One of the common problems that crops up for pitchers is a tendency to throw inside, i.e. right handed pitcher throwing inside to a right handed hitter. While there can be any number of causes, one I’ve seen a lot is the throwing arm side getting in the way of the throwing arm. When that happens, the pitcher tends to push the ball away from that side in order to avoid hitting her hip and the ball goes inside.

If you’re seeing that, one thing to check immediately is where the pivot foot is going as she drives forward. (In case you don’t feel like thinking, the pivot foot is the foot that is on the throwing side. You’re welcome.) What you’ll probably see is that the toes of the pivot foot are going toward the toes of the stride foot after the latter lands. Often you’ll also see a walk-through, i.e. the pivot foot will keep going past the stride foot.

The simple correction is to tell the pitcher to take the toes of her pivot foot behind the heel of the stride foot. When that happens the hips stay out of the way, the arm stays on the power line, and the ball goes where it’s supposed to — usually. If nothing else it will go a lot less inside and will improve over time.

The nice thing about this instruction is it’s simple and specific. It’s not that difficult to take one foot behind the other, yet it can have a significant effect. Then all you have to do is remember to watch that the pitcher keeps doing it.

Lots has been written about leading the elbow through the circle and keeping the arm loose to generate speed. But there’s another good reason to do it — high/low accuracy.

If you come through the circle with a stiff elbow, you’re going to “feel” the release being around the front leg. That will make it go high. But if you lead the elbow through the circle and keep the arm loose, you’ll feel the release closer to the back leg, and the ball will stay down.

Don’t take my word for it. Try making a circle with a stiff elbow and see where you feel your wrist snap naturally. Then loose it up and do the same. You’ll find the release point move back.

For a couple of years now I have been talking to pitchers and their parents about the dangers of forcing the hand to come up and touch the shoulder on the follow-through. I had heard from reliable sources (Cheri Kempf among others) how this movement put unnecessary stress on the ligaments of the elbow and could lead to elbow pain. Made sense to me, especially when I tried the movement myself.

Yet I have seen that move being taught by other pitching coaches. When I’ve done clinics and such I’ve had kids telling me “but my other pitching coach said I should do that.” Thankfully the other pitching coach didn’t tell them to jump off a bridge too.

I think the “logic” behind touching the shoulder is to try and get the pitcher not to stop her hand at her side, which is a good thing. But in touching your shoulder with your fingers after throwing you’re just trading one problem for another. And in this case, trading a performance problem for a health one.

All of that was pretty much theoretical, however, until this past week. I now have direct evidence of the dangers of “snapping up” and touching the shoulder instead of following through long and loose.

The first incident was with one of my top students. She had picked up a habit of pulling her hand straight up to snap the ball out — sort of like doing arm curls with a dumbbell. I’d told her to follow through long, but she couldn’t break the habit. Last week she came to her lesson with an elbow brace on. She’d developed a lot of pain in her elbow and hurt to pitch. After a long, slow warm-up she wanted to try pitching the full distance. I told her to work on following through long and loose instead of pulling her hand up. By the end of the lesson she was throwing full speed, harder than before, and pain-free. She was amazed that it could feel so good after hurting so much. But that’s the power of a proper finish.

Today I was talking to the father of another student who was comparing what I had taught his daughter to what her old coach had taught her. He said with his method (touching the shoulder) her elbow always hurt, sometimes to the point of tears. Since coming to me and learning to finish long and loose instead of touching her shoulder, she was pain-free.

Now, I know two is hardly a scientific sample. But two on top of other evidence I’ve heard is pretty clear. If you are a pitcher (or you have a daughter who is one) and you’re being told to touch your shoulder to finish the pitch, you are putting your health at risk. My advice would be to stop that immediately, and find another coach if necessary. There are a lot of good and proper ways to finish the follow-through. Stressing your elbow isn’t one of them.

Previously I’ve talked about the importance of keeping a bit of a bend in the arm when you’re throwing the backhand change. That helps get rid of the dreaded “hump” in the pitch, where it starts to go out, then goes up a little — right into the hitter’s wheelhouse. Raising the arm slightly allows the pitcher to throw it out flat, which will keep it down.

Sometimes, however, pitchers think they’re bending the arm to pull the ball up but they’re actually not. Here’s a way to help them get the feel of it.

Take a lightweight object and hold it at the pitcher’s release point. I usually use a garden kneeling pad since it’s flexible. Hold it at the bottom of the normal circle. Then have the pitcher throw the change. If she’s dipping down instead of raise her arm, the ball will hit the object as she throws it. This will give her the feedback she needs to know where her hand should go.

Normally I tell the pitcher I’m going to hold it in the regular path of the ball. In truth, I actually hold it lower than that. They really have to work to hit it. But the idea of having it down there is usually enough to make them concerned and to bring the ball a little higher. Once it’s there, the arm is in a weak position — which means the pitcher can throw the ball as hard as she can without risking it being fast.

It’s a great trick, and works every time.

I was having a discussion with a coach named Gail last night about the signals for her pitchers. There apparently were some inconsistencies on her team about the numbers assigned to various pitches. A couple of her pitchers come to me for lessons, and a couple go to someone else. The other pitching coach uses different numbers than Gail does for the pitches, and there were some questions about whether they should use different signals for the pitchers. This is actually more common than you might think, especially on younger teams.

In my mind, I don’t really care what numbers are assigned to various pitches by a team coach. Many of the team coaches of my students use a different numbering system than I do. That’s fine with me. I just need to know what system they use so when a student throws a pitch I know whether it did what it was supposed to do.

What I do believe is that whatever signals the team uses, they should use them for all pitchers. It’s just too confusing to have two or three sets of signals for different pitchers. A mistake will be inevitable, and since the softball gods can be cruel it will occur at the worst possible moment. If you or your catcher call for an outside pitch and the pitcher thinks it’s an inside one it’s probably going to end up at the screen.

How much do I believe this? Last the pitchers and catchers on the team I coach used a different numbering system than I use. There was confusion early in a practice game, so I told them to get together and figure it out. I believe it was the catchers who had the most input, since they call the pitches and needed to be confident in what they were calling.

Of course, that was a 16U team. If you’re not quite at that point, the head coach needs to make a decision and set the signals. That’s what Gail said she was going to do. You want everyone on board and pulling the same way. Having consistent pitch signals is one more way to do it.

Ok, I decided to borrow the Army’s slogan for this one. The full saying from them is there’s strong, then there’s Army strong. With a son who is on his way back to Afghanistan after a 15-day leave I guess the Army is on my mind.

What made me think of this today was working with one of my students, a girl named Haley, tonight. With the holidays and all it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve seen her. Haley was working hard when I got to the facility tonight, really putting a lot of effort in. Yet because she was trying so hard she was forming a bad habit. As she moved into release, she sort of did this arm curl move where she pulled her hand straight up instead of letting the forearm and hand whip past the elbow.

I told her I realized she was doing it because it felt strong, but it actually was limiting her speed. It was also putting her at risk of injury, most likely to the elbow but also possibly the shoulder the way she was tightening everything up.

We worked on getting the arm long again at release and after a little while she was back on track and moving on to other things. As she got it corrected she could feel how much easier it was to throw hard by staying loose. I told her she’d last a lot longer at a tournament that way too.

Fortunately, Haley is very coachable as well as being talented, so it was easy to get her to change. Not every kid is like that, however. They will want to stay with what feels strong instead of what actually is strong. But just because something takes a lot of effort doesn’t mean you’re using strength efficiently. Most players who are “in the zone” will tell you the activity feels almost effortless. That’s definitely true for pitching. They’ll use a lot of energy, but it will be easy energy. If it’s not, something is wrong.