What's up baseball players and coaches, coach Dan Blewett here.
In today's video.
We're going to go over arm action in the pitching motion,
which is one of those things.
That's is that's really difficult to figure out, especially
for parents and for coaches.
Sometimes it's like, Hey, I see something with my young player.
It looks funky.
It looks weird.
I'm not sure.
Or if we should change it or not.
You know, I was taught this one thing when I was young as a coach.
And now I don't know if I should teach my young players that today.
Um, you know, I see a major league on TV with a really unique arm action.
Is that what we should be moving towards?
So in today's video, we'll talk about what the arm action needs
to do, what it should not do.
Things you should clean up things.
You should leave alone.
Uh, the way the arm acts in the infield, throw the outfield, throw the pitching
motion, all those different things.
We'll cover.
There's a lot of myths.
And this is one of the more complicated things.
I think one of the good trends in baseball is shortening and cleaning up arm actions.
We use the word efficiency a lot, which I think sometimes just gets
overused and just kind of means shorter.
But shorter is not always better either.
So stick around in today's video, we're going to cover arm action.
And I think this is a really big again, talking point for pitching mechanics.
So stay tuned.
Okay.
So number one, obviously I'm on a flat mound here, but I'm going to kind of
like, pretend I'm pitching this way.
Number one, we need to figure out what is the goal of the arm action.
So, number one, the goal of the arm action and pitching is to get
us to be on time when our stride foot, which for me is a right.
He is my left foot.
When my stride foot touches down.
I want my arm to be in the right place with the right sort
of mechanical characteristics.
And what I mean by that is there's four main things that when my
front foot just touches down.
So when that cleat just hits the dirt, I want these four
things essentially to happen.
I want the ball to be facing the same direction as my chest, not
center field, like we used to teach and we still teach, unfortunately.
So number one, I want the ball facing towards the same direction and my chest.
I want my shoulder blades pinched all the way back.
So when you see majorly pictures, you see still photos of them.
You see this big, like w shape that their elbow is really pulled back.
Like they have wings.
That's important because this hitches the arm up with the
body, as it starts to rotate.
If we're out here and our shoulder blades are not pinched, we tend to
just push the ball and shove it.
Like the quote unquote, throwing like a girl, which is not a term
that I want to use because I work with a lot of softball players.
But that was what that old term was.
Pushing the ball is the essential, what we're talking about.
So pinching your shoulder blades back, prevents you from pushing the ball.
There's other factors involved, but that's one of them.
Number three, the joint angle of your arm should be 90 degrees or a little bit less.
It should never be like crazy far in here.
This is a little bit more about how infielders thrill, but
for pitchers, it's 90 degrees.
And then sometimes it's a little bit less.
So probably somewhere between like 70 and 90, if you're too far out
here, you have this big obtuse angle.
This, this lever gets really long and you can't get nearly as much power in
your arm, kind of gets Draghi and laggy.
If your elbow is way farther in here, your shoulder has extra forces to
try to control as your arm flies out.
And that puts more strain through your shoulders as well.
So 90 degrees or a little bit less.
And then the last thing is that right?
When our stride foot just touches down, our arm should be around like 10 o'clock.
And what I mean by that is if I'm facing center field, it shouldn't be
straight up and down at this point.
It also shouldn't be at nine o'clock.
So if you're looking here while I get, this will be 12, and this is three,
depends what direction you're going.
So it shouldn't be a three.
It shouldn't be a 12.
It should be somewhere like 11 or 10 in this angled range.
And the reason is, as we say, start to rotate, it'll quickly
get to the 12 o'clock position.
Okay.
Then it'll get thrown back and we'll be on top of the ball really quick
when we're down here at nine or even lower in some pitchers land like this.
And they're very what we call late in their timing.
The arm gets stuck behind too long, and it doesn't get into the positions that
we want to really get on top of the ball.
And all of these things add more stress.
So down here and here adds more stress.
And if you're to the top too soon, that also adds more stress.
So somewhere in this 10 to 11 o'clock range is what we want
as we start to rotate through.
So the goal of our arm action is to get us to that position.
If we have a good arm action, it gets us when we just touched
down with our stride, that I am.
At 90 degrees or less, my shoulder blades are pulled back.
My hand is facing the same direction as my chest, not towards center and
not really towards your ear either.
And my arm is somewhere in this 10 to 11 o'clock range.
That's the goal of the arm action.
So if we don't know what we're trying to achieve, which are those four
kinds of parameters, then we don't really know what an arm action is.
Right?
So that's the goal and that's where we're trying to get to with our arm action.
The next thing to know about the arm action is that.
It basically expands with the amount of time that we have.
So a lot like a gas, like oxygen nitrogen, right?
You learned this in science class, that if you put nitrogen in a bottle,
it expands and it gets less dense to fill out the container that it's
in the arm action is the same way.
So the players that have the longest arm actions are pitchers and
outfielders because as a pitcher, my stride foot is in the air longer.
So that means my arm can move around longer.
Until it has to be in position.
You just have more time to get there.
Outfielders are the same way because they have typically a longer footwork,
whether it's they're out there, Crow hop or their pro step, they have more time to
get ready when their strive for it hits.
Cause again, they need to be here.
When that's that strive with that front foot hits the ground.
Infielders have shorter arm actions.
Number one, because it's a necessity, right?
They need to get rid of the ball quick, but also when they feel the ground
ball, their feet are already down.
And so as they move their feet, their feet are down again on the ground.
Very, very fast.
So your feet have to get when it hits, you want to be here.
So because of that, the arm action tends to be really short.
You would never feel the ground ball step and then go like this.
It would feel super awkward and look strange as well, because
why do I need to do this when I'm already, my body's ready to go.
As far as my lower half catchers are the same way, obviously catchers have to get
rid of the ball fast, but their feet are replaced so quick that it doesn't make
sense to do this big long arm circle.
So it's not that you're trying to teach.
A circle, a circular arm action for a pitcher.
Cause you're not, it doesn't really need to be taught in general.
The only point is we need our arm here when our strive with touches
down and your body figures this out on its own, that I have time,
so I can separate my hands down.
I can take a little bit more length and still get there.
Now that being said.
You don't always just have the perfect arm action.
Naturally either.
There are a lot of pitchers myself included when I was younger, who sometimes
your arm action just gets really long and it doesn't get to the right timing
position by the time our foot hits.
So that's the big question here is for you as a pitcher or for you as a coach
helping young pitchers, does their arm get to this position when they land?
Are they here or are they really long?
Are they somewhere else?
Are they too far back here?
If those are, if those things were the case, then they're a good candidate
to say, okay, let's try to refine your arm action, smooth it out, make
it more quote, unquote efficient and try to get you back on track because
when your arm really lags, you don't get on top of your breaking balls.
Well, you don't get on top of your fastballs really well.
And it adds stress to your throwing motion.
So again, to me, the word efficient does not mean shorter.
There's no point in having the world's shortest arm action.
If we're just going to sit here and wait there.
And so our foot hits, which is kind of what some of the big leaders are doing.
There's a couple of guys, uh, Trevor Bauer, Lucas, G Alito, Joe Kelly, who
have an exceptionally short arm action.
Where they could let their arms be a little longer and still probably
get to the same position on time.
But for pro athletes, if they decide that's the best thing for them to do,
then they should absolutely do it.
So I'm not criticizing any of those guys.
It clearly works for them and it's an informed decision that they make.
But for most pitchers, they don't need to do that.
If they can have alarm app longer arm action and get to their, their
spot on time, then that's fine.
There's no sense, like shorter.
Isn't always better.
And that's my main point.
So as a pitcher, we could all say, okay, well, it's more efficient
to just throw like a catcher.
Well, if that was the case, probably would have been doing that long ago,
but it isn't, it's a little bit more comfortable in the body seems to
move naturally a little bit better when we have a little more length,
but not too much length to our arm.
Action.
So let's talk a little bit about some of the arm action
flaws that we don't want to see.
So, number one, we don't want the hands to just break straight up
here because we're going to get to the top of our motion too soon.
And if our hands are going up, we're not really going to get
our shoulder blades pulling back.
So hands breaking up, which I see a lot of young pitchers, sometimes they're
here and then they go like this.
That's not going to give them a good arm action.
Cause they're getting to the top way too soon.
Now they're in already to throw position and their lower half isn't there.
So rule number one, essentially for your arm action is that when your legs start
to go down or when your, your stride leg, that's when your hands separate and your
hands should always separate down, they don't have to go all the way down here,
but they should always go down and then the elbow should start to pull back.
Rule number two is your elbow should be the driver of your arm.
Action, not so much your hand.
So what I mean by that is if your hand is driving your arm action, this
means my hand is like essentially leading the rest of my arm.
And what that does is it ends up locking your arm out and it's really extending it.
When you think about it again, my elbows gotta be bent when I land.
So why does my elbow ever need to straighten and then rebound?
It doesn't, that's one of the really good advances that people have figured
out in the last five, 10 years.
Like you don't have any advantage to being super long and especially
not to locking your elbow just to then unlock it and throw it.
That's very inefficient to use that word properly.
So if your hand leads your arm action, it's going to continue
to move and extend that arm.
So you should think about your elbow once your hands have separated as your elbow.
Being the driver of your arm action.
So your hands separate and now the next move is my elbow is
going to start to pull back.
So when you see the really short arm actions like Joe Kelly, G Alito, Trevor
Bauer, which again, those work great for those guys, they're pitching well.
So I'm not criticizing it.
Um, as their hands separate, next, they pull and pinch back and then
they're pretty much ready to go.
Now, could they have some more length?
And still pull and pinch back and get on time.
Sure.
Another player could, but maybe they figured out again that they
don't want to do it that way.
So again, the big thing is as your hands, separate elbows pull back and
then we're going to get into position.
So we're going to rule number two is elbow should drive the arm action
and rule number three is you never need to straighten your elbow.
So if you, if you take video of yourself and you see.
That, Hey, my elbow is locked at some point or a player that you work with.
My elbow has gotten locked at some point.
That's something you want to clean up and helping them say, Hey,
you know, drive from your elbow, move your arm with your elbow.
Not so much your hand, that's going to help get them back
on track a little bit more.
And then my last big rule is the ball should never point to center field.
This is a really old teach that, you know, there's a lot of throwing drills.
The kids do this.
The ball should never point to center field.
It doesn't make any sense.
It should point in the same direction as your chest, which is mostly sideways
because as I emphasize I'm here and I start to rotate, my arm is going
to fling back and I need to be in the center of the ball and then go forward.
So if my wrist is sideways now, as I lay back, my hand
is in the center of the ball.
If my hand is facing center field, now, as I rotate.
My hand is still facing this direction, which is literally makes no sense.
So I have to like have this weird wrist turning thing going on.
And if we had really stopped to think about it 20 years ago, we'd have
been like, why are we doing this?
That doesn't make much sense.
There's no power position that comes from it.
It's not what your risk does.
Your risk is going to fix itself.
Anyway, this is just an extra unnecessary inefficient movement.
So with those four rules separating your hands down.
Not letting her elbow straighten, moving the arm with your elbow,
not so much your hand and not pointing the ball to center field.
Those things are going to keep you all pretty much in good shape because
what the arm action should not look like is this sticking it way behind
our back, where then it becomes really difficult to get back to
the position that we want to be in.
So one of the things that influences your arm action is
the wrapping of your upper body.
So if you're very.
Two dimensional.
So imagine there's a wall behind me and I'm just going right at the camera.
So if I'm doing that, my arm's not going to have a lot of
motivation to get behind my body.
However, if I start to wrap now, this is still just an extension
of where my package is, but now I can stick it behind my body.
And it's much harder to get back out of that position.
So.
Lots of pictures have a little bit of rapping and a little
bit of wrapping is okay.
And that's how some pictures kind of stay on time and other
ways and get some other power.
But when you see a player has accepted wrapping, it makes it really tough
because this arm suddenly gets dug right really far behind their body.
And it's tough to get out of that hole essentially.
So thinking about staying a little, a bit more shorter point
to the, to the target and keeping our arm action in two dimensions.
And what I mean by two dimensions is.
I go down and I come back.
Those are the two dimensions.
I'm not really getting into this third dimension back here.
That's kind of the thing to think about.
So as I separate my hands, the elbows pulling back, but mostly pinching my
shoulder blades and that's pretty much it.
I just don't want to take my hand away back into this position.
So those are the big things I think that you need to cover.
Now, if you want to fix your arm, action, you say, okay, well, what should you do?
A number one.
You should take slow motion video of yourself from a
couple of different angles.
So not just from straight on, that's probably the one that helps the least
mostly from this view, from the side.
So it gets slow motion video there, and also from the rear.
So from here, so you can see what your arm is doing.
So it's hopefully not this, but hopefully more of that where it's
hands breakdown, elbow drives, arm doesn't lock, and then we get up here.
That's the big thing that you probably want to do.
And then, yeah, I have to be conscious of it.
So there's other drills that you can do.
Some of them are uncomfortable.
Some of them are more comfortable.
One of them, I don't have a towel with me at the moment, but you take a
rolled up towel, put it in your arm and because you're squeezing it there, it
provides Vince you from reaching out.
And so you can go through your arm action and it helps keep you a little bit
tighter rather than straightening me out.
Some players.
I work with absolutely hate that drill.
I personally hated it.
I felt like it's very uncomfortable.
I never got the hang of it.
A lot of players the same way some kids were like, Hey, this is fine.
I don't mind doing this.
It kind of makes sense.
So whether you put it like a little Swiss ball on your arm or a little
rolled up towel either one's okay.
They can help you fix that arm action a little bit.
The other thing is just having some queuing words.
All right.
I'm going to try to keep the ball on my chest a little longer.
And again, I'm going to pull from my elbow.
My elbow is going to move my arm rather than my hand that tends to help.
You can also do shadow drills in your house with your wall behind you.
So get maybe six inches from the wall that way, bang, you hit your hand on the wall.
If you start to wrap it and stick it way behind you.
So that was something I did in college.
And that seemed to work pretty well.
Also, just trying to eliminate too much extra wrapping helps.
But again, this is a solution that I wouldn't say is a very cookie cutter one.
This is something that you definitely need to take video of yourself, try
some different things, tinker and know that there's not one clear solution
for every player, every player, his arm, action's going to be different.
That's why, again, the big leagues, you see a million different variations.
And I wouldn't say that anything is wrong for any given player.
Although you did see a big leaguer who who's like boom way back here.
I think most pitching coaches today would agree.
That's not the best way for him to throw.
But that being said, um, this is again a really specific thing.
So you don't want to say I'm going to emulate this pitcher or this MLB pitcher.
You just want to figure out, do I kind of fall into these four
rules that I've found today?
Does my elbow lock?
Do I stick away too far behind my back?
Do my hands break in a strange way.
Um, and do I get my shoulder blades pulled all the way back?
Is the ball facing.
The same direction as my chest and has my elbow at 90 degrees or less.
If you're hitting all those conditions, then you're probably in good shape.
If you're starting to miss on some of those in that checklist, then you probably
need help and you probably need to start taking some video and diagnosing it.
Okay.
Thanks for watching.
I know this was a long video.
I appreciate you.
I'm coach Dan Blewett.
Check out the video description links.
Um, I have online courses.
I have put two pitching books, so I have lots of other resources.
If you're trying to learn more about baseball, lastly, please subscribe
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