Ever heard these sentences at a ball game in the stands?

• “I just don’t know what it takes to get my son to work hard?”
• “IPod, Xbox, cell phone texting, and Facebook is what occupies my son’s time more than baseball.”
• “In my day there were kids out at the park just playing baseball. We didn’t have any of the distractions kids today have. Kids worked harder back then.”

While I agree to some extent with the above common thoughts from parents and coaches, I think the problem is a bit more complex.

Let me explain the difference between working hard and hard work:

Working hard: Putting in the hours upon hours of baseball skill training. Working hard is taking swings in the garage when there is snow outside in the winter. Working hard is throwing with a friend out in the street after school and before dinner.

Hard Work: Understanding, and then implementing precise mechanics. Hard work is focusing on the specific physical, and mental training that will get the athlete to the next level.

I don’t think the focus should be necessarily that kids need to work harder (unless they ooze onto the couch after school for hours). I think we are missing the boat if this is our only goal for our athletes.

In order to be a top notch athlete, sure, he needs to log the hours working on his craft. There is no way around that.

But, it’s not enough. Not anymore. Athletes must be willing to engage in hard work on a more regular basis.

What good is it to turn your son loose in the garage to take 200 swings if he doesn’t know what a good vs. an incorrect swing is?

He is simply ingraining improper mechanics into his muscle memory. Then, when he goes into a slump, and someone like Dan or I come around to help fix the mistakes, we have to undo thousands of incorrect swings from the memory bank of the athlete. Depending on the athletic talent of the athlete, this could take quite a while.

There is no way to make life simple again – or to remove the technology from the lives of youth today. But, we can regulate it (to some extent). The focus then as an athlete is to become more strategic with the time spent working on skills.

This requires hard work.

It’s hard work to sift through correct information and implement correct mechanics.

It’s hard work to become more aware of how the body should feel during the delivery of a pitch.

It’s hard work to process failure and bounce back without hanging the head.

There are too many kids playing baseball today to outwork future competition. Athletes must learn the importance of precise work if they want to compete today.

If you’re ready for some hard work on hitting mechanics, we’ve got a DVD that will break down the fundamentally correct swing. Our best successes with athletes come when the parent and the son are both engaged in learning mechanics together.

You’ll find it waiting for you here.

We trust you find it useful.

In doing some writing last night for another ebook, I thought to myself, how do our readers know we’re not full of crap about pitching and hitting mechanics?

Look, we don’t want you to follow us blindly. (Or anyone else for that matter.) That’s why we provide video clips for MLB pitchers and hitters so you can see for yourself and validate what we teach.

The proof is in the technique Big League guys are using to become successful.

If it works for them, we teach it. No crazy theories from the 70′s, just the straight mechanics that work.

Take the tips we put out daily in our emails and use them.

Study how we and your other coaches match up to what Big League guys are doing.

If you want more? If you want the step by step instruction we give our athletes each day? Our DVD series will be waiting patiently for you at

www.simplifiedpitching.com

This made sense to me then, so I tried to lift my foot earlier.

Contrary to this advice, dragging your rear foot some during the pitching motion is a good thing. It means you are practicing good delayed shoulder rotation as well as correct posture.

No foot drag most likely means your posture is poor and your shoulders are opening up much too early.

Take a look at this clip, (start at 24 seconds if you’re short on time) see any foot drag? I don’t think Chapman (and his 100mph + fastball) has experienced much loss of velocity with this brief drag.

Whether or not an athlete’s foot drags is something Dan and I don’t teach athletes. We work on the mechanics that produce foot drag as an end result. Our 4-DVD series walks you specifically through how to create great posture and velocity (using correct mechanics). Our 2-day sale ends today. It’s at a great price. Nab it and learn more tips on how to achieve the success you want this year.

One of the responses was, “to achieve greatness.” Another text said, “I practice to get better. I work on the skills I lack.”

I like the second response better. It’s much more process oriented when compared to the first.

You can’t taste greatness right now, but you can understand what skills to work on and put in consistent practice towards those skills.

It’s always fun to set the distant greatness goals, but I encourage you to spend more time on the processes that will allow you one day to achieve the dreams you have in your mind.

The first area of focus I work on with his age is proper balance during the leg left. Secondly, I teach them how to lead with the hip. I think it’s safe to say most of the 10-13 year old kids I work with do not lead with their hips towards home plate.

Because of this mechanics oversight, they are giving up 3-7mph of fastball potential since they aren’t engaging their lower half in the beginning of their motion.

What does leading with the hip look like in action? Here, watch this clip. You see as Verlander nears the apex of his leg lift he begins to let his hips move towards home plate? That’s leading with the hips. I’ll be working with the kids tonight on this concept.

Dan does a great job explaining the early parts of the pitching motion in our Pitching Mechanics DVD. It’ll be on sale through today, and then the deal’s off. For $25 you get some seriously good pitching mechanics instruction; the same stuff we give the pitchers we work with daily.

On that note, there are a few “musts” that you need to add to your repertoire like light dumbbell work, elastic bands, core stability training, functional strength exercises, sprint work, plyo’s and agility work.  What you want to add to your training after that is up to you and your individual goals.

If you need to lose more body fat to be more explosive to the plate; you need to add more cardio to your workouts.  To ensure you stick to a program, make sure you are creative with cardio work.  Most pitchers just run and that can be boring; especially if that’s your only form of cardio.  Besides, pitchers aren’t long distance runners anyway, we are sprinters.

There are many exercises you can do to ensure you get plenty of cardio.

Here are a few ideas:

Start the insanity program (that takes care of cardio, functional strength training, core stability and can take place for sprint work for a period of time as well)

In the off season you can do p90X.

Play any sport that will increase your heart rate for off and on for 30 minutes or more like basketball, racquetball, skiing etc.

The important thing is you have fun working out so you will stick to it and stay consistent.

In our DVD series we show you exactly what you need to do to get into shape for the season.  We show you light dumbbell work, core strength training exercises, elastic band exercises and much more to help you keep up with the demands that pitching requires.

Some of the pitching specific workouts in our DVD series you may find repetitive (like dumbbell and band work) but very important to do so you can stay healthy throughout the season.  Because of the repetition, we highly recommend you workout with a partner.  Someone who is goal oriented just like you and won’t throw in the towel.

If you are 100% ready to have your best year yet in 2012 and are hungry for great pitching workouts that will improve your game; we are confident we can help you achieve that goal.

Take advantage of today’s opportunity and win big this year!

Now is the time to lace up your shoes and get to work!

The biggest concern I have this time of year with many pitchers is they are simply training the wrong way.   They are doing more harm than good for themselves.

What do I mean by that?

So many pitchers have poor mechanics.  They throw the ball to throw and have never learned even some basic principals that will help them tremendously.

Pitching mechanics are vital to your success!  It is imperative that you not only understand how to throw the baseball utilizing your entire body for power, but you learn how to “feel” that power as it works through the kinetic chain. (throwing with your legs, hips, core then upper body to release of the ball)

Don’t be an average pitcher this year!

In my travels each year, I see a ton of pitchers who have great talent, but don’t have the know-how to take their game to a higher level.

Take time to learn the game and start understanding the how’s and why’s of pitching.

If you are 100% ready to have your best year yet in 2012 and are hungry for that knowledge that will improve your game in every way; we are confident we can help you achieve that goal.

Take advantage of today’s opportunity and win big this year!

I realize this can be technical in nature; I’ll do my best to put it in some common language. I always hate the big wordage some use to describe hitting and pitching mechanics. I’ll be gentle for that reason.

Step 1 -

It’s absolutely vital for the knob of the bat to lead the way into the hitting zone (the area just in front of your front hip). This creates bat lag and allows for the bat head to whip into and through the zone. (See the picture above for an illustration.)

Watch this clip of Adrian Gonzalez. If you pause the clip just before the timer rolls over to :03 you’ll see the same thing as you do in the Cano picture above.

The problem most hitters have is that they don’t lead with the knob, and instead the barrel of the bat enters the hitting zone before it should. This reduces power, promotes top spin and side spin off the bat. It also prevents the hands from moving through the hitting zone and lowers batting average.

Step 2 -

Now, watch this clip of Chipper Jones (just :14 through :18) and I want you to notice how his hands extend towards where he wants the baseball to travel.

In this case, it’s an outside pitch and so you’ll see the knob of the bat enter the hitting zone (just like Gonzalez) and then his hands extend towards left center field.

If Jones would have let his hands pull across his body and off to the right, then he would have cut his swing off short and most likely hit a blooper to left field, if he hit the pitch at all.

It’s always easier to understand proper hitting mechanics if you can see them. The real trick is taking what you know and see and teaching others how to do it.

This of course is why we write each day; so that you can take our information and go help those you influence.

If you’re needing a little guidance in the hitting mechanics department, I’ve taught the above concept in full in our Hitting Mechanics DVD.

It’s on sale here this week for just $25 – worldwide shipping is taken care of by Dan and I.

Cole Hamels
Justin Verlander

Both of these great pitchers have different styles, but neither of them pull their glove arm off to the side uncontrollably during the pitch. This is simply because in order to maximize velocity, a pitcher must delay the rotation of his shoulders for as long as possible. This will allow his hips to rotate first (you can see this as well in those video clips above) which begins the propulsion of his arm to release point. If the glove arm pulls away and the front side opens too soon, the pitcher will lose his torque with the lower half of the body and rely on his arm to generate the momentum. This is something that wears on the arm, and if done long enough will cause injury.

One of the best ways I correct this mistake in young pitchers is to have the athlete either throw with both knees on the ground, or one knee up. This takes the lower half of the body away and allows him to work on feeling his body do the work instead of his arm.

Try and get him to let the glove elbow only slip slowly along the rib cage each pitch. A few throws with the glove flopping off to the side and the athlete will begin to feel the mechanical flaw. At this point it just becomes repetition and fine tuning. But, the key for sure is getting the pitcher to feel the mistake. Once that happens, there is a greater chance he can fix the error.

In the Pitching Mechanics DVD, Dan talks a lot about delayed shoulder rotation and how to make sure you maximize your body during the throwing motion. You can find this DVD as part of our best selling DVD series. Don’t wait until injury, get those pitching mechanics fine tuned for the spring.

As I entered college my coach told me that I had to develop my change up more to keep hitters off balance. While I didn’t fully see the need to add the change at that point early my freshman year, I worked on one nevertheless. I couldn’t figure out the circle change as the grip never seemed comfortable enough for me to locate the pitch well. I ended up just messing with a few different grips each time I would warm up before practice. They were strange grips, the kind that no coach would show you. I finally found a grip that allowed the ball to come off my hand and tail away. I just grabbed my four seam fastball grip but instead of having the thumb under the baseball, I brought it up the inside of the baseball and rested it against outside of my index finger. I knew this was the change up grip I would got with.

I continued to experiment with different wrist and forearm angles until I got the movement I was looking for. I fell in love so much with the change up that I totally changed my pitching approach. No longer did I want to strike everyone out, but I wanted to make as many hitters uncomfortable and foolish looking as I could. The more off balance I could get hitters, the better. I finished that season 10-1 and solely contribute my success to the change up that I was willing to tinker with that fall of my freshman year in college.

To this day I make sure all the pitchers I work with are developing a good change up. I don’t let kids get away with the attitude I possessed in high school (strike everyone out), it caps their potential. I want to see my ten year olds working on a change up. It’s a must for any youth pitcher to be able to change speeds with location. This is why disk 2 in our DVD series spends so much time on the change up and curveball. They are hugely important to learn properly in order to avoid injury.

Yesterday I wrote about educating yourself in hitting and pitching mechanics. Today, I’m emphasizing the importance of learning proper pitching grip techniques and experimentation on the mound. Let our DVD series guide your education and training. It’s on sale this week at a good price.

Who knows, maybe you’re training the next Trevor Hoffman this fall!