Analyzing Lower Body Movements

July 2019

The game today has been transformed by the saber-metric movement seen at the professional level. This strong movement toward statistics has even stretched into the realms of amateur baseball in recent years. Although this movement has allowed coaches and athletes to analyze performance like they never have before, there still seems to be a lack in high quality instruction. All the statistics in the world cannot replace the priority of developing high quality technique in a pitcher or hitter’s movements.

In the amateur ranks the lower body is the most widely coached and often most misunderstood portion of the pitching delivery. Specifically, the leg lift is often the most imitated portion of the delivery for many youth athletes. Young athletes who see their major league heroes on TV, will often try to imagine and imitate their movements. This honestly is a very good habit for youth athletes. I encourage any young player to watch and try to mimic some of their favorite professional athletes. They are playing at that level for a reason!

Professional pitchers for the most part will move more efficient and precise than amateur athletes. According to Dr. Greg Rose from Onbaseu (2019), it is because they move efficient and understand their overall process. Dr. Rose discusses how elite athletes operate on a specific kinematic sequence (Rose 2019). The main factors surrounding efficiency deal with the ability to create maximum power with minimum effort, to repeat the delivery, and to understand the direction in which the ball is being thrown (Rose 2019).

In my opinion looking at professionals gives young athletes a picture of what they ultimately wish to become. Many of those players also did the same things mimicking players from their childhood such as Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, and Pedro Martinez. As I dive into the specific movements of the lower body , it is very important for coaches and players to understand the specifics are not to get in the way of natural athleticism. The last thing we want to produce a non-athletic robot on the mound or at the plate.

Lift Off

I often refer to the movement as a lift rather than a more popular referred term the “leg kick” for a variety of reasons. The movement is meant to be smooth and under control in order to gain the maximum amount of power and to gain the maximum amount of energy moving forward toward the plate. The kick refers to an out of control movement which can often be misunderstood by many youth athletes.

I’d like to take a moment and give an overview of practical advice. I often recommend lifting to a comfortable height, closing the hips at a slight angle across the body. A simple cue I use is to tell athletes to lift their knee to their belly button. This keeps the athlete relaxed and gives them a consistent point of reference. Too many times young athletes will either be under confident and barely even use a leg lift. While others will be overly chaotic and try to lift above their shoulders. The first will cause the kid to have no power or effort, while the second will make the kid completely out of control. Below I’ve listed a few teaching points for coaches to engrain in young athletes.