The beauty of video footage

Sunday, March 7th:  I ran four miles outside!  This is such a wonderful feeling after being indoors for a seemingly infinite amount of time.  The weather has become beautiful just in time for varsity season.  Running outside is definitely more challenging than running on a track indoors.  The hills are a killer.  I am often asked if running is good conditioning for pitching.  To be honest, the best conditioning for pitching is, you guessed it, pitching!  On the other hand, running does improve your heart rate and helps with overall conditioning.  Think about how pitching is very unique in terms of conditioning, though.  We do a movement that is incredibly explosive and incorporates nearly every muscle group in the body.  Then we stop.  Then we do it again.  Then we stop.  Then we will stop for a long time while our team is up to bat.  This requires a unique type of endurance that is really difficult to duplicate with any other kind of training.  That is why many pitchers struggle at the start of the season.  They may have been pitching all winter, but typically they will throw for an hour (or less) straight during those indoor practice sessions.  I think that pitching without breaks is much easier than that stopping and starting that is required in games.  It is so much easier for me to develop a continuous rhythm when I just keep going.  
Monday, March 8th:  I did a lot of elliptical and a light lower body workout with some core work and PT exercises.
Tuesday, March 9th:  Drill work, drill work, drill work!  I can't remember the last time I did this much. To increase the speed of my upper body, I did some circle snap circle and some work with the throwmax (even now, I always like to ensure that the circle is straight and fluid).  I also worked a lot on snap.  To work on my legs I did some sprinter's start, throw and run, and throw and jump.  I worked both screwball and change up.  I hadn't thrown screwball in well over a year and was utterly surprised at how effective it was.  Change up has been my favorite lately.  It is so comfortable and feels very smooth.  I would estimate that my speed is the same as last time, but I feel it will be a little better Friday because I had my dad film me today.  Filming is probably one of the best assets of the technological age for pitching instruction.  We can see everything, play it in slow motion, test out different angles, and generally get a great sense of what we are doing right and wrong.  I have been focusing mostly on my slow back leg in drills, but was I surprised to see that left leg dip when we filmed!  Ugh.  This will require a lot of work, though I did try engaging my abs and quads a little more after I noticed.  This did help.  I recommend that all pitchers do some filming.  If you film on a good day, always use that footage to refer back to if you are struggling.  If you film on a bad day, try to get some different angles and determine what you are having the most difficultly with so as to use appropriate drills to adjust.  How many of you are filming yourselves regularly?  Something to consider.