The Most Important Thing For Beginner Pitchers
Got a question from reader Rob whose daughter is a beginner pitcher. He wanted to know: what is the single most important thing for them to focus on at the beginning of the learning process?
I think the answer to that question is forearm fire.
Why the arm whip is the most important thing for beginners to focus on
If you’re new to Fastpitch Power and not familiar with our thoughts on the arm whip release, please browse our forearm fire archive. In particular, this post gives some tips for learning forearm fire if you’re one of the many pitchers who doesn’t get it naturally.
Basically, if you don’t have arm whip, there is a limit to how fast your pitch can get. Imagine trying to throw overhand from center field to home plate with a totally stiff arm. If you make it past second base, you’re lucky. The limit is not the same for everyone; bigger, stronger girls will be able to throw harder when relying on stiff muscles like this. But if you whip your arm properly, you can generate speed regardless of your size.
So, arm whip is important because even if everything else is perfect, without arm whip you probably won’t pitch that fast.
It’s also the MOST IMPORTANT thing for beginners to focus on, because if you don’t get it down while you’re doing arm-only drills at the beginning, you WILL NOT get it down when you add on the other body movements. As you add in footwork and other aspects of the pitch, your focus will be divided; there are a lot of things to think about as a pitcher! If you’re NOT whipping your arm, you will have an even smaller chance of whipping while focusing on many things, compared to when you’re focused on your arm only.
Now, you don’t have to MASTER forearm fire before moving on to other aspects of the motion. You just have to be comfortable enough with it that you’re showing signs of good whip most of the time, and you can feel the difference between a whip and a stiff arm.
If you begin focusing on other things BEFORE you achieve decent arm whip, it will be much harder to go back and fix the arm whip later.
For a more detailed plan for learning this or any other single aspect of windmill pitching, check out this article. It outlines exactly how long you should work on one thing before moving on to the next!
Carly,
Thank you so much for your quality information! I have been working with pitchers on forearm fire for several months now with some very good results. Forearm fire was the answer to trying to find ways for the majority of pitchers that came to me with stiff arm mechanics to get some arm whip. It is definitely a process! Sometimes we are trying to break a multiple year habit!
My question is in regards to the teaching the beginner who has never pitched. Do you teach palm control to the target snap first? Do you teach them to snap the ball between their feet? Say 6:00 on a clock? Is there anything else we can do to help beginners feel the snap before we tackle the arm whip?
With the forearm fire technique Is the snap of the pitch out in front of you like when you throw overhand, body behind the ball?
Even my college pitchers need to work on their snaps! Do you have any suggestions?
I appreciate all that you are doing.
Shelley
These are awesome questions Shelley, so I will address them in my next post for everyone to read. Look for it next week!
Thank you so much, Carly!