Stride

General Pitching Topics
#1

Recently I’ve been pitching/throwing daily to work on my mechanics.
The main points I focus on are:

Keeping my weight on my back foot longer
Keeping my shoulders closed longer (for hip/shoulder seperation)
Longer stride (it was literally about 4ft(Im 5’8")
Follow through

Anyways Im throwing on cement and by measure of my foot imprint (that is now pasted on the cement) My stride is around 4’9". While it should be closer to 5’1" right?

My main question is this: Where I throw is on a slight uphil, when i throw off of a mound or even on flat ground will my stride be longer?

Also, Am I working on the right stuff to improve mechanics?

#2

You’ll hear diff things from diff people. Some will say your stride should be 85% of your body length some will say 100% maybe some will say more.

Personally i believe that its whatever reproduces the most efficient consistent results.

If your stride is 150% your body length like lincecum so be it. If its 80% like randy johnson. so be it.

#3

I don’t think you are working on the right stuff if you are consistently throwing uphill - you need to stop that immediately! A large part of pitching is generating momentum and this is done by throwing downhill. Your stride will be longer, it will take less effort, you will have less stress on your arm, you will generate more momentum, and you will increase velocity. Throwing uphill has zero benefits for baseball players - it’s never done in games so why do it?

Regarding your stride, just work on getting low and long by bending and then extending the back leg. When the leg gets to near full extension, get your front foot down - just don’t reach out with the front foot.

#4

[quote=“GottyJ”]Recently I’ve been pitching/throwing daily to work on my mechanics.
The main points I focus on are:

#1 Keeping my weight on my back foot longer
#2 Keeping my shoulders closed longer (for hip/shoulder seperation)
#3 Longer stride (it was literally about 4ft(Im 5’8")
#4 Follow through

Anyways Im throwing on cement and by measure of my foot imprint (that is now pasted on the cement) My stride is around 4’9". While it should be closer to 5’1" right?

My main question is this: Where I throw is on a slight uphil, when i throw off of a mound or even on flat ground will my stride be longer?

Also, Am I working on the right stuff to improve mechanics?[/quote]

I numbered your points above for discussion purposes.

How do you keep your weight back yet lengthen your stride? I think #1 and #3 are mutually exclusive.

#4 should take care of itself if everything else is in order. If that’s not the case, then work on those other things.

#5

Well for lengthening my stride its not that i’m trying to force myself to stretch as far as possible but I have very low flexibility in my legs so I have been stretching more. So its more that im trying to get it to is natural maximum potential.

As far as the back leg goes its not like i’m keeping all my weight on my back leg the whole time its like

while his body is moving forward, his weight is on his back foot all the way until he lands, with my old mechanics I would lung forward much to quickly and be off balance and I tended to lean forward a lot.

So I’m keeping my weight back as sort of a balance thing i guess. its hard to explain lol

#6

Just curious how exactly do you measure stride length? currently I’m measuring it from where the back of my back foot stars to where my front toe ends up. going by that measurement I’m at 5 feet now.