Learn the Importance of the Pitcher’s Force Vector

Learn the importance of the Force Vector

Pitching Analysis Transcript

This is Brent Pourciau here at topvelocity.net doing a pitching analysis of, I don’t know, Will or Jeff, I’ll just call you Will! Take Will here into his leg lift, take Chapman here into his leg lift, we can see that the only difference here is that as Chapman is leading with that front hip, we can see that the lift leg is pulling back. With Will, as he’s leading, we don’t have that lift leg pulling back, we can see similar positions, but Chapman’s lift leg is pulled back more. That’s always gonna help as we move through the stride because when that leg gets out in front of the front hip it really starts to shut down power production. It really starts to kill the stride because you’re preparing for the front foot, or preparing for landing so when it gets out early it tends to be the point where power production is at the end and now we’re going into front foot strike and then going into hip to shoulder separation. If you read my article on foot synch in pitching velocity, what that will do, it will open the front foo t early which will cause hip rotation early. The point being here, you ultimately wanna see this lift leg reacting to this first move here which Will’s doing well, but his lift leg isn’t being pulled back like Chapman’s doing here. That’s really nit-picking at this point, but once we go through your components and it comes down to inches, then this might be one of the adjustments to make in your delivery.

Nailing the Linear Force Vector

So let’s take Chapman into his load, we’ll see that lift leg as it comes down, his whole body’s moving, not just the lift leg, he’s moving forward and down at the same rate so when his lift leg does break open his force vector, ankle to knee, is in a linear position to that front hip. Why is the force vector so important? Because we can’t, as pitchers, build power until this is linear. If this stays vertical, we can’t build power, because our only opportunity to build power is through the ground and our only foot on the ground is the drive leg. We want to use that drive leg to build power and to create hip rotation just before front foot strike, then we know that when the front foot lands it generates ground reaction forces and more power – it’s all going to support the hip rotation, that’s the key. If at front foot strike, we can get as much hip rotation as possible then we are going to create more hip to shoulder separation because this is an explosive movement, that hip rotation forward and if the shoulder’s just in position and relaxed it will separate from that movement. It’s really the key, it’s the 3X approach and that’s what we’re focusing on here.

We can see Chapman has gotten in a great load position, he’s loaded up, he has, not only for the force vector, is linear, for a good rule of thumb, part of the 3X program is that of you can get the force vector pointing to the front hip, you’re in a good linear position, anything above that, not as linear, more vertical. Also, the flexion here, we see flexion in the drive leg, if we’re in this component with extension then we can’t move into the next component which is the power component which is triple extension because if you already have extension, you can’t get more extension so we will limit our ability to generate power and the effectiveness of the creating hip rotation before front foot strike. Chapman’s loaded up well, you can see his arms, all they’ve done is broken, separated and staying relaxed, just slowly getting into position because we don’t move into what’s called the throwing phase until after front foot strike. He’s still in the stride phase, his arms are just reacting to that stride phase which is slowly getting in position for the throwing phase so we can see Chapman is the ideal candidate for these components.

Let’s take Will into his load, we can see your lift leg wasn’t pulled back so well so when your front leg breaks, let’s take Chapman, you’re in the same position, look at the difference. This was the point of bringing up the lift leg as reaction to your first move because you can see in the next frame Chapman gets a little more linear, but this is the point where the knee to hip really is very close, Chapman may be a little farther out but there’s a big difference in the force vectors. Your angle of force is vertical, his is getting to be linear and we can see here in the next frame he’s still closed and it’s linear. You can see how he was able to take the hips farther than you were before your front foot broke your front hip. That’s gonna be very effective in generating power through your stride because you can see what it does to the force vector – it allows the force vector time to get in line. You’ll notice that if this knee swings open then that force vector, it’s hard to continue to load, to build flexion, to line up the force vector when your front knee is opening. What’s happening is that front knee opening is triggering your hips to rotate so it’s forcing your back to build around, and while it’s trying to pull around your trying to build up flexion and line your force vector, it’s almost impossible, so for you to really understand that, you should ultimately try it. Go through a side step without even the ball, throw your knee open and try to load down with your force vector in line with your drive leg, it’s almost impossible. The longer we can prevent the front knee from opening, the better chance that we’ll get into a great load position, to be able to build power through to the power phase. Chapman here has just put himself in a better position because of that lift leg.

There’s pitchers that’ll still reach out with their front leg and throw hard but, Felix Hernandez for example, he might reach out with the lift leg but the foot and the knee stays closed. Really, there’s two things here, we wanna prevent the lift leg knee from getting out front and opening up, we can slip it out there as long as we keep the knee turned in and the front foot turned lateral to the target, that’s the key. It will allow us to line up the force vector, if we don’t start the hip rotation by opening the front knee, either by lift leg reaching out and staying closed while we’re loading of just keep the lift leg back here behind the front hip while we’re loading, those two ways are going to allow us to do that if we don’t start the hip rotation.

Will, as you come down, you hit this point here, you’re kinda stuck. You’re bodies going, ‘I can’t accelerate because I have no angle of force meaning I’m still vertical so I’m not really falling anymore because my leg is down now I’m gonna start drifting forward to get this force vector in line.’ Your body knows it has to get in line, I know you will because I’ve seen your delivery and you do eventually get it in line but you now start to drift and reach out at the same time. When you do get your force vector in line, you’re too extended so it really affects your ability to build power here, how can you move into the next component, triple extension, if you already are extended. Another thing, it looks as though you’re reaching way inside your stride line which would go from that power pad straight to your target. I wrote an article on that foot placement, you should read that in the pitching placements, I’m not saying I don’t think it’s right to say you stride straight perfectly in line because a lot of pitchers don’t. I actually would rather see you just inside, I like the fact that you’re inside but you look like you’re way too far inside so just make sure that you’re not. If you stuck your foot down on the line and then one foot over, if you’re not more than two foot placements to the left then that’s fine, if you are then you’re definitely striding too far across your body which is gonna limit your hip rotation.

Your force vector shows up late, it shows up her and as you’re extending to really this is your load, that’s your load right there. It’s way too vertical, you can’t really build power so your body reaches out with the front leg and extends the back leg and once it gets in line then all it is really is your ankle kick. Your ankle kicks, you’ve landed but technically, you never recovered. You can see how your poor load position prevented your drive leg from getting fully extended before front foot strike which would have created more power and hip rotation – your hips haven’t gone anywhere, they’re still closed. So watch how effective it is to stay closed, get loaded, get linear and then build your power. Here goes his power, you can see knee’s and foot’s extending and all that exploded through before the front foot’s landed, we can see it’s till up and then when he lands he’s a good 6-8 inches off the rubber – that’s power. Big difference here, you’re still dug in, he’s 6-8 inches off the rubber, fully extended and watch the hips, here’s the key. Look at his belt buckle closed, next frame fully extended, before front foot strike you can see the hips begin hip rotation, that’s the key, if we get fully extended before we land it creates hip rotation so that when we land it goes to immediate opening of the hips. You don’t get fully extended, no hip rotation, you land fully extended, hips still closed, so you don’t have the hip rotation that he does at front foot strike. This is the point he landed, this is the pint that you landed, his belt buckle’s still to the hitter pretty much all the way, your belt buckle’s to the camera. He has hip rotation at foot front strike, your shoulders are still back so there’s no way that you’re going to get your hips through and keep your arm back it’s impossible. These muscles in your core are too big to allow these hips to move open and this shoulder not to go. If you don’t create it at front foot strike, you’re not gonna finish with good hip to shoulder separation. The reason that this is the foundation of 3X pitching, the National Pitching Association put together their study in 2005/6, said that 80 per cent of your velocity comes from your ability to separate your hips from shoulders at front foot strike. If you can’t get as much separation here at front foot strike as you can from hips to shoulders, then you are not tapping in to 80 per cent of your velocity, it’s insane how important this component is, that’s what the National Pitching Association discovered. 3X pitching has discovered and proven that extended pitching is the only way to enhance your shoulder to hip separation. That’s what’s revolutionary about the approach and why it’s successful and so well-known because of how this component alone is going to enhance that. You see the difference here, you’re both in the same position at front foot strike, at the same point, but we don’t have the extension, you don’t have the hip rotation and therefore you don’t have the separation. Therefore you’re not tapping into a good chunk of your body’s top velocity. You’re striding way inside your drive leg too which is preventing you from getting extended because if your leg is so far over that you can’t even push through because your hips are locked up, that becomes a problem. You need to check your stride, read my article on the foot placement at pitching velocity and make your corrections there. Ultimately, you are in need of the 3X pitching velocity because it uses a throwing program and a strength and conditioning program together to implement these mechanics. Guys try to take these mechanics from the analysis and try to go out and change them and to me that’s watching the Indianapolis 500 and going out and trying to change the aerodynamics on your car thinking it’s now gonna drive as fast as a high performance race car. It’s really not that great of an approach, I think that you are wasting your time, it helps, you could make a small effect on the aerodynamics of your car but if you’re trying to move like a high performance athlete or machine you’ve got to develop it. You’ve got to build you machine through your muscular system, then you’ve got to develop that by programing your motor co-ordination to move like these high performance athletes. Just saying that I’m going to take the muscular system I already have and I’m going to program it to move like these high performance athletes isn’t going to be enough because that’s like saying that if I sat here and moved through these pitching mechanics of Chapman perfectly but I did it at half his speed, then I would throw as hard as him. That’s absurd, we know that. So by just trying to watch this video all you’re able to do is enhance the program and your motor co-ordination maybe, and maybe get closer to these mechanics, but will you get closer to the speed of the mechanics? No. You wouldn’t get close because there’s such a big velocity difference, this is a 100 mile an hour guy and I’m sure you’re not a 90 mile an hour guy yet so you can see you’re far away from this kind of athlete or pitcher and that’s gonna come from more than just motor training co-ordination. You need the 3X pitching velocity because you have the strength conditioning program to turn yourself into a power machine and then it gives you a throwing program that knows what it takes to program the motor co-ordination around these 3X mechanics. Take it seriously, look into the program and get started as soon as possible as our windows of opportunity are always closing.

The Foundation to 3X Pitching

The reason I stopped and spent this amount of time here is because this is really the foundation. Everything else from here on out is just a reaction to what we’ve done so far and tells us where we went wrong up until this point, to front foot strike, but we’ll take it from there. You can see your hip rotation, wait for it to come through, it’s almost extended but your back is still sideways and that tells us the hip flexor hasn’t kicked through. There’s the hip flexor kicking through, it’s not fully through like Chapman’s, the back leg’s driving over the top of the foot which means that the hips are completely open which would be right there. Your back leg is in the exact same position as Chapman’s. Look at the difference in the shoulders. Chapman’s completely closed, optimal hip to shoulder separation, you’re throwing the ball. You have maybe 10-15 degrees of separation, here we’re looking at 60-65. Big difference, also a big difference when you take some of the work Dr Mike Marshall did with some of the math around Newton’s second Law of Motion which says force equals mass times acceleration, he took that formula and using some sophisticated algorithms, figured out that we can increase velocity by 10 miles an hour if either increase the force applied or the keep it consistent and increase the application time. So I f we look at hip to shoulder separation, you’re sitting here with maybe 10-15 degrees, he’s at maybe 65, the difference between the two is so tremendous because if we can increase the separation then we can almost do both here. Increasing the separation builds more torque, therefore it will increase the force applied and at the same time it gives you more distance to cover so it will increase the application time, so the reason hip to shoulder separation is the most effective way to increase velocity is because you can increase both the force applied to the ball and application time. I really believe, having done the math, that if you hold on to the ball for two tenths of a second more while delivering the same amount of force to the ball then you’ve just thrown the ball ten miles an hour harder. I believe that two tenths of a second will definitely show up with hip to shoulder separation. It also will show up through the stride as well, we can increase the length and the speed of the stride, which is application time, and keep the force consistent or enhance the force, and do the same with hip to shoulder separation then there is a great chance that we increase velocity. It’s just being able to have the power to do it and the motor co-ordination to move through the mechanics. So you can see how the 3X program can ultimately add 5-10 miles per hour to your fast ball, strictly based on that math, on the ability to enhance the speed and stride power, enhance the hip to shoulder separation though that as a reaction to that stride speed and power.

That’s really the program in a nutshell, hope it helps you here. So, once we hit this right, the shoulders commit, the arm externally rotates, because of that great hip to shoulder separation, the shoulders will multiply the force of the hips so the arm continues to externally rotate, it hasn’t done anything, just pulling back and then it’s like a catapult. The farther we can get the chest out with the front leg stable and extended and the farther the arm can go back, the harder it’s gonna go. A lot of studies will assess velocity at this point, let’s see you at that point, there’s a big difference here, your shoulder speed is slower than Chapman’s because of your poor hip to shoulder separation, you don’t move into extension as well and you have poor external rotation because of the slower speed of your shoulders. You move into late internal rotation, he goes early, you get extension a little after release, he gets it almost at release, he finishes a little more forward trunk tilt than you and a big difference in stride length as well, he’s farther out, big difference in stride speed. He’s high velocity category, you’re close but definitely not where you need to be. You need to go back to the front foot strike and do everything right from lift to there, to be able to have big effect on your velocity.

So that’s it for your analysis, appreciate you sending it in and hope that this helps man.