[quote=“hovat”]I was told by some of the coaches that I was taking quite a long stride, which they said stopped me from keeping my weight back.[/quote]How long is your stride relative to your height, as a percentage? A long stride is what you want but only as long as it isn’t dropping your centre of gravity so far that it inhibits getting the back hip rotatiing fully around the fixed front one.
[quote=“hovat”]They also said that when I came around, I was leading with my elbow. So from what they said, when i throw, my forearm is trailing behind.[/quote]Congratulations!!! You’re doing it right. I think, not having seen you. Do you have video of your delivery?
Now, I’ll temper that by saying that the elbow should not get AHEAD of the shoulders. Bring that elbow, with the shoulders, and having the forearm go to horizontal as the shoulders have squared and the elbow is with them is EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT!!! Give me a PM with your email address and I’ll send you video after video of MLB pitchers doing this. If your forearm does NOT get to horizontal as the shoulders have squared to the plate, you’re NOT going to maximize your throwing abilities. It’s called full external rotation of the humerus.
[quote=“hovat”]What should I do? Should I shorten my stride, and really try to keep my weight back?[/quote]ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! This “keep the weight back cue” is really not a good one. They’re attempting to stop you from shifting your upper body forward too early and getting ahead of the lower. That’s a good intent. The cue causes, in some, the centre of gravity to stay back toward the rear foot much too long and can cause a collapse of the back leg before the stride. Now, those who advocate “drop 'n drive” like this idea. There are very few real drop 'n drive pitchers in the majors. You can always find examples of something but it’s not that common.
As most on this board are probably getting tired of hearing me say :lol: you need a more productive cue. I strongly believe that this cue is to aggressively drive the side of the front hip at the target no later than the point where the lift knee has reached it’s highest point. Now, don’t excessively lean the trunk back during this. Some is fine, just not excessively. Keep the heel down until the front foot is almost ready to turn over into landing, then fire everything from the belly button on down. Spin the back foot/knee/leg and rotate all of this hard INTO LANDING. Do NOT ROTATE THE SHOULDERS UNTIL THE FRONT FOOT HAS LANDED.
Man, they’ve given you some poor advice my friend. PM me and you’ll see that you probably aren’t doing too badly. Any problems you may be having are probably elsewhere in you delivery and the coaches are barking up the wrong tree and could just make things worse.