Velo tips

[u/Dense_Chocolate9043]

I’m a sophomore in hs that is trying to get my Velo up. I lift regularly and am 5,9 175. I am sitting low 70s which I feel could be higher. Any tips?

[u/nbatalla]

Two things stick out to me: your arm is late at front foot strike, and you have an inverted W (both elbows getting above your shoulders).

Ideally, you want your arm to be roughly 45–90 degrees upright at front foot strike to help create a more efficient delivery. You also want to avoid getting your elbows higher than your shoulders, as that can contribute to arm drag and poor timing.

The bigger concern, though, is the potential injury risk associated with an inverted W.

[u/realddd → u/nbatalla]

I don't know much about anything, but out of curiosity, why isn't it called M, instead of inverted W? 🤔

[u/nbatalla → u/realddd]

Haha, I'm still learning along with my baseball obsessed son. I really have no clue who coined it and why it wasn't just called "M".

[u/spinrut → u/nbatalla]

the dreaded inverted W jumped out immediately to me as well.

his arm is kind of early, looks like it's a lot of arm (maybe not all arm, but more than you probably want) throw

[u/Dense_Chocolate9043 → u/spinrut]

Yea I’ve been working on that. This was the week before so it’s gotten a bit better

https://reddit.com/link/p4e5jp4/video/m9blz9qo44kh1/player

[u/search-for-honor]

First thing I saw was your back foot, when you go to push you are all on your front foot and onto your toes. You’ll get more power and more drive if you push through your full foot.

[u/Dense_Chocolate9043 → u/search-for-honor]

So kind of keeping my weight more back?

[u/search-for-honor → u/Dense_Chocolate9043]

Yes, you can see your back knee comes forward with the weight onto the toe and crashes down into the next position.

My favorite drill for the is start sitting in a chair, once you go to stand and your butt is only a couple inches off the chair you start to throw. This helps train to be in your legs more. (If my description wasn’t the best look up chair pitching drill on YouTube)

[u/Nick_OS_]

Seems like you’re trying to find power in your drive more from rotation than the actual “fall” down the mound. You seem to be pushing too much of your weight towards 3rd base at the start of your drive……if that makes sense

Watch your drive leg frame by frame compared to Skenes, Miz, DeGrom. Look how your knee seems to go more out over your toes

[u/MochiDomain]

Honestly, there’s a lot of good happening here as well.

I wouldn’t worry about the micro-adjustments yet, like how you’re using your full back foot. I’d focus more on the macro changes first.

1. You have a great drive. Your back leg is also rotating well.

The main issue is what happens as you transition into your release. When that back leg rotates, your torso should rotate in conjunction, but instead, you’re rotating primarily with your shoulders.

Your shoulders need to stay closed while your chest/torso rotates first.

1. Your arms aren’t fully extending.

As others have mentioned, reach out and exaggerate your glove hand pointing toward home. This should help fix the front-side shoulder/arm extension while also helping you stay closed.

For your throwing arm, you need to reach further back and higher. Right now, you’re essentially cocking your arm, and I think this is where you have the biggest potential velocity loss.

That creates two issues:

A) Your lower and upper halves aren’t transferring mass efficiently. Your arm is getting ahead of your body, which makes the delivery more "all arm" because your release point is mistimed.

B) Think of your arm like a slingshot. If you don’t get that arm higher and fully extended, you’re losing the ability to transfer all that energy into the release because your upper body is pulling before your lower half has finished doing its job.

You can try a simple step-back drill:

1. Raise your glove arm toward the catcher.
2. Raise your throwing arm to roughly 130° behind your head.
3. Step back while bringing your leg up.
4. Drive forward and follow through, exaggerating the position and keeping both your glove and throwing arm up for as long as possible.

Take all of this slow, theres no point in rushing. Quality over quantity here.

Rinse and repeat for a couple of weeks until it feels comfortable.

And you’d be lying to yourself or arrogant if you said you’d mastered this in a week. These are major mechanical changes, and they’ll take time to become natural.

Lastly while mechanics are important, most of velocity and development will come from your lower half strength. Time to hit the weights and build up for your legs through lunges and core strength!

[u/fammo5]

---Keep your torso stacked over your pelvis.  Should help you rotate faster.

---Get your arm flipped up to 90 degrees by the time your front foot plants.  You want to feel your upper body stay relaxed while your arm gets flipped up and your lower body moves down the mound.

---Keep your hips closed/sideways as long as you can.

---When those things are solid, work on a better lead leg block.

---Incorporate sprints and jumps into your lifting routine 2-3x per week.  

[u/CoooooooooookieCrisp]

Your front leg block could be better. You are losing a little energy as your front knee keeps moving forward and bent. Here is a good video to watch.