If your child plays baseball, one of the positions they may play is the pitcher. The pitcher is of course the player who throws the ball with the aim of striking out to the batter. There are many different aspects to being a pitcher.
That said, one of the most important aspects of being a pitcher is of course throwing the ball as hard as possible. The fastball is one of the most popular pitches, and it’s because it’s so effective. If your child is just starting out as a pitcher, they may not be throwing the ball very hard.
However, there are ways to help your child throw a baseball much faster. How to help a kid throw faster in baseball is exactly what we are going to teach you today. We’ve got many different tips that can help your child throw that ball much harder.
Tips on How to Help a Kid Throw Faster in Baseball
Here we have compiled a list of the very best tips that will help your kids throw faster in baseball.
1. Eliminating the Balance Point
One great way for your child to throw faster is to eliminate the balance point when pitching the ball. Official research notes that pitchers who use a balance point have more head movement. The result is that they throw the ball with less accuracy and velocity.
For the record, the balance point is when a pitcher stops moving his leg upwards and pauses for a moment before lowering the leg. Official studies show that doing this is not beneficial. The knee should move in one continuous motion. It should go up, down, and out, all without any pauses.
2. Raising the Knee to the Right Height
Speaking of knee movement, how high the knee is raised matters as well. Generally speaking, the legs should be raised between 60% and 70% of the pitcher’s overall height. During the leg kick, the lead leg should be raised over 60 degrees.
If the leg is not raised high enough, it stops the pitcher from achieving great momentum with the stride leg. However, on the other hand, if the knee is raised too high, over 70 degrees, it can decrease ball momentum.
3. It’s All About the SFC
SFC stands for stride foot contact. Stride foot contact occurs just before maximum external rotation of the pelvis. As the foot is touching down, the pelvis starts to rotate towards the home plate, while the torso is still facing the opposite direction. This creates separation that will enhance velocity.
It is shown that the best pitchers have the shortest stride foot contact to maximum external rotation time. Pitchers generally go from stride foot contact to maximum external rotation in under three tenths of a second.
Due to this, it is essential that pitchers are extremely fast and flexible. Therefore, a variety of speed and flexibility drills are required to decrease this stride foot contact to maximum external rotation time.
Speaking of stride foot contact, there is also research that shows that if the front knee is bent to a high degree, it helps to increase pitching velocity.
Bending the knee to a great degree allows a pitcher to move their hips extremely quickly. This therefore allows the pitcher to get more weight onto the front leg. Keep in mind that the hardest throwers bend their knee at an average of 48 degrees.
There is something else to keep in mind here which is how much the elbow is flexed at the foot strike. Generally speaking, the more the throwing elbow is bent when the foot strike occurs, the harder the ball will be thrown. The hardest throwing pitchers bend their elbow at roughly 90 degrees at stride foot contact.
4. Making Use of the Glove Arm
How the glove arm is used during the pitch matters as well. Having good glove arm action assists in having great trunk arching and flexion, good trunk rotation, and good shoulder alignment. These are all things that will help increase ball the velocity. There are two different ways to achieve this.
Some pitchers choose to really fire the glove and lead it towards home plate. Some pitchers choose to lead the elbow directly towards the plate. With both methods, the aim is to actively push the glove and elbow down and outside the lead hip to generate more rotation.
5. Increasing Mass and Strength
Here we have one of the more obvious points. The heavier the pitcher is, and the stronger they are, the faster they can throw the ball. Therefore, to help your child pitch faster, they can do a variety of strength exercises. If they gain a bit of mass, especially muscle mass, they will be able to throw the ball harder.
6. And Much More
The fact of the matter is that how to throw a ball harder in baseball is actually a very complicated thing. Below, we have listed a variety of other tips that should also help your child throw the ball faster.
- Increasing knee flexion during the foot stride contact will allow your child to pitch faster.
- Your child should also increase the flexion of their elbow at a stride foot contact.
- On that same note, elbow flexion should also be increased.
- Increasing knee flexion at ball release will also help generate more velocity.
- Another good way to pitch faster is to increase the rotation of the shoulder.
- Another thing that will help your child pitch faster is to increase torso and pelvis rotation velocity.
- While the shoulder is being maximally rotated, the chest should be thrusted towards the target.
- During the pitch, the stride of the leg should be around 90% of the pitcher’s height.
Common Reasons Pitchers Lose Velocity
- Arm action
- Back foot action at ball release
- Back leg position before hand break
- Bad or low mound
- Ball in close to head at landing
- Ball release position
- Body weight reduction
- Bracing action of front leg and hip
- Completion of back leg drive
- Early hip rotation
- Early trunk rotation
- Excessive workload
- Finish position
- Foot position on rubber
- Hand break
- How the ball comes out of the glove
- Injury
- Landing leg stability
- Landing position – body alignment
- Lead leg action
- Loss of mobility
- Low elbow or high elbow
- Mental barriers
- Poor arm cocked position at landing
- Position of back leg before weight shift
- Posture
- Showing back pocket or number to hitter
- Strength loss
- Stride length
- Weight shift
Throwing a Baseball Faster – Conclusion
With the variety of tips that we have provided above, you should be able to help your child throw a baseball much faster.
Keep in mind that many of these tips are all about being fast, strong, and well balanced.
Therefore, a good strength building routine combined with speed exercises, as well as flexibility exercises, should help achieve all of these goals.
Thanks for stopping by ~Jeremy
