Welcome back to the one pitching mechanics. I'm coach Missoni, we're at video number five. It's hopefully you've enjoyed the ride so far. And the first four videos we're talking about now is arm action. Okay? Obviously, we're trying to the first four videos talked about how to get the most out of our body to produce the most arm speed, okay?

If we're going to throw at the arm has to go from zero to 80 back down to zero every pitch. Okay, so I said in one of the videos that Imagine if I started with my arm at release point, and I did everything perfectly, and put my arm is here, I would throw 10 miles an hour because I'm not producing you know, good arm action. So arm action is certainly very individual. The first four videos I don't think are negotiable, you must do those things. Arm action. There's a lot of different ways to sort of release a ball and four guys that come to mind that don't fit the standard delivery.

Think Tim Lincecum right takes that ball gets way Back here and still gets it out with great velocity. I probably wouldn't teach that but nor would I correct them and I have a picture like that on my my college staff. Secondly Billy Wagner guy my size okay throwing plus 90s that basically took the ball out of the glove Allah catcher. So that worked for him on the Dodgers right now is a lefty reliever pocho Rodriguez that takes the ball out and brings it straight up. I think I'd throw nine miles an hour if I did that. He's in the big leagues.

It works for him. Okay. And we had talked about you know, being in the right position at foot plant in terms of here which I'll cover again in a minute so those guys are doing that they're getting to that position properly. I think it guys like Barry Zito picking out all three lefties but you know we're not supposed to wrist wrap here. We're not supposed to take it down that way. Barry Zito wrist wraps works for him.

The idea is to get people out. That is our job is to get out to attack hitters to throw quality pitches and get out so if you got to do this and it works great, but worth Here to talk about maximizing your velocity. Okay, and let's talk some basic principles now. This is also a case by case basis. On my I have a website through power chalk it's called power chalk comm slash Wayne Missoni, you could go to that site, upload a video clip, ideally from the side angle, send it to me and I could analyze it verse a pro. And that's where certainly individual arm action issues will will be looked at.

I'm going to talk through some of the basics that you really need to incorporate. First of all, what our arms do here in the beginning, and whether you're an over the top guy, or wherever your set position is, it really is your flexibility, you know, your comfort, I should say, I'm a believer in keeping it simple. So if my hands start here, I step turn, I probably would bring my arms up slightly here. That's your personal preference there guys that bring them back. There's a lot of different ways to do it. What I look for is that as I come out of this knee lift, and I start coming down, my hands come down with it, and I'm looking for two things.

Here. One is that as my back knee begins to go forward is when I separate. So some guys, if you don't separate too late, you'll put pressure on your elbow and shoulder. Some guys separate early and now the arm gets up and it's got to kill time and you lose velocity. We want that we want that separation to take place as the back knee goes forward. Secondly is we want thumb down separation.

So if I was just in, you could do a great drill is put all your fingers together here. As my leg comes down, I want my thumb's to come down here like this, and relax to my elbow would go towards the target, and my back elbow would come down as well. So in this position, guy should be relaxed, not ridiculously loose. But if we're tense at all here, we know that if we hit with incredible tension in our hands or hit a golf ball and you're incredibly tense, you'll lose distance you'll lose power. Same with pitching, our body will be tensed up just as we needed at release point. If your attention Early in any part of the body but especially the the wrist in the hand, you're going to lose velocity out of all the levers we have.

We have ankle, we have toes, we have knee, hip, shoulders, elbows, you know fingers wrist, the most important is our wrist in terms of our velocity. If I put a brace on you here, and you pitch without the flexibility in your wrist, you would lose half of your velocity. I've never tested it, but probably half your velocity. So as you come down and separate here, the ball just kind of drops down nice and easy and relaxed. Nothing force, nothing tense, nothing stiff. Okay.

From the bottom of this circle, is where I probably see more problems than anything and I think not to throw the world of literally coaches under the bus, but I think they have a team of kids out there and they're trying to coach them and they put everybody on the day. I've seen it many times, and they have the kids go lift the ball up like this, lift the ball up like this. The majority of arm swing problems I see Kids that from the bottom position, lead with the ball on the way up. As you'll see on the videos that I put on the site that goes along with this, that does not happen, okay, from the bottom of our swing here, the ball rises up the wrist and the hand, do very little, the elbow almost like we had a marionette puppet string, pulling our arm up, not this, but it just rises up as a unit like this as opposed to the ball leading the way.

And if we take it down nice and relaxed, and we let it come up with the elbow, it's gonna put us in the right position here at footplant. And if you are interested in googling Mariano Rivera in Sports Illustrated article where they talk about his development and and his how great he is. He's has one mechanical checkpoint, only. His only mechanical checkpoint is that he tries to keep his arm down and back as long as he possibly can. He wants all the sequential unlocking of his body to now produce the maximum amount of arm speed on the ball, which makes that cutter. Tremendous.

So to recap, we're going to cover some more nice and relaxed hands, we separate as our knee goes forward with thumbs down, nice and relaxed back here, we lift up more with the elbow than with the hand. And we get to this position here, where somewhere up in, where somewhere up in 90 degree position at footplant. Now from this back angle here, we'll see some other principles that you'll want to watch out for if your hand gets outside your elbow. So if my hand gets outside my elbow, I already actually feel the pain in my shoulder as I do this. If I get out this way, and a couple of guys do I think about Madison Baumgartner from the giants. Every rule and arm action, there's certainly an exception.

But if an arm gets out this way, you lose velocity, sort of like a skater spinning, the further your hands Are away, you lose centrifugal force. So we want to bring it up in this position. And again, I'll show you some videos, I believe I have Mark Burley things that cranky, where you see better in the proper position of from down at the bottom up, you know to the top through here. Now, the great part of all this really is that that arm action that arm angle, whether I'm here Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez majority of guys that are in this this three quarter spot some high three quarter guys, Lincecum Ben sheets, etc. It's not coachable. It's not.

If you do everything through here and you land and you get back to this position, wherever you get yourself through, it's fine. And usually, a lot of these positions are just versions of the other. So if I'm here, or I'm here, or I'm here, I'm here. It's just my posture as opposed to the angle of my arm. We always want our shoulder or elbow at least as high As our shoulder if not higher, but that could be here. That could be here.

And that's why individual postures is crucial as well. So, release point angle to me is not a deal breaker in anybody as long as you can maximize your arm health, your velocity, your location, we can all make all that work. Now, front side arm action I'll face through here, what I'm looking for is that we lead with the elbow. Some guys get the glove out just fine as long as thumb is down. There's, I think, some misnomers about what the front side should do. Certainly a lot of guys are coached to pull completely in here, and if that's what you do, I'm okay with that.

What we really find is that most guys get this action towards their glove so they are pulling back in but almost like their arm was on a pole. So they're sort of pulling back in and most guys that release, their glove is over the front side of their foot like this. It's really not in here, and then through release, sometimes the arm comes back this way off. Clemens all up colorfully, many guys. And granted, that's not the best fielding position to be in. But if you're putting max effort into that pitch, you're gonna finish all the way through there.

If it if you do talk in, that's fine as long as it doesn't really restrict you, and you feel uncomfortable in that regard, because there's not a lot of guys that feel the ground ball throw and bring it completely in here, we usually bring it down to the side in that regard. Now, last pieces we talked about arm action is our follow through on our finish. You certainly want to make sure that through your full release and finish that the arm comes all the way through that the hip comes all the way through and that you finish and that allows your arm to decelerate. If I see anything where the guy throws and then stops and the arm stops here, that's gonna lead to some serious rear rotator cuff problems. If someone does tell you they're sore back here. You certainly want to look at their delivery or look at your own delivery.

If you get sore back there and realize that you're not decelerating properly. You can change that mechanically, and there's probably a physical therapist that would have you do a variety of things from holding on to a ball, to flipping up a weighted ball and catching it down to really work on your rear rotator cuff health. But generally, I found this, my best pitchers are my hardest throwers. They locate the best and they're the healthiest. To throw a ball hard, you're healthy. When guys have arm problems.

They're either wild or they don't throw hard because something's going wrong in their arm action or their delivery. So to me, mechanics equals velocity equals location equals health. So those things, those four things all go together. So that concludes our five piece series. I'm going to give you a quick review of it. Step number one is how to use early momentum at leg lift.

Step number two is from leg lift, and the first move down to the plate. How do we go forward while staying back. piece number three is about our stride proper stride lengthen position for was from foot plant had a post up use the front side through our release point and then piece five was our proper arm action for those of you that have subscribed to this full program video number six will be a an hour speech on the college recruiting process that you can watch at your own leisure as a bonus as part of this program. Guys thank you so much please stay in touch email, go to that power chalk comm slash Wayne Missoni site if you want to send any video of you that I can analyze against the pro hopefully this is the start of something that that really helps you in your development, getting the most out of your body, and of course, the main purpose of enjoying the sport.

Thanks again for watching D one pitching mechanics and again, I'm coach Missoni. Thank you