Softball Throwing Mechanics - Gloveside and Lower Body

Hi. I'm Susie Willimson. I'm a Travel Ball and high school softball coach. With me is Christie and our video is covering a basic fastpitch softball skills. On this segment, we will be going over proper positioning of the glove side and our lower body throwing mechanics. So, first lets talk about the glove side. Before we had talked about the grip and our arm circle, a lot of times the glove side is an overlooked part of the throw, and in fact, it's extremely important. In our throwing mechanics, our throwing side is kind of our power side and our glove side is going to be for direction. There is a number of ways you can do it. You can have your arm pointed straight out at your target or you can have your elbow bent and so what your glove side does is kind of it acts somewhat as a scow. It's going to again provide you the direction of your throw. So, you can see we have our palm facing away and we have got our wrist cut, our elbow is at least as high as her shoulder. Now, what Christie is going to be doing as she is starting to come through is with the glove side, she just wants to bring it in, as she is coming through and in essence almost kind of rotate around the glove side. Very often, and particularly in younger players, I'll see the glove side, it's flinging around this way and then your body ends up coming across and you are going to have a lot of problems there. So, that's why it is very important to have it out here, or have a kind of gather it around in this area, then as you are starting your throwing mechanics, you kind of bring it in, and then you are actually, almost going to be rotating around that glove side.

Let's discuss our lower body mechanics, very similar to hitting, and the way you want to start with that is Christie will be standing together. She is going to do a jab step with her right foot and it's going to be 45 degrees, then she comes out, has everything all lined up and she has got her feet apart, she has got her knees inside looking good, she has got the ball again turned away, elbow up, shoulder width, shoulder height, and glove end and then she will go ahead and rotate through. An another way to make sure that you have proper mechanics on the lower part is that you see that back foot, the shoe laces of the shoe have turned over and are facing the ground. So, again we will go show again, we will go one more time will show on Christie, jab step and step facing towards our target, we were lined up, elbow was up coming through and also its very important as you saw Christie, when she was coming through the follow through is very important. Again, a lot of times Ill see girls they will come back and they will bring the ball in this fashion like they are throwing the pie or a bone arrow as they end up pushing the ball, and that can cause a lot of injury potential in this area. So, the follow through getting it back, coming through and then allowing yourself to come through over to the other side of thigh, we will make sure that we are taking any pressure off the shoulder area as well.