How to Pitch Better
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
There are three steps in pitching
Before throwing the ball, you should be either in the
windup position
or holding the ball behind your back to prevent tipping off the pitch to the hitter.
You should than take a small step back;
too long of a step may make you lose balance.
Then you should lift up your front leg, not kicking it or swinging it in front of you.
Think about your knee to chest action. Also, your center of gravity should stay at the same height.
In other words, you should not bob up or down during the entire pitching process. Furthermore, your head, shoulder, torso, and legs should be lined up more or less in a straight line.
After your knee is lifted to your chest, you should take a stride forward.
When your front leg hits the ground, your hand should be at its the highest point.
If your hand is not at the highest point, it has to work after you plant your foot down to go to the highest point, losing valuable momentum.
Also, both of those motions,
planting the foot down and moving the elbow to the launch position,
should be a simultaneous motion.
The stride length should be same as your body length. Too short of a stride will give the hitters more time to react to the pitch.
As previously stated, your center of gravity be stable; your head should be parallel to the mound at all times.
The last step of delivering the ball should be more or less a natural process.
The last piece of advice is that you should not put too much emphasis on velocity
of your fastball. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to overpower many
players with it. Also, if you can't throw a good fastball, you should develop other
skills such as getting a better control of your fastball,
or delivering a better curveball.
Lets go through all the steps...
