Wrist Snaps or Flips for Pitching and Throwing Warm Ups

[InSider]

Happy Independence Day, folks!

After watching years and years of fastpitch, one thing has always stuck out to me. The "Wrist Flip" during warm ups. Can someone explain the purpose of these to me? I ask because I have heard the reasoning that it helps with strengthen the wrist. Well, the wrist has no muscles. So what, exactly, are these flips strengthening? If you say it helps with spin, again, I ask how. I am sitting here with a ball in my hand trying to figure this out. Yes, the wrist helps to move the throw/pitch, but it appears that the fingers are actually driving the spin.

Try this. Put the ball in your hand as if to throw or pitch it. Use just your wrist, with no finger action, to throw the ball. It heads straight into the ground with zero spin. Now try it with just rolling it off the fingers. For me, I can actually get a good amount of spin, and a little bit (relative) of distance.

So please enlighten me as to why you believe these "flips" or "snaps" are an integral part of your player's warm up. Or tell me why not. I am all about being proven wrong.

 

[dominic21]

It helps w muscle memory to get the pitcher to release the ball at the right time every pitch. My daughter does a modified wrist snap where she starts a little behind bottom position and finishes forward, making sure she releases the ball at the same position every time.

 

[fastjay]

I've always wondered why baseball pitchers don't do wrist snaps....maybe cuz they're a waste of time?!

 

[FastBat]

My dd does "snips" or "wrist snaps", I guess we could call it anything. But we use them to make sure she is spinning the ball with her finger tips and the snip is correct. If the ball needs to go end-over-end, she should be able to "snap" or "spin" it end-over-end, up close.

If she is warming up quickly, she just skips spins and goes into quarters with feet. She does have a very distinct warm up to practice her mechanics every time she pitches.

 

[MotorCityMadness05]

Thought this was an interesting topic to comment. I have wondered the same thing in the past but have developed my view over the years.

Baseball pitchers do wrist snaps too. If you warmup throwing through proper progression, all players should do this overhand. This translates the same to underhand. Our team does this as part of throwing progression every practice and game. It builds throwing fundamentals.

Wrist movement provides additional speed and spin/rotation. An example for a short stop is getting the proper 4 seam spin on a throw to first. Without it, the throw will be less accurate. This is proven technique for baseball and softball. Timing of release is important as well to get these benefits.

Pitching instructors work to develop wrist movement and control. My daughter spent most of her last lesson focusing on wrist snap and differences through all of her pitches in her last lesson.

All movement in your body is controlled by muscles, the dominant muscle in a wrist movement is your forearm. You will gain strength that you can see over time. This is where players try to squeeze out small advantages. Wrist curls in weight training are used for increasing forearm strength also. However, strength gain threw your wrist movement is limited. So it is easy for people to dismiss this as not important.

This is a fine tune difference in throwing, similar to a golfer who can make minor changes in order to fade or draw a shot. Details make differences.

 

[Fairman]

Wrist snaps only purpose is to allow the pitcher and her catcher to catch up on the gossip and reconnect in a private conversation. Not unimportant but certainly note worth more than a few minutes.

 

[longball00]

DD had the privilege to pitch with Mike White from Oregon. When he told the pitchers to warm up and get ready to throw, a majority of them started off with wrist snaps. He stopped everyone and asked why. In his opinion, wrist snaps were for practice/lessons, not for warm ups. Warm ups were to get loose, not "to practice spinning, you should be doing that at home/practice" I have always thought the same thing, and totally agree. Don't get me wrong, they are important, and DD will do 3 of each pitch in a warm up if she has more than enough time, just for feel.

 

[M & R Davis]

Here is an excerpt from someone else on another forum in regards to a Rick Pauly story about wrist flips. There are a lot of great pitching coaches around and Mr. Pauly would fit in to that list for sure. I can verify that this winter at a clinic in IN he said this exact same thing right at the beginning of the clinic. Also know that none of the pitching coaches I have been lucky enough to hear in person that I would also put in to that top category encourage or teach wrist flips. If you watch video of the best pitchers in the world you will see that there is no wrist flip involved in their motion. That is proof enough for me that my daughter will never spend a second of her time doing them.

Rick Pauly had the after lunch pitching clinic in the gym. He had a team pitcher and catcher demoing the correct way to warm up and he told all the young girls to NEVER spend another minute of their lives doing wrist flips or finishing with a high elbow (HE) ! There was a dad/coach probably standing within 10 feet of me who whistled and got two girls attention and said "get up, let's go"! Rick never even turned around to acknowledge the guy

 

[FastBat]

...he told all the young girls to NEVER spend another minute of their lives doing wrist flips or finishing with a high elbow (HE) ! There was a dad/coach probably standing within 10 feet of me who whistled and got two girls attention and said "get up, let's go"!

That's funny, had he suggested use HE, the rest of the parents would have left!

 

[lewam3]

I KNEW IT!! It only took 8 replies before we got to the first H.E. comment. Still awaiting that SW Ohio guy to chime in about "Where can I find an instructor in Ohio who teaches the I/R?????

 

[InSider]

It helps w muscle memory to get the pitcher to release the ball at the right time every pitch. My daughter does a modified wrist snap where she starts a little behind bottom position and finishes forward, making sure she releases the ball at the same position every time.

If you are doing this to promote muscle memory, would not your pitcher be stopping her arm to release? Wouldn't you want to perform the entire arm circle so that there is no hesitation at the time of release? Wouldn't practicing a full arm circle, focusing on release, be more beneficial?

 

[InSider]

My next question then, would be, "How many elite pitchers do you see doing wrist snaps".

 

[coachjwb]

My next question then, would be, "How many elite pitchers do you see doing wrist snaps".

While I have always questioned the value of wrist snaps myself, there are definitely highly thought of pitching instructors out there who do believe in them especially for young players starting out. So a better question might be "how many elite pitchers did them when they were younger?"

 

[FastBat]

Wouldn't you want to perform the entire arm circle so that there is no hesitation at the time of release?

I think of them more as a "drill." There are some people out there who don't believe in breaking things down and working on them with drills. I really like drills.

If we agree they may or may not be beneficial, why not just do them? After all, doing spins probably amounts to 10-20 minutes a month of pitching time.

 

[crystlemc]

Ah, but if you agree that they may or may not be beneficial, why not just NOT do them?...lol.

Seriously though, my DD has never done one in her life. Her pitching coach believed they were an absolute waste of time. He is an elite men's fastpitch pitcher.

My take is that wrist flips are pointless, because if your daughter is "whipping" her arm around the circle, instead of pushing the ball, her hand will never be in the position it's in when doing wrist flips. As the arm goes around the circle, it will naturally (the arm) rotate in the shoulder socket and the elbow joint and kind of roll over at the bottom. If you watch slow motion video of Finch, Osterman, Abbot, and Ueno, none of them ever get into a wrist flip kind of position during their pitch. Netiher do Pauly, Nelson, Fernandez, Ricketts.... on and on ad nauseum.

 

[crystlemc]

Wrist snaps and a straight arm go hand in hand. I dont teach either one.

Still a lotta wrist snappin going on though!

Neither does this guy. 10:00 mark


https://youtu.be/jlYLTMlhyNs

That guy is DD's pitching coach...lol.

 

[lewam3]

My next question then, would be, "How many elite pitchers do you see doing wrist snaps".

I don't know what you consider an elite pitcher, but every pitcher that is a pupil of the Leffew's does some form of release point spin drills at the beginning of warm ups. They have pitchers that play rec, travel, tournament, High school, D3, D2, and D1 college ball. They may not be elite by your definition, but they do succeed at some level, I suppose.
The key to a good pitch is speed, location, proper spin and command. Not whether a pitcher warms up with a wrist snap or not. I feel bad that you are losing sleep over kids doing wrist snaps, but I don't think it really matters if you are succeeding at the level that you strive for.

 

[ALOFastpitch]

I am on here very rarely and even less often do I address anything. I read the most recent post about pitchers and noticed some disagreements with certain tactics a certain Instructor school is teaching. I hope you will allow me to clear up a few misunderstandings...
1. We do not teach HE, we want the elbow to follow the path of the ball (fastball only) loose and natural. Where that ends depends on how your body finishes.
2. We do some sort of spin or release point drill in our lessons every time to work on arm whip, release point, and use of fingers for rotation.
3. The device the girl was using is called a ThrowMax, it is only used for pitchers who's arm circles are hugging their head and have little to no extension. It's actually a tool used in baseball most often but very useful for softball as well. I hope you can see the picture as it shows very clearly that a perfect amount of bend is allowed to create arm whip. If you can not see please google throwmax.

I hope this helps - its very easy to get the wrong impression of the intentions of the coaches out there. There's a lot of good ones! The most important thing you can look for in a pitching instructor is someone that continually educates themselves on the science of the pitch AND that your daughters respond, enjoy, and improve. Have a great day!