Is it OK to reach behind when throwing?

[Deemax]

No.

First, you're mistaking reverse-rotation for taking the hand behind the back.

Second, I'm sitting here watching the Cardinal game listening to Scott Terry talk about how aking his hand behind his shoulder led to three shoulder surgeries. If you watch him in slow motion, you can see that this created a timing problem.

Im not "mistaking" on this stuff chris. I know what reverse rotation is, and I know what I see. In addition, I never claimed reverse rotating to be seperate from the arm going behind the pitcher.

I dont buy into your definition of timing problems.

Throwing a baseball as hard as you are capable of puts your arm at risk. Theres no magic pixie dust that keeps arms safe when airing it out. Train, prepare and compete. To much emphasis is placed on changing pitchers mechanics by people who dont understand them. This game is about feel boys..... Try teaching that. If you can, bottle it up, sell it, and I will get in line to buy it.

[rkbenn]

how can you judge based on a still! analysis video from front to back and side to side to see if indeed throwing behind his back and creating timing problems.

[Jake Patterson]

Throwing a baseball as hard as you are capable of puts your arm at risk. Theres no magic pixie dust that keeps arms safe when airing it out. Train, prepare and compete. To much emphasis is placed on changing pitchers mechanics by people who dont understand them. This game is about feel boys..... Try teaching that. If you can, bottle it up, sell it, and I will get in line to buy it.

We get in trouble when we mix what you do for a living to what we do for a living. Our job as coaches is to prepare the player for the next level... on that I am certain we will agree. Too many coaches burn potentially good players out by pushing for short-term gains at long-term expense. There is little a player can do before HS that will have much of an "overall" impact on his potential baseball career. By that I mean, throwing a championship season when he's 11 doesn't matter much in the whole scheme of things, hurting his arm at 11 does. Make sense?

[Dirtberry]

This is the worst of the mechanical flaws in the traditional motion because the shoulder injuries that it produces most times are life time debilitators unlike UCL, broken bones, avulsions, Muscle tears and many others that you can come back from.
The shoulder injuries Like the three types of Labrum tears and rotator cuff injuries seem to END it. I’ve seem many kids hurt their shoulders then recover with no pain and then have some psychological block to go maximum effort with only shoulder injuries. It’s the redirection of the ball to get it to finally move forwardly at high stress that grinds your labrum with the humerus like a MORTAR and PESTLE that does it plus the frontal stress from the arm lag that is all wasted motion just to get the ball up so that it may then go forward.

Fathers, fix this when you see it!!!

[coachmook]

Thanks everyone.
I am already in the process of changing his throwing motion.
I hope it helps to keep his arm healthy and I also think it should help
with his throwing accuracy.
I will try and post a video of his motion this weekend. Then maybe I can post it in a little while when we think it looks better.

Mike

[Jake Patterson]

Good luck Mike.

[rkbenn]

I have a 9 yr old that plays a lot of outfield and pitches a little. He would like to pitch more. When he throws the ball he reaches very far behind him. If you imagine him playing centerfield when he throws to 2B, he reaches back toward RF. Is this OK. I would like to make sure he is OK before he starts pitching more. Is arm is pretty strong, but I don't want him to do any damage. I hope I was clear on how he throws.

Any help would be great.
Thanks
Mike

A pitching coach told me that have the player stand with their back against a wall. That will fix throwing behind the back. But make sur they are closing the front shoulder a bit.

[Deemax]

Thanks everyone.
I am already in the process of changing his throwing motion.
I hope it helps to keep his arm healthy and I also think it should help
with his throwing accuracy.
I will try and post a video of his motion this weekend. Then maybe I can post it in a little while when we think it looks better.

Mike

His delivery may in fact need to be changed, but to do so based on opinions from people who have never seen your son throw is a lil' different.

The advice your getting is based on Mike Marshalls research and teachings. MM offen references his amazing CY year and education as his credentials (great credentials by the way).

What Mike Marshall did mechanically versus what he teaches are not one in the same.

I support the full Mike Marshall delivery!.... but its the early 70's version.

-Good luck, I hope you find what your looking for.