If you, your child, or someone on a baseball team that you coach is interested in improving their ability and performance as a pitcher, one of the best tools that you can use to help them in that journey is a radar gun.
Radar guns are used to measure the speed and velocity in which a ball travels from the pitcher’s mound to home plate. You have probably seen the speed of pitches when you go to a Major League Baseball game, and the way in which they measure that speed is through a radar gun. See more.
Though you may think that the only way in which a radar gun becomes useful is just so show off how fast you throw, you would be mistaken. In fact, radar guns can serve as a major tool for amateur and pro pitchers alike. Here are the major ways how:
Enhance your power
One of the key factors that go into a pitcher being able to throw that unhittable fastball is power. Power stems from the root of the pitcher’s body and transfers all the way up to their torso, through their arm, into the ball and past home plate.
However, it can be hard to know if power is something that you need to work on unless you are highly aware of the power that you already have. A radar gun is a crucial tool for knowing whether or not your pitch is moving as fast as you want it to.
If you find that you are not quite hitting that ideal speed, there are a lot of different upper and lower body exercises and workouts a pitcher can do in order to improve their strength and increase the amount of power that they are putting behind the ball.
Monitor your throwing intensity
Chances are good that you have seen a pitcher throw 7 innings and then immediately go to the bullpen to ice their throwing shoulder. This is a product of monitoring a pitcher’s usage to not put tons of stress on the arm and risk injury.
A radar gun can be helpful in monitoring intensity as well in multiple ways:
- It can help make sure that a player returning from injury is developing slowly and on schedule
- It can help a player who is preparing for the grind of a season who wants to get back into form after a break
- Also it can help a pitcher who wants to improve, but also smartly and safely manage their workload
Improve your velocity
Of course, the main goal of any pitcher is to improve their velocity to a point that they are the most dangerous pitcher on their team. Using a radar gun to monitor that velocity, setting goals, and ultimately meeting those goals is a fantastic way to improve as a pitcher and teammate.
Being able to see the actual results (an increase in speed) with hard work is sure to push you, or the pitcher in your life even further!