2 Drive mechanics questions

[FastPitchCat]

Goosesdad... really like your style of writing. You sound like a pretty smart cat. Genuflect... that's an awesome descriptor.

I see it as a product, not an effort. I see this as a product of a well balanced core that efficiently receives the large amount of force from the ground. When you mix in good timing and an unweighted drive leg (that reached maximum extension BEFORE the stride leg did)... this is the result:

java - just a quick observation on the gif above.

it seems her glove hand is 'rotating' from left to right aka swimming? (viewed from behind).
although she gets the strike, would she benefit more if her glove did not swim as much?
i ask because DD has a similar albeit smaller issue with her glove hand

thanks

 

[goosesdad1]

Goosesdad... really like your style of writing. You sound like a pretty smart cat. Genuflect... that's an awesome descriptor.

I see it as a product, not an effort. I see this as a product of a well balanced core that efficiently receives the large amount of force from the ground. When you mix in good timing and an unweighted drive leg (that reached maximum extension BEFORE the stride leg did)... this is the result:

Hey, thanks for the reply and kind words. "Genuflect" comes more from being an old catholic than from any intelligence.

I know this pitcher in the video, I talked with her parents at a game and had lunch with her at a camp in Oklahoma. She was always playing behind Ricketts, but she had suck a great personality and team first approach that she was able to hang in and finally get to contribute in her last year. Really terrific person and from what little I know from my short talk with her parents, I think they had a hand in that. Just wanted to say that because sometimes I forget that I am talking about someone's child or young adult who is really trying to do their best to compete.

Anyway, she doesn't quite turn her knee cap towards home as much as the other pitchers I mentioned before. The pitch is labeled "change up" in the model pitchers section maybe that could be why. So, here is where I don't understand the physics, but this is what I'm thinking:

If I had a train moving down the tracks at some steady speed and there was a spring stretched out from the locomotive to the last car, and it is held in place by a rigid bar that also went from one end of the train to the other. If that train was moving and the bar broke, the spring would pull the front of the train and rear of the train together...towards the middle of the train equally. But, I am thinking if the locomotive smashed head on into a mountain and the bar broke and the spring contracted, wouldn't it accelerate the rear end of the train toward the front end in addition to the speed the train was already going?

I honestly don't know, so I am asking. But if it were true that it happened that way, then wouldn't the active muscle turning the drive leg knee cap toward home plate act like the spring and add to how fast the energy of momentum is transferred forward? Wouldn't that bring the rear of the pitching train forward faster into the resistance of the front leg? I understand that the drive leg is weightless, but I am pondering if the gathering of that rear limb towards the center doesn't act like the spring after the front leg hits the ground? And if it does act like a spring does it make a difference contributing to the speed of the delivery. I just see it so consistently in top pitchers I wonder if it makes a difference. Even if it's true in physics, I don't know if it's true in pitching. Do you get what I mean?

 

[drc9805]

goosesdad1, does your DD play for one of the best competitive teams in OK by chance?