Correcting Drive Foot Turn Out Part 1

By Joe Bonyai | July 4, 2012 |

Drive foot turn out can be a doorstop in a young softball pitcher’s development. The consequences are obvious, but the cause is much more difficult to derive. In this video, Joe explains how lack of physical strength and flexibility contribute to one of the most common technical mistakes in young pitchers.

Posted in Strength Training, Video Blogs, Windmill Pitching and tagged , , , ,

5 Comments

  1. Eric Ryan on July 4, 2012 at 11:37 PM

    I agree with you 100% on the foot turning being a problem. Now come the important part, how can we solve this and strengthen our pitcher to combat this movement. Thanks for all yalls contributions there at fastpitch power
    Eric



    • Joe Bonyai on July 5, 2012 at 8:10 AM

      That’s coming next week! Thanks for the compliment, Eric.



  2. Neezaam on July 5, 2012 at 3:25 AM

    Hi,
    I do find this turning of foot a problem with pitchers. I have not looked at it from an inadequate strength point of view but you have shown how to test for it, so it could be considered as well. But one reason was the over emphasis of turning the hips to allow for the perfect arm circle.

    So the pitcher would focus on turning the hips to realign the body, but does that early which turns the foot. In other words the process is out of sequence and the leg drive is not emphasized. (Kinetic Chain failure?).

    In my coaching I do not emphasize the hips. I do recognize and make mention the position of the hips in terms of allowing the arm to rotate and pass along the powerline, but stress the importance of the stride foot’s landing angle to generate the hip angle. Thus the focus is on a powerful drive, glide and a solid landing to, throughout the motion, give a good foundation for the upper half to work on.

    Thanks for your contribution 🙂 much appreciated.



    • Carly on July 5, 2012 at 9:12 AM

      Thanks for the comments, Neezaam! I think what you’re saying is very true in many cases; a lot of pitchers will rush into tracking the body (opening the hips to the power line) and skip the leg drive off the rubber, which is crucial to generating power. Focusing on the landing foot angle is an interesting solution, provided that as a result the hips do turn enough to allow for a clear arm path to the target, which we believe is very important.



  3. Joe Bonyai on July 5, 2012 at 8:12 AM

    Neezaam, I’m going to forward this to Carly and Phil for comment. Thank you very much for leaving your questions! Joe