Prime Performance

Your Prime Starts Here.

Consistency in where the glove finishes can play an important role in how pitches are presented to the umpire.

Coach CJ works through the concept of bringing pitches on either side of the plate back toward a consistent finishing point, rather than exaggerating glove movement in an attempt to steal strikes.

By establishing that consistency early in the game, the catcher can build trust with the umpire and gradually create more opportunities to bring borderline pitches back toward the strike zone as the game progresses.

What’s everyone drinking before a velo day?

If you can’t explain why plyos or a drill is in your program, it probably shouldn’t be there yet. Every drill you do or ball you use should be tied to something specific in your throw, not just copied from someone else’s routine because it looked cool.

Hip–shoulder separation is one of the most commonly discussed concepts in pitching mechanics, but I think there's a significant misunderstanding surrounding how it actually occurs.

Separation is often taught as an active movement where the pitcher aggressively rotates the pelvis forward while intentionally keeping or pulling the shoulders backward. While this can create a larger rotational difference between the pelvis and trunk, it doesn't necessarily reflect how separation develops during an actual pitching delivery.

As the pitcher moves down the mound, the pelvis begins rotating toward home plate while the trunk maintains a relatively closed orientation. As the lead leg accepts load and the pelvis continues rotating, the trunk has yet to accelerate at the same rate, creating a difference in rotational orientation between the two segments.

The trunk doesn't need to actively rotate backward for separation to increase. Both segments can be rotating toward home plate, just at different velocities.

While research has shown relationships between hip–shoulder separation and throwing velocity, that doesn't necessarily mean more separation is always better. There's a significant difference between separation that develops naturally through the sequencing of the delivery and separation that an athlete is consciously trying to manufacture.

I think this is where we can get ourselves into trouble from a coaching standpoint. When we start chasing specific positions or trying to force greater degrees of separation, we can lose sight of the movements that actually create it in the first place.