POV: You Adjust Your Foot Pressure to Throw Harder. Even when I was with the Phillies throwing 98 miles an hour, I still didn't know how I should be using my back leg. I used to think to myself, "Should I get into my heel or my toes?" Well, when I got into my toes, I felt athletic and explosive, but I'd leak into my quad. If I loaded into my heel, though, I felt strong but slow. So I had to look at what the best in the world were doing with their back foot. When I looked at the force plate data of elite pitchers, what I found was clear. The hardest throwers minimized the amount of Y force, meaning they didn't put too much force on their toes or their heel. They just kept a neutral back foot. And this makes sense. Every time I load into my toes, I dive into my quad, become pushy, and I can't block with my front leg very well. But when I load into my heel, it feels like I can't even rotate out of it. So as obvious as it seems, the answer is to stay athletic and not get domed up about foot pressure, because chances are you're messing yourself up.