How to Wake Up Your Arms and Legs

In my last post, we discussed some of the problems that can arise if your arms and legs are “asleep”—meaning your arm movements are dominated by your shoulder rather than your actual arms, and/or your leg movements are dominated by your hips rather than your legs. This can cause poor speed, bad movement pitches, inability to whip your arm, and in many cases, pain. Today we’re going to talk about WHY this happens in some pitchers and what you can do about it.

What causes your limbs to be “asleep” while pitching

The exact cause of this issue is likely different from athlete to athlete, and can have a lot to do with the individual’s unique body structure. However, I have a theory that probably applies to most pitchers struggling to use their arms and legs properly.

Windmill pitching is a VERY complex motion, yet in many cases girls as young as 9 or 8—even 7 and 6—decide to begin learning it. Consider this:

• If your 9-year-old is taking her first piano lesson, you wouldn’t hand her Beethoven before she’s ever played a scale.
• You also wouldn’t expect her to solve a calculus problem before she’s learned to multiply and divide

Yet when it comes to pitching—many sports, actually—kids are diving right into level 3 without passing level 1. As a parent, you may THINK that learning the basics of windmill pitching IS level 1, but I can’t stress this enough: it isn’t. Especially in this generation where in many cases playing outside has been replaced by more intense school work, electronic and computer-related activities, and specialized sports from a young age, children must literally BE TAUGHT how to move their bodies. Attempting to pitch without a foundation in the fundamentals of athletic movement is essentially trying to run before you’ve learned to walk.

I highly recommend that EVERY PARENT watch this presentation, which addresses the issue in depth.

If you started learning to pitch before learning how to move your arms and legs properly, guess what often happens? You’re not magically going to move them properly in the pitching motion either.

What can you do about it?

So now you’re 12 or older, and you’ve skipped the fundamental movement step, and you’re struggling with shoulder/hip dominance. How can you make the best of your situation and get over this difficulty? I have a few suggestions:

• Change your warmup. Include very dynamic “wake-up” exercises to get your arms and legs moving. As I mentioned last week, this isn’t necessarily a strength training issue; you simply need to get your limbs accustomed to moving, and moving the right way. Before you begin pitching, include warmup movements such as high skipping, huge arm circles, lateral shuffles, high knees, etc. Think BIG movements. Throw long toss both overhand and pitching, and exaggerate EVERYTHING. You can even use a different exaggerated pre-motion while warming up that involves a lot of LOOSE excess arm movement. Make sure you are relaxed and that your arms and legs are doing lots of moving.
• Engage in other activities. Playing other sports is a great way to vary your body movements. If you can’t commit to another sport, try something like dance, even if it’s just a zumba video on youtube alone in your room!