A Balance Drill to Improve Your Pitcher's Speed & Control

Cindy Bristow - Softball Excellence

Most of us would do anything to help our pitchers throw the ball faster with more control. And yet, the culprit to your pitcher not having these can lie in something as simple as her balance at release. Discover how much balance matters to a pitchers speed and control and how this 3 step drill progression will help improve both.

The common thought with pitching is that pitchers must take a long stride. In fact, many feel the longer the better. Funny thing about this is we never think this same thought when throwing overhand. Whenever we throw overhand as fast as we can, our goal is the same as a pitcher pitching as fast as she can – and that is to make the ball go as fast as possible to the target. Why then do we take fairly small strides overhand – distance-wise, and humongous strides underhand?! I asked myself this same question when pitcher after pitcher was falling back as they were releasing the ball – only to throw high and with less speed then their input effort level should provide.

Conventional pitching wisdom says that pitchers should take a long stride, but I've never been one for conventional wisdom. Instead, I'd rather test out the wisdom to see what actually works and makes sense. So I started investigating the stride. When throwing overhand the goal is still to release the ball with our hand moving as fast as possible (same as underhand), and yet distance isn't what we go for with our stride. Instead, we make our overhand stride FAST and POWERFUL! Yet underhand we simply go for distance. It's as if we've suddenly entered the long jump.

Now I know there are detractors out there saying "Wait a minute. I see every college pitcher striding out to the edge of the circle, and they're good, so a long stride must matter". And yes, in the case of most college pitchers that is what you see. But what you don't see is something I call the Glide Factor, and their balance. The pitchers you might watch pitching in college might look like they take huge strides, but in order for them to pitch as well as they do, they finish balanced over their front foot. In order to keep their balance during their explosive release, many will have a kind of mini-hop after landing their stride leg. This is a move to help them keep their balance during their explosive release.

For the most part, we all throw, hit and pitch on one leg – our stride leg. Sure, we aren't completely on 1 foot with the other 1 off the ground, but the majority of our weight has been transferred forward onto our plant (or stride) foot and we're releasing as our body shifts itself forward onto that foot.

The more dependable that foot is, the more our brain can commit to throwing or hitting the ball. But, the more wobbly, or weak that landing foot or leg is, or, the more unreliable our balance is at release and our brain abandons everything else in order to focus on keeping us from wiping out. Our balance-regaining need is helpful if we're peering over the edge of the Grand Canyon and suddenly lean forward a little too far – our body's ability to regain its balance can often save our lives. But, if we're releasing a riseball while leaning backwards and our brain feels we're in danger, it's not great for our pitch if our brain abandons the release in order to save us.

While this might sound like one of my crazy rants, I constantly see pitchers force themselves out of balance at their release by taking strides that are far too long. What this causes is a front foot that is too far forward for the pitcher to get her body on top of it when she releases the ball – causing her to fall backwards during release. All of which causes her to lose speed and control.

So I've started working on a 3 step drill progression with my pitchers to help them get a more stable stride leg and be more balanced at release. I am seeing some remarkable results that include increased speed and much better control and movement.

Here's how it works:

Step 1 – The pitcher starts by standing on her stride foot, about 15 -20 feet from the catcher (1 Foot picture to the right). She goes through her entire pitching motion and throws the ball to her catcher, all while standing on one foot. You'll see right away who has balance and who doesn't. Most pitchers fall over the first few times they try this until they learn to keep their head over their foot and to make their stride foot and stride leg muscles work harder to support them.

Step 2 – After your pitcher throws about 10 pitches on 1 Foot, have her place her stride foot slightly in front of her back foot (a very unusual starting position for pitchers) and then slide the stride foot to the same place it was when she was on 1 foot. It's important to note that at this point your pitcher will want to take her normal big stride and that's not what we're working on here. Simply have her move her foot about 8 inches forward and then release again, while standing on her stride leg. This step is to add movement while maintaining a balanced release position. You'll also notice some pitchers will struggle right away with making their feet and hands work together.

Step 3 – After 10 pitches sliding the front foot, have your pitcher then move her stride foot to its regular starting position (slightly behind the front foot) and take a smaller stride – again, so she ends up standing directly over her stride leg at release.

The main point in all 3 of these progression steps is to help your pitcher focus on being over her stride foot at release so she is balanced with a complete transfer of weight forward, instead of falling back or forward, resulting in an out of balance release taking speed away from her pitch.

In order to throw or hit or pitch anything powerfully, you've got to be balanced and strong at the point of impact or release. Exaggerating balance by forcing your pitcher onto one leg really makes her work to feel how out of balance she might be, and to correct it on her own.

Once your pitcher moves back and starts throwing full speed, have her focus on getting her stride foot down so she can get on top of it and be balanced at release, instead of simply making a huge stride and then pitching.