Repetition: Pitching and Getting Plenty of it?

I watched real sports with Bryant Gumbel today.  The discussion was why South Korean woman are so dominant in the LPGA tour.

The Real Sports crew traveled to South Korea to discover why.

The answer was not surprising, however, many athletes lack the following.

Discipline and repetition.

These Korean woman are disciplined and they spend hours upon hours perfecting their swing.

They spend 8 hours a day working on their swing.  (yes I do understand the women there feel that is their only way out but I’m just going to talk about repetition that helped make them so successful)

2 hours on the tee driving the ball, 2 hours putting, 2 hours in the sand and a couple hours using their irons.  It really was remarkable to see how much repetition they do.

They had stacks of golf balls (hundreds) next to them in each area of the course so they could maximize their time.

So how do you get so much repetition with pitching? How do you perfect the release of all of your off-speed pitches when you have to limit the amount of throws per week.  After all, if you throw too much your arm can’t handle it right?

To ensure plenty of repetition consider the knee drill I demonstrate on you tube and get into detail in the mechanics portion of the series.

The knee drill, done with proper mechanics of course, takes the pressure of you throwing arm and allows you to throw 100 plus throws a day.  This drill is what allows my students to learn off-speed pitches so quickly.  They simply get the reps in on a daily basis.

What takes a year, two years or more for some pitchers to learn a great breaking ball, takes less than half the time to get the perfect rotation on the ball with the knee drill.

Repetition is truly the mother of all skill.

You want to make sure you get into a daily routine to practice skill work.

I prefer getting up before anyone else, before it gets too hot, and getting my workouts in.

Think about this.  Let’s say you are on the field at 6:30-8:30 every morning and you truly utilized that time properly.  You could get hundreds of reps in everyday.  Now I’m not including pitching workouts, practicing with your team or games.  This is skill work only.

To get the reps you want, I would suggest bringing about 5 dozen baseballs with you so you don’t spend half of your time shagging balls.

Start out with a simple warm up jogging, working with j-bands and simple stretches. (15 minutes)

Then do the knee drill (100 plus reps) working on curveball, changeup and fastball release and mechanics of course.

This alone will get you ahead of the competition.  If you did this 6 days a week for a year you would have completed 31,200 awesome perfect reps.  Do you think you would start to feel how to throw each pitch with that many reps under your belt?  Consistency is the key.

Again, if you have a big enough stack of baseballs and were focused, these reps would not take more than 20 minutes.

Will it hurt your arm? No this drill will not because you are on your knees taking away the momentum.  You are working on squeeze and swivel and release of the ball on all pitches keeping a relaxed arm.

Take the rest of the time working on whatever you feel you need to improve.

Could you imagine taking a combination of 300 grounders, short hops, liners and fly balls every morning.  If you stayed consistent with that schedule, who do you think your coach would trust in a clutch situation? YOU!

This is not an article to tell you what you need to practice.  It’s about informing you that proper and daily repetition is what it takes to improve your overall ability to be great at the game of baseball.

So go get your reps in and stay consistent!

To improve your overall pitching performance and ensure you have plenty to work on during practice, we recommend our instructional Pitching Products.  It’s loaded with information and tips that will help you take your game to a higher level.