As a pitcher or any baseball player, video is a big help in finding out what is right and wrong mechanically and what you can do to improve. I find it very useful to analyze those who are very successful at what they do and try to apply as much as possible to my own practice. I know many players do this and it is a great way to figure out even the smallest details about your own personal mechanics in any aspect of the game. To demonstrate this in this post I found a video that breaks down why Mariano Rivera is so successful and even as a fan of the game this video is worth watching. He is the best ever at what he does and there are many reasons why. (video is not actual footage but a breakdown of his cutter and why its so good)
I tend to watch a lot of slow motion breakdown videos of pitchers with a variety of styles and try to figure out what makes each individual so successful. There are plenty of videos on YouTube of pitchers such as Mariano Rivera, Brian Wilson, Tim Lincecum, Randy Johnson...Just to name a few. Each of these vary in mechanics but all are upper echelon pitchers at the highest levels. (I know there are also plenty of hitting videos as well but for sake of shortening the post I focus on what I do currently.) Using video of myself and videos of the other pitchers I try to compare without over analyzing. Each individual does what is best for them and that is not what necessarily is best for you. However, in comparing at certain areas of delivery, such as balance point, landing point and areas in between, you can see most pitchers tend to have similarities at the key points which allow for their success. This is where the focus of the comparison takes place.
I try to get as much of my throwing work on video as possible to compare how I felt while throwing to what I was actually doing mechanically. I do this because I like to remember what it looked like when I throw well and felt good and compare it to times when it did not feel as great or didn't locate as well. Comparing those videos along with the videos of the other pitchers is a big help in learning how you can improve yourself each time out.(Previous posts have videos of my bullpens and flatgrounds so I wont put them here again) I included one video of Brian Wilson below as an example of some slow mo video break down.
Of course it always helps having another eye on your video and mechanics, so having a coach or a teammate is a big help in the video work as well. As the title says its more than just physical work and doing everything on its own only goes so far. The combination of all aspects of the mental and physical prep is what I feel helps get you better as an overall athlete.
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