Barrel Turning

[MendozaBusta]

Thought I would try the barrel turning explanation from a slightly different perspective...

And if you notice the "hinge" angle in the double pendulum is at first closing and then opening....it is not constant....


....the hands are never applying pressure to the pivot point....they just pulling the handle in the direction of the knob....

The spirit of you post is good...

Yet, I feel obliged to point out that your double pendulum snippet is flawed. It in fact shows the 2nd lever being pulled initially along its length. This is because you have drawn the conclusion that the 1st lever in the early portion of the swing is the lead forearm.

It is not.

For the sake of simplicity, and to attempt to draw a useful insight, consider the swing in only one plane (even though this may not be the case).

The 1st lever can be drawn from the body's axis to the pivot between the hands.

The acceleration of the pivot is at right angles to both levers initially.

The levers are inline to start.

Hand action serves to advance the angle.

Analyze closely.

 

[tom.guerry]

Rich wrote: this all feels similar to the idea that I've never thought about performing something like an elvis move in my lower half...I just try to load/explode my hips for power out of a dynamically balanced position and in doing so I pass through a lot of resulting body positions that get talked about here (elvis, rear knee down and in, rear foot eversion, etc) but which I've never actively thought about...they just happen as I execute the more important (and I'd say more athletic and instinctive) parts of the sequence like coil/cock/stretch/ and separation/hips leading hands..

MTS replied: For the most part I am attacking the pronation of the bottom hand as the first move...it doesn't matter if they pre cock the wrist or not....most of the girls naturally want to line up the bat with the ball and to do this they drop the barrel via bottom hand pronation...the other one's learn to cast as they keep the wrist cocked to a fault....neither helps send the barrel into its path early....

======

This gets at how to teach pieces of the swing that will fit into the whole pattern so the learning of the whole swing can be improved. This somehow reconciling actions that may seem in conflict like:

turning the barell without unhinging/casting

or another, in my opinion, pronating the lead forearm without dumping the barrel.


dumping is not caused primarily by pronation of the lead forearm.

when you think of isolated drills, the hands are clamps in terms of this is aboput all the intrinsic hand muscles can accomplish, but hands are much more than clamps when the forearm muscles are used for forearm,wrist and hand action.



the thing which forces barrel dumping is the rear elbow sliding forward past the side prematurely (instead of "slotting" or becuae of "not slotting right")

proper slotting is part of an overall swing pattern with efficient sequencing and "addition". In this case the timing/loading/coil/uncoil are efficient so that firing the bathead by turning the barrel that starts early enhances the stretch and reversal of the torso to fire the bathead without depending on rear arm action that tries to power the swing from a position where the rear elbow slides forward early.

both forearms need to be used to efficiently fire the barrel so that there is a last quick stretch of the torso due to the resistance this active barrel turning creates (which tightens up the spine coil to harness elastic acceleration of "spine engine" as well as a last quick stretch of muscles/"x-factor stretch" to enhance stretch receptor reflexes and provide optimal soft tissue elasticity) then a rapid sucking dry of the torso as the bathead fires (trigger for depletion of torso -self feeding angular acceleration of bathead - is firing of center of mass of bat outside of arc of handpath).

 

[ArmWhip]

Anyway....I have been a proponent of using your hands to apply pressure to the handle to get the barrel in motion early...as opposed to pulling the handle....

This seems to be at odds with what your animation shows, the hands seem to be pulling on the bat rather than turning it. What I see and feel in the swing is pressure applied by the top hand as soon as rotation begins, I don't believe that the hinge angle decreases, pressure with the top hand prevents this. But it is hard to make an unbiased swing in the sense that as soon as I pay attention to the pressure in my hands I am altering my 'natural' swing. Another way to look at it is to say that barrel angle changes immediately upon rotation, this means that hands have to be applying force for this to happen.

 

[RayR]

Arm, do you believe that in an effort to apply force in one direction you actually initiate force in the oppe direction first?

 

[ArmWhip]

In the context of Newtonian physics 'no', it makes no sense. In the context of swinging a bat or throwing a ball initiating the motion with a negative move is a way of storing energy, so 'yes'. I once played golf with a man who had the strangest case of 'yips' that I have ever seen. He would take the club back to the top of his backswing and hold it there for about 3 full seconds. sometimes even more, then release the downswing. With a normal swing you would say that you are initiating the forward swing with a backswing, in this guys case you couldn't really say that, would literally place the club back there until the 'right' moment and then release it. He did not go back before he went forward. All this may be beside the point because I am not sure what your question is aiming at.

 

[crankermo]

Arm,

Have you ever seen Charles Barkley swing a club? Now that's a serious case of the yips. Absolutely brutal.

 

[ArmWhip]

45 years in the golf business, I'm immune to ugly swings.

 

[Jeff Kneiert]

"I really like using the top hand twisting the handle to start the process of turning the barrel...it keeps the hands up and in place as the elbow slots...."

Ray can you explain this a little more?

 

[ArmWhip]

I want to add that with respect to releasing the bat or turning the barrel there are physical factors which can have an effect but are not addressed.

Imagine a car with front wheel drive and some extra weight in the trunk going around a left hand, 180 degree constant radius turn. At 20 mph the car negotiates the turn fine, the rear wheels track behind the fronts. Now up the speed to 50 mph, the rear of the car starts to swing around and then it starts to go into a slide, when the car spins out this corresponds to the release of the bat. Up the speed to 70 mph and the car spins out sooner, or increase the weight in the trunk and you can get the same effect.

The rear of the car did not have to be pushed or 'turned' to spin out, centrifugal force did it.

At slower speeds (like a smooth practice swing or a kid with a weak swing) the car was less likely to spin out or spun out later.

Take the weight out of the back of the car it might not spin out at all. If you swing a wiffle ball bat, to get it to release on time, you have to 'turn the barrel'.

To get the bat to release on time there are a number of complicating factors which the body intuitively understands and compensates for. If you have a weaker, slower swing or use a light bat you might have to 'help' the release more because the centrifugal force generated will be less than if you have a strong swing or a heavier, end weighted bat.

 

[ArmWhip]

Over a month ago I sent an email to the technical director at the USGA asking for an explanation of the mechanics by which Iron Byron applies force to the golf club here is his reply.

Our current robot is from Golf Labs of San Diego, Iron Byron retired in about 2002. Our current robot is driven by an electronic servo-motor and what we call the wrist of the robot is completely free to rotate. There is a locking mechanism holding the club in the fully cocked position (like the elbow) for the take-away, but at the top of the backswing as the downswing is initiated, that locking mechanism is released and the elbow and the wrist are completely free to rotate.



The robot arm is essentially powered only at the shoulder joint. It is the centripetal acceleration that causes the elbow joint to go from fully cocked to the straight position at approximately impact. The same acceleration is responsible for the opening of the wrist so the face is square near impact. As you may have noted I said the arm is near straight at impact and the face is near square at impact, even with a robot, the timing is critical and so it does take effort to even have the robot timed perfectly to hit a square shot at impact. The links of the elbow and wrist are free to rotate, and only the shoulder is powered. The elbow can rotate only in the swing plane, and the wrist is free to rotate on one axis (in physiological terms it is internal or external rotation, the wrist is constrained from flexion and extension).

It seems that in the case of Iron Byron rotation alone is sufficient to release the club(head) and there is no torquing of the handle with the (hands).