Baseball Pitching Tips - How To Develop Pitching Power

Core Strength for pitchers

A pitcher who strengthens the core will increase baseball pitching velocity dramatically, due to increased arm speed and hip rotation. Your delivery will become “easier” and smoother because you won’t be relying on your arm. It’s a great feeling when the ball starts jumping out of your hand. Your ball will have added “life.”

I routinely see a 5 to 10 mph increase in the first 8 weeks of the correct power program. I’m pretty sure any pitcher will take that.  I know you must be smiling right now, wishing you can fast forward time to 8 weeks from now. Don’t worry, put in the work and your body will reward you substantially. It won’t happen magically, but I have yet to see a pitcher do these exercises and not make a significant improvement in velocity and durability.

As these baseball pitching drills teach your body to become lower body dominant, you will no longer just rely on your arm to get batters out. Even if you are currently using your lower body during your delivery, these drills will further enhance that and place you in the upper echelon of pitchers who’s pitches seem to jump right past the batter and add life as the game goes on.

Why developing torso flexibility is crucial for optimal performance

Your core not only needs to be strong to excel on the field and stay healthy, but it needs to be flexible. Torso flexibility is notoriously poor in American athletes, especially baseball players.

You can even do a simple test right now. Stand up with your back a few feet away from a wall and simply try to rotate from your midsection and touch the wall. Do not move your feet or bend your knees. Most likely you will be able to rotate more to one side than you can to the other. Swinging or throwing in one direction over and over will cause the disproportion. This is an imbalance in the range of motion, or flexibility, of the muscles. Imbalances, whether they are in range of motion or strength, will lead to an injury. Notice that I say will, not might. For example, the imbalance in the torso twist test will lead to a lower back injury, a rib cage pull, an upper back strain or maybe a hamstring pull. Insufficient torso rotation can even lead to an arm injury.

You see, the body does not work mechanically in muscle groups. The body was meant to work together. Think of it as a team. How good would your team be without a shortstop? Obviously it would be very hard to win with one or more position players missing. Well, if your baseball pitching training does not take this into consideration, your body will be performing without one or more of its “players.” Then too much strain is placed on a part of the body that is not meant to take that amount of stress and the muscle, tendon or ligament gets injured.

Think of an elastic band. If you put it in the freezer and try to stretch it, the band will break. However, if it is at room temperature it can stretch and then produce a tremendous amount of power. Understanding this point is extremely important. This is the reason why bodybuilding routines or just crunches for the abs will not produce a better baseball player. You need specific baseball pitching drills targeted towards the needs of the sport.

Building strong core muscles is only half of the battle because if you are strong, yet inflexible, you are an injury waiting to happen. Not to mention your performance will be nowhere near it’s potential. Baseball needs to be played in a fluid; seamless manner and an inflexible torso will prevent that from occurring.

Turkish Get-Up

Benefits 

The Turkish Get-Up is a brutal, extremely effective baseball pitching exercise to increase strength, power and speed of the entire body. It places a very unique stimulus on the muscles of the core and shoulder, providing a tremendous amount of stability and strength endurance. This is also a tremendous conditioning drill.

Barbell Version

Execution

This movement can be performed with a barbell, kettlebell or dumbbell. I prefer the barbell version for baseball players. The barbell provides a resistance that is spread over a greater distance, creating a greater challenge for the muscle of the core and the stabilizers of the shoulder joint. Most will not be able to perform this right away with a traditional 45 pound Olympic bar as this is a very humbling exercise. Just start off with a bar of a lighter weight until you have built up the strength and coordination to work with the 45 pound bar.

1. Lie on your back on the floor. Hold a barbell in one hand extended in the air above you. Your elbow should be locked with your eyes fixed on your hand holding the weight.
2. Without unlocking your elbow keep the barbell in the air above you pointing towards the ceiling at all times. Roll slightly to the side of your free hand.
3. Try to get up on one knee into the bottom position of a lunge. The arm with the barbell should still be vertical and locked tight.
4. Now stand up completely, keeping the eyes on the hand above.
5. Reverse the movement and lay back down. Repeat. 

This baseball exercise should be done explosively as possible. The goal is to try and go from Point A (lying down with weight overhead) to Point B (standing with weight overhead) as fast as humanely possible. This will train the body to act in an explosive manner, which is the key to baseball pitching performance.

Baseball Hitting Tips - Key Points

• Keep the hand and weight underneath your body and point towards the sky throughout the entire movement.
• Elbow should remain locked throughout.
• Use the hand and feet to push the body away from the floor
• Create a mental image that the floor is “hot” and you want to get on your feet as quick as possible
• Maintain perfect posture at all times

Baseball Hitting Tips - Common Mistakes

• Letting the weight move forward, placing undue stress on the shoulder joint.
• Not using the legs or arms and trying to simply crunch up.
• Not using the entire body to perform the lift

Once you try this bad boy, you’ll quickly see how this will develop power, explosion & endurance.

This is just one exercise from Unbreakable Abs. If you truly want to light up the radar gun, I highly suggest you check it out now

To learn more about baseball hitting and the secrets of the Major League swing click here for the best baseball hitting course.

Further suggested reading: Increasing Speed in Baseball Pitching

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