Speeding up delivery

#1

been lurking several years - First Post

Been reading about younger players being slow & robotic with delivery.

To some extent this fits my soon to be 13 year old son. He is 5’ 3" & weighs 140+. Is right handed & his fastball tops about 63, as clocked at a recent University of Illinois camp.

Recenly started working with him to speed up from the top of his leg kick. Very successful from the windup. His speed was noticeably faster & still maintained control. However, when we tried it from the stretch, he had many problems. He not only had trouble speeding up, he had substantial loss of control & his speed fluctuated. With all this being said, can anybody recommend ways of speeding up the hips & lower body from the stretch.

Thanks in advance

Rex

#2

He just has to stay comfortable. Is he normally consistent from the stretch without manipulation? If he is i suggest he sticks with what hes comfortable with. Its more important to throw strikes than be uncomfortable, fast, and innaccurate.

#3

I disagree. Moving the body faster speeds up the arm and puts less stress on the arm as well. The idea is to move as fast as possible yet still maintain bodily control and proper mechanics. Post a video and maybe we can identify the problem.

#4

Speeding up the delivery can increase the energy available to transfer through the body and into the ball resulting in greater velocity. It also usually improves overall timing and a well-timed delivery also helps maximize velocity.

I would suggest that the “speed up” shouldn’t begin at the top of knee lift but from first forward movement. That will help him be quicker to the plate so runners don’t get as big of a jump.

As for why you son is struggling from the stretch, that’s tough to say based on the info you’ve provided. Seeing some video would be good.

#5

Seems his troubles concentrated around him also wanting to speed up his top side. Once this was identified, his timing as well as his accuracy & speed have improved. He has a way to go before it becomes habitual, however with a few more bullpens, I believe we can transfer this additional speed to the mound. Knowing him, he will experiment with it this weekend. If it doesn’t work, he will adjust.

#6

Try the cross over drill. It is explained in the section on drills.

#7

I like the crossover drill combined with the hersheiser drill to get the hips more involved.

#8

I agree Buwhite. I stopped the hersheiser drill with my son though, as he had a tendency to start tilting backwards with a greater hip thrust. We may get back to it when he gets a little older.

#9

Using the crossover drill to develop good post balance in addition to hersheiser drill to get good hip drive then it’s a good combination. Do watch out for creating too much tilt on the hersheiser drill but if you watch the youtube video on hersheiser you notice that the technique just works on hips so you should try and keep the balance and tilt from being effected.