natural arm slot question and clip to review

[callyjr]

I took video of my boy throwing some pitches to me, well actually I got 1 before the battery went dead. Some interesting things came up in the clip, He turns his head away from target, also noticed right at the release he turns the wrist like a screwball. When we long toss he throws more side armed, I have never told him to throw over the top, this is just how he has always thrown as far as I can remember. He throws pretty hard for a soon to be 8 towards the end of July.

We have hardly worked on pitching, I have only let him pitch a handfull of times last year and no more then 31 pitches at any 1 time. I am not to worried about his form right now. I do notice now when playing catch that his head is pulling out like on this video, I wonder if its just a habit he has gotten into or if he is trying to throw over the top and its causing this? ideas....?

Feel free to tell me about his mechanics as well, If there are little things I can tell him to work on I will, but I am not gonna worry to much about perfect mechanics at this day and age.

update: Took down clip, thanks for the notes

Cally

[mightylakers]

Looking real good!

As for pulling off the head, it's just them wanting to throw hard. My son also did that for a very long time. I'm not sure there's any quick fix other than keep on telling them. I have to convince him that pulling off his head is taking the power away. I asked him to keep his eye fixed on the target all the time as the ball may hit back to his face so he better be prepared. That seems to send the message.

[bamajeff]

A couple things I see that I'd focus on....

1. Focus on leading more with the front hip. Now, he lifts his leg, drops it, then reaches out. An excellent drill for this is to have him hook his lead foot behind his back knee and then stride. This forces him to lead with his hip. You can do this to begin with near a wall, and have him focus on getting his hip to the wall first.

2. Finish the rotation. His arm action is quite good for his age, but his lower body is very linear.

3. Separation. Being taught Epstein principles as a hitter, he should pick up on this fairly quickly. Have him throw using the torque drill(both feet about 1 1/2 shoulder widths apart, pointing at the target. He begins shoulders square to the target and weight on front foot. Then, he rocks back, reverse rotates his shoulders perpendicular to the target, breaks and throws).