Hand Action at Contact

RDB - I am guessing that you have dealt with hitting coaches that use pu/pd as a cue when they instruct. And I am assuming that is why you cringe. It isn't a cue I use for several reasons (pitch height, etc.). My use of those terms for those pictures has nothing to do with the teaching method, only the fact that the hands appear to me as though the bottom hand palm is facing more towards the ground and the top hand palm is facing more to the sky. Nothing more than that... Please don't read into it.

FiveFrameSwing said:

Ask your self what folks are attempting to achieve when they instruct having the palm of the bottom-hand flat/parallel to the ground.

Are they attempting to have you pulling the barrel through contact with the bottom hand? Not a good idea.

Are they attempting to have you hammering through contact with the bottom hand? Another flawed idea.

Are they attempting to have the bottom hand wrist unhinge better through contact? Simply a flawed notion of the unhinging process relative to the bottom hand action through contact.

Are they attempting to have the barrel parallel to the ground through contact? Don’t believe we need to comment on that stupidity.

Take note if an instructor is advocating “bottom-hand palm-down” parallel to the ground, and is always giving demos of this for pitches high in the zone. Why do you suppose that might be? It might be because they know that their nonsense wouldn’t hold up for pitches demo’d low in the zone.

“Bottom-hand palm-down” instruction is nonsense … complete utter nonsense … and depending how the hitter perceives this instruction, it can be quite harmful to their development.

Click to expand...

I agree completely.

FFS--thanks for the great info you've presented here. I've taken notes and am going to the cages tomorrow to experiment.

Also, this thread is evidence that the whole "practical/technical" distinction between hitting forums is blurry at best. Or maybe it's just me.

FiveFrameSwing said:

Ask your self what folks are attempting to achieve when they instruct having the palm of the bottom-hand flat/parallel to the ground.

Are they attempting to have you pulling the barrel through contact with the bottom hand? Not a good idea.

Are they attempting to have you hammering through contact with the bottom hand? Another flawed idea.

Are they attempting to have the bottom hand wrist unhinge better through contact? Simply a flawed notion of the unhinging process relative to the bottom hand action through contact.

Are they attempting to have the barrel parallel to the ground through contact? Don’t believe we need to comment on that stupidity.

Take note if an instructor is advocating “bottom-hand palm-down” parallel to the ground, and is always giving demos of this for pitches high in the zone. Why do you suppose that might be? It might be because they know that their nonsense wouldn’t hold up for pitches demo’d low in the zone.

“Bottom-hand palm-down” instruction is nonsense … complete utter nonsense … and depending how the hitter perceives this instruction, it can be quite harmful to their development.

Click to expand...

Okay....bear with me on this. I was told "palm up palm down" in response to what another coach was teaching. One coach was teaching the batter to roll the wrists on contact. The hitting instructor we were meeting with said when you roll the wrists you lose strength in the grip and the bat will deflect backwards on contact...so he continued to say don't roll the wrist on contact...try to keep your hands in a palm up palm down orientation as this type of hand position will maintain strength in the grip.


I like what I'm seeing & learning here though...and will modify some words I use.

rdbass.....are you splitting hairs? Maybe Maybe not. When someone like myself is learning, so I can teach it to my DD's, we sometimes take every word and statement "as it is"....and we sometime "run with it" if you know what I mean; which can be dangerous. And at some point we (who are learning) need to put all this together to build a nice fluid swing sequence. You, FFS and others do a nice job of breaking things down beyond the generalizations & assumptions, and you effectively dissect every segment of the swing; which is great. Knowledge is power....the more knowledge I can bring to my DD's the better we will be.

Hey...I asked the question right?

T.J. said:

Okay....bear with me on this. I was told "palm up palm down" in response to what another coach was teaching. One coach was teaching the batter to roll the wrists on contact. The hitting instructor we were meeting with said when you roll the wrists you lose strength in the grip and the bat will deflect backwards on contact...so he continued to say don't roll the wrist on contact...try to keep your hands in a palm up palm down orientation as this type of hand position will maintain strength in the grip.


I like what I'm seeing & learning here though...and will modify some words I use.

rdbass.....are you splitting hairs? Maybe Maybe not. When someone like myself is learning, so I can teach it to my DD's, we sometimes take every word and statement "as it is"....and we sometime "run with it" if you know what I mean; which can be dangerous. And at some point we (who are learning) need to put all this together to build a nice fluid swing sequence. You, FFS and others do a nice job of breaking things down beyond the generalizations & assumptions, and you effectively dissect every segment of the swing; which is great. Knowledge is power....the more knowledge I can bring to my DD's the better we will be.

Hey...I asked the question right?

Click to expand...

TJ, IMO the strength in the grip that you are speaking of, in terms of not having the barrel defect back, comes more from a mentality of hitting with a bent top hand.

In the following demo observe how the the strength of the "grip" is tested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXWJ7vfYV5w#t=104s

Notice what is credited for preventing the bat from deflecting backwards.

Now take a closer look and notice a difference in the bend in the top hand wrist.




We'll be discussing the "bent top hand" more in a bit ... it does have a place in the swing ... and what is credited above for preventing bat deflection has to do with the bend in the top hand wrist.

What does Fraizer's 'Look Ma, no hands swing' tell us about the importance of bat deflection at contact?

Greenmonsters said:

What does Freeze's 'Look Ma, no hands swing' tell us about the importance of bat deflection at contact?

Click to expand...

GM, I believe you meant "Frazier".

The test that Bustos and Jim perform to test grip strength has them testing the resistance level of pushing back on the barrel. What they observed was greater resistance for the barrel being pushed backwards when the top hand wrist was bent as opposed to not being bent. Their test is quite easy to duplicate, and I believe you’ll get the same result.

FiveFrameSwing said:

GM, I believe you meant "Frazier".

The test that Bustos and Jim perform to test grip strength has them testing the resistance level of pushing back on the barrel. What they observed was greater resistance for the barrel being pushed backwards when the top hand wrist was bent as opposed to not being bent. Their test is quite easy to duplicate, and I believe you’ll get the same result.

Click to expand...

This is a very good discussion. I am a fan of the bent top wrist. This was the purpose of my bench press analogy in post 27. Try a bench press with straight wrists and then try one with bent wrist and see which one gives you more power and control.

Greenmonsters said:

What does Fraizer's 'Look Ma, no hands swing' tell us about the importance of bat deflection at contact?

Click to expand...

I am new to this thread (indeed, to the entire forum) and have not had time to read all the posts yet. I have talked and written extensively about the Todd Frazier no-hands home run and related issues about the batter's grip. There is a whole section of my web site devoted to this very topic: http://baseball.physics.illinois.edu/grip.html. My conclusion is that the batter's grip during the brief time the ball and bat are in contact does not influence what happens to the ball. I even conclude that the batter could let go of the bat just prior to impact and it won't influence what happens to the ball (as in the Frazier home run). That conclusion is counter-intuitive to lots of people but it is based on pretty sound science. At the above link, there is a link to an extensive discussion I had a few years ago at the Tango baseball blog. I recommend reading that entire discussion (it is quite long) if these things interest you.

Thank you Pobguy. Especially appreciate the links. Your conclusion is “that the batter's grip plays no role in the ball-bat collision”. I believe you mean "from the point of impact onwards".

I believe you estimated that it takes about 1.2msec for the pulse to travel from the point of contact, to the handle, and back to where contact was made on the bat. Further you stated by then that the ball was already long gone. The conclusion was that nothing on the handle end of the bat could possibly matter in terms of what happens to the ball.

The Sport Science conclusion was that it doesn’t matter how hard you grip the ball “at contact” in terms of the result impacted on the ball.

In other words … ‘at’ contact what you do to the knob of the barrel doesn’t really matter.

In other words …. “after contact”, or actually even from “contact onwards”, further attempts to direct energy to the barrel won’t influence the result. I don’t believe anyone is arguing that point … I know I’m not. There is obviously a point in the swing where the ball is gone and any further work to transfer energy into the barrel won’t effect the result. That should be fairly obvious. That said, that shouldn't be taken to mean that downstream actions are totally irrelevant, since they are a result of upstream actions.

While informative … this information doesn’t change the value of a bent right wrist.

Perhaps GM is suggesting that the test that Bustos and Jim performed did not have merit. I’ll leave that for others to debate. My point is that it was a real test. They performed a resistance test and the result they obtained makes perfect sense. It is true that a bent right wrist provides greater resistance. As the discussion evolves it will be suggested that there is a benefit of a bent top hand wrist.