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Je t'adore (Shut The Door)
by Dave
Friday, March 14, 2008
Jenny writes in to say/ask:I recently read an article you had written back in 2006 and loved it! I agree with you and in the town I live in they believe they should keep their hips open upon release. I had pitching lessons when I was younger (20+ years ago), that is not how I was taught. Now that my daughter is pitching I don't want her to learn the open hip style. Here is the quote from your arcticle that I love:
"Michele Smith while broadcasting on national TV tells pitchers to leave their hips open at a 45 degree angle. I've yet to find anyone who agrees with that but I'm sure A) it worked for her and B) there are coaches out there teaching it who are very successful but who I haven't heard speak. But I am at least ready to be suspicious of any coach who expresses this approach. If I come across such a coach, I'll ask her or him the key question "Why?" in order to judge for myself."
Now I found a man with a very different opinion, I would love for you to read it and tell me what you think.
OK, Jenny, I'm going to bite because I enjoy the topic. Before I begin, let me say that I am a blogger with a passion for the sport. I'm no pitching coach. I'm a consumer, not a supplier. It is my understanding that Bill Hillhouse is a windmill pitching expert of fairly high stature. As such, all I can do is respond to what he writes and let you decide for yourself whether you agree or not. I have heard many discussions about the topic and remain convinced that "leaving the door open" does not accomplish what the proponents of this "style" claim it does, while closing it does not, at least in my experience, seem to cause the problems they identify. I want to respond to the specific article you cite in pieces because I believe this is the best way for me to break down the argument.
For readers' reference, here is the article: "The Big Lies" Actually, the part of interest is just a piece of the overall article. You can find the relevant portion under number 2
Bill says:
"I'm willing to bet, if your pitcher was taught this method she either did or does the following: Right handed pitchers throwing INSIDE to right handed batters a lot. (Lefties would be the opposite, away from right handed batters). If this fits you, then you've fallen into the same category as 99% of the pitchers who've been taught this method."
Actually, in my experience, the opposite is true. Girls who do not "close the door" end up throwing the ball inside too far. I've seen this happen hundreds of times and each one of the pitchers who began closing the door had better control - stopped throwing the ball inside (righty pitcher to righty batter). My own kids had this problem initially but they corrected it and stopped hitting batters!
The problem to me is,when you leave the door open, this is not a natural motion - I'll address that momentarily. The end result is the pitcher ends up with her weight distributed mostly to her landing foot and she must to some degree hold back her body's natural momentum on the pivot foot side. The failure to close the door stops the motion before it is completed and results in leaving the ball outside.
Pitchers at higher levels do not experience the problems associated with closing or leaving open the door because they compensate for their particular motion. They do this in subtle ways which are not readily apparent but I think what is most important is, you can't win or lose this argument based exclusively on control issues. Younger pitchers will demonstrate a wildness one way or the other but this doesn;t answer the essential question of which mechanics are right. The premise that Bill offers up is a moot point.
There are a couple levers at work when you perform the windmill motion. Too often I think we consider only the arm lever. Of course, we include the legs in our consideration of the motion but we forget about the one lever which is relevant to this particular discussion.
At the beginning of the windmill motion, the body generates kinetic force from its inertia by driving the legs. The pivot foot-leg push the body's mass forward about the time the arm reaches the top of the circle. The body's weight-in-motion gives an added force to that generated exclusively by the arm in its circle. The windmill circle is the key lever in pitching the ball fast - the arm's speed is what is directly converted to the ball as it is released - but there is more going on than that.
As the landing foot comes to ground, a sideways body lever also occurs. The landing foot's contact with the Earth is a resistance point the same way a batter's front foot creates a resistance against the bodies forward momentum caused via the legs and hips. That resistance converts energy from the body's forward motion to the ball side since the landing foot is glove side. This is why you sometimes feel pain in the glove side knee and legs after throwing a lot. You expend energy creating that resistance as your foot comes to ground and your landing leg bends and flexes. The result is your ball side of the the body swings like a door on a hinge. That lever is important because, while it is not moving as fast as the arm, it contains more kinetic energy due to its greater mass - the mass of the body.
If you doubt this, consider that pitchers never throw with their "landing foot" in the air even though the body does have more forward momentum before the landing foot lands. In other words, your body contains more forward energy in the form of its mass and the speed it is moving when your pivot foot has just completed its push off - the pivot foot has just begun dragging. That is before the landing foot has landed. When your landing foot comes to ground, that resistance slows the body's overall speed and, therefore, kinetic force. Yet it is a necessary step in order to focus the kinetic energy to the throwing side via the landing side resistance and the sideways lever necessary for throwing.
I am of the opinion that deliberately leaving the door open is unnatural because after you create the landing leg resistance, your body wants to swing the door shut. In my opinion, to leave the door open, you have to make a conscious effort to stop the throwing hand side. But I want to address another of Bill's points in order to make that argument.
Bill says:
"Bringing the hip and hand through together (slamming the door) takes the arm off line of the catcher and into the pitchers side. This tends to send the ball in the direction of the pitcher's throwing side. If power is REALLY generated this way, I'd like someone to explain to me why, in overhand throwing, we don't step with our right leg at the same time as we throw with our right hand. It's because POWER is lost this way. When we throw overhand, our arm goes first, then the leg."
I agree that when we throw overhand, the arm goes first and then the leg. But this is something which occurs within a millisecond. The legs push, the throwing arm brings the ball and then the leg and hip follows right behind. I do mean right behind. A fielder turns 90 degrees to his/her target while pulling the ball back, throws the ball and "follows through." The "follow through" involves everything on the throwing side half of the body and it very much closes.
If you watch baseball pitchers closely, the very best have drastic follow throughs. The end result has the pitcher turned beyond square (over-rotated) with his throwing hand shoulder forward of the other shoulder, the hand down by the landing leg knee or even past it, and the pivot leg in the air with hips over-rotated beyond square too. Many right handed fastballers finish their motion with the right shouolder poiting at home and the overall body position open 45 degrees to first base. This is why, in baseball, you teach players to bunt to the pitching arm side of fastballers beyond the reach of the third baseman. Fireballers generally "fall off" to the glove hand side which provides the bunter with an advantage.
When you throw overhand without going through the full pitching motion, you don't follow through quite as drastically but your body does end up being slightly over-rotated. You do not end up being open 45 degrees to the target or you haven't gotten anything on the ball - you failed to avail yourself of the sideways lever, to use your body's kinetic energy created by footwork. Don;t take my word for it as I almost did after reading Bill's discussion. Go out and play a brief game of catch. If you are a righty, you end your throwing motion almost falling over to your right hand side. I guarantee you that you will end up over-rotated. I'd be winning to bet a lot on that one!
I think Bill believes that close-the-door windmill instruction involves closing the hip at precisely the same moment with the release of the ball. Heck I might have even said something like that here or there. I'd be surprised if some pitching coach didn't use that language but I don't believe that is what is intended. It just isn't possible.
You can only shut a door before or after you walk through it. Two objects cannot occupy the same identical space simultaneously. The pitching hand and hip go through about the same space when using the close the door "style." It stands to reason that the hip must come after or go before the pitching hand. It cannot go at the same moment. And if you try to close the door before bringing the ball, you are going to experience pain like you won't believe, not to mention some nasty bruises on your leg!
I don't necessarily believe that an examination of overhand throwing is relevant to a full discussion of windmill beyond the recognition that the sideways lever - the one caused by resistance of your landing leg - requires a closing of the door. It isn't possible to stop the door from closing without making an effort to do it. And if you want to test this out, try going back to your game of catch and forcing yourself to end up open to your throwing hand side by 45 degrees after every throw. You will end up doing exactly what Bill seems to be trying to avoid.
As a final point to this specific part, Bill seems to feel as if the open 45 degrees approach ends right at ball release. He doesn't proceed to the half second after the ball is released. He stops looking at the hips once the ball has been released. I know this because he also says, "Ever see still photos of your pitching heroes ... Where is their hand/ball at the release ... It's under their stomach or in front of their body." I beg to differ. But before I do, I MUST consider what pitch my favorite star has thrown for the camera before I examine where her hand is.
The fact is when we talk about closing the door or not, we aren't getting very specific. We must be talking about a plain vanilla fastball since each pitch has a different follow through. And my favorite pitchers do not throw many fastballs. That's clear to you'all isn't it? If it isn't, let me state it clearly. Big time female windmillers do not throw a lot of fastballs. I would be surprised if they represented ten percent of the mix in anyone beyond maybe high school JV. Even that's a stretch. My 13 year old doesn't throw that many fastballs anymore. She did in 12U but after that, it's the movement pitches which dominate the way the four seamer does in baseball.
And each pitch requires different follow throughs. But I want to get into this below because of something else Bill talks about. And I think Bill's understanding of what the open-door folks are saying is different than my own.
Michele Smith doesn't simply say that your hips should be open at ball release, she says they should remain that way. In other words, after the ball has been released and before the pitcher makes any additional motion, as she would if she were trying to field a grounder, her hips remain open that same 45 degrees. Put another way, if she freezes after the pitch and just stays there, watching the batter swing and miss, her hips will remain open 45 degrees. I said it before but I'll repeat myself. That means she must make a conscious effort to maintain her openness since the body wants to close the door due to the force caused by the landing leg's resistance. She must expend energy to stop her body's momentum by flexing back and abdominal muscles. I just don;t see how that can possibly help a pitcher's speed.
Finally, Bill says:
"This also ties into the riseball, which is the most misunderstood and controversial pitch in the game. Because so many people share this mechanical philosophy of "slam the door", it's physically impossible to get back spin on the ball."
As I began to say above, the type of pitch dictates a lot including the follow through. The riseball and screw are open-hip pitches. There's no way to get spin on the ball and bring the hip. But your whole body's mechanics are different on rises and screws than they would be for a fastball. The same is true for curves which absolutely require a door closed beyond its frame - over-rotated hips. The flip drop needs open hip. Your change depends on the variety you throw - I think a closed door works best for backhand and reach-and-turn changes but an open hip is better for the old stop your arm in your armpit change. I don;t know about knuckle changes - I haven't seen them used much. You want your change to look like other pitches and that probably dictates whether you close or leav open the door. If you're a riseball pitcher, chances are pretty good you leave your hip open on your changes too.
Let me wrap this up by saying that I'm not sure I completely disagree with Bill Hillhouse. The differences between our approaches might be extremely slight. I believe the pitching mechanics Michelle Smith talks about are more drastically differentand those are the ones I disagree with most. The again, maybe I'm not understanding her.
With respect to what Bill wrote as a refutation of closed-door mechanics, I think he is exactly wrong in his understanding of overhand throwing. It's clear to me that overhand pitchers over-rotate and that any overhand thrower will close the door right behind them. That may not be entirely relevant to an examination of windmill but it does say something about the sideways lever we absolutely do use when throwing both underhand and overhand. The door can never close simultaneously with the ball release. It must happen afterwards. And the pitch variety has a huge impact on pitching mechanics. Nobody is advocating a closed door on a riseball. For that matter, nobody is advocating a closed door on very many pitches. But try to throw a drop curve with your hips remaing open 45 degrees. Now that would be a cute trick but don't try it - you'll hurt yourself.
Follow-up:
A number of folks have written in to advocate for open hips. I cannot publish them all. Here is the most concise one and my reply:
Patrick writes in to say:
Dave,
Regarding your recent entry on "Closing the Door." I went back and viewed video of Smith, Finch, and Fernandez on YouTube and it seems to me they all use an open hips/ no closing style. Now I think it is arguable that these are 3 of the best women's fastpitch pitchers to play the game. Isn't that strong evidence of the strength of that style? Please feel free to correct me if I have mischaracterized their style and it is not what you were referring to in your entry.
Patrick,
You forgot Cat Osterman, Taryne Mowatt, Monica Abbott, and several others! But, no, that doesn't convince me that their style is the most correct one, the most efficient movement possible. Take a look at Yukiko Ueno (http://youtube.com/watch?v=GX9Ss0jtGso). Now this, is a relatively short pitcher (about 5 foot 6?) and she has been recorded at 73 miles per hour (perhaps higher?). She is a closed hip pitcher. I consider that strong evidence that closing the hip is more efficient.Labels: pitching
 
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