done correctly it will lead to a huge boost of confidence at the plate. Even in the big leagues, few hitters truly ever feel "comfortable" in the box. I don't like this term and I hear far too many youth coaches teach it. Major league players have never felt comfortable against Randy Johnson, or Pedro Martinez, nor should they. The way MLB players find success against strike-out pitchers is not by feeling comfortable. They have success with two-strikes against these type of pitchers by opening up their hitting zone. I'll tell you now, if you're a player whose coach tells you to have a "dead red" approach with two-strikes, you need to run the other direction. Strike-out, top flight pitchers are not going to give you the "dead red" pitch that you want. We need to understand that being too selective with two-strikes will lead to a ton of backwards K's. Major league players have success with two-strikes against this type of Cy Young caliber pitching by opening up there hitting zone. In some of our past CSB™ articles we talked about the idea of "letting the baseball get deep". This idea comes up again in regards to two-strike hitting. The greatest two-strike hitters on the planet have the ability to wait longer than other players do before they decide to start there swing. So how do we gain more time as hitters? One very easy way to gain more time with two-strikes as a hitter is to simply move back in the box. For some reason, I watch countless players strikeout on pitches that if they were in the back of the box would have broken way out of the hitting zone. When we move back in the box, we eliminate part of the late break that sliders, curveballs, and other off-speed pitches have that make them so elusive. Another way that we teach our students to gain time is with two-strikes is to crowd the plate and open up your stance slightly. This will make the rotational swing shorter to the baseball, which equals getting to the ball quicker. This will also lead to a boost in bat speed. Never, ever close off your stance with two-strikes. This will lock our hips, making rotation hitting impossible. When we cannot rotate, we start our swing with our arms which will lead to a huge drop in bat speed. Along with the drop in bat speed by closing off our stance, we loose roughly 25% of the plate. The pitches that we lock ourselves out of by closing off our stance are any inside pitches. If we loose 25% of the plate as hitters, our chance of success with two-strikes drops dramatically. In conclusion, your pre-at bat homework, mental and physical adjustments, and the idea of "letting the baseball get deep" are ways to cut down on strikeouts. Core Savvy Two-Strike Hitting Motto™: Reaching you're hitting potential requires first-rate, two-strike execution™. For starters, the main concepts in this article may be difficult or hard to master at first, but with proper baseball instruction and practice they develop over time. The specific pitching drills that will be taught by Core Savvy Baseball will make this progression as smooth as possible. Once you make a big adjustment and see results, it is greatly rewarding for yourself and the Core Savvy staff as well. As I like to call them "lightbulbs" will seemingly go off in your head once everything clicks. These realizations happen so often that I recommend you have personal journal of your baseball progress. Now to the information that will change you as a baseball player In the previous post on pitching I listed the four absolutes of pitching that every pitcher needs to do. Believe it or not, you already do these four things. They all happen in every pitching delivery no matter how you throw. The difference is that some people do them well, either naturally or coached, while others are simply unaware of the importance of these checkpoints. Lets start with the first absolute of the delivery: Collect & Balance Balance is the most important step in getting rhythm on the mound. As I stated in the previous article, rhythm is undoubtedly the most important part of pitching. Balance gives you control of your body, which is vital to a good rhythm. Players with poor balance will often have an unpredictable delivery. Whenever I start with a new lesson, rhythm is my biggest focus so I start by working on their balance. Now what is good balance? Good balance is being under control of your body and most importantly, your center of gravity. Balance starts when all the weight is being collected on the drive leg. This step is called collecting. One of the biggest coaching flaws taught in pitching is to be able to stop or hold at the peak of their balance point. It is important to actually be leaning forward as soon as your lift leg is being brought up. An angle of 6 degrees of lean, from perpendicular, is what most major leaguers create when at peak leg lift. This creates momentum to the plate, which has helped many pitchers unlock hidden potential for more velocity. Notice how Justin Verlander immediately starts to create momentum when he begins his leg lift. When the leg reaches its peak, with a slight lean toward the plate, the next step is to drive with the load leg down the mound. Once headed down the mound, the center of gravity must stay aligned. Meaning that the head, through the belly button, should create a straight line down. This keeps the pitcher's center of gravity, which is necessary to achieve the most powerful delivery. Aroldis Chapman shows here how his center of gravity is strong all the way up too foot strike. (Also notice his equal/opposite hands). The balance at the end of a delivery is tricky which is why I will cover it in a later post . For now just remember that collecting, and keeping center of gravity will dramatically help you to unlock potential you never thought you had. This leads us to the next absolute in the Core Savvy pitching philosophy Equal and Opposite Hands You will hear me say this a million times, "Your hands are your timing". What I mean by this is to have your hands in the equal and opposite position when they break. When a pitcher breaks his hands to begin the throwing motion, they need to be symmetrical or mirroring each other. It also needs to be a continuous motion, with no stopping of the hands at any point. When the arms stop at any point, this takes away from the building of arm speed. It also makes it much
harder to stay in rhythm when the hands are starting and stoping. Think of a man on a tight rope walking with his hands out. One will go up, when the other goes down. His hands are helping him with his balance just as they are with a pitcher. And yes, balance is needed throughout the delivery, not just when the leg lift is at its peak. A smooth, symmetrical arm circle will lead to great rhythm and balance. The steps happening between or simultaneously, between the points of balance and equal and opposite hands are:
These will be looked once all of our absolutes are covered. Stay updated on the next Core Savvy Baseball post that will cover the last two absolutes, foot strike and locking up. In the last Core Savvy Baseball article we talked about a deadly lower body hitting flaw called hip slide. This is a short article that is the next part of the equation. I want to introduce our readers to an upper body hitting flaw that most often makes hitters feel like they cannot square the baseball up. This upper body mechanical flaw is called bat drag and it can single handedly destroy your bat speed no matter how strong you are. Along with bat drag is bat lag. Bat lag is what great hitters possess. Before I say anymore lets break down the two concepts. Bat lag is what we want to have as hitters. Bat lag occurs when the hands begin to move into the hitting zone. When the hands begin to move they lead the barrel slightly creating whip and a tremendous amount of bat speed. As you can see in the picture of Barry Bonds above, his hands are linked with his hips and his hands are leading the barrel. Bonds' hands are in front of his elbows which makes this a fantastic example of what good mechanics look like. Barry has perfect bat lag. He accomplishes this by linking his hands with his back shoulder and keeping his hands in front of his back elbow. I cannot stress enough that the hands must be linked with the back shoulder when rotation begins and that the hands must be in front of the back elbow to create whip. Now that we understand what bat lag looks like we can talk about it's negative counterpart, bat drag. Bat drag is something that is most common in youth baseball. This is because that a big reason for bat drag a lack of strength. Bat drag is extremely easy to spot unlike some of the past concepts that we have covered at CSB™. A lot of professionals call this flaw "hitting with your elbows" because that's exactly what it looks like. When a hitter has bat drag his elbows will drag his hands and barrel of the bat into the hitting zone. Bat drag can be clearly seen in the picture above, although its grainy. The hitter's elbows are far in front of the hands. This is going to create a long, slow hand-path and absolutely destroy his bat speed. No matter how good a hitter's lower half is, until he turns bat drag into bat lag his maximum bat speed will never be reached. Here is about the best example visually that I can give you to understand bat drag vs bat lag. On the left we see Pujol's hands infront of his back elbow which is going to create a ton of bat speed through whip-like torque of his upper half. On the right side above, we see a picture of a young player who like a lot of young players leads with his elbows in front of his hands. Pujols has bat lag, while the young player has bat drag.
Hopefully this short article helped you understand how to create a more torque and bat speed in your swing. At Core Savvy Baseball, we have innovated specific upper body hitting drills to completely fix bat drag. "Lag, don't Drag" CSB Key Points Bat Lag: (hands in front of the back elbow) is good, and is a sign of a good swing. Bat Drag: (both elbows in front of the hands) is bad and will destroy your bat speed. I want to talk about a lower half hitting flaw that is most common among young players. I see this mechanical flaw far too often, as a result of poor coaching. The mechanical flaw I am going to discuss is what we at Core Savvy Baseball™ call hip slide. During my career as a hitting instructor, I have never seen more kids do one specific thing wrong. Hip slide makes hitting the baseball a whole lot harder than it has to be. To fully understand what hip slide is exactly, you must first know what proper mechanics look like in regard to the hips. So let's explain the correct mechanics of a hitters hips first: At CSB™, we teach the hitting concepts of going forward under control and foot-striking to prevent a lunge at the baseball. If a hitter understands how to use his lower half correctly, after he foot-strikes there should be no more forward movement of the hips. The exact moment that a hitters front foot hits the ground is when the rotational part of the swing begins. Once the foot strikes the ground and weight transfer is accomplished, the hips start to open up and rotate. As you can see in the picture above, as soon as McGwire gets his front foot down, the rotation of the hips begins. His hips are not going forward, so his head will stay extremely still as a result. This is a key to vision in hitting, as discussed in earlier articles. Until Mark gets his foot down, his hips can go forward. As soon as foot strike occurs, his hips must rotate up and out. What you see above is a great picture of Manny Ramirez using hips correctly. As soon as his front foot hits the ground, the rotation begins. Manny's head is so still you can draw a straight line through his body as if he was swiveling on a pole. This is what the correct use of a hitters hips looks like, and what we teach at Core Savvy Baseball™ to take our clients to the next level of power hitting. Now that I have explained the correct use of a hitter's hips we can go into hip slide. Hip slide occurs when a hitter transfers his weight forward out of control, (see article on "Going Forward Under Control") and lets his hips continue to go forward after his foot strike happens. This is a flaw that most of the time can only be seen on video because it happens so fast. At Core Savvy Baseball ™, we have developed some very easy visual clues that can help diagnose the problem without costly video analysis. Here are some visual clues for to diagnose hip slide: 1. The first and most apparent clue to diagnose hip slide is if a hitter is not getting around on inside pitches. For young players, this looks like on inside pitches they either don't swing or get jammed. This is the easiest visual clue that we have developed at CSB™ to diagnose hip slide. 2. The second visual clue is not as easy to pick out. If a hitter is hitting the ball very softly to the opposite field or in opposite foul ground, they most likely have hip slide. This can also look like the baseball has a lot of spin towards the opposite field. 3. The third and final visual clue to diagnose a hitter with hip slide is something we have talked about in earlier articles. When a hitter lunges at the baseball or goes forward out of control, his is essentially fooled on all off-speed pitches. So, the third visual clue is simply a hitter who is transferring weight forward to violently and is fooled on off-speed pitches. Above is a picture of Ichiro. He is a classic example of a hitter who hip slides. As soon as his foot hits the ground, he should begin to rotate his hips. Instead, Ichiro continues to glide foward, causing a ton of head movement. Ichiro is a freak of nature. He has the ability to hip slide and still keep vision, but most of us cannot. The mechanics used by Ichiro above are exactly what we want to avoid teaching to young players because by sliding his hips Ichiro looses all power. Coaches who teach this or do not understand how to use the hips correctly end up with players who strike out a ton and hit the ball weakly to the opposite field.
Now that we fully understand what hip slide looks like, I want to offer up a much more mechanical explanation for our advanced readers: Hip slide can be the end of a players baseball career. The reason being that when hip slide occurs, the hips cannot fully rotate. By shifting too much weight forward, we essentially lock our hips from rotation. Not only do we lock our hips when we hip slide, but as a result we also mess up our hand path. When the hips cannot rotate because of too much weight on the front side, the hands cannot be pulled inside to hit with any power on middle and in pitches. This causes the hands to cast out away from the body, creating poor plate coverage and a lot of strikeouts. Most, if not all, of a hitters weight should be on the backside to allow his hands to work naturally, (we'll get into hand path and upper body hitting in the next article). At Core Savvy Baseball™, we have innovated a variety of drills to fix hip slide. Once hip slide is fixed and a hitter becomes rotational, he will unlock 40% more power and cut down on strikeouts significantly. The very first thing I want to say before we get into the article, is throw out anything you currently know about throwing the baseball. The only true way to learn the Core Savvy mechanics is to have an open mind. Players who do not buy in and take these mechanics to heart will not see results. I want to give our readers a little intro as to what the Core Savvy Principles of Pitching and Throwing really consist of. These mechanics have been developed by the Core Savvy team over the course of a decade. The Core Savvy pitching philosophy revolves around being in rhythm. Rhythm is the key to creating a repeatable delivery no matter what the pitcher's mechanics may look like. Yes, the mechanics are what create an efficient and powerful delivery, but above all a pitcher must be able to repeat his delivery over and over again. Once this is accomplished we can then look at each part of the delivery and how each step flows into the next. At Core Savvy, a repeatable delivery is step one. There are four absolutes in a delivery that I consider pitching imperatives. These four steps occur in every successful pitcher's delivery.
These Core Savvy Pitching absolutes will be throughly examined in later posts due to their complex meanings, but are important to be aware of for now. In our later articles we will break each of the four down to a science. I wanted to introduce the terms to you now, so you can begin to put them in your memory bank. Before we get to these steps I'd first like to talk about the act of throwing as a whole. There are a few key concepts that any pitcher or position player can use when throwing. The first key concept we teach at Core Savvy is knowing the difference between when the arm is light and when it is heavy. The technical terms for light and heavy are arm speed and arm strength. A good comparison of this process is comparing the arm to a whip. When a whip is initiated the flow of energy starts in the handle and flows through the entire whip (arm speed) and then snaps with great force (arm strength). When throwing a baseball, one's core is the metaphorical handle of the whip, while the arm is the whip itself. The most important thing to keep in mind is that during arm speed, the arm remains light. This means that there is no force or strain being put on the arm to generate power. All the power is being kinetically transferred as soon as the front foot lands on the ground. A list of movements is then followed by this, but what is important for you to understand now is to let your arm circle occur with no stress. Arm speed will end as soon as the wrist is naturally snapped and the ball is released. Up until this point the wrist should be relaxed and cocked back to create the whip like action. In this photo you see Nolan Ryan keeping his wrist loose while about to begin arm speed. Arm strength occurs during the very last moments before a pitcher releases the ball. It is the last bit of force that will be applied to the ball before it leaves the hand. Since the wrist and fingers will be the last kinetic link, the wrist should be laid back and ready to lock up on the glove. This is what creates the whip like action, which puts great force on the ball that most hitters call "jump". No matter how hard you throw, this way of throwing creates great carry for those in the outfield and good jump for pitchers. You see in the picture above how Ryan's arm strength is occurring in the last moments of releasing the ball. This is when the arm feels the most strain or heaviness during the motion. It is very important to learn the Core Savvy Baseball throwing process at a young age to allow a healthy career to unfold. Many of the things that prevent a healthy career come from uneducated coaches and parents. Many think that the velocity of a pitcher comes form the elbow alone, because they see the whip like action it creates. How many times have your heard "velocity just comes from genetics"? Also, how many times have you heard from coaches that all the power comes from the legs? It doesn't. At Core Savvy we will unlock your bodies most powerful asset, the core. The core is where the most energy is created.
I have found that the quickest way to end a young player's career is injuries to the elbow. When I (Julian Merryweather),was younger, I believed that my elbow to created all my velocity like most kids. For the short term it seemed to work. Yet, after every bullpen or game, I would have to ice my arm and take anti-inflamatories. As I got stronger and began to naturally throw harder, this just amplified the stress on the elbow. I would estimate I was about a few months away from needing Tommy John surgery, until I changed my delivery and thoughts about throwing. I found that using the core and shoulder were much more durable muscle groups that could produce even more power. Currently, I can throw 150+ pitches with no need for ice or anti-inflamatories after a game. Using the Core Savvy techniques literally saved my career. My goal through the Core Savvy Baseball Pitching Philosophy is to reach the younger generations who will most likely fall prey to poor coaching. These mechanics that we will continue to break down in future Core Savvy posts are guaranteed to save your career. Keep up with our blog to get the latest Core Savvy Pitching articles. We will break down every step of the delivery and clear up any myths in the next article, "The Core Savvy Absolutes of a Pitching Delivery™". Opposite field hitting is what separates great hitters from average ones. I take tremendous pride in the fact that all of the CSB students learn how to take the ball to the opposite field with power through our program. Pitchers are taught from a young age that the low and outside strike has the lowest percentage of batted balls. This means pitchers from youth baseball up to the professional ranks try to establish the low and away pitch early and often. Learning how to effectively attack the low and away pitch can be the difference between a short or long career. Almost every hitter, beginning at the Varsity level of high school, can turn on a fastball. What separates one kid from another is the ability to go the opposite way with power. Many coaches will over-teach the idea of hitting the ball to the opposite field. By "over-teach" I mean stressing the idea to the kid too many times. As coaches, we need to be careful in when and how much we emphasize a topic. With opposite field hitting, I see coaches teach kids to ONLY hit the ball the other way. In the last article we talked about vision and how vital it is. Vision, again, is the key to hitting the ball the other way consistenly. When we pound the idea into a kids head that they need to take the ball oppo, they will literally start trying to go inside out on middle and inn pitches. In my opinion, this is a devastating effect of how poor coaching can ruin a kids career. Once the player has the approach to go oppo with every pitch, he now locks himself out of the most power we have as a hitter. At CSB, we believe the true power of a hitter comes close to his body, (a boxer's punches have more power, the closer the target). Coaches today are building a generation of players who can take the ball the opposite way well, but lack the ability to truely "turn" on the baseball. It seems in recent years that coaches at the College and Highschool levels have gotten away from the swing players used to hit the baseball over 600 ft (Mickey Mantle). This all has to do with over teaching the concept of going oppo. At CSB we do not teach "lead with the knob" or "throw the hands". If your a player, and hear these terms often, then your coach has no clue about how to teach opposite field hitting. We are never going to guide the baseball the way we want it to go. As covered in earlier articles, "throwing the knob" will only lead to flyouts in foul ground and weak ground balls. Vision is again the key. We always get vision on the baseball, which then tells us where the point of contact must be. Once we establish vision, and recognize the outside location as a hitter, the real science of going oppo comes into play. "Let the baseball get deep". This is probably the most important saying in hitting. Period. I have heard it from top flight collegiate coaches as well as hall of fame players. Hitting the ball to the opposite field with power has nothing to do with guiding the pitch. It has everything to do with letting the baseball get deep. What this saying really means is that as hitters, once the outside pitch is recognized, we must now let the baseball get to us. Letting the baseball get deep will allow you as a hitter to not get fooled by off speed pitches that break late (sliders, cutters, curveballs). If a player does not get vision, then he must start his swing early to compensate, making letting the ball get deep impossible. The reason we need to let the ball get deep to hit it with power to the opposite field is because of the point of contact. The point of contact on the outside pitch is IN FRONT of the body. Most Coaches today teach that on the outside pitch, the point of contact is almost at the back hip. This theory is incorrect. As you can see below, the point of contact on an outside pitch is out in front of the body, and none are hitting the basball behind the back hip. Both Pujols and Mauer use what we at CSB call a "3/4 pivot" to drive the outside pitch. This is another concept of rotational hitting that we will cover in later articles under the topic of opposite field hitting. Neither Pujols or Mauer are "guiding" the pitch to the opposite field. They are simply using the same rotational swing they would on an inside pitch, the only difference is the location being outside.
I cannot stress enough how important Vision is to the opposite field hitting equation. If we do not train our eyes at first, we will never be able to let the ball travel enough to be successful hitting the baseball to the opposite field. (One side note: Notice the barrel of the bat in both pictures. The barrel is below the hands. Neither of these guys swing "down" on the baseball to create backspin. We will talk in depth about this in the next article on 'how to ruin a swing'.) "Let the baseball get deep" |
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