Softball Pitching - Why Spin Is Critical and How to Improve It

This weekend, I was sitting in the bleachers watching a softball game during a tournament and a man came over and introduced himself.

He recognized the logo of my website on my jacket because he`s an avid reader of this newsletter.

He told me all about his daughter - 5'6, 15 years old, lefty,  throws 54-56 mph, has a decent change, trying to master the  drop and the rise, practices 3 times per week for about an  hour - and he said that he didn't think she had progressed over  the last couple months.

I suggested to him that they should go to a pitching coach.  He said that they can`t really afford it since the season cost  so much so he is sorta becoming a pitching instructor for his daughter reading books and watching tapes on pitching.

After talking to him for a while and questioning him on what he was doing with his daughter, it became clear that he wasn't  doing enough spin work.

I told him that I was pretty sure that's the reason he wasn't seeing much progresses lately.

You MUST practice spinning the ball.

To get the ball to move - it MUST spin. Everything else is irrelevant if the ball doesn't spin.

And it must spin right to get the pitch you want. It doesn't matter what you do because at the end of the day, if that ball doesn't spin correctly, the ball will not rise or drop with a sharp effect.

Learning to spin the ball properly is the most critical skill a pitcher must master. It takes a lot of practice, time, and effort to spin the ball the properly.

I told my new friend that he gets a spinner and the Tightspin  Trainer  to help his daughter.

Both these items are great tools to learn and improve ball spinning.

The Tightspin Trainer also helps in making the ball spin even  faster by strengthening the finger and forearm muscles that  make the ball spin.

I am not that much into gadgets but I can easily recognize an effective training aid and the Tightspin Trainer is one of them.

I really like it because in addition to teaching you how to make the ball spin correctly, it also helps you make the ball spin faster. This makes the ball move even more.

Don't waste your time on a bunch of useless pitching drills unless you have a grip on how to spin the ball. Without that, a pitcher can't be effective.

Train hard. Play hard.

Who loves ya?

Marc
"Your Softball Peak Performance Coach"

Here is a video on how the Tightspin Trainer works: