What's up guys?
Coach Madden, YouGoProBaseball.com and we're here with another Office Hours episode where
I answer your baseball questions here in my office.
But actually, we're going out to the field today because the question is about pitching
velocity and it comes from Gingin GD.
He says, "hey my name is Daniel and I'm 14 years old.
I pitch between 72 and 75 miles per hour.
I need to learn how to improve pitching velocity in just one month.
Can you please help me?
I hope you can help me with these tips.
Thanks Coach."
So, if you guys don't know, I have a YouTube channel.
I have over 1,000, I believe over 1,000, videos now.
As a former professional pitcher myself, a lot of these videos deal with pitching velocity,
pitching accuracy, pitching tips in general for you to be a better pitcher.
So, what I'm going to do for you Daniel and the rest of you guys watching who want to
increase their pitching velocity, I'm going to put together my best tips from all of those
videos right here in this video.
So, if you're interested in trying to learn how to increase pitching velocity in a short
amount of time, this is going to be the video for you.
Now, don't get it twisted, noting comes easy!
Everyone is looking for that magic pill.
"How can I add 10 mph in 3 days?".
It doesn't happen, right?
Yeh, there's some instant fixes, some mechanical stuff that you can do that will give you that
little bump, but just remember it's the hard work and the dedication, discipline, over
time, that's really going to give you the real velocity gain, the real stuff that you're
going to keep and hold onto forever.
Those development gains.
You know, not just those quick little hacks that you can do.
But, I've got all of that coming for you in this video.
Check it out!
The first thing you have got to do is set a goal.
You have to want to increase your pitching velocity.
You need to sit down and put pen to paper and say "this is what I want to do".
Now, we talked about SMART Goals in some of my other videos.
It's Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.
It spells out smart.
Ok.
That's what you want to do.
You want to have it be specific.
You want it to be measurable.
So give yourself a mph that you're shooting for.
If you're throwing 80 and you want to throw 85, say "85".
Don't just say "I want to increase my pitching velocity".
Say "I want to throw 87".
You also want to make it attainable and realistic.
If you're throwing 50 and you're saying you want to throw 90, that's probably not realistic
in the short term, right?
Also timely.
You want to be timely with it.
Say when, in one month, two months, three months, by the end of the season?
What is it?
That's a SMART Goal.
So set a SMART Goal.
Increase your mobility to increase your pitching velocity for only $1.48.
We're going to use one tool and it's right here.
$1.48 it's a piece of PVC pipe right here.
I got it from Home Depot.
It actually came in a 10 foot piece and I just cut it in half, ok, and it was like less
than $3, it came out to $1.48 each piece and this is a great tool to work on increasing
your shoulder mobility and some other stretches that you can do with this PVC pipe and I'm
going to show you just a few of these mobility drills that you can do with this PVC pipe
to increase that mobility and in return increase your pitching velocity.
Obviously, this is a small piece to the puzzle.
There is a lot more that comes with increasing your pitching velocity.
So, here's a few exercises you can do with this PVC stick.
One I call Pass Overs.
You're just going as far as you can out to the side and you're going to pass over your
head until it goes back to your back.
You're going to go around 10 times each way until you hit your back, hit your belly, hit
your back, hit your belly.
Ok.
Then we're going to lead with the right hand over and back around.
Ok.
And then we can reverse it.
Obviously we're going to do these 10 or so times each.
I'm only doing it a few times each for purposes of length of the video so I don't keep you
here all day.
So, that's one.
Then we can do laying it back on the forearm, pull it back here, and we can work on our
external rotation.
This is a great one to stretch the shoulder out right here.
Then we can also stretch our lats out which is a good one.
We're just going to kind of fall our hips back and let our butt go back and stretch
these lats out right here.
Feeling a good stretch down the arm.
We can alternate our hands and get a deeper stretch on either side.
And those are just a few exercises you can do.
I made a video with 10 mobility drills you can do with a PVC pipe and I'll leave the
card right here that you can click on and go watch that video if you want some more
tips on how to use this PVC pipe.
But again, this is just a great way, a real cheap way, $1.48 or less at your local hardware
store and you can increase your mobility and possibly increase your pitching velocity.
We really want to rotate that foot out to push against and a lot of guys who hook this
rubber like this, will end up sliding off of the rubber and feeling that spike slip.
So, I don't really suggest hooking the rubber like this.
I think putting the foot down in front of the rubber is your best bet.
So if you need to dig a little hole.
Like this one already has a hole dug into it.
But if you need to dig a little hole to get in front of that rubber, that's going to be
your best spot.
Loading is super important.
We want to load to unload, right?
If we get our energy loaded up, we're going to have more potential to unload that energy.
So when we get loaded up, we really want to load those hips and load the back leg.
We want to be powerful.
We want to look powerful.
We want to get loaded up into that back side so that we can drive out of it and create
a lot of energy.
We don't want to just come straight up and down with a leg lift right here, right?
We want to load those hips, load that back leg, look powerful so we can drive out of
it.
That's very very important in the pitching delivery.
Now, pitching mechanics in general are very important for pitching velocity.
Load being the most important of it and if you want a full video of the pitching mechanics
and what you can do to really increase your pitching velocity, check out the Load to Unload
video that I made and also check out my Pitching Velocity Killers, 9 Pitching Velocity Killers.
I'll leave a card up here to watch that one and a link down below to watch those other
two.
Well, it's very simple.
Like I said, it's instinctual.
When you tell a young kid, "go ahead an rare back and throw this one", what's the first
thing he's going to do?
He's going to tilt his shoulders and he's going to twist back, right?
Rare back, that's what that means and in fact, that works.
Why does that work?
We talk about pitching velocity or the pitching delivery, at least the way I speak of it,
being linear energy and rotational energy because I'm driving away from this rubber
and then I'm also rotating.
So we've got two types of energy, right?
Now, the rare back part of this, when guys separate, ok I don't know if you know this
but guys separate at 45 degrees or more closed off.
So if I'm pitching straight this way.
This is third base.
I'm a righty.
Third base.
Home plate.
And when I separate my hands, 45 degrees would be right about here.
So, a lot of pro pitchers, high velocity pitchers, when they separate their hands, they don't
separate straight.
Even though that's what we've always been taught by our coaches.
Separate and point straight to home.
That doesn't work.
That doesn't help you increase your pitching velocity.
The high velocity pitchers separate at 45 degrees or more.
You'll see a lot of righties separate at third base.
Ok.
Now, why does this work?
Why does this help?
Well, because if we separate a lot more closed off, we're going to put ourself into a better
situation to have good hip to shoulder separation.
Now, ASMI did a study that showed that 80% of your pitching velocity comes from hip to
shoulder separation.
So if we can get good hip to shoulder separation, then we are going to be able to increase our
pitching velocity.
So the simple way to do that is if you guys are very linear with your hand separation,
is to start a little bit more closed off.
45 degrees or more closed off when you separate your hands.
Ok.
Now, the second thing we talked about when you rare back is tilting the shoulders, right?
Now, that goes back to the linear energy.
So we're driving, then we're rotating, and then we finish linear again, right?
Now if we're tilted in the beginning, then we have something to pull down with at the
end.
So now we've got this extra pull down at the end if our shoulders were tilted at first.
You'll see a lot of pitchers, when they are pitching, that shoulder comes down and their
arm gets up.
Their arm slot is in line with their shoulder angle.
Ok.
So if you're tilted up first, you're loaded to unload.
Same thing with the closed off.
You're loaded to unload.
Same thing with the tilt.
Loaded to unload.
So, it's all about loading and unloading your energy.
So, the tip that I want you to steal from this video is, when you separate your hands,
separate at 45 degrees closed off or more with a tilt in your shoulders and this is
going to help you get more rotational energy, more linear energy, and as a result you're
going to increase your pitching velocity.
So it doesn't matter how far you're throwing (long toss) or it doesn't matter if you're
throwing weighted balls, or what weight balls you're trying to throw.
Really all that matters is you use this formula.
You use the number of throws times the intensity of the throws and you want to build that up
over time.
Ok.
So whether you're doing long toss to get the intensity out of the throws, that's fine,
but you can do the same thing at 120 feet as you can do at 300 feet as long as you're
putting in the same intensity that you're trying to get out for that number of throws
that day.
When you get that set then you give yourself some rest and then progress.
You're always trying to build upon that.
Just like if you were in the gym, you wouldn't hop under the bench press and try to do 315
lbs the first time in the gym.
Right?
You can't do it.
You'd kill yourself.
Same thing if you go out there and long toss and do extreme long toss as much as you can
the first day, your arm is going to be hanging for a week.
So you've got to start slow, build up over time.
Intensity times the number of throws.
Distance doesn't really matter but can help you with intensity.
Weighted balls don't really matter but it can help you with intensity.
So it all, they can all work.
Weighted balls, long toss, even staying closer than a normal long toss, the short long toss
can work, as long as you put the right intensity and number of throws and progress it over
time with your goal in mind.
But, I'm going to show you just a couple of my favorites right now what you can do with
this thing.
First, you're going to have your arm out to the side and all you're trying to do with
this tool is to make it bounce up and down and then stabilize it with your arm.
It's very tough.
I don't know if you can tell how tough it is just by seeing it on camera but trying
to make it bounce up and down for 15, 20, 30 seconds, it starts to burn.
Now, I don't know if you can see that sometimes it starts to go in circles, I don't want that.
I want it going up and down, so I try to keep it going up and down.
When I feel it going in circles, I stop, and then I start again going back up and down.
I already feel that burning.
So that's one of my favorites.
Also, tucked into the side, going back and forth here.
This is another one of my favorites and this one is a burner too.
Trying to go side to side.
Once you get into those circles, stop it, go again.
Now, the third exercise I'm going to show you, this is going to be the last one, we're
going to do the same thing, we're going to be up in that 90-90 degrees.
90, 90 right here.
We're going to go back and forth, back and forth.
This one's a burner too.
All of these are burners.
You're really going to feel it in those rotator cuffs, all down that arm.
My arm is burning already and I only did 3 exercises.
There are many exercises you can do with this.
Is to have a recovery routine.
Ok.
Of course, if we're doing all this exercises and this throwing, we want to make sure we
are recovering properly and quickly so that we can bounce back and speed up our gains.
Right?
Because if we're recovering quickly, then we can have increases more quickly and of
course it's going to keep our arm safe and free from injury and that's what we want.
So, if we have a good recovery routine, we're putting ourself into a good spot to have a
lot of success.
I'm not going to go too in depth on the recovery routine here but I made a great video called
the 6 R's of Recovery.
If you haven't seen that one, you're going to want to go watch that one.
Now, it's a great one, you can click the card right here that pops up or I'll leave a link
down in the description below where you can go and watch that one.
Is to stay committed.
Now, if you're watching this video you might have got a few good tips on how to increase
your pitching velocity and you may take a few of them and you might do them for a couple
of days.
That's not going to help!
You've got to stay committed, alright.
Take the things that work for you and stay committed to it.
Make a plan, build out a program, ok, you have to stay committed.
Anything worth having is going to cost you something.
You've got to put in the time, you've got to put in the effort, you've got to be consistent,
you've got to commit.
So, if you want this, you want to pitch faster, you've got to commit to it, you've got to
put it on paper and make it happen.
Do it, execute, get out there and work hard.
Sometimes we make things too complicated but it's really not that hard.
You just have to do the stuff that you have to do to get the success that you want.
Some of what you have to do is going to suck.
Some days you're going to be tired.
Some days you're going to be sick.
Some days every bone in your body is going to hurt.
You can either sit around and whine about it or you can grab your balls and man up.
Push through and accomplish what you can with what you have.
Every time you put in the work it's like making a deposit in the bank.
If you make enough deposits, you get a withdraw.
So where you're in that situation when you need it, you've got all that passed work to
draw from.
Everything worthwhile in life requires you to pay in advance.
So don't wait to start fresh on Monday.
Wherever you are start right now!