I just got my hands on a very interesting article that deals with overuse injures of softball pitchers. It was published in Training and Conditioning Magazine a few weeks ago. This is the official professional magazines of athletic trainers. These are the people that works with sports teams and take care of injured athletes.
Colleagues of mine who works with the Montreal Canadiens NHL Ice Hockey Club gave me a copy of the article.
The information presented is very important so I thought I would share with you the key messages contained in the article.
Here are the key messages:
- We assume that softball pitchers didn't have to worry about overuse injuries. That's not true.
- Recent studies have shown that the forces produces by the windmill pitching motion is similar to the baseball pitching motion and does take a toll on a softball pitcher's arm.
- Many studies conducted in the last few years have revealed that softball pitchers are subject to a high incidence of overuse injuries.
- Two main causes of chronic injuries in softball pitchers: poor mechanics and overuse. It's totally possible for a pitcher to never get injured if you do three things: (1) teach them proper pitching mechanics , (2) manage their use (pitching time) and recovery and (3) complete injury prevention training through softball-specific conditioning.
- Poor pitching mechanics can lead to injury even at young age.
- First thing you should work on with pitchers is to make a perfect circle with proper shoulder rotation. Most injuries are caused by an improper circle.
- Improper hip rotation has been shown to be another common cause of injury. The biggest flaw seen in pitchers is how their hips move when they release the ball.
- Lack of follow-through is also an important source of the stress on the shoulder and can also injuries.You also have to watch the follow-through on the various pitches as many causes very high levels of stress in the forearm, arm and shoulder.
- Another often overlooked factor is bad overhead throwing mechanics in pitchers - especially those playing another position. Often, this combines with a lot of underhand pitching leads to chronic injuries.
- You should keep count of pitches like they do in baseball. When reaching 100-120 pitches in a game, you should have your bullpen ready.
- You should NOT throw every day (practices or games). You should give at least a day or two off after a big weekend or a lot of pitching on the weekends.
- You should NOT overuse a pitcher every weekend (like pitching 3-4 games in a weekend). It's ok once or twice a year but doing it consistently will quickly wear down the shoulders and you are asking for trouble down the road.
- You also have to be careful with athletes playing other sports like volleyball or tennis for example where there is a lot of overhead motions. If this is the case, you should consider limiting the amount of pitching a bit to prevent injuries.
- Common overuse injuries in pitchers are in the rotator cuff and in the biceps.
- Signs and symptoms of overuse injuries: nagging pain, fatigue, decreased performance, change in mechanics, loss of velocity or control and changed in pitcher's attitude.
- Commonly diagnosed injuries: biceps tendonitis, rotator cuff strains, impingement syndrome (inflammation of rotator cuff tendons). Overuse injuries can also affect the lower back and the knees.
- You should differentiates normal soreness (temporary stiffness from doing work) and bad soreness (pain) that causes discomfort. Watch for pitchers' body language or facial expressions - these are good indicators of discomfort or injuries. Many athletes don't want to tell their coach because they don't want to be taken out of the line-up.
- Main treatment for overuse injuries: rest and proper treatment. if it is minor enough and you are in the middle of the season, just cut down on pitches and provide plenty of rest. You should also ice after every game or pitching practice.
- The use of anti-inflammatories is also recommended but should be done under the supervision a qualified medical professional.
- Doing exercises in a pool is recommended for good shoulder conditioning or rehab (make sure not to do too much swimming as it is hard on the shoulders).
- Massage is another element that can be integrated in a treatment or injury prevention plan. Make sure you work with a qualified and registered massage therapist. They can improve circulation, re-align the tissue, and enhance muscular relaxation, which promotes healing.
- Strength training is very important in preventing softball pitching injuries.
- Training the core is very important. The core is the lower part of the trunk musculature (hips, buttocks, abdominal, obliques, lower back, etc.). Lack of strength and flexibility in the core
often results in over-compensating and injuries show up elsewhere like in the shoulder.
- Almost every softball athlete has a deficient core.
- Single leg work help make pitchers stronger and is very sport- specific. Doing body-weight deadlifts with one leg, single-leg squats, and that type of exercises is highly beneficial.
- Tubing exercises is also very beneficial for strengthening the shoulder.
- Explosive strength is also something pitchers should work on because from the start of the pitching motion to release takes less than a second.
- Work with overweighted and underweighted balls is beneficial for injury prevention and gaining speed.
- There are traditional exercises you should avoid like overhead lifts. They are not really recommended for pitchers. Also, there should be less emphasis on bench press (don't eliminate entirely but do much less of it). There should be more focus on body- weight push-up variations.
- You should focus more on pulling exercises and do less pushing exercises (do more rows and less presses).
- References used for this articles can be found at: www.athleticsearch.com/softrefs
What I think
WOW.. that's a lot of powerful information. I agree 100% with everything in this article because I have been preaching a lot of it for years!
I have seen too many dominating young pitchers just disappear of the circulation due to overuse injuries. It starts slowly and over a few years, they completely disappear because they can't pitch anymore. I am sure you have seen plenty of those cases too.
I really want you to take action and think on the long-term health of yourself (if you are a pitcher) or your pitchers (coach or parents). There is no point at over-utilizing a pitcher if she won't be able to compete down the road due to overuse injuries.
Marc Dagenais
Marc Dagenais, MHK, CSCS, is a Softball Peak Performance Coach that helps softball players and teams hit with more power, run faster, throw harder, become mentally tougher and be more dominant on the softball field.
Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/authors/marc-dagenais/106433
Monday, July 15, 2013
Monday, July 8, 2013
Coaching Fastpitch Softball Pitchers: Softball pitching tips with Amanda Scarborough
Former Texas A&M All-American softball pitcher Amanda Scarborough breaks down the fundamentals of several different softball pitches. For more info, visit Former Texas A&M All-American softball pitcher Amanda Scarborough breaks down the fundamentals of several different softball pitches. For more info, visit softball.com and Amanda9.com. and Amanda9.com.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Softball Pitching - How to Easily Get 80% of Batters Out
By Marc Dagenais
I've coached at pretty much all levels of the game going from rec 8U to college and international softball in the as 20 years. I've coached and watched a lot of softball games in my life. A couple of years ago, I even spent an entire summer scouting (charting pitches, identifying pitching patterns, measuring speed, etc.) and filming the best pitchers in the world (Finch, Roche, Ueno, Fernandez, etc.) for the Canadian Women's National Team. One thing that seems to be consistent across all levels is the difficulty that the majority of batters have hitting the low inside and outside pitches. At the younger levels (not talking about 18U Gold or college ball), I strongly believe that if a pitcher keeps the ball low most of the time and throws strikes on the low corners (even only using a fastball), she can get easily 80% of the batters out.
Do you know many teams that carry a lot of hitters able to consistently hit rockets out of low inside or outside pitches? I don't. Most teams may have one or two such hitters - maybe three if they are lucky. Hitting a low inside or outside pitch (even if it is a strike) solidly is tough and challenging! As you know, I strongly believe in shifting the odds in your favor. Think about this for a second. Most hitters fail at least 70% of the time less than 300 batting average at the plate. The same hitters probably fail at least 85% of the time on low inside or outside pitches for strikes. What are the odds that 2 or even 3 hitters will line up several hits in a row to score a run if you keep the ball low, throw strikes and avoid giving up walks? The odds are very low - especially if your defense can do the job of getting the batters out on easy grounders or lazy pop-ups.
Bottom line - there are two things I want to emphasize:
1) Keep the ball low on the corners. Throw most of them for strikes.
2) Practice keeping the ball low.
Unless you are practicing a rise or a high pitch on purpose, everything you throw even in a warm-up should always be BELOW the waist (and knee-high ideally). I see a lot of pitchers who warm-up and keep throwing everything high until they get in their full motion. That's a mistake. Why so? Because you're training the habit of throwing the ball high. Pitching is a matter of timing and consistency of release point. Start right away learning to throw strikes low inside or outside consistently on each pitch - even in the warm-up. To go a step further, I would probably ban anything that is above the waist - unless it was meant when working with younger pitchers! Just doing this will quickly help you get most of the batters out! Imagine when you start mixing them up with change-ups and other moving pitches in addition to keeping the ball low, you can become very effective pitchers even if you don't throw that hard!
Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marc Dagenais, MHK, CSCS, is a softball peak performance coach that helps players and teams hit with more power and be more dominant on the softball field. To get tons of great FREE softball drills to boost your game, visit us at: http://www.softballperformance.com/softball-drills
I've coached at pretty much all levels of the game going from rec 8U to college and international softball in the as 20 years. I've coached and watched a lot of softball games in my life. A couple of years ago, I even spent an entire summer scouting (charting pitches, identifying pitching patterns, measuring speed, etc.) and filming the best pitchers in the world (Finch, Roche, Ueno, Fernandez, etc.) for the Canadian Women's National Team. One thing that seems to be consistent across all levels is the difficulty that the majority of batters have hitting the low inside and outside pitches. At the younger levels (not talking about 18U Gold or college ball), I strongly believe that if a pitcher keeps the ball low most of the time and throws strikes on the low corners (even only using a fastball), she can get easily 80% of the batters out.
Do you know many teams that carry a lot of hitters able to consistently hit rockets out of low inside or outside pitches? I don't. Most teams may have one or two such hitters - maybe three if they are lucky. Hitting a low inside or outside pitch (even if it is a strike) solidly is tough and challenging! As you know, I strongly believe in shifting the odds in your favor. Think about this for a second. Most hitters fail at least 70% of the time less than 300 batting average at the plate. The same hitters probably fail at least 85% of the time on low inside or outside pitches for strikes. What are the odds that 2 or even 3 hitters will line up several hits in a row to score a run if you keep the ball low, throw strikes and avoid giving up walks? The odds are very low - especially if your defense can do the job of getting the batters out on easy grounders or lazy pop-ups.
Bottom line - there are two things I want to emphasize:
1) Keep the ball low on the corners. Throw most of them for strikes.
2) Practice keeping the ball low.
Unless you are practicing a rise or a high pitch on purpose, everything you throw even in a warm-up should always be BELOW the waist (and knee-high ideally). I see a lot of pitchers who warm-up and keep throwing everything high until they get in their full motion. That's a mistake. Why so? Because you're training the habit of throwing the ball high. Pitching is a matter of timing and consistency of release point. Start right away learning to throw strikes low inside or outside consistently on each pitch - even in the warm-up. To go a step further, I would probably ban anything that is above the waist - unless it was meant when working with younger pitchers! Just doing this will quickly help you get most of the batters out! Imagine when you start mixing them up with change-ups and other moving pitches in addition to keeping the ball low, you can become very effective pitchers even if you don't throw that hard!
Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marc Dagenais, MHK, CSCS, is a softball peak performance coach that helps players and teams hit with more power and be more dominant on the softball field. To get tons of great FREE softball drills to boost your game, visit us at: http://www.softballperformance.com/softball-drills
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Softball Pitching - 4 Steps To Great Mechanics
By Becky Wittenburg
Because softball pitching requires one fluid motion, it is difficult to coach it in terms of fundamentals. However, pitchers need to understand the proper mechanics in order to develop their pitching skills. If a pitcher is struggling with her delivery, then breaking the pitching motion down into its fundamental elements will help isolate and fix the problem. The following tips will help coaches and pitchers establish a firm pitching foundation.
The Windmill Method
The most popular delivery in fastpitch softball is currently the windmill method. In this underhand pitch, the pitcher's arm starts in front of her body, winds back, completes a full circle, releases the ball at the hip, and then follows through.
The windmill is more than just an arm motion, however; it requires a long stride that utilizes the legs and torso to generate more power. Both speed and the shift of weight play an important part in executing the windmill effectively, so pitchers should practice the motion to develop a comfortable rhythm. Maximum velocity and accuracy will only occur if all of the movements are in sync.
The Fundamentals: Grip
In fastpitch softball pitching, the grip on the ball depends on the type of pitch being thrown. How the pitcher holds the ball will direct the rotation of the ball and the way the wind interacts with the seams, which will in turn determine how fast the ball travels. For example, to throw a four-seam fastball, the pitcher will hold the ball so the laces form a letter "C," then place her fingers across the "C." For a two-seam fastball, the pitcher will hold the ball so the laces form a "U." Her pointer and ring fingers will each rest along a seam and the middle finger will go in between the seams.
With either delivery, the middle three fingers will be on top of the ball, with the pinkie tucked underneath and the thumb on the side of the ball. The ball should be held securely in the fingers, not against the palm of the hand.
The Fundamentals: Stance
A pitcher's stance is the position she assumes before beginning her wind-up. It can vary from pitcher to pitcher, but a player should have a basic stance that is consistent and comfortable for her.
She should begin by holding the ball in her glove and standing up straight at the pitcher's mound. Her lead foot, or throwing-side foot, should be on the rubber with the toes extended over the front edge. The rear foot toes should touch the back of the rubber. Her front leg should be straight while the back leg is slightly bent, and the feet should be just a little closer than shoulder-width apart. The pitcher should square her shoulders toward home plate, keeping her weight on the balls of her feet.
At this point in a game, the pitcher would look to the catcher for the signal while slightly shifting her weight forward. She would then visualize her pitch, take a deep breath, and begin her wind-up.
Completing the Pitch
In order to properly execute the pitch, the pitcher needs to develop her wind-up, stride, arm movement, and follow-through. Once she is comfortable with her grip and stance, continue the pitching lesson by introducing the pitching motion. Players often become overwhelmed at first, but by starting with the basics, coaches can guarantee understanding before moving on to developing more advanced skills, like an effective change-up.
And if you'd like to see more free softball pitching drills and coaching tips, go here to watch a free video:
http://www.softball-spot.com
Becky Wittenburg is a softball coach, and the owner and publisher of Softball-Spot.com, the web's #1 resource for softball pitching drills, tips, and practice ideas for youth and high school coaches.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Becky_Wittenburg
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6231786
Because softball pitching requires one fluid motion, it is difficult to coach it in terms of fundamentals. However, pitchers need to understand the proper mechanics in order to develop their pitching skills. If a pitcher is struggling with her delivery, then breaking the pitching motion down into its fundamental elements will help isolate and fix the problem. The following tips will help coaches and pitchers establish a firm pitching foundation.
The Windmill Method
The most popular delivery in fastpitch softball is currently the windmill method. In this underhand pitch, the pitcher's arm starts in front of her body, winds back, completes a full circle, releases the ball at the hip, and then follows through.
The windmill is more than just an arm motion, however; it requires a long stride that utilizes the legs and torso to generate more power. Both speed and the shift of weight play an important part in executing the windmill effectively, so pitchers should practice the motion to develop a comfortable rhythm. Maximum velocity and accuracy will only occur if all of the movements are in sync.
The Fundamentals: Grip
In fastpitch softball pitching, the grip on the ball depends on the type of pitch being thrown. How the pitcher holds the ball will direct the rotation of the ball and the way the wind interacts with the seams, which will in turn determine how fast the ball travels. For example, to throw a four-seam fastball, the pitcher will hold the ball so the laces form a letter "C," then place her fingers across the "C." For a two-seam fastball, the pitcher will hold the ball so the laces form a "U." Her pointer and ring fingers will each rest along a seam and the middle finger will go in between the seams.
With either delivery, the middle three fingers will be on top of the ball, with the pinkie tucked underneath and the thumb on the side of the ball. The ball should be held securely in the fingers, not against the palm of the hand.
The Fundamentals: Stance
A pitcher's stance is the position she assumes before beginning her wind-up. It can vary from pitcher to pitcher, but a player should have a basic stance that is consistent and comfortable for her.
She should begin by holding the ball in her glove and standing up straight at the pitcher's mound. Her lead foot, or throwing-side foot, should be on the rubber with the toes extended over the front edge. The rear foot toes should touch the back of the rubber. Her front leg should be straight while the back leg is slightly bent, and the feet should be just a little closer than shoulder-width apart. The pitcher should square her shoulders toward home plate, keeping her weight on the balls of her feet.
At this point in a game, the pitcher would look to the catcher for the signal while slightly shifting her weight forward. She would then visualize her pitch, take a deep breath, and begin her wind-up.
Completing the Pitch
In order to properly execute the pitch, the pitcher needs to develop her wind-up, stride, arm movement, and follow-through. Once she is comfortable with her grip and stance, continue the pitching lesson by introducing the pitching motion. Players often become overwhelmed at first, but by starting with the basics, coaches can guarantee understanding before moving on to developing more advanced skills, like an effective change-up.
And if you'd like to see more free softball pitching drills and coaching tips, go here to watch a free video:
http://www.softball-spot.com
Becky Wittenburg is a softball coach, and the owner and publisher of Softball-Spot.com, the web's #1 resource for softball pitching drills, tips, and practice ideas for youth and high school coaches.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Becky_Wittenburg
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6231786
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