The other day I posted a tweet about Garrett Richards and how rotationally efficient he appears to be. Just watching him throw makes my eyes light up. You can literally see the rotational energy sequentially leave his body from his right leg, through his left leg, and then up through his torso, lat, pec, shoulder, and wrist, eventually leading into the baseball. It’s a sight to behold. But here’s the thing: not everyone throws like Garrett Richards. Not everyone looks as “pretty”, yet they find a way to produce the same result. How?
I introduce to you Dellin Betances. Note the fundamental differences between the way he and Richards move:
At one point or another, both of these guys have thrown the baseball well into the mid and upper 90’s. They both achieve similar results, in drastically different ways. Specifically, note how they take the baseball out of the glove, and the path it takes as they move into footplant, right before they begin applying force:
You’ll notice that Betances’ hand gets above his elbow much sooner. Whereas Richards’ hand seems to be a loose extension on his elbow that gets flipped up, Betances seems to be driving the throw, at least partially, with his hand.
This is essentially what I call a hand vs an elbow driven arm action. Here are some more notable examples of each:
Hand Driven:
Elbow Driven:
Characteristics
So some guys dominate the throw more so with the hand, and some dominate the throw more so with the elbow. Does it matter?
My hypothesis is that longer-levered throwers can get away with being more hand driven. By longer levered, I mean those with a greater wingspan. Think about it like this: the longer the lever, the more difficult it is to control from the center. Take a look at this playground swing:
The longer the swing extension, the stronger the base of the swing has to be. The difference between us and the swing is that our bodies won’t allow us to simply “break” if the lever produces force that is beyond the capability of the base. Our body wants to maintain homeostasis and avoid breaking, or in other words, injury. As a result, I hypothesize it is more difficult for longer levered individuals to be elbow dominated as their body feels the need to control the object with part of the lever (the hand/arm) versus the base (the legs/torso).
Now… this is pretty much all speculation. I don’t have numbers on every throwers wingspan, so I can’t say whether any of this holds true. It makes sense, but that doesn’t make it true. Anyway, moving on to more concrete and applicable things…
Characteristics (for real)
Their are several characteristics that seem to hold true for hand vs elbow dominated arm actions:
#1: External Rotation Achieved
By design, elbow dominated arm actions are more conducive to creating greater external rotation. The momentum, the loop of energy created by the hand and baseball, more easily leads into greater amounts of external rotation:
#2: Forward Torso Flexion
Hand dominated arm actions tend to lead to less forward torso flexion. This is closely related, or may even cause, characteristic #1 from above. By default, these throwers are dominating their movement more so with their extremities than their torso/midsection. As a result, the focus is not going to be on driving the torso forward, but instead on whipping the hand and arm forward as quickly as possible. This is tough to describe in words:
#3: Lead Leg Function
Due to the 2 characteristics from above, hand-driven throwers tend to have less time and distance over which they are able to accelerate the baseball. As a result, they must be able to use what they do utilize to the fullest. A good example of this is javelin throwers:
By design, javelin throwers need to control the implement with their extremities (the hand) more so than baseball players. The implement they are holding is heavier, and shaped differently, which requires them to start with their arm straight back behind them, much like what we saw early on in this article with Verlander’s arm action. However, the javelin is heavier, which allows them to get better use of their torso, lat and pec, than their hand-dominated, baseball throwing counterparts. Nevertheless, you’ll notice that Zelezny (above) immediately slams on the brakes with his lead leg upon front foot contact, ensuring a quick and explosive release of energy. His hand-dominated baseball-throwing counterparts must do the same:
Other
Now, not all throwers are one or the other. In fact, most of them aren’t. The majority are somewhere in the middle. Yordano Ventura and Tyler Glasnow are/were two notable examples of such. They both take the ball out with what appears to be a somewhat hand driven action, but still allow the baseball to fall nicely into the “arm spiral”, allowing plenty of torso flexion and layback:
Application
Goal: Figure out where you stand. How do you take the ball out of your glove? How much forward torso flexion do you naturally get? Are you long and lanky or short and compact? Do you struggle to control your extremities? All of these will play a role in how you go about shaping your throwing mechanics. Once you understand that…
For Hand Driven Throwers:
Even though it may appear you drive the throw more so with the hand, we still want to harness the power and energy of the torso. Here’s a drill I use with some of our remote guys who struggle feeling a torso dominated throw. Notice the arm is already up and ready to be accelerated. We’re simply working to feel where that acceleration should come from.
We discussed above the importance of a stiffer front leg for hand dominated throws. These drop to lateral leaps can help train the lead leg to be stiff upon contact (note: “stiff” does not mean locked out). Keep the volume low on this one. I’d recommend 2 sets of 5 as part of your throwing warmup until you understand the concept. It’s not really about the drill, it’s about helping you understand how to land with a stiff front leg. So once you understand and can execute it, you probably don’t need the drill (take special note of the back hip being open upon front foot contact. You can’t correctly brace the lead leg without full hip rotation):
For Elbow Driven Throwers:
Marrying forward torso rotation with a lat stretch and shoulder external rotation is going to be key for you:
Observing the relationship of your elbow relative to your ear is going to be another key for you. It’s easy for elbow dominated arm actions to become pushy instead of whippy. So understanding that relationship will better help you determine whether you’re creating whip that is driven by the torso, or whether you’re simply pushing the elbow forward:
Conclusion
In this article, I attempted to describe the difference between what I term hand and elbow driven arm actions. In addition, I wanted to help illuminate some of the characteristics I see in each, and how you might better be able to train after knowing which one you naturally lean towards. I hope this helped you in some way as you continue on your journey of becoming your own maxed out version of yourself.
If you have additional questions, comments, or are interested in learning and applying more of this to your own throwing through our remote training service, shoot me an email at brady@dacbaseball.com.
Stay Hungry.
Brady