- Paul Nyman, SetPro

33 years ago, a man walked on the surface of the moon. And three of the best pitchers in the last 50 years of baseball, Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver and Juan Marichal helped win the 1969 MLB All Star game. But there were very few books on pitching instruction, none compared to the number today. And home VCRs had not been invented yet, so there were no pitching videos.
 

Probably the most obvious answer: they just 'did it' (even before there were Nike commercials). As author James Fallows points out, "a toddler's first, instinctive throw is a push from the shoulder, showing the essential traits of 'Throwing like a Girl' [his book's title]. But when a child is really trying to put some oomph into the throw, his natural instinct is to wind up his body and let fly with the links of the chain. Little girls who do the same thing learn the same way; but whereas many boys do this, few girls do."

In other words, throwing is a natural human attribute; if it weren't, baseball would never have been 'invented'. But throwing to perfection, i.e. pitching, requires deeper understanding.


Most Major League players are unable to explain to you how they throw a baseball 90+ mph. It's not surprising. The human body is the most complex machine in existence. What we think we do many times bears little resemblance to what it looks like we are doing. The most that those who did it (throw 90+) could do was attempt to describe what they thought they did and 'felt' when they threw the baseball.

It took researchers (as in 'science types') such as A.E Atwater to begin the process of attempting to quantify and qualify how the complex machine throws a baseball by developing a biomechanical model to explain how a pitcher throws 90+. 

This model breaks the pitching motion down into steps or segments. Typically: wind-up, early cocking, late cocking, acceleration and follow through. This model is a 'ground up' biomechanical representation of the pitching sequence. And is used for almost all of today's pitching instruction and analysis.

As coaches, parents and instructors continued to struggle in their attempts to create the next Tom Seaver or Nolan Ryan a new force emerged.

33 years ago another significant event was well under way, the decline of playground baseball. And this decline lead to another major change in the direction of pitching instruction, the rise of the influence of the MD. 'Thanks' in large part to overuse of young arms due to the greater dependence on and influence of organized baseball over playground baseball. The medical community thus continues to gain a significant position of influence in defining what constituted 'good' and 'bad' mechanics and hence baseball instruction.

Pitch counts were in. And the curveballs were out.



The young player is no longer able to develop his basic motor skills in a friendly open environment. The playground games were competitive and you did want to strike Johnny out, but you were also playing because it was fun. No one was telling you that you had to hold the ball a certain way or line up your shoulders a certain way or...
 
Pitch limits sound good. But are not consistent with the first principle of athletic training (physiology): "to increase the size or functional ability, muscle fibers must be taxed toward their present capacity to respond."

Gone are the playground days where a player would get 20 at bats or 300 tosses. Now players are lucky to get 10 swings twice a week. Or two throwing sessions of 40 pitches twice a week. This has directly affected the baseball athleticism and creative learning ability of today's players.  Almost every player (USA) is regimented into a specific pitching belief system (coach, instructor or parent) before they have any opportunity to explore their own athletic capabilities.

They are totally dependant on the quality of their organized baseball experience. And the capability (or lack) of those who are coaching them. This is not a putdown for all of those who are doing their best to help a player reach their potential. It is just the reality of today's youth baseball.


 As we approached the year 2000, books and videos on pitching instruction proliferated. But the consensus of many in baseball was that the overall quality of pitching prospects, especially at the Major league level was declining. As evidenced by the fact that more and more pitching prospects were being from places like the Dominican Republic.

Again the complexity of the human body is very much part of the answer. Along with our changing society. And just plain old human nature. Pitching instruction ran with its new found biomechanics. Biomechanical 'speak' (buzz words like kinetic chain, applied force, Newton's Laws) impressed a lot of people.

Never mind that most really had no practical understanding of how to use/apply what they were talking about. And unfortunately for the would-be Tom Seaver or Bob Gibson, the biomechanists 'forgot' to talk with the motor-learning people.

You see, the biomechanical model of throwing does a good job of explaining the outside view of throwing a baseball. But it doesn't match how the neuromuscular system (brain, nerves, muscles. stuff that the motor people knew) actually learns how to throw the baseball.

The motor learning people explained to the biomechanists that learning to throw actually takes place in reverse order, from the arm to the ground.


When you combine backward chaining with the concept of motor programs (how the body learns to move and coordinate its actions) you have the main ingredients for developing a very effective pitching instructional program.

Another vital piece of information that came from the motor learning people is that motor skills are developed based upon final goals. The final goal of throwing a baseball is, you guessed it, throwing the baseball.

Winding up, lifting your leg, striding are all subservient (further down the motor program scale of importance) to actually throwing the baseball. All other body actions are helping the arm (arm action) do the best job possible in throwing the baseball, both from control AND velocity results.

Add to this the principle of variability: no throw is accomplished exactly the same way each time (sequence and use of muscles is somewhat different even though you hit the same spot each time). Add the need to adjust to this variability each time the ball is thrown, and you begin to appreciate why there are so few Pedro Martinez's.

Backwards chaining, goal formulation, adjusting to variability(and more) all become a vital part of the learning process to throw a baseball to your maximum capabilities. And an instructional program that achieves this is what this is all about.



Most current pitching programs for training pitchers start with mechanics and then eventually work their way to training.

We have approached it from the other direction. We developed training (strength, speed, power) based on the best science available. And as part of the research for these training programs, we had to understand in great detail how the body throws a baseball.

Such vital training concepts such as stretch reflex, eccentric-concentric muscle action, slow twitch vs. fast twitch muscle fiber recruitment and activation to name a few.

So we recognize the needs of the individual by creating a pitching instructional system that helps the individual player maximize his/her potential. And as we learned more about how the body biomechanically throws a baseball, we also realized the need to understand how the body physiologically learned the motor skill of throwing. And the need to put some of the 'good old days' back into pitching instruction - hence going backwards to move pitching instruction forwards.


Science is of no value to the parent, coach or player unless it can make them throw the baseball harder, with better control and ball movement, with the least amount of undue stress on the player's arm and body.

From our training systems development and motor learning research we learned that backward chaining is a powerful technique in developing a pitcher's skill capabilities.

Biomechanically we developed a number of new instructional concepts such as the importance of overall tempo (not timing as traditionally taught), the importance of posture and development and application of the 'kinetic whip' concept.

Physiologically we incorporated instructional methods to teach the eccentric-concentric loading process to make maximum use of the stretch reflex and elastic energy that accounts for 20-30% of the power in the pitching process.

Along with developing these scientific concepts, we spent thousands of hours analyzing the best pitchers who ever threw a baseball. And then treid it out on hundreds of pitchers of all ages.

The result: the most effective pitching program available both in terms of velocity, control and injury prevention. That's because we teach consistent with how the body wants to be taught.

The starting point and foundation for our program is arm action (totally opposite to most instructional programs). Contrary to popular belief, arm action in not primarily driven by genetics. Arm action (learning/acquisition of) is part of the motor learning process. What confuses people is that, just like learning to walk, arm action is learned at a very early age. This is what makes it appear genetic. But arm action can be changed IF it needs to be changed.

After developing a lively arm you work on learning how to coordinate the rest of the body to develop a smooth, effortless delivery. to support your lively arm. And, along the way, get answers and insight into the on-going debates on push vs. pull; tall and fall vs. drop and drive; velocity vs. control, and the rest.



Thirty three years have passed since man walked on the moon. Computer chips make your coffee in the morning, wash your clothes during the day and cook your meals at night. And science may finally be starting to explain better ways to teach how to throw a baseball.

Fifty years from now, I hope, this information will be understood and accepted by those who teach and play baseball. And it is very possible that the how we teach throwing a baseball 100 years from now may not be a whole lot different than how it was done before we got to the moon.

We just thought it should be.