"How do I throw a curveball?"

"Coach, my arm hurts. Why?"

"Is it true that a screwball is really bad for your elbow?"

"Who do you think has the best mechanics in baseball right now?"

These are some of the hundreds of questions I have been asked over the past two years as a Little League, high school, and personal coach for my youth pitchers. Though I played baseball and loved watching it throughout my adolescent life, I never really received much in the way of training on how to throw a baseball with maximum velocity and movement, much less instruction on how to avoid injury while doing so. It seems that little has changed over the years, so I took it upon myself to learn as much as possible about pitching safely and effectively.

To me, it does no good to train a pitcher to throw 95 mph without control and with the fear of injury in his arm, and it is also a waste of time to show a person how to throw a baseball at subpar velocities for their age but guarantee them no arm injuries for life. We are talking about athletic competitions here, and in doing so, risk will be a part of the game. This is unavoidable. Sometimes risks must be taken to compete at the highest levels of any organization or sport, and baseball is no exception. However, that being said, there are many pitching coaches and video analysts on the Internet today trying to sell you a product that "guarantees" 8-10 mph faster on his fastball or a great snapdragon curve that would embarass Rick Ankiel in his prime (well, as a pitcher, anyway). Oftentimes the product is something like weighted balls, wrist rocket apparatuses, weight lifting kits, exercise bikes, or wrist weights. Just follow their program and you’ll see results in 4-6 weeks!

Maybe you will, and maybe you won’t. However, that’s not the issue. Even if you are successful on these programs, there is no guarantee that the results will stick and that you will not accelerate injury to your throwing arm.

These coaches and analysts tend to focus on one thing: Velocity. And they have a good reason to do so - pitch velocity is one of the most important factors in getting a pitcher drafted into the major leagues and jumps off the page of an Athletic Director’s scouting report. However, we’re talking about human lives and bodies here, and it is only right that we fully disclose our training methods. They should be safe AND effective, not one or the other!

So, here is what I recommend and how I teach my pitchers to throw:

Proper pitching mechanics encompass a total arm/body kinetic chain series of events that allow a player to throw as hard as necessary with outstanding control, outstanding movement, and outstanding deception.

To that effect, the pitching analysts and coaches who have influenced me the most are (in descending order of influence):

• Tom House (ASMI)
• Bill Peterson (RPM Pitching)
• Dr. Mike Marshall
• Chris O’Leary
• Dick Mills

Tom House is a relatively "safe" name in the sport of baseball, and though I disagree with some of what he says, his books and work at ASMI got me to think critically and scientifically about the traditional pitching motion used by pitchers today.

Bill Peterson is a lesser-known entity; he owns RPM Pitching and has done extensive research into the biomechanical side of throwing a ball. Much of his work is derived from his personal experiences with his son and Dr. Mike Marshall, and though he admittedly has had a negative experience with Marshall, it does not necessarily invalidate the good things that the controversial ex-Cy Young has to offer.

Marshall is an interesting pitching coach, and you may have seen his work on HBO Real Sports (aired in March 2008) or on various Yahoo! Sports links. His pitchers do not throw traditionally; instead, they look something like this:

Jeff Sparks, throwing a Maxline Pronation Curve

Dr. Marshall’s unorthodox body and arm motions combined with his rather arrogant and abrasive personality leave many to ignore what he has to say in the baseball world. This is a mistake. Dr. Marshall has done significant research on biomechanics and has the authority to speak on all things related to kinesiology, especially as it relates to baseball.

Chris O’ Leary is an Internet pitching/hitting analyst who I agree with on most issues regarding pitching. Though he has little personal experience in baseball, this does not invalidate his opinions. He backs up his opinions with research and sound thinking. His approach to dissecting what is efficient and safe reminds me of a scientist; he looks for patterns within healthy and perennially-injured pitchers and avoids confirmation bias.

Lastly, Dick Mills is a pitching coach whose son (Ryan Mills) was drafted in the first round of the 1998 draft. He advocates "explosive pitching" and cites examples like Tim Lincecum as his body of work. However, much of his research is flawed, as he believes that the shoulders turn with the legs, which is not true in high-level pitchers. The best pitchers create hip/torso separation, and ironically enough, Lincecum is one of the best examples of such.

Nevertheless, I do believe in the concept of building momentum into footplant, which Mills is a major proponent of.

The Five Steps of "Clean" Pitching Mechanics

Leg Lift

The first step of pitching is the leg lift. Traditional pitchers turn sideways and lift their glove-arm side (GAS) leg up to begin the pitching motion. The two most commonly heard phrases by coaches as cues during this phase are:

• "Drop and Drive"
• "Tall and Fall"

Neither of these are great cues. Instead, we should "drift" through the balance point, or as I like to call it, maximal leg lift. Here’s Tim Lincecum doing just that during his days as a Husky pitcher:

Stride

As we drift through maximal leg lift, we begin the Stride portion of our motion. Here’s what I look for in a pitcher during this phase:

• Hands break with the arms, not the elbows. That means the hand goes down, back, and up in a pendulum swing motion.
• Avoid excessive reverse rotation of the shoulders and point the acromial line at - or slightly inside of - home plate. That means pointing the pitching-arm side (PAS) shoulder at the target and not further.
• Lead with the sole of the GAS foot. This keeps the back shoulder over the rubber as long as possible and helps to maintain a closed posture.
• Aim at the 11:30 position on a clock if the pitcher is right-handed; 12:30 if the pitcher is left-handed. The hips have width and require room to clear for maximum rotation and velocity, so we should stride slightly open to the target.

Now that the stride is complete, our GAS foot lands. Here’s what I look for at footstrike:

• Foot lands slightly open to the target (as discussed in the Stride portion of this document).
• PAS elbow is at or below the level of the acromial line (shoulders). Failure to do so will cause the PAS arm to be late to the high-cocked/ready position and will result in unnecessarily large loads during elbow external rotation.
• Ball is being shown mostly to third base and not center field. Showing the ball to CF/2b unnecessarily increases the stress on the UCL.
• Maximal hip/torso separation. See the still image of Lincecum at the top of this document.
• Glove is in front of the body.

Now we throw the ball to home plate! Here’s what I want to see at the release point:

• "Tuck the elbow into the ribcage." It helps significantly with achieving degrees of separation between the lower and upper arm, thus greatly reducing the stress on the elbow. Very few pitchers do this.
• Firm up the GAS knee. I don’t mind locking it out (triple extension) as much as many analysts do, as I strongly believe in the ground being our greatest source of power. Dr. Chris Yeager, a very respected hitting coach and video analyst, stresses the last portion of the swing is the "Front Leg Push" phase, where we push against the ground to generate that last bit of rotational power.
• PAS leg is off or is coming off the rubber. "Sprint towards home plate" is the cue I use for this. This helps add velocity and throw with the whole body, taking load off the arm and giving the hips more room to rotate through.
• Pronate through the release point. All pitchers pronate after the ball is thrown, but not all pronate before and during the release. By keeping the wrist in a slightly supinated position before ball release, we can maximally pronate on all of our pitches. This moves the load from the elbow to the upper arm, where bigger muscles such as the pronator teres can handle the stress rather than the weaker ulnar collateral ligament.

Followthrough

Finishing our pitches is one of the most important phases in the pitching motion. This phase will strongly influence whether or not we face shoulder problems and often indicates control/command issues as well. A good followthrough has these aspects to it:

• Point the PAS shoulder at the target. Maximally rotating the shoulders throughout the delivery will keep our delivery consistent on all of our pitches and will give us greater distance to stop our arm.
• Finish with the arm coming all the way through. Imagine putting your PAS arm into your opposite back pocket.

Here’s a short animated example:

James Shields

I hope this pitching primer is helpful and illustrates what I look for in a successful and healthy pitcher at all levels of the game. In my pitching analyses, I will go into greater detail on each of these steps, but all of them will follow the same patterns as this document.

-Kyle Boddy