Learn How Critical Leg Strength is to the Power Pitcher

Pitching Analysis Instruction

Pitching Analysis Transcript

This is Brent Pourciau topvelocity.net, I’m doing a pitching analysis of Nick and I’m gonna pair him up with Chapman. Nick into his leg lift here, Chapman into his leg lift. One thing Nick, you’re kinda stalling out on your lift leg you need to take the opportunity of the lift leg to get going and start building that momentum, as your lifting, you’re dropping your weight on your drive leg. We need to lift close off, and the best way to do that is as your lift leg’s coming up like Chapman here, as your knee is coming up you want to move your hips forward and keep that knee back to your drive leg. What that does is it closes you off real well like this and pushes your hip out so you’re leading with your hip and start to shift your weight forward, you can see his head and front hip are inside his drive leg. As his drive leg is coming down he’s really starting to take off and get going, as that leg’s coming up to here you should be pushing forward that hip and keeping your knee back which you’re not. Your leg just comes up and goes back down so you pretty much could have just started in that position. There’s not enough forward progress or momentum in the beginning of your delivery. Watch where Chapman is when his lift leg gets to where yours is, look how much farther off the mound he is, you’re not exactly side position here, but we can he’s a lot farther out, that hip is way inside of his drive leg knee, you’re still balanced up over your drive leg so not enough initial speed in your delivery or movement so you’re gonna see how that plays a big role before or into front foot strike.

We can see here that Chapman loads up really well because of that forward momentum he stays closed, that front foot here because he’s still in the load position is pointing towards first base, knee to first base, and that force vector’s in line so he’s in that good launch position. Let’s take you into that load position, that would be about right here when your force vector gets in line, but you don’t have good flexion on your drive leg Nick, you’re kinda just standing up there so you’re not gonna have much extension because you don’t have much flexion. It’s like a vertical, if you want to jump high or dunk a basketball, there’s a sweet spot but we want to move into flexion so we can get good extension. You’re a little too extended in this launch position which is gonna prevent your ability to really build power here. We can see Chapman has that good flexion and he’s gonna move great into triple extension before front foot strike. We can see here you get extended on the knee and you don’t get your ankle through before you land so you don’t have that triple extension before front foot strike. You’re staying closed, but because we don’t have the triple extension before front foot strike we don’t have the hips through like we do here with Chapman, when he lands those hips open up, once he lands and stabilises, we should see that hip rotation immediately. You’re landing, no hip rotation, so your hips come through, we can see your belt buckle, it stops right there. That’s when your hips first open, this is when Chapman’s hips first open, he’s got hip to shoulder separation, we can see that right hip’s to first base, that shoulder’s pointing back to second base so that’s good hip to shoulder separation. With you Nick, your hips at first base but your shoulder’s right there with it so you’re just not converting your stride into hip to shoulder separation. The National Pitching Association’s velocity study of 2006 proved that 80 per cent of velocity came from how much you are able to separate your shoulders from your hips to front foot strike, because you’re failing there, you don’t have that separation, then that’s a product of your power through your lack of stride. The more speed and movement that we have through that stride, coming through the drive leg, and the ability to achieve that triple extension before we land, that’s gonna create explosive hip rotation to front foot strike which we saw with Chapman here. He lands, 1, 2, he’s open, you land, 1, 2, 3, 4, it’s not accurate to count frames but you can see that it’s taking more time just because you didn’t get those hips open in front foot strike. When it takes longer for the hips to go through there’s less chance you’re gonna separate your back hip from back shoulder.

Nick I know you’ve been through the 3X pitching velocity program and you came down for the camp but I feel you need to take advantage of this off-season  and hit the strength and conditioning program. I can see that you do look better but you just don’t have the leg strength and I really believe that if you had the leg strength you would move more like Chapman is here. It’s really gonna be an emphasis on that leg strength, getting good at the explosive movements and really seeing your percentages going up, maybe let me know what your three lifts are: bench press, power clean  and back squat, just so I can see how much you’ve improved since the camp, if you’re heading in the right direction. I really think that’s gonna be your key Nick, I think you have a good understanding of what we’re doing here, you just need to get the leg power, you don’t have the leg power, you don’t have the speed and movement coming of that rubber which is not helping you in being able to generate some good velocity.

I hope that gives you a good analysis to get you going with it again and I hope this helps. We’ll talk soon.