Softball Pitching - How to Increase Speed By Staying Loose
This blog post on softball pitching and how to increase pitching speed was inspired from reading the post on the same topic from my friend and colleague Ken Krause on his blog:
You see, it's a natural reaction for an athlete who want to generate more force or power to "flex" their muscles in hope of generating more speed or power.
While that makes sense to think that contracting more muscles will equate to more force or speed, it is actually the wrong approach.
You have to understand that a tensed muscle is actually a slow muscle. In other words, a muscle under tension is slower, not faster. It's just a physiological principle.
I blogged about this principle a while back when I was talking about how staying loose is important to increase hitting power.
The same concept applies to pitching. For the best examples of that, you just have to observe some of the best pitchers in the world - a lot of them are doing some kind of pre-pitch routine or movement to help them stay loose. Lisa Fernandez was famous for her hoping on the mound a little with the goal of staying loose and tension-free.
They do this because they know that remaining loose and relax is the key to generating more speed and power.
You can also see evidence of this in other sports whether be in tennis or sprinting where athletes are trying to stay loose right before getting back into the action with the goal of being explosive and able to generate maximum speed and power.
So, if you want to generate more pitching speed, you have to learn how to stay loose while being explosive at the same time. It's subtle fine line.
The best way to describe is probably to say that you don't want to "force" your pitches.
Who loves ya? 
Marc
"Your Softball Peak performance Coach"
Hopefully these tips have been helpful. What do you think?
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