Posted by: Thorpe Facer (tfacer@yahoo.com) on Tue Oct 21 08:50:21 2003

Thorpe-
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> Nice to hear from you.With your knowledge of pitch/throw,it's easiest to think of it interms of the overhand throw.The amazing thing is how the body likes to use the same elements of biomechanical soltuions for theses two tasks-rotational hitting and buggy whip type throwing.
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> Traditionally/biomechanically,the overhand throw is divided into 5 or so phases including wind-up,early cock,late cock,acceleration and followthrough/deceleration.The acceleration phase is pretty much(ideally) internal rotation which starts with the elbow flexed at 90 degrees for maximumleverage so muscles can provide eccentric to concentric force to manage/create the right kind of elastic properties for the arm to whip in way that is lead primarily by internal rotation and secondarily by extension.This is the traditional feel of "staying on top".It is also important to break the hands (symmetrically in the case of throwing where handbreak and scap load are symmetric as opposed to hitting where they are "staggered")with symmetric "internal rotation",traditionally cues by "keep fingers on top" or "break hands with elbows up and palms down".
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> To minimize stress in the overhand throw/pitching,the arm needs to load,unload and whip smoothly with good synchronization between the upper and lower body felt as synchronized action of the stride leg and throwing arm.This is beautifully explained and demonstrated by Jeff Hodge on his biomechanics baseball tape.The factor he leaves out is the role of scap load as detailed by Nyman.What is required is:
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> 1-internal rotation of back arm at handbreak to fix ball of humerus into shoulder socket well,then
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> 2-lift and pinch to load scap and elevate ball in socket so bump on ball will clear bottom of socket later
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> 3-begin arm load with external rotation(MUST have internally rotated well at handbreak or ball scoket connection will be loose and you won't be in position to externally rotate,and MUST have scap loaded to have stable shoulder complx for this to take place within)of back arm synchronized to external rotation of lead leg ("front thigh turnover")
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> 4- continue arm loading via external rotation powered by torso turn(torso turn is part of kinetic chain/momentum transfer)
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> 5- continue arm loading/external rotation by throwing scap unloading- "bow arch bow of torso unloads scap which finishes laying back/externally rotating arm" as Nyman might say,then arm accelerates via internal rotation
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> See if that makes sense and if you can feel the same back arm sequence and synchronization as you load to hit.

Thanks Tom.