You WON’T Improve Your Leg Drive Without This

By Carly | June 17, 2013 |

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve found myself sending these videos to a lot of people, either in response to questions I’ve received or after working with them in person. No matter what age or level you are, I guarantee your leg drive can get better. For the extreme majority of you, I’m willing to bet it could get A LOT better. However, it’s definitely not going to get better with practice alone.

What I Mean By Leg Drive

When I say leg drive, I’m referring to the segment of leg work from the push off the pitching rubber to the end of the drive through when the drive leg meets the landing leg. The push off the rubber is one of the largest determining factors of speed in the windmill pitch, if not the largest. A proper drive through is critical in ensuring speed is not lost after the push off through poor posture or too much/not enough resistance.

What’s Wrong With Your Leg Drive

I’m not just talking about young pitchers here; I’m working with pitchers who are already committed to Division 1 colleges who need to work on this just as much. 10U and 12U pitchers are in an especially good position, because if you understand this now you can cut it off before it becomes a major problem. Chances are, the vast majority of you are…

  • Not pushing hard enough off the pitching rubber
  • Not able to get into a strong enough load to push as hard as you need to
  • Allowing your insteps to turn toward the catcher either during the load phase or the beginning of the drive through phase, causing a weak push and/or a heavy collapsed leg during the drive through

Pitching more probably won’t help. The reason you are doing these things is because your bodies are not equipped to give you the leg drive you need.

So how do you fix it?

The first video here is one of my favorite videos Joe has shared. He explains very clearly why all of these things tend to go wrong in windmill pitchers. It’s very important to understand because it will help you fix the problem productively:

 

And in this video he suggests some exercises to address the problem:

 

 

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

4 Comments

  1. RD on June 29, 2013 at 7:41 PM

    Excellent video. I am a Physical Therapist learning how to pitch and teaching my 9 yr old how to pitch at the same time. Perfect combination of exercises specific to the drive phase! Thanks!



    • Carly on June 29, 2013 at 7:43 PM

      Glad you liked it!



  2. KS on September 4, 2013 at 3:00 PM

    I really enjoyed the strength building video & believe the exercises will help strengthen my daughters ankle, knee, & hip joints for proper load & drive. She just turned 13 and I’m wondering how many days of the week and which exercises she should do…and how many reps & sets? Is there a time frame when we should start to see results? Thanks!



    • Carly on September 4, 2013 at 8:43 PM

      She can do the exercises demonstrated above every day, since they shouldn’t take long.
      Or, if she’s interested in a total body workout, she can try this 3 times a week: https://www.fastpitchpower.com/softball-full-workout-sheet-and-videos/

      Results vary from person to person, but if she’s diligent about it starting now, hopefully by the spring she will start to see the effects work their way into her pitching. It will take longer to notice a dramatic change though. Hope that helps!