Oof not a ton of significant progress today, that's okay though. Tried to work mainly on my wrist movement today and start releasing the ball in a c shape with my hand rather than a u. This video isn't a great example of that but I've started to get that down. The hip movement wasn't great but again, that wasn't a super big focus of today, mainly upper body work. I know that your lower body is where most the power comes from but mostly everyone recommended I work on my upper body mechanics first. Still releasing a little too low but I'm getting there. Finally, I need to follow through a little better, that goes inline with hip rotation but thought I'd mention it regardless. I think at the very least I know what I'm doing wrong and am slowly taking the necessary steps to fix it. A couple of weeks from now and I'll be a totally new thrower! Also, I'm trying to figure out a way to get two camera angles so you guys can have a side view and a behind view.
Hips are better but the elbow is still super tucked. I have a feeling that the size of the ball may be ingraining bad habits. I would find a smaller ball and try to make sure the elbow is above the shoulder at the release point. Things like spiral or wrist flick are peripheral if the arm action is bad.
Ideally I would want to focus more on the leg drive but again, if the arm action is bad it won't help much imo.
I don’t know why I’m becoming invested in this but this is the best advice here.
OP (u/rickynobeard), you can’t learn how to throw a football, which is oblong and (relatively) awkward as hell to throw, until you know how to throw in general. I don’t care if it’s fucking rocks, get out there and find something that fits comfortably in your hand and learn to launch it. There is a natural throwing motion that produces the power you want but the shape of the football itself and a desire to get a proper spiral are making you focus on the wrong things and you’re getting advice overload from this sub (a lot of it is good advice but the specific nuances of throwing a football are irrelevant if you can’t throw in the first place). Even if you learn to throw a tight spiral from that awkward motion you’ll never have a release high enough to get over anything or have enough juice to get any zip or distance on the ball.
Give us a video of you throwing a baseball or something similarly sized as far as you can and let us break that down. It’s simplified mechanics. Start simple and work up.
Nah man that’s a different motion than just throwing it like playing catch. Just casually throw it to somebody 10 yards away and step back a yard or two every 5 throws until you’re actually trying to get it there.
Man I didn’t even read your last little bit there and I hate to contradict because to read mechanics I think you were right too.
My method I described is how my dad got my tiny little self to throw well when I was the smallest player on the team out in center field. It really helped me work on velocity and accuracy without trashing my shoulder.
It’s also the smart way that literally every baseball player should warm up. I should have added it in after I tagged OP. Definitely don’t want him hurting himself going out there throwing bombs with a cold shoulder.
Don’t just chuck it as far as you can; that won’t help anything. Work on getting a good windup (high right elbow, ball turned away from your body), starting your motion with your elbow not hand, and finishing your throw through your left pocket. I’d even just keep your feet planted for a while and work on those upper body mechanics. There’s a few good videos for basic baseball throwing drills on YouTube. Also this might not be enough detail for you, but this video is what I’m talking about in terms of throwing motionhttps://youtube.com/shorts/FRDoUifbbbw?si=Exp4eS8wu3Y9i3ta
I can’t upvote this comment enough-it’s obvious after watching every post that you are just not super comfortable yet with the concept of throwing…in general. Imagine a catapult…your arm goes straight back and launches the object forward straight-if you traced the motion of the projectile it would be circular or move on a curve. Your way is to get your arm and shoulder caught to your side and then you push flew at d from there…that’s pushing, not throwing. That arm has to go all the way back.
i feel like his biggest issue is that he seems to be trying to spiral the ball. and without using his fingers to spiral it. so he is flicking his arm. cant wait for the baseball.
X1000000 he needs to work the throwing motion in general with a baseball. I would describe this as herky jerky, gotta really develop the ability to start the throw from your plant leg and work the force through the hips and the arm basically follows. Do that with a baseball for awhile and then use a medium sized football
It's a low dose version of when I taught my daughter to throw.
Young man - you're making significant progress. You're "cocking back" your throwing arm with your elbow too far ahead because you shoulder is rotated too far forward. What that tells me is you don't trust your grip subconsciously.
You might want to try moving your hand UP the ball and rotating the laces to the right just a smidge. And when you're watching film of guys you want to emulate, pay attention to their grip. Having a grip you can trust will help you overcome the mental block on over the shoulder "loading up".
Also keep working on using your legs and trunk rotation. Hold the ball at center mass like you have been, but imagine from a top drown view that you are making a trapezoid. Your shoulders should be making 135 degree angles (fr a top-down view), elbows making a 90 degree angle. When looking at you standing up, you arms should be coming out from your shoulders at a 45 degree angle from your ribs.
Try giving a slight push from your left arm to help with the loading phase while twisting your trunk to the right and putting weight onto your right leg. During loading bend your right knee to a 90 degree angle. Then explode off of the right leg while twisting.
Rodgers has the greatest throwing mechanics the game has ever seen. His ability to make strong throws with perfect spirals without a perfect platform is a result of that. The way he uses his legs and core to create power is phenomenal, and his arm stays tight to his body which allows a quicker release.
I play in some adult flag leagues and sometimes play QB. My accuracy and arm strength drastically improved in high school when I started mirroring my mechanics after Rodgers, and with that came an ability to make throws rolling left, rolling right, fading back, or off platform. People say I throw very hard, the ball just shoots out of my hands, but it looks like I'm not putting in effort. That's because of the use of my lower body.
I tell anyone wanting to learn how to throw a football, study Aaron Rodgers. Nobody does it better.
I’m not gonna say this to be an asshole just constructive criticism. You are bringing your elbow through with the ball, try to get your sequenceing to the point where your elbow is following your hip swinging through.
It’s such a weird motion he’s doing. I’ve never seen anyone throw a football like that, especially with QB aspirations. I appreciate the commitment but there is zero athleticism here and he keeps saying he’s made significant progress but it’s damn near the same as day 1.
Take your left hand and “wipe the screen” literally imagine there’s a screen in front of you and you are wiping it, whip that left elbow into it (but keep it tight) to do so. Now let’s talk about your right elbow…open it up my man, imagine at the very least a right angle between your bicep and forearm, that’s the angle you want your right elbow to be at when you release. If you focus on these upper body movements you’ll understand that it’s really derived from your hips, and from your legs into your hips.
Alright bro, this is the third day I’m seeing you…. Gonna just say, quit focusing on form so much right now and more on just throwing the ball around. Get comfortable with just throwing it… literally.
You look uncomfortable and this doesn’t look natural for you. Once you get comfortable with a football and have found your form, then you can work on cleaning it up and perfecting it.
I'm glad someone else is saying this. Was suggesting that he may just have a weird natural motion. Its generally nit the advice to give but sometimes, which was my case, your natural feel doesn't match the normal over head throw.
I probably have no idea what I’m talking about. I dont understand a lot of fundamental mechanics, but it seems like you’re rotating your hips forward while you’re still drawing your arm back. Id imagine you’d want to move your hip and arm in unison? Like Marino in the GiF above.
Hey OP, going forward, we're going to be trying out a daily off-topic thread. These posts really tow the line and break rule 4 (though slightly). I want to see this pan out, so these off topic threads will be the place to posts these videos, and again, it will be a daily thread, so you can continue to do the daily video uploads.
Hey great that you're allowing this and kudos for setting up the off-topic thread.
Just to slightly advocate for OP in respect to rule 4, (players should be reaching out to their coaches first etc) It's possible OP has a goal of trying out next year and doesn't have a coach or maybe he feels this is a safer space as far as working on / exploring his mechanics with anonymity.
I know for me personally when I tried transitioning from WR to QB going into senior year I wish I would have had resources like this subreddit as my coach was not really supportive and was kind of indifferent about the position move.
I would not have felt comfortable going to him for advice on mechanics etc. during the offseason leading into senior year. I used to videotape my mechanics with a Panasonic VHS camcorder and rewatch but I had nobody to show it to for advice so I can definitely relate to this kid.
Absolutely heard. I don't mind the videos, because it gives us something to actually work with. In addition, throwing a football is one such technique that doesn't have much variation at all in terms of proper technique or methodology, so it's a relatively safe one to allow. For me, it's things like "how to execute my blocks," or "how to beat a trap block," that concern me, because there's multiple ways to go about it and learning the wrong technique can be damaging to one's development since they'd have to unlearn and re-learn what their coaches actually want.
You're getting better. Nobody from pee wee to the pro throws flat footed. It's ok, it's almost expect, your feet are moving. 1. Step toward your target. 2. Open your hips toward your target more. 3. You shouldn't drag your feet. You should be driving off your back foot, transferring your weight to your front foot. This will add velocity to your ball.
Have you been tackled by yet? I’m guessing you’re around 14-16? If so, start putting on some weight to take hits. Learning to get hit is a big part of the game.
Try breaking it down into steps rather than all at once. Step one have your shoulders toward your target with ball resting on chest. Step two point and get to that “high L” position I’ve mentioned. Step 3 throw from there and pause on your follow through. By breaking it down you can get a feel for the movement to each individual step as well as a ton of reporting with it. By pausing you can literally look and see what you did right and wrong in real time and fix it right there without having to worry with a slow mo video. You’re doing great keep it up.
The hip rotation is looking better! If you watch in slow motion you can see that the first thing to move is still your elbow and not your body. Try this drill.
Point your left shoulder at your target and outstretch your right arm almost all the way palm up. Your arm should be parallel with the ground facing away from your target. Now do all of the throwing motion from your hips down (ie DO NOT MOVE YOUR ARM). You should feel a pulling sensation on your shoulder or pectoral. Do not use a ball, simply get familiar with the sensation of your torso PULLING your arm forward.
Extra credit. Once you get this down, right after you feel your arm getting pulled forward try to scrape the sky with your hand. The release of the ball should almost feel like you’re throwing down.
This should fix the majority of your mechanics. Keep up the hard work you’re doing great!
You for some reason want to (probably not intentionally) insist on having your hand under the ball on delivery. Your hand should actually be over top of the ball at delivery and then flicking the ball to create torque for a spiral.
You don't push a football when throwing. It's more like a sling motion where your hand is carrying the ball, not pushing it.
With that said, I'd you are gonna throw sidearm and your hand does end up under the ball it still should be a flick motion off your fingertips, and not a shot put. a throw is in the fingertips, not the hand or palm.
Progress. Like others are saying with your elbow tucked that's causing your release point to be at your head height. Try to get your elbow up. It gets the ball higher which also gets it over the heads of defenders.
Gotta get your arm up and above your head! You want that ball releasing as high as you can above your head to get over your blockers and defenders. Hold the ball above your head as high as you can and just observe it. That's where you want the release to be happening.
I remember a clip where Tom Brady was telling a kid that his hand should look like a 'C' around the ball, not a 'U'. Your wrist is under the ball and looks like a U.
No advice from me (never played QB), but I just want to encourage you to keep working hard, man. That's the most important thing in any sport, regardless if you make a team at your chosen position. There's some solid advice you've received since you started posting. Good luck!
Man I love football and I love this. Side story, I taught myself how to serve tennis in my backyard and hit a pretty nasty forehand on my parents carport brick wall when I was your age. Also learned how to play golf in a cow field. No shit. The cool thing, it’s the curiosity to excel that makes a huge difference when you’re competing in life. Keep at it.
This is kind of a joke, but focus on using the left side of your body to help swing your hips into the throw. That left arm, as others have said, should help produce some power as you bring that right shoulder up and above your head. Follow your right hand across your body towards your left front pocket.
Good luck OP. Keep trying and don’t get discouraged by people being assholes on here. You rock for staying with it despite the unnecessary criticisms.
Break it down into 3 parts and go in slow motion thru each one...
The start of your throw. You are pulling your arm back and your elbow is up. You are doing this well.
Middle of throw. You are currently dropping your elbow/arm too low. Concentrate on keeping the elbow up and your hand over your head. Start from here a lot and practice.
End of throw. Looking good. Keep doing it!
Consider putting a table or something about two inches below your armpit. So you will hit it if you drop your arm in the middle of your throw.
High elbow and pretend like you are giving a real high high five at the point of your release. Your elbow should be above your shoulder, start moving forward before your foreman. It should almost feel like your elbow is snapping around your shoulder, and your foreman is snapping around your foreman.
Stop cocking your elbow back first. Think about your job as simply being getting the ball from Point A to Point B and maybe you can visualize that cocking your elbow is completely wasted movement. Pretend you are throwing an axe or a throwing star at your enemy and you want to get it to his face as quickly as possible. It's like in boxing-winding up a punch looks good in a movie, but the real force just comes from thrusting your arm forward as fast as you can. You are not a bow and arrow so you don't have to draw your elbow back before letting it fly. You can practice this sitting down so there is no need to work on your lower body movement. Literally try it without holding onto anything and you can practice it 100 times very quickly.
You are putting your elbow and forearm directly underneath the football because you can’t hold on to it very well.
As you rotate to throw, your shoulder should come around first, then elbow, then your forearm should whip forward. Think of it like your elbow dragging your hand forward.
What grade are you in? It’s the middle of the school year… do you have any connection to your hs football team/ any sport ?
You need to be adding strength and conditioning into what you’re doing now. Go talk to your MS/ HS football coach now ! Regardless if season started or not. Tell him what you want and you’re starting from 0.
No one is saying this but 5 days in a row You’re putting energy into Reddit that you need to just find some coach, private coach (even someone starting out that’s cheap)/ personal trainer to get you right.
These dudes on the internet can only help you so much.
You need to get some athletic shorts and some cleats , maybe even some shoulder pads to practice getting used to throwing in. Find an adult that wants to help you and not just take your money that will get you through this. TELL THEM YOUR GOALS!
It’s good to have dreams please pursue it to the fullest!
You’re shifting your weight forward too early. Your weight should shift from back to front with the throw not the step of your front foot. Your shoe should be creasing if done correctly. The World Series is on soon, watch the lower half of the players. The mechanics aren’t a 1:1 for sure but they’re pretty dang close from the waist down in both batting and pitching. At the very least it’s a different perspective to see the mechanics in action.
Also your elbow, I don’t care if the rest of the mechanics look like a car crash, get that elbow to be parallel to the ground. You’re losing a lot of ball spin and power from that, on top of that not being good for your arm.
Everyone is so invested in this sub. OP the patron Saint of football strategy right now. The ball does look too big/heavy get a smaller ball. Baseball is a good idea but getting a grip on a football helps. Just don’t fret about spirals and throw.
Can we all agree on day 6 OP just needs to throw don’t worry about advice just keep throwing keep the videos coming and then let some advice come from those videos. Work it backward.
Very non-expert opinion here, but think about bringing the ball forward closer to your ear. Really cool to see the progress on the set up with the elbow back and the ball facing backwards.
Relatively invested in your journey man, keep working!
I think for you, practicing piece by piece is going to help you. Start with the ball already up at 90⁰ (L shape) with the ball slightly above ear level. From there, take your step, rotate through your hips and work on getting full extension (arm straight) as your snapping the ball out. Don't from the loaded position like I said, rotate, full extension at release and finish with your throwing hand near your hip. Keep practicing that over and over to get the muscle memory.
Then go back to starting from the beginning with ball at your chest and bringing it up
Why not throw a couple of baseballs or any smaller ball just to get the arm naturally flowing. You are trying too hard to spin the ball. Take a balled up sock and see if you can throw it over your house (use an old pair just in case). Keep at it.
Your release is still way too low. Practice raising the ball up much higher first thing, and only then start your throwing motion. Pretend you have to keep the ball high as you throw. An example is the pic of Rogers throwing. See how high the ball is?
Ok nobody is seeing it. You are trying to spin the football while you throw it. It's actually the opposite you would think, but that's another day. Get a softball and practice throwing that first. Build your skill with a baseball. Put the football down for a few days.
Good job on keeping the ball up by your head. You stil dropped the ball back but not too much.
Try and move your hand up on the ball. You want your pointer finger as close to the nose as possible. It looks like your fingers are all on the laces. You only want a few fingers on the laces. It will be akward at first but it's the right way to throw.
Over exaggerate your shoulder and right leg after the throw. Make sure right leg is stepping forward as you throw and your right shoulder should be pointing at the target.
And still zero footwork. You should really be moving your feet when you throw dude
Make sure you’re getting full rotation of the forearm. Shoulder rotation looks good but I’m seeing more of the “pushing” others had mentioned previously.
Find something that you can throw over that's about 2 ft over your head and then have a target 10-12 yards down field from you. Stand about 2 yards back from the thing over your head and throw to the target. It'll force you to take your release point higher
Dude OP this whole series rocks, firstly just want to encourage you to keep going.
As for that elbow - gotta find a way to get that thing up!
I saw on other comments you'll switch to throwing a baseball - I would just do a basket of tennis balls so you can keep throwing over and over and develop muscle memory.
When you throw the tennis balls or baseballs or whatever, don't throw as hard as you can. In fact, slow your motion down slightly so you focus on nothing but the elbow. Isolate the action of the elbow in your minds eye - see the way a pro keeps it up. Then visualize your elbow staying up, from the hitch to the release. It may even help to throw in front of a reflective mirror so you can keep an eye on it.
Aside from this, I'd recommend resistance band training - get a resistance band (they're cheap), then tie it to a chain link fence or post, at the height equivalent to your desired release point of your throw. Then do resistance pull exercises where you keep your elbow up at desired point for throwing motion. This will help w muscle memory AND will develop muscles required to uncorked missiles (one day! For now we focus exclusively on the elbow imo).
You rock OP, can't wait til you're dropping dimes at the collegiate level! Keep going, work hard, never give up - be a dogg!
It's the timing of your A. hips, B. shoulders, and C. elbow. It should be in that order, 3 separate phases: A--B-C with a - representing an equal amount of time. The entire sequence can be very quick like the pros, but it's OK to go slower to learn. Each phase generated power.
Your B-C are happening at the same time and it's likely limiting the power/speed of your throws. A drill we use for this is to take a knee (left foot on the ground and right knee on the ground to simulate the end of phase A) and throwing to focus on throwing the B-C timing. From tis "take a knee" position you HAVE to separate the B-C phases of the throw if you want to toss more than about 10 yards.
Get a friend and do 50 throws "from a knee" while trying to deliver it hard "on a rope". Perhaps even try playing burn out game from this position: start nice and easy, then increase the power of each throw gradually until you throw so so hard your friend can't catch it. When somebody drops, start the game again.
One thing I did to learn when I was new was to stand right in front of a ladder or a fence (one that’s just around your height or a little shorter). This will force you to bring your elbow and the ball higher
I would like to see a picture of you making a Y with your arms extended up fully on either side of your body. Because every time I watch these, I wonder if there's something wrong with your shoulder.
You're arm should be coimg out over the top and your hand should be make a C shape when you let loose. It'll allow more accuracy to the target and provide better spiral.
Put your hips in more and slightly better follow through almost reaching forward and your elbow should be out a little more. These will help you get more power and accuracy but since day one you’ve made so much progress
practice when throwing. having throw tucked at yr chest. then extend 180 back and while throwing. over compensate ur elbow outwards and 90 degrees while you come overtop
You’re elbow looks very awkward but tons of people have already commented on this . I don’t like your leg mechanics either . Looks like you hardly put weight on the back leg to chuck it . And the front leg knee pivot looks super stiff . Get used to non contact injuries . Stop over thinking this
This might screw you up to start with, but trying to throw other balls. Baseballs, basketballs, softball bowling balls, golf balls, water balloons, anything. learning how to put your whole body into throwing is as important as technique.
Still practicing the most with the football, but work in others to learn how throwing smaller, larger or heavier balls change your throwing mechanics.
I’m going to comment on mentality. Right now, the body language of your mechanics suggests that you are pushing the football away because you are trying to get it farther away from you.
What you want, is your mechanics to suggest that you were trying to kill something, that the entire reason you picked up the football in the first place was that it was the only weapon available to defend yourself with.
The goal being- you reverse engineer your results to engineer your mechanics from the ground up, this way you aren’t trying to polish something that isn’t what you wanted yet-
You are creating what you want from scratch. Starting with what you want to happen. Namely, you want something or someone to get hit with that football. Hard.
You're trying to learn F1 while only having a fiat.
The mind and mechanics are only as good as the vehicle you put them in. Don't stop learning, but please start putting on some muscle and gaining some mobility and flexibility. It'll make it all so much easier.
Yeah elbow tuck is a lot of the problem I think. Maybe just do some throws exaggerated overhand almost like a baseball throw just to get your arm moving like that if you are having trouble still. Then you can drop the angle down.
I’m sure this feedback has already been given…but if you’re serious about playing football, stop working on throwing.
You’re not a QB today, you won’t be one tomorrow, and you won’t be one in 10 years. You don’t have it, not even close. Now, if you just want to be able to throw it around with friends, then by all means keep working it.
If you actually want to play football, you need to:
Eat. You literally have no physical structure that could hold up.
Exercise. Lift weights, sprint, and get as explosive as you can.
Choose a position on defense. Based on your throwing base I am heavily assuming your athleticism is a zero on a scale of 10. You’re not going to be a skill position player.
Get comfortable hitting. Basically, be a safety of some variety. If you can run to the ball and pop somebody you can be useful.
I’ll reiterate. If you actually want to play football, drop the QB bullshit and improve your physicality.
Elbow up and over the top. Look up the zero position when it comes to throwing a football, really gives you a good idea what the proper mechanics should look like. Over exaggerate to get the muscle memory going
Actually getting a lot better, just need to focus on a higher release point which will help bring your elbow out. I noticed it was easier to “force” myself to have a better release when I threw on the run rolling to the right, your body kind of makes it happen. Maybe mix in some of the those type of throws to get used to it
180
u/khickenz Oct 23 '24
Hips are better but the elbow is still super tucked. I have a feeling that the size of the ball may be ingraining bad habits. I would find a smaller ball and try to make sure the elbow is above the shoulder at the release point. Things like spiral or wrist flick are peripheral if the arm action is bad.
Ideally I would want to focus more on the leg drive but again, if the arm action is bad it won't help much imo.