How to increase pitching velocity and throw more strikes: Part 2 - The Back Knee

In part 2, Scott unveils what could be one of the most important tests you ever do to improve your pitching mechanics as he focuses on anchoring the back knee. In part 1 of this five part video series (view Part 1 here), Scott Haase introduces the first concept he has every player add into their routine as their foundation - the Anchor! There are five steps in total (foot, knee, stomach, eyes, breath) allowing baseball pitchers to throw harder by adding velocity, learn how to throw more strikes, and stay consistent and healthy.

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Full Transcript (will update):

How to increase pitching velocity and throw more strikes: Part 2 - The Back Knee

In this five part series, we are breaking down the best way to throw this thing really, really hard and to throw it consistently and to throw a lot of strikes and to stay healthy. There are five steps. They are to root your toes and glue your feet, to take care of your knee, make sure it's set up, to tighten your stomach, to visually be looking at a target, and lastly, to breathe with conviction.

In this video, I want to break down setting up your knees. So many of us, including myself as both a player and as a coach, we're taught and do sometimes teach guys to make sure that they keep their knee back as long as possible. And although this is good for 80 or 90 percent or maybe even more of athletes, it doesn't always work that way.

What I've been telling guys for the longest time is if you can get your feet, And your toes, like we talked about in the first video, if we can get your toes rooted and spread out into the ground, I'm a lefty, going this way, and we can get your whole foot into the ground and glued into the ground, then we take your knee and we just screw it.

We don't do it a whole bunch and your foot comes unanchored, but you are going to screw it into the ground that way. So back towards second base. What that does is create tension. torsion torque, or it creates basically the engagement of your quad a lot more. And when you do that, now you have a stronger anchor for your lower half.

So for your back leg, it's got a root into the ground. It's got the strength and the tightening of the back leg from that screwing. And then from there, you're just going to maintain that. as you go down the mound until rotation starts. So number one, we root the toes and we take the whole foot, glue it into the ground.

Step number two, now we are going to screw that thing into the ground. Here's a quick test though, that you maybe have never seen, and this will unlock the rest of the steps. And when you can put together this entire anchor, your velocity, your command, your health, and your consistent mechanics, repeatable mechanics.

Can then take off to the moon, get your toes situated, get your knee situated, right? But I want to bend my legs as much as possible. Yeah. Okay. Well, if I can only squat down this far or if I can only in a standard squat position, feet forward, shoulder width apart, keep the knees over the toes or, you know, tracking over the toes.

And if I can only go this far, well, that's not using my legs very well. I want to get more bend. Well, if I physically can't, I either, I guess don't use my legs as well, or I need to figure out another way. That other way is figuring out how you can best squat lowest. Some guys have to put their knees out.

Some guys have to put their toes. Out. Some guys have to get wider. Some guys have to do a combination of including potentially if your toes are out and your feet are out and you might even have to collapse your knees in a little bit and that helps you get lower. So if naturally because of your anatomy that helps you get lower, this could be an unlock for you to get lower and more into your knees.

So instead of setting up your knee here towards second base, you might actually benefit pitching more like. or having the mechanics more like one of the Japanese pitchers that we see a lot in the MLB where they actually have their knees collapsed more inward as they're pitching. So these, I like to tell guys, imagine there's a beach ball, not a beach ball, but a volleyball in between their legs and you're creating tension.

And then as you lift, you maintain that tension. That is the opposite tension of what I have been taught a lot of and have taught a lot of guys. Now we're going inside when we come set. So now I've got my feet rooted and glued into the ground. My knee is set up where it needs to be. And then the next step is the stomach.

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