Why staying relaxed will make you throw harder.
For most guys, an instant velo boost comes from thinking about staying relaxed until the very last second.
But a lot of people take that the wrong way.
They think relaxed means slow, and moving slow will hurt you more than help you.
That’s not what I mean.
When I say stay relaxed, think of a dead body.
Let gravity pull you down, stay loose throughout your delivery, and then at the very last second, tense as hard as you can.
There’s a viral clip of a Japanese trainer showing this.
If your arm is tense, it’s easy to push it down.
But if you stay relaxed and then tense at the last moment, it becomes almost impossible to move.
That’s the same idea I use in my delivery.
You stay relaxed, relaxed, relaxed, then at the last second you turn everything on.
It makes sense when you think about the stretch shortening cycle.
When your muscles are relaxed, you can stretch them quicker, which leads to more power output.
It’s the same reason that in a counter movement jump, if you go down quicker, you jump higher.
That’s what I’m trying to tap into in my pitching.