Timmy: Hips
The hips deliver the baseball. Period. It’s called proximal-to-distal movement, so your hips have to rotate to throw your shoulder then arm then hand at the plate. And the hips are driven by ground force coming up from your legs. Set them all up properly for efficient rotation and you set yourself up for a pro-quality knuckleball release.
Hip Mechanics
#1: Scoop Hips Underneath Your Spine.
Learn the difference between anterior and posterior pelvic tilt. It’s likely that you’re starting from a clinical anterior pelvic tilt, so you’ll have to scoop your hips underneath your spine for maximum rotation. And notice how much more you can rotate your upper body when you scoop your hips. They have to be scooped so that you get more power when they pop into extension.
#2: Catch & Load Tension Into Back Hip or Glute.
You need to keep your weight back as you fall down the mound, and that creates tension. You should feel your glute or back hip tense up while it carries your entire body weight towards the target. You need to hold this tension down the mound as if your holding back the ground energy that’s about to shoot up from the ground into your hand.
#3: "Throw" or Fire Back Hip With Front Foot in Air.
You must initiate hip rotation with the back hip. You cannot “open the gate” which means to open your front leg early which initiates a weaker hip rotation. I teach to fire the hips using the position of the knee, but it’s incredibly important that you initiate rotation of the hips with your front foot in the air so that you’re in a torqued position at landing and it allows you to throw the ball out in front of the body.
#4 Complete Hip Rotation With Front Hip Block.
Pitchers are often taught to drive off the rubber, but that’s false. We’ve already learned that you fall down the slope of the mound. But very few pitchers are taught that you drive off your front leg. This is called blocking, lead leg block or front leg drive. You need to complete hip rotation by blocking your front leg so that the front hip drives back into your body.