Thursday, January 10, 2013

How to Increase Your Pitching Velocity

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The techniques in this article are meant for athletes who are old enough to begin a weight training program.  Use caution please.

There is no doubt that every pitcher wants to increase their pitching velocity. Velocity is essential to your success, and it will give you the confidence you need to succeed at the higher levels of competition.

The thing is, if it were easy, then everyone would be doing it! Increasing your velo takes dedication and hard work. Day-in and day-out. But besides hard work, you must also be guided in the right direction.

So how do you actually increase your velocity? Increasing velocity is the result of many training techniques combined together. These are efficient pitching mechanics, a proper strength training regime, effective conditioning, and excellent arm health.

There is no single factor alone that is going to give you the velocity gains you're looking for. Let's start with pitching mechanics, since it is the most important.

The majority of your velocity potential is a direct result of your ability to produce effective mechanics. Effective mechanics can be defined as a pitchers ability to utilize their body as a single unit.

The keys to increasing your velocity through mechanics is through avoiding the traditional balance point, focusing on back leg drive, generating stride length, having adequate stride length, hip to shoulder separation, and external rotation. These are only a few of the factors, but are predominately the reasons why some pitchers are able to generate more velocity than others. Work on these aspects.
The second most important element is pitcher-specific strength training. A proper training regime is essential to velocity and preventing injury. Every pitcher must avoid exercises that are potentially dangerous for the rotator cuff including barbell bench press or military press.

Focus on developing the lower half of the body, but at the same time, you must continue to promote muscular balance. You should focus on compound exercises such as deadlifts, squats, and dumbbell bench press. These exercises target multiple muscles with a single movement, and most importantly, train your core.

After strength training, you must understand how to condition your body. It's simple. Pitching is EXPLOSIVE, and therefore you should train to be explosive. That means you should only utilize anaerobic exercises, as opposed aerobic. These include sprints, plyos, agilitys, and bodyweight exercises.

The last important element to increasing velocity is through proper arm health. You must train your rotator cuff muscles through lightweight exercises (2.5-5 pounds) about 2-3 times per week.
As you can see, increasing your velocity isn't an easy task. It's going to take hard work, and most importantly, it's going to take TIME. Don't give up!
 
Want more pitching instruction? Then I highly recommend you visit The Ultimate Pitcher: http://www.theulitmatepitcher.com/
 
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nathan_E_Gotch

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