What's up!
Coach Dan Blewett here.
In today's video.
We're going to cover some of the best pitching drills for baseball players.
We're also going to cover some of the worst
drills for baseball players.
So in this long video, it's going to be very detailed.
You're going to see 13 different pitching drills.
I'm going to talk by talk about why some of them are trash and why some
of them are really good replacements and are really, really effective.
So there's going to be timestamps and the description here.
So if you want to jump back and forth, you're welcome to do that.
We're going to start with the bad drills and then get to
the good drills at the end.
But remember, as a parent or a player or a coach, it can be tough to figure
out is this a good drill for me?
Is this going to make my mechanics better?
Long-term is this going to be good for my career?
You can have a pitching coach who gives you great instruction and
helps you get where you want to go.
You could also have a coach that doesn't really know what they're
doing and is giving you drills that are actually hurting you.
So hopefully in today's video is going to clear up a lot of those myths
about good versus bad pitching drills.
Okay.
So first thing let's jump into bad pitching drills.
These are bad youth pitching drills, they're pad advanced pitching drills.
I just don't like them.
Some have more merit than others, but again, I want to
give you much better options.
So we'll cover those at the end of the video, but these
are the bad pitching drills.
All right. This drill is the quick rocker.
And I don't understand why people do this, do it this way.
So number one, pitching is very rhythmic that activity.
And when I see most players doing rocker drills like this.
I don't understand what they're trying to accomplish.
And I also don't understand when in pitching, are they bending their knees
with this shallow, like very fast fashion, there's a, a much better way to do the
rocker drill, which I'm going to cover later in this video, but this drill
doesn't accomplish anything in my mind.
It's just a different way of throwing and we shouldn't be doing
drills that are just different.
We should be doing drills that have a specific purpose.
And I can't for the life of me, figure out what the purpose is of this quick rocker,
where I'm just wiggling back and forth.
Essentially.
It really doesn't make any really doesn't make much sense.
All right.
So this next drill is, uh, called the connection drill or whatever
you want to call it, but you take this little mini stability ball
and you put it in your angle or in the angle of your elbow to help you
reinforce having a good elbow angle.
Now, this makes sense.
Uh, if you throw out here with a big up to sell angle, that's
gonna reduce your velocity is gonna put more stress on your arm.
So having this squeezed in here is going to reinforce like, this
is where I have to throw from.
Here's my thing with this, this drill is okay.
I put it in the bad drills category, but it's an okay drill.
But almost everyone I've worked with says, Dan, this is like the most awkward drill.
I hate it.
It just like doesn't work well.
And I've done this many, many times.
I always do all the drills that I'm going to work with my players on.
And I find the same thing.
I feel, I feel like it's just exceedingly awkward, uncomfortable,
where kids just don't buy into it and you have to buy into what you're doing.
So some players might swear by this, the vast majority of players find
this to be extremely uncomfortable.
So let me demonstrate
you can also put the ball underneath your arm, in your, kind of like in
your armpit, uh, to help reinforce.
Guys that lift their arm too much.
So if you have your arm up here, keeping the ball down here prevents that lifted.
Yeah.
Less awkward that way, but still extremely awkward.
So again, this can be a useful tool, but almost everyone
including myself hates this drill.
All right.
The next pitching drill that I really hate.
I grew up doing this.
This is the towel drill.
The towel drill is awkward.
It's an unclear.
If the path that the followed that the towel takes is a good path for our arm.
Really.
When I see players doing the towel drill, I see a lot of low elbows where their
elbows are bent instead of extending.
And I think that's in part because of the towel, the towel flutters in
the air, it's everything about it.
You know, the hand position is not like a baseball, pretty much everything about
the child rule is awkward and there's a much better replacement for it.
All right.
Next to my list of drills that are just absolutely terrible.
Is the wrist flip.
So, if you warm up like this, propping your elbow up and flicking, you're
just wasting a significant amount of your own time and your player's time.
I don't know why we need a dedicated up for the risks.
The risks is just a slave to the rest of the arm.
No high-level college baseball players do this drill.
No high-level pro players do this drill course.
They're all high level.
Literally anyone.
This is, this drill has been left in the past by almost everyone except
for youth baseball, youth baseball.
So, again, this with our elbow in front of our body is a bad throwing position.
So we're reinforcing a very bad way of throwing.
And why are we wasting time working on flipping the ball, your hand?
The common thing I hear about this drill is that, Oh, you want to teach
kids to be, to get good spin and be behind the center of the ball, just
because that's your goal of the drill.
Doesn't mean the drill actually accomplishes that this is so unlike
regular throwing that I can't see any carry over into real throwing
when your arm is moving exceedingly fast, as fast as human movement.
And it's coming from a completely different arm slot.
Really what enforces good spin and being through the center
of the ball is good mechanics.
When you're teaching proper pitching mechanics, everything
else takes care of itself.
This drill is an utter waste of time.
All right.
The next drill that I think is just a complete waste of time and probably
bad for your mechanics in general is it can be called the finished drill.
It's called different things for different people, but basically
starting in this position and then.
Working on throwing the ball and finishing the problem is this is one of those drills
that like, Oh, he might think, yeah, I got to work on the last part of my mechanics.
That makes sense.
It doesn't make sense because pitching the motion is so fast.
It's again, your arm lays back and forward forth is the fastest human movement.
It's so fast that we're taking the fastest, the absolute
fastest part of the delivery.
When are you?
Hips are finishing their rotation.
And when the arm is laying back celebrating, we're taking that part
of the delivery and we're stopping it.
This is incredibly uncomfortable.
My arm does lay back anywhere near how much it naturally would.
If I was throwing a ball slowly and my chest is facing my partner.
And really this is just reinforcing me being a pusher and pushing the ball.
There are some parts of the delivery that you just cannot stop and go.
And this is absolutely one of them.
So do not ever do a drill that looks like this, or you're
finishing it and you're working on this last part of the mechanics.
It's a bad drill.
It makes no sense.
And it's probably hurting your pitching mechanics.
All right.
The next drill that's really, really terrible for your
mechanics is the L drill.
So this was a classic teach, right?
You point the ball to center field.
You start with this position here and then you throw.
Well, the arm is always moving through that position.
So even though some coaches, it might've been trying to get you into
this L position to teach it, to have that good 90 degree or less arm angle.
It's not good.
Good idea.
Because putting you in that position, doesn't teach your body
how to it gets to that position.
And that's really the key here.
It's not about, Oh, this is where you want to be.
Okay.
Coach wall.
How do I retrain my arm to get there when it needs to get there
in the right proper timing?
That is the key.
So you can do drills where your arms are started apart.
I don't think they're, I don't usually don't think they're a good idea, but
they can work in some instances, however, you don't want to start paused in the
exact position that you want to be in.
So in this drill, Hey, you should not point the ball to center field ever.
That doesn't make sense.
And B your arm is actually not at 90 degrees when your foot
strikes for the first time in your delivery, your arm is actually.
In this position slightly above parallel.
It happens a little bit later when it gets to the top.
So teaching this drill, the L drill is a bad teach because it's a teaching
the wrong point in the delivery B it's giving you a stop and go into
the wrong position and see it.
Doesn't teach you how to get to that position.
And that is the really critical point that's missed.
In that L pitching drill.
Okay.
The last pitching drill that I really don't like for youth
baseball, for college baseball, for pro whatever is the hook drill.
And I understand this drill.
I've used it for many years in the past.
We just found a better one that was less awkward and less uncomfortable
and like easier to teach.
So the Hookem drill, you put your back foot behind your leg and then
you point your knees slightly back.
You point your hip out.
And then you go and it teaches you a couple of things, a how to point
your hip, which is a good thing.
B it forces you to break your hands a little later, which makes your
arm action shorter and quicker.
And overall, those are both good things.
Hey buddy.
But it's just awkward.
It's hard to get, right.
And there's just a better drill for it.
So this is not a drill that I would demonize.
If you do this drill with success.
Wonderful.
It makes a lot of sense for some people, but again, it's just like
third down on my list of drills that teach those same things.
So again, the Hookem drill can be all right.
It's just not an ideal pitching drill.
It's kind of awkward, kind of uncomfortable.
And I'm going to show you a better variation that you can do in this video.
All right.
So we're into the section.
Let's cover some good pitching drills that you're going to want
to swap for a lot of those other ones, the ones that are outdated.
The ones that are a little uncomfortable or awkward, let's
get to some good pitching drills.
All right.
First pitching drill that I really like is the rocker drill.
And this is not the short, quick rocker drill.
There's lots of different ways to do the drop rocker drill, but this is how
I think the rocker drill should be.
Number one, hands are here.
Number two, you lean into your front leg, pretty deep.
Number three, three, your hands just break.
As you go back, you lean into your back leg really deep.
So your front foot comes off the ground.
Your toe comes up.
And then from here, you initiate with your glove arm and then you
go now, you don't do it in pieces.
Like I just demonstrated, but what you do is do it all in one motion.
So in up, and then go, you can keep your back foot down
or you can bring it back up.
It's up to you.
But in.
Up down.
And the reason is better way to do it is because it teaches
you to use your front side.
It teaches you how to shift your weight.
It teaches you the proper sequence, which is my glove side is going to be
the first thing that starts my delivery.
Those are all things that are very important, much more than
just wiggling back and forth with that sort of type of rocker drill.
Okay.
So this is a good pitching drill that I really like, and this is to replace the.
Towel drill.
So this bottle is huge.
You don't need a bottle.
This big, you can get a bottle.
That's just like 16 ounces and you want to fill it a little bit with
water and I have a full video.
I'll put the description or the link in the description about
how to do water bottle drills.
Basically when you hold this water ball in your hand, and now you go
through your pitching motion, the water flows around and it feels much
more natural than a towel drill.
It's so much better and it can also make your arm.
It's easy to feel where your arm is in space because of where the
arm flows into the water bottle.
That's why you want to have less.
You want to have a less than filled.
So the water bottle is a much better pitching drill than the towel drill.
All right.
The next drill that I think is really good.
Pitching drill is the heel toe drill.
So this is going to replace the Hookem drill and it teaches the hip lean.
It teaches having a faster handbrake and a shorter arm action, all that stuff.
It's a really good drill.
So it's a lot more comfortable than the hookworms drill because all I have to
do is put my foot out, point my toe up, and then I'm going to push my hip out.
And then as I start to fall, I can go.
So it's so much more comfortable than the Hookem drill where, and it does
pretty much all the exact same things where I don't see any good reason to
stick with this one, which is awkward.
And this one.
Which is probably the most beloved of the drills that I teach kids.
Think this is really smooth.
It feels really good.
And it's very similar to your mechanics.
It's basically just once we lift and come back down, that's essentially the heel
toe drill position, which makes a lot of sense because it's teaching a, a part
of the mechanics that are already there.
Right.
You're just sort of breaking the mechanics down.
And you're starting from like the middle portion.
So the heel toe drill is a really great drill to integrate
into your throwing progression.
All right, the next drill.
And this is, I wouldn't call it as much a pitching drill as I would
just a throwing drill, but it's great to have in every kid's throwing
progression is just fast shuffles.
So the basics never go out of style.
So don't be afraid if this drill doesn't look as like, you know,
shiny and complicated as it as many others do, but your body works as
a system and to throw really well.
Your, your body has to work together, your legs with your core, with your arms, with
your hand, with your wrists, all of it.
So when your body's moving fast, everything sorta like jumps into place and
finds its rhythm within the whole machine.
So when you're moving fast and that's shuffling, then you're everything
sort of gets together now like running Crow, hops and all that stuff.
Those are also fine.
They're different there, but they're okay.
But I like shuffles because you're in a good position.
You're close to your target and.
It helps prevent kids from flying open as much when they're doing Crow hops,
they're more likely to Crow to fly open.
So this just looks like this.
It's very simple.
Start shuffled, move fast, and then just pretty much let it eat.
So this is good at slower speeds.
If they, as long as they have enough distance, it's also great
for longer speeds, longer distances, but just have your kids on your
team, move their feet fast.
It's a great thing.
And again, Your body's not going to have time to think through too much.
It's not going to have time to stick your arm behind your body.
It's not going to have all this time to do weird, bad biomechanical things.
When your feet are moving fast, your arm, action's going to be short.
It's going to be quick.
It's going to be to the point.
So fast shuffles or great pitching drill.
All right.
So one of the great pitching drills that you can do, uh, from a short
distance is called the lawnmower drill.
And this one is much better than a wrist flips.
It's much better than this silly L drill.
And it has a specific purpose.
And that purpose is to help players get comfortable with this
90 degree or less joint angle.
That's so important.
And also to help them pull their shoulder blades back more if they
need that fix and their mechanics.
So the lawnmower drill, you're going to put your feet close to
your, or a square to your target.
You're going to start here.
And this looks like, well, Dan, you were just demonizing this position
earlier, but it's very different.
So.
I'm setting my angle here early, but then I'm moving my arm into position
and I'm throwing without stopping.
So I'm going be here a year.
So I'm teaching my arm to get comfortable getting into that position.
But when I get to that, high-speed part of the motion where my arm is going to
get flung back into external rotation.
At that point, it's all go and I'm not stopping and pausing at
a high-speed spot in my delivery.
So the lawnmower drill is great because.
It's helping me get comfortable, getting into the position that
we want in our mechanics, rather than just starting us there.
And then going from zero to 60, which just does not work very well.
The next drill that's really good for shorter distances.
It's also good for teaching off-speed stuff.
So curve balls sliders is the square hipster, and this is just a
progression from the lawnmower drill.
And here, you're going to start with your hands together.
Your feet are going to be squared of your target, your knees and hips.
You're going to rotate with your upper body only.
So my lower half is not going to move, and this is going to
isolate this half of my body.
So now I can focus more on my arm action and my hand position as I go through
the actual delivery of the pitch.
So when I'm teaching kids how to spin a curve ball, we'll start with the square
hipster and we'll have a move through it so they can work on hand position, work
on, spinning it without their lower half.
Getting involved, which can make it a lot harder.
So when you get the entire machine going, it's a lot harder to get your hand into
the proper position to throw a curve ball.
But when we can isolate the lower half and just work on the other half, that's
going to make a lot more progress in a shorter time, teaching them good finger,
position, risk position, all that stuff.
The other thing is when I keep my lower body fixed to my target, I'm
helping to get comfortable separating my lower half from my upper half.
So, I want to be very diligent, keeping my hips forward.
So as I turn my chest, there's now a way, but my hips are still in my target.
That's the shoulder hip separation that you need to be
a really high level pitcher.
And so this drill helps to get you comfortable with that
and teach that flexibility as sort of like a warm up drill.
This is like a 40 foot drill max, but it's great for players to do when
they're just starting to get loose.
Cause again, it works on lots of different aspects of their mechanics.
All right.
Well, I hope this video on proper pitching mechanics and the best pitching
drills to do and not do was helpful.
It can be really tough as a pitcher, as a player, as a parent, as a coach.
Well, pitchers are players to figure out what's the right thing for my mechanics.
What's going to hurt me.
What's going to help me.
What's going to get me to my long-term goals.
So I hope this video was helpful.
Leave a comment below.
Tell me what pitching drills do you like?
Did I get anything wrong in this video?
Did I miss something?
Leave a comment.
And thanks for watching.
If you're new here, I have books.
I have online courses.
I have lots more pitching resources, multiple podcasts
links are also in the description.
So feel free to check those out and I'll see here in the next video.