Windmill Pitching Mechanics for Strength Coaches
With travel teams off to national tournaments this week and strength coaches looking forward to off-season programs, I’m going to purge my ideas on performance training for softball. The first installments of this series will cover the most complex athlete on the field: the pitcher.
I’m incredibly fortunate to have partnered with a family (literally) of softball pitching experts who’ve referred a number of their athletes to me. They have been instrumental not only promoting the benefits of strength training for females, but also helping me communicate the seemingly indefinable components of our training techniques to young softball players and their families.
The first post in this series is a basic introduction to windmill pitching mechanics, narrated so strength coaches can follow along. I find it’s easiest to dissect windmill mechanics into four phases (for now); however, researchers have further divided the sequence to examine forces on the pitching arm at different points.
Wind up –
- Variable
- Load/prep of the back leg to drive off rubber
Stride to Lead Foot Contact –
- Drive off rubber with back leg, propelling the body in a straight line toward home plate
- Pitching arm will travel (counter clockwise) from 6 o’clock to 12 o’clock (between 160-180 degreesof flexion/abduction)
- Body turns toward third base
- Lead leg lands with knee slightly flexed (around 30 degrees)
- Lead foot land internally rotated (around 30 degrees) toward the third base side
- At lead foot contact, pitching arm will be at 12 o’clock
- Lead arm points toward home plate
Delivery to release –
- Pitching arm travels (counter clockwise) from 12 o’clock to release very close to the plane of the body
- Elbow may be slightly flexed and elbow/wrist position will vary at release depending on the pitch thrown
- Lower trunk will rotate (20-45 degrees) toward home plate up to point of release
- Back leg slides (must maintain ground contract) in straight line toward lead leg
Follow through –
- Pitching arm (elbow/wrist) action is variable
- Back leg completes its slide, with the back foot contacting the lead foot
- Lower trunk completes its rotation, squaring off to home plate
- Pitcher should finish “tall” into lead leg
- Pitcher will adjust back leg in order to prepare to field a batted ball
To preface what I will be covering in future posts, I’ve bolded the components that I feel strength coaches should be most concerned with. Right now, you don’t need to know how many degrees per second the arm is traveling toward home plate, or the compressive forces exerted on the elbow. Take a look at the positions your pitcher must have the capacity (mobility, stability, strength, endurance) to get to, before you get caught up in the numbers.
JB
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