Softball Pitching Tips - Avoiding Injuries While Pitching

Softball Pitching Tips - Avoiding Injuries While Pitching

By Marc Dagenais

Injuries are the bane of any athlete. If you're a softball pitcher, an injury to your arm could sideline you for a few days or weeks, although more serious injuries could end your career altogether.

Although injuries come unexpectedly (who wants to be injured anyway?), there are things that you can do to prevent them. Once you see that most sports-related injuries result from poor technique and mechanics, you'll see what I mean.

Here are some things you can do to avoid injuries when you're pitching:

1. Doing warm-ups - many players skip warm-ups altogether thinking that warm-ups don't really contribute anything to their game. What they don't know is that: 1) not doing warm-ups severely affects their performance 2) doing warm-ups prevents a lot of sports-related injuries.

Avoiding warm-ups exposes you to different types of injuries, ranging from pulled muscles to sprain. So to keep you from getting sidelined, doing warm-ups is your first line of defense.

2. Practicing correct pitching mechanics - you can also be injured because of poor pitching mechanics. The more often you pitch with the incorrect form, the more you run the risk of injuring yourself. If you pitch correctly, you'll be able to throw the ball with less effort than you would with the wrong form.

3. Get enough rest - it's perfectly fine if you aim to continually improve your pitching so you can pitch faster and more accurately. However, you should also give your body enough time to recover in between practices and don't try to practice too much. Getting enough rest prevents incidents of overuse injuries especially on the shoulders and the rotator cuff.

4. Remember to follow through - some players have the tendency to snap their release, meaning, they stop their arm's movement immediately after the ball leaves their hand. But this can lead to injuries on the arms and shoulders. So if you notice yourself doing this, change this technique as soon as you can and let your arm naturally swing once you release the ball.

5. Take things slowly - perfecting your pitching technique will take years to fully develop. So don't force yourself to get the perfect pitch right away. Give yourself the time to learn the fundamentals first, nail them down until they become a part of your system, and develop on perfecting your pitch. Hurrying things up will only lead to frustration, burn out, and improper techniques that will ultimately lead to injuries.

6. Get a coach who knows his stuff - nobody expects you to perfect your pitching on your own.

To be a better pitcher, you also need the advice of a good coach. And by good, I mean somebody who really knows his stuff. He must be able to show you the proper pitching mechanics while understanding that every pitcher has his or her own pitching techniques and adjust his advice to you accordingly.

Want to enjoy playing softball longer? Then I strongly recommend that you follow the softball pitching tips I have listed above for you to keep yourself from being sidelined because of injuries.

Marc Dagenais is a softball peak performance coach that helps softball players and coaches improves their game by sharing with them the tips and strategies used by the world's best softball players and coaches to achieve extraordinary performances. Visit his site and sign-up to get his FREE softball hitting tips!

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