Softball Pitching - If You Can't Throw It Hard It's Not a ChangeUp

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Lately I’ve had the opportunity to get out and watch some games – some with pitchers I coach, some with pitchers I don’t. It’s a great opportunity to take everything out of the theoretical (practice phase) and see it applied in a game.

One of the things that most amazes me is how many pitchers still are either taught or are picking up the habit of slowing down their arms or otherwise changing their deliveries when they throw a changeup. Sometimes they don’t push off as hard, sometimes they leave their back legs behind, sometimes they just slow down or stop the arm completely. Whatever they do, it’s obvious they’re not throwing the same way as on a fastball or other speed pitch.

Usually, those “changeups” get hit pretty hard. The reason is the change is all about deception. The hitter has to see what she’s used to seeing out of the body, then have the ball do something it hasn’t been doing. It also helps if the body/arm speed and ball speed don’t match.

Which brings me to my main point.

Unless you can throw whatever changeup you’re throwing with 100 percent enthusiasm, it’s not a changeup.

It might be an off-speed pitch, but that’s about it.

If you have to take any effort out of what you’re throwing, you need to learn a different pitch. Sure, it might work for a while, but as soon as the hitters get halfway decent you’re going to see it getting pounded. At that point, you’d better make sure you have one of those masks in case it’s getting pounded straight back up the middle.

The upside is when you do learn a better change, it will be a lot more effective. In fact, you will likely wind up freezing the hitters as often as you get them to swing through. Just don’t be surprised if the umpire gets fooled too. At that point don’t get mad. Just take it as a compliment!

5 Tips to Increase a Pitcher's Speed
By: Cindy Bristow
Anybody want their pitcher to get faster? Are you sure exactly how to make it happen? Discover 5 Tips that will immediately increase your pitchers speed.


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Every pitcher on the planet wants to get faster but if you ask them how to do it you'll get a million different answers. Learn exactly what adds to speed and what takes it away, and how to help your pitchers get faster.

OK, Pop Quiz: What's the ONE thing a pitcher must do to throw faster? That means, it can be the only thing she does and she'll throw faster. Here's a list of some of the answers you'll get when you ask this question:

More Snap
More Hips
Bigger Stride
Get Faster
Move Your Arm Faster
Since pitching faster is something every pitcher wants to do you'd think they would ALL know exactly how to do it, but judging from these answers it doesn't appear that way at all.

So let's make this easier and ask the same question another way. Ask your pitcher to throw overhand really slow. Then ask her to throw overhand as fast as she can. You can try it right now - you stand up and throw slow without a ball. First throw your imaginary ball overhand - but throw real slow. Then take that same imaginary ball and throw it as fast as you can. When you're finished ask yourself, "What's the one thing you did to throw faster overhand?" Most pitchers will immediately say "I moved my hand faster here" - showing you their hand at the release point. Is that what you felt, or said? If so then you're EXACTLY RIGHT! For any player, pitcher or otherwise to throw a ball faster they must move their hand faster as they release the ball! Not move it faster when they start since that won't help your throw. The increase in speed must happen at the release point. It makes perfect sense overhand and yet underhand we have grown to expect more underhand.

Now I realize this is far too simple of an explanation for most people to handle when it comes to pitching. For some reason we can accept it for our overhand throw but we really, really struggle to accept it for pitching. This has always amazed me since I believe we need to try and make pitching as simple as possible in order to better help our pitchers understand and ultimately perfect it. We have this crazy urge to over-complicate pitching when we really don't need to.


Here's what I mean - when I say that to increase a pitcher's speed the most important thing they must do is increase the speed of their hand at the release point, people will then say things like, "well what about the stride?", "what about the follow through?", what about the snap?". None of these same questions will be asked when throwing overhand and yet, ALL of these things do happen when throwing overhand and pitching! We snap when pitching and throwing overhand, we take a stride when pitching and throwing overhand and we follow through when pitching and throwing overhand. And in fact, all of these elements increase as we throw faster in both motions, and yet we only micro-analyze the pitching motion&.why is that?

We've learned the pitching motion part-by-part instead of trusting our athletic self because we falsely believe that pitching is some kind of extraterrestrial skill that's far too complicated for mere mortals to understand, while we all know how to throw overhand and besides, what's so hard about that?! When I learn a skill part-by-part then I never really see what all the parts are going together to build, instead I stay too focused on the parts. Pitching is a whole motion that has its parts, but those parts only fit together to make the whole - not the other way around. Anyway that's another article, but for now understand this: pitching underhand and throwing overhand are more identical than they are different. Pictures 1, 2 & 3 show a pitcher on the left and an overhand thrower on the right - notice how very similar both motions are.

So, with all of that said, let's look at a list of 5 things that can really help increase a pitchers speed:

1) Legs Start & Hand Finishes - While the hand must move faster as the ball is released in order for the pitch to go faster, the hand isn't the only body part that can help make that happen. Other body parts are what I call "helpers" which means, they aren't the "main" thing that needs to happen but they help the main thing happen. The legs are definitely big time helpers.
A pitcher should start her pitch powerfully with her legs by blasting herself forward toward where her stride will land. This is the same thing a player does from centerfield when throwing the ball home. When throwing overhand, we'd all would agree that the longer (or faster) the throw the longer the stride. This is because the feet help move our bodies forward in order to transfer that forward momentum to our forward throw. The feet start this whole forward motion.

Same thing happens in pitching - a pitcher's stride starts her momentum forward and forward is definitely where she's pitching. Even though the pitchers stride is the most dominant at the beginning it doesn't mean the pitcher's hands aren't moving at all, of course they are. They just aren't moving powerfully in the beginning of the motion, that happens later on when the legs have finished doing their thing then the hand takes over. So the feet start the pitch and then once the stride foot lands the hand starts to dominate and take over. While the feet/lower body are still moving forward it's much less powerfully than at the beginning - I'll explain this more in #2.

2) Don't Get Stuck in the Middle - There are 2 places that are important to a pitcher; the rubber which is where they start their pitch, and their landing spot which is where they release their pitch. The part in between I call the Middle, and it's where a pitcher definitely doesn't want to get stuck. How could a pitcher get stuck here you ask. The most common way is by falling backwards after they stride which is usually caused by over striding or else bending their back and leaning backwards as they release the ball. Pitchers that end up in the middle area lose a ton of speed since at the moment they need all their power behind the ball pushing forward they're going backwards.
If you have a pitcher that falls backwards at the end of their pitch and looks like she should throw faster than she does then here's a simple drill to help her:

Ask her to slowly pitch the ball
As she releases the ball have her bring her back foot forward to her stride foot so her back knee touches her front knee.
She should end up with her body upright and her weight balanced on her stride foot, with her back leg bent and her back knee touching her front knee.
I'm not suggesting she pitch this way all the time. This is just a drill to help her keep her body moving forward toward her stride foot as her hand comes forward to release the ball.
This simple back knee forward drill helps a pitcher continue to transfer her weight forward onto her stride foot, which helps her then transfer her power forward onto the ball.

3) The End Matters Most - Too many pitchers that want to throw fast simply start fast - with their hands - which ends up being a mess at the release point. Just like throwing overhand, ending fast doesn't mean you want to start fast. In fact, if a pitcher starts their hands too fast they can't maintain this speed long enough to also finish fast. So keep the end in mind - if you're trying to make your hand move the fastest when you let go of the ball, then remember you release at the end of your motion so make sure your hand moves fastest at the end. The end of everything matters the most: the end of the at-bat, the end of the game, the end of the tournament, the end of the season. Ends matter so make the end of your motion matter!

4) Move Where it Matters - This goes hand-in-hand with #3 - be fast when it matters. We just said that needs to be at the end which is the release point, but then something else happens after release. Coaches call it the Follow Through, which I've learned isn't a good descriptor for players. We need to break pitching down into 3 simple parts:
Part 1 - Before Release
Part 2 - Release
Part 3 - After Release
It's the After Release (or Follow Through) that pitchers can lose some speed in by simply slowing down drastically or else immediately stopping their hand after they release the ball. While pitchers usually aren't trying to slow down on purpose they do this crazy thing by thinking they need to finish UP!!! UP?!? The catcher is forward, the batter is forward the strike zone and umpire are forward and yet pitchers will finish with their hand and their power going UP - and then wonder why most of their pitches are high.

The Big culprit is this insane notion that pitchers must finish with their palm up and their hand almost in front of their face. Try this and feel your entire motion go up - so of course your ball will go up. But what's also important to note is that this causes an extreme loss of speed since the pitcher's hand doesn't stay behind the ball pushing forward (fast and powerful) but instead goes below the ball moving up.

Move your power in a direction that matters - in pitching that direction is forward! Especially on the fastball when you're simply trying to throw the ball forward as fast as you can with as much control as possible. For those of you that have UP finishers a big reason is the pitcher's elbow stays attached to their side as they release so they pivot their hand from the elbow - creating too big of an angle change up. So have them work on the following 2 drills to fix this problem:

Basketball Pitch
Distance Pitching
Keep the Parts in Order - This simply means when it's time to move the hand the hand must be the priority so don't move the legs too much. Take golf for a minute. The reason most of us slice the ball onto an opposing fairway is we move our parts out of order. As we're bringing the clubhead down toward the ball, instead of letting our hands be the focus we suddenly think we're Tiger Woods and blast our hips forward - right body part, wrong time - causing our clubhead to be slow and never close to the ball and boom - there's our slice. We simply got our parts out of order.
This happens with pitchers as well. When they should be blasting their legs at the beginning of the pitch they'll pump their arms like they're about to take off. And then when it's time to let the hand take over and blast the ball forward they'll snap their hips sideways causing the hand to slow down even more and the ball to go sideways.

5) Keep your parts in order and remember that pitching is simply adding your parts together in a forward motion with power. Don't let any one part get too out of control, and certainly not out of order, and you'll be much better off and pitch much faster!

7 WAYS YOUR PITCHER CAN DOMINATE THE GAME
By: Cindy Bristow
Too many pitchers throw well through 4 or 5 innings but let the game get away from them at the end. Discover why this happens and the 7 things you can do to help your pitcher Dominate the End of the Game!


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While pitching isn’t easy, closing out a game can be even harder. Have you ever wondered why your pitcher’s can do so well up to a certain point in the game only to have the whole thing fall apart on them? Unfortunately it happens to lots of pitchers so find out what you can do to stop it!

There are lots of difference factors that are at work toward the end of a 7 inning softball game and once you understand these factors it becomes much easier to figure out why so many pitchers start to lose it at the end.

At the beginning of the game pitchers are pumped up! They’re energized, focused and newly warmed-up so they’ve got lots of good things going for them. Once the game gets going and we enter the 4th or 5th inning things begin to change, and sometimes they can change drastically!

By the 5th inning the following factors are starting to have an impact on the pitcher and on the game itself:

1. Batters are coming up for their 3rd at-bats – This means that the good hitters have seen you before and are ready for what you have pitched them their previous 2 at-bats. They’re ready for the pitches you have, but most importantly, they’re ready for the order in which you pitched them. So, if you’re going to get good hitters out at the end of the game you have got to change things up so they can’t anticipate correctly what you’re going to throw and when.

2. Pitchers can get bored and let their minds/focus wander – Too many pitchers start to get bored during the later part of a game, particularly if it seems to be going really well and almost getting easy. That’s a sure sign that trouble is right around the corner because as soon as a pitcher starts thinking about “easy” or “hard” they are no longer thinking about the details they need to take care of business but instead, are getting too big of a view of the situation which is harmful to performance.

3. Pitchers can get tired and start to slip physically – Depending on the weather (heat, humidity, cold), where you are in your season or the number of innings and/or games a pitcher has pitched previously the end of a 7 inning game can become a physical struggle. If your pitcher is losing games because she’s not strong enough to finish then she needs to get in much better shape. This is the easiest element to control and should never be an issue for a pitcher.

4. The game gets close and pitchers start to tighten up – Games can get close near the end, or a game that was always close (1 or 2 run game) suddenly just gets near the end, and the pitcher starts to think more about the end of the game then she does about the details for pitching good. Anytime a player shifts her mind from little picture to big picture it shifts her performance from taking care of little details to making big mistakes. We know how this movie ends…

5. Umpires get tired and their strike zone starts to change (either drastically or slightly) – In spite of what some of us think, umpires are human and they do get tired. In fact, most umpires are much older than the players they are umpiring, and not all of them are in the best of shape. This isn’t meant as a criticism but as simply an observation. For every deep knee bend (squat) that your catcher is doing the umpire is doing 2 (one for each catcher), so naturally that umpire will get a little tired toward the end of the game. As umpires get tired their vision gets a little off – and that’s why the strike zone typically shifts around the 4th or 5th inning.

OK – so we now know all the various factors tugging at a pitcher as she nears the end of a game, but what can she do about them? Fortunately there are some things we can do as coaches to help our pitchers more successfully handle the end of the game.

We can help pitchers understand that umpires typically get tired around the 4th – 5th inning from all those squats so we should expect the strike zone to change and be ready for it as soon as it does. As pitchers we want to take pride in our ability to out-adjust the other pitcher so when the umpire changes the strike zone we want to be ready for it, notice it and then immediately adjust to it. Complaining about it is what the losing pitcher will do – that’s not us! In practice we want our pitchers throwing pitch sequences against the other pitchers on our team and the catchers not only catching the pitches but calling balls and strikes as well. Then our catchers should suddenly changing the strike zone and start calling a completely different strike zone and the pitcher that figures it out and adjusts to it the fastest wins!

By learning to better use our minds as pitchers we can make immediate and appropriate adjustments in competition. Understanding that the mind is a body part just like any other body part the pitcher can start to talk to, strengthen and improve her mind and learn how to use it better just as she does her other body parts.

Successful pitching requires constantly making adjustments to things like:

The umpire slightly changing the zone
The batter slightly changing her approach on her next at-bat
A particular pitch that was great during warm-ups and is flat as a board in the game
Or an infielder that suddenly starts fielding groundballs with her ankles.
All skills require making adjustments but pitching requires the most and the fastest ones and all great pitchers have a great ability to control their mind instead of letting it control them.

Here are 7 Steps pitchers can take to Control the End of the Game:

1) Expect the Strike Zone to Change
2) Adjust to the Change as Soon as You Notice it
3) Know it Changes for the Hitters Too
4) Practice with Strike Zones that Change
5) Don’t Fight It or Complain About It – Adjust To It!
6) Get in Shape!
7) Understand Why it Happens (umpire doing about 450 deep knee bends by the end of the 5th inning)

Fastpitching

Pitching Practice

By Gil Arzola, Head Coach, South Central H.S., Valparaiso, Indiana
As anyone can tell you, pitchers are made in the off-season. As we approach the season, we try not to make any great changes in our pitcher's style. Because pitching is a skill, any new pitches or changes would require hours of repetition which we don't have time for and which could disrupt the habits -- good or bad -- that the pitcher has developed already. So while we may see things that could be corrected or would like our pitchers to learn another pitch, the result might be that she gets worse at everything else.

Remember that the first thing that happens whenever you correct anything is that the pitcher begins to "think" about it. She has to, because it is not a habit that she has practiced. And anytime you have to "think" in athletics you tend to do worse. All of us can think of a player that returns to her bad habits when in a pressure situation. And that is simply because she hasn't practiced the new good habits long enough to erase the bad ones.

We do, however, try to give our pitchers workouts just before and during the season that will encompass as many parts of good pitching as possible and that will, eventually, begin to teach them good habits.

First we explain to our pitchers in the simplest terms that what we want is to have no weaknesses. That is what every athlete wants to be able to succeed regardless of the competition. And that as a pitcher, in order to accomplish that, we need to have workouts that include: control, speed, and ball movement. A pitcher has to be adept at all three to be the best. Also included in the workout should be some sort of simulation since it doesn't do any good to have these strengths if you don't know when and where to use them.

Below are some of the drills we use. We try to do something from each group every practice and mix it up to avoid boredom.

Control Drills:

Target Pitching - Using the L-Countdowns: We draw a target in the shape of an L or a U on the wall and number low inside, low outside, high inside, and high outside pitches, one through four. The pitcher tries to hit each area in sequence a pre-determined number of times. She must hit one before preceding to two and so on.

High/Low, In/Out: Again using a target, one high inside, one low outside, one low inside, one high outside equals one set. Do at least five sets. Two Strike Pitching: Using a target and pitching to the pitcher's strike zone, pretend the count is 3-2 and you must hit on the L every time for a strike. Strike out 10 batters in a row.

Batter Simulation: Using a catcher who acts as an umpire, you must pitch three complete innings. Visualize the batter and do not allow the pitcher to become predictable. Change of location and speed is important as well as using movement pitches. Use these guidelines: 1. Try to get up in the count. 2. Don't be predictable.

Movement Drills:

Spin Work From A Throwing Position: We work on movement from a throwing position or with the stride already taken. This helps to isolate the arm and wrist. During these drills, regardless of the pitch we are trying to learn, we want the spin to be correct and do not expect movement right away. As long as the spin is right, eventually the ball will move.

We use a pendulum motion and work on all of our movement pitches throwing each at least 15 times for correct spin. After we've done that, we begin from a normal starting position and throw groups of each pitch 15 times. We throw in groups: rise, drop, fastball, change, ect., not, for example, 15 drops in a row so that we can "feel" the difference and learn to mix it up when we pitch.

Movement Drills - Visualization: Using a catcher, we try to get the pitcher to see the path of her pitch in her mind before throwing. For a dropball the catcher holds her glove low and face up, for a rise she holds the glove face down and high. We remind the pitcher that regardless of movement, the ball has to move out of the batter's zone. It should never end up there.

Speed Drills:

Wall Throws: Throw against a wall close up as hard as you can from a normal starting position. Throw as many pitches as you can in one minute, catching and then throwing immediately. Throw easy for two minutes to recover, then throw again hard for one minute. This drill also helps to aid in fielding balls hit right back to the pitcher.

Speed Circles: From a throwing position the pitcher makes three revolutions, releasing the ball on the third. The focus is increasing arm speed. Remind the pitcher not to tense up, stay relaxed. Do five times hard, five times easy to recover, then five times hard again.

Step Throwing: Begin with the throwing side foot back, take a step, and then throw hard. The focus here is to develop an aggressive step. Do 10 times, five times easy, then 10 times again.

After every workout throw overhand easy to recover and then stretch. We use these drills to try to keep our pitchers ready during the season. Again, we try to do at least one from each group every practice. To be a successful pitcher requires a lot of practice and repetition so don't forget to mix things up to keep your workouts interesting.

Getting the Most Out of Your Pitcher
As a pitching coach it is my responsibility to see that all my students receive the highest level of training in the sport of fastpitch so that each and every one of them may be successful. I constantly attend clinics and do research with physicians and therapists to ensure the safety of our athletes at all levels. I have developed a very simple way to teach the art of pitching fastpitch so that students, parents, and coaches of every age will have an understanding of the mechanics of the motion as well as a good idea of how to correct common problems. It is through years of experience that I have gained the knowledge of how to correct fundamental problems. Only through playing actual games and working my way out of actual situations have I been able to pass along twenty years of pitching knowledge. The situation I want to try and resolve with this article is how the summer or school ball coach can get the most out of their pitcher and give the team a better chance of success.
The most important item I must address is how coaches work their pitchers. The game of fastpitch is 85 to 90% dependent on the pitcher, yet so many times I hear of practices that include absolutely no pitching time for the pitchers. This is usually the result of the coach that knows nothing about pitching. The pitchers are left to find time on their own to try and perfect the one skill that will carry their team farther than any other skill. There are not enough hours in the day with school, homework, jobs and responsibilities to practice pitching on their own. We have got to find the time during practice to let our pitchers throw. We all know that if we asked our short stop to go home and take her ground balls or turning two that she would do it once maybe twice a week. Can we really depend on that? You know the answer. So, let’s find time for the pitchers to throw in practice. Set up extra practices for your pitchers and catchers. Most of the time, they will show up.
One of my biggest pet peeves as a pitching coach is when the coach asks the pitcher to go out to the circle and “Just let up a little and throw it right down the middle of the plate so we can hit it!” WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE WE THINKING? I can tell you right now that NO student of mine is taught to let up and chunk it down the middle so the other team can hit it. We spend months and years trying to perfect throwing to the corners so that we can be more successful and SAFE. With the new technology being put into the bats our kids use, I never want my pitchers to throw it down the middle of the plate. If you look at this, you will answer your question of “Why do we hit so well in practice and cannot touch the ball in a game?” It’s because you are not practicing the skill of hitting off of a true pitcher if you ask your athlete to let up and throw it down the middle. This is not helping your hitters or your pitchers. This type of practice will provide your hitters with a false sense of success and your pitchers with numerous bad habits. Now, if you are trying to get your hitters some BP off of a live arm, anyone can provide this and it can be thrown down the middle. Simply set up a net about 20 to 30 feet from the hitter and toss the ball to them with a windmill motion. You do not have to be a pitcher to do this. You will be able to get twice as much hitting done in one practice.
One final issue that I would like to present in this article is how the coach may provide constructive criticism to the pitcher. Most of the time during a game it is going to come down to how well your pitcher can make an adjustment to the opposing team, to the umpire, to the weather conditions, to the playing conditions, etc., etc., etc. If you will get to know your pitcher (again, during practice), her strengths, her weaknesses, the way she wants to be talked to (is she a tough nosed kid that you can go right at with your most honest words, or do you need to be a little less intimidating) and the mechanics of HER motion, you will find that your team will be much more successful. EACH pitcher is an individual and their motion is individual. It is your job to know the terminology they are used to hearing about their pitching mechanics and drills they may use to correct mechanical problems they may have. The pitchers will listen to you much more if you know what they have been taught and how they are taught to correct problems. There are many different ways to reach a goal, but the bottom line is we must reach that goal. If our pitchers are used to going one direction and you throw them a curve (no pun intended), they may never get to the final goal or destination, even though the outcome was to be the same.
I always welcome coaches of my pitchers to attend their training sessions so that they may learn what I teach as well as how I teach them to work on certain problems.