DD Bat Drag ?

[Chris O'Leary]

Trade secret?

Yeah ... that's it ... I forgot to claim that 'bat drag' was complicated ... go all over the Internet and create a phobia about the hands ... and then sell a "Fixing Bat Drag webbook" for $14.95.

40 pages (and counting) of theories to answer the question.

Most of which are the same guys having the same arguments they have been having for 10 years.

I'd venture there's precious little learning going on.

If only somebody could distill this down to just a couple of pages.

LOL.

 

[PaulN]

More bat drag "real-world"experiences .....

douger 06-16-2005, 12:44 PM #1

Overcoming bat drag

My 13 yo daughter is battling bat drag. We seem to have conquered it on tee and dry swings, but comes back when hitting any moving ball (even softtoss). I have given her lots of different swing thoughts and tried several different drills. We video tape sessions (twice a week) so it is clear to her what is happening. She has made progress and is doing it less. Wondering if progress will happen very slowly or if we can expect to find something that clicks for her. We have been focusing on it for a month and a half.

I have Paul's instructors swing program and have been working hard on swing plane and connection. Here is a link to a thread showing her work on the tee with focus on swing plane and connection.

I have read that JA and TM's son Brandon have battled this, but can see tremendous improvement from recent video. Richard and Jeff ... any thoughts on what worked? Has anyone else had themselves or a student conquor this?

She has used Paul's "back shoulder to the ball" and has gotten some success. From a teaching perspective it seems like there is no way to avoid needing to have some concsious awareness of keeping the back elbow behind the hands ... and from there developing a new pattern that doesn't require the use of the back elbow to rotate and find swing plane.

Doug


Paul 06-16-2005, 01:40 PM

Post It a "only" took me...

Wondering if progress will happen very slowly or if we can expect to find something that clicks for her.

... four or five years to figure out what I was doing wrong.

And if I don't take swings three or four times a week, it's like starting all over again (bat drag/bat lag).

I believe it took Jeff Albert almost 3 years before he really "got it". And that's a person who took 200-300 swings a day six days a week.

And what you do on a tee does not readily transfer to moving ball.

You must develop a regimen, tee-side toss-front toss-pitching machine-live arm-batting practice-practice games-real games.

And you must always repeat this sequence.

Once ingrained, bat lag/bat drag is like any other bad habit. It's always there and requires little or no encouragement to take over in a heartbeat...


Teacherman 06-16-2005, 02:25 PM #3


The more we concentrated on what the hands were doing the worse we got.

The more we concentrated on quality rotation the better the hands got.

I've always believed you don't really change bad habits. Instead, you create new ones.

That being said, in our most recent clip...........there it is again.

Problem is it's a long process searching for the right combination of setup, posture, connection and rotation. A lot of variables to mess with. 1000's of different permutations (sp). You think you've worked it out. Have a game. Sh*t. Looks like the old swing again. Back to work. Over and over and over. Nothing like the stress of a game at bat to break you down.

Start working and eliminate as you go. Experiment with the speed and explosiveness of your hip rotation. Don't let your hands have any time.

See you in 6 weeks.


padfoot87 06-16-2005, 03:37 PM #4

Doug,

One other thing you could try is something Gregg (g.stock) first suggested that i find very helpful. Ask your daughter to form the box with her hands and then lock her arms in place by contracting (flexing) her biceps. When i use the cue, i just flex the bottom hand but you could try both hands. Then forget about the arms and work on rotating well. If you do keep the biceps flexed through the first part of the swing and just rotate, you should maintain the box and bat drag shouldn't happen.

Sriram


siggy 06-16-2005, 07:41 PM #5


Doug,

I have seen some improvement in my daughter by doing basically what Sriram mentions: flex/tighten the front arm while turning. Actually we start with a back hand "open but supporting" style of swing (as Paul showed in his medicus demos I think) and add in the rear hand after 1/2 a bucket or so of whatever the drill. Bat drag has decreased but still shows up at times.

You mention needing to have a conscious awareness. I wonder if having her think of Jeff's weight stack idea might be useful for this?

john

 

[tom.guerry]

shoulders are part of torso ?
turning back shoulder is likely to force drag.
yes, science can theoretically explain all swings, but what pattern do you want ?

High level MLB pattern is upper body pull back balanced around rear hip, turning handle between hands, no rear scap unloading before contact.

emphasize shoulder turn or torso turn or front hip or merry go round etc will prevent pattern.

Stock is another in Cardinals org as pitcher now ?

 

[PaulN]

Bat Drag real world experiences continued....

siggy 06-16-2005, 07:45 PM #6

Teacherman wrote:

You think you've worked it out. Have a game. Sh*t. Looks like the old swing again. Back to work. Over and over and over. Nothing like the stress of a game at bat to break you down.

This has been my experience on keeping the front foot closed. Worked on it with my daughter since end of Jan. Looks much improved during drills. At game time, no difference... in fact, during the last two tournaments it was considerably worse than before we began working on it. Frustrating stuff.

john



douger 06-17-2005, 01:44 AM #7

This type of feedback is awesome, thank you all! This is not easy stuff, but feel we have a fighting chance. I will continue with our structured approach and have patience ... and expect some set backs along the way. She has continued to get progressively better game results, and that to me shows she is developing a better swing ... albeit very slowly.

We have really embraced the notion of the box and will continue with that, sounds like it is working/making sense to some of you. Interesting how the "moving ball" changes things even if only side-toss.

I have recently tried to let her explore some of these concepts without critiquing as much. I don't think I was letting her work through some of the drills and letting her explore her body movements. This has actually made for more focused sessions and overall a more pleasing experience for the both of us. Sounds like this won't be over anytime real soon so probably a wise move.

I do show her the video clips after each session so she can get feedback. I am asking her to try and develop a better conscious awareness of where the back elbow is while doing tee and side toss. Hard to correct something without feedback. Will be interesting to see if she can do this.

Clearly the pressure to perform is retarding this process, absolutely no doubt in my mind. We have a long season (10 1/2 to 11 months), which leaves only a couple weeks at the end of the season and a couple during Christmas. That means swing training needs to be incorporated into the regular season. I wonder what we could get done over 3 months without tournaments/games???

Doug


FlippJ 06-17-2005, 09:45 AM #8

It's a long process full of ups and downs and you have to stay patient. You can't expect perfection immediately. If you work hard and work smart you will progress. If you hope to make changes to the swing you must change your goals during games. Change the goals from results (i.e. hits) to quality swings on quality pitches.

My son's biggest issue after last season was his inability to rotate. He would open his front knee and then rotate. He worked hard this past winter (see my Progress Report thread at HM.org) and while he has progressed his front knee will still leak open if he's fooled. I used to get frustrated by it but I've learned to let it go. Instead we focus hard on doing things right in practice with the hope that with enough reps and the right mental approach (i.e. goals) at the plate during games he'll turn the corner.

Good luck!

Jason


Paul 06-17-2005, 10:06 AM #9

Every swing must have a purpose...

I cannot emphasize this enough.

In a practice or game situation you can only focus on one or possibly two things (cue(s)) for any given swing.

I also cannot emphasize enough that the player must have a "checklist" and routine prior to the game/practice/training. That checklist to cover anything and everything regarding posture, connection, rotation, changing direction of the knob/head of the bat.

Also the mental effort is more fatiguing than the physical effort or at least it should be. If the player is putting forth maximum mental effort they are only capable of taking 10-20 swings before they are mentally fatigued.

After the 10-20 swings there needs to be a recovery period of time (throwing, sprinting, what ever).

And then another 10-20 swings expanding the same mental and physical efforts.

With respect to feedback I find that the longer the delay in feedback the less effective the feedback.

Myself personally I feel that feedback is required after every five swings or throws. That's what I would do I would take five swings and then look at my swings in slow motion. And most the time walk away swearing and cursing myself out.

But feedback is only as good as the knowledge/understanding of what it is you are looking at.......

SteveA 06-17-2005, 12:54 PM #10

This real world feedback is so important for anyone training or re-training a kid to swing. Even though my son learned to rotate when he was barely 11, now at 13 he still sometimes drifts in games, and even in practice. Just this past weekend I looked at video and noticed that some hip slide had crept in, something I hadn’t seen in awhile. You can never stop being diligent – you have to constantly review and get them back inside the box. As Paul has said numerous times, tiny, fractional changes in timing or body posture can make all the difference. Maybe that’s why slumps happen to virtually everyone.

Also, as Teacherman and Jason mentioned, it is very, very difficult to put aside the pressure to succeed in competition, in favor of tenaciously staying the course on the road to longterm swing efficiency. There have been many times when I wondered if my son wouldn’t be more dominant if I had simply left him alone to do what his body naturally wants to do. I have to remind myself that our goal is for him to ultimately succeed against high level pitching, something most kids will never do. I believe that what he is learning to do is a more difficult and less instinctive kind of body movement, but one that will pay off in the marathon. But the pressure to succeed in competition never really subsides.

After reading Paul’s last post I realize that we still have to work smarter. But that’s why we’re here.


JA 06-17-2005, 02:38 PM #11

I believe it took JA almost 3 years before he really "got it". And that's a person who took 200-300 swings a day six days a week.

yeah, I'm still "getting it"

As much time and effort as it takes to learn and interpret the information about how the body works to swing a bat, that really turns out to be the easy part. The hard part is in the doing

What's really frustrating is after you think you know what you're supposed to be doing, you find out how difficult it is to do it

And once you get it in dry swings for example, its like starting over every time you add in a new variable (tee, soft toss, BP, game)

It really comes down to teaching your body a new movement pattern and applying it in constantly changing situations

One player yesterday told me he felt really good about what we've been working on and asked how long it should take him to be able to have a good swing every time. All I could say was that he would be working on it every day for the rest of his playing career. That's why even the big leaguers take BP every day, have slumps and hot streaks, etc, etc

 

[RayR]

Let's not forget the reason for this thread

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

MTS ... it seems that some folks simply wish to believe that the issue is tougher to address than it is. Perhaps if there was a more sophisticated way to say "turn the friggin barrel".

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

douger 06-16-2005, 12:44 PM #1

Overcoming bat drag

My 13 yo daughter is battling bat drag. We seem to have conquered it on tee and dry swings, but comes back when hitting any moving ball (even softtoss). I have given her lots of different swing thoughts and tried several different drills. We video tape sessions (twice a week) so it is clear to her what is happening. She has made progress and is doing it less. Wondering if progress will happen very slowly or if we can expect to find something that clicks for her. We have been focusing on it for a month and a half.

I have Paul's instructors swing program and have been working hard on swing plane and connection. Here is a link to a thread showing her work on the tee with focus on swing plane and connection.

I have read that JA and TM's son Brandon have battled this, but can see tremendous improvement from recent video. Richard and Jeff ... any thoughts on what worked? Has anyone else had themselves or a student conquor this?

She has used Paul's "back shoulder to the ball" and has gotten some success. From a teaching perspective it seems like there is no way to avoid needing to have some concsious awareness of keeping the back elbow behind the hands ... and from there developing a new pattern that doesn't require the use of the back elbow to rotate and find swing plane.

Doug


Paul 06-16-2005, 01:40 PM

Post It a "only" took me...



... four or five years to figure out what I was doing wrong.

And if I don't take swings three or four times a week, it's like starting all over again (bat drag/bat lag).

I believe it took Jeff Albert almost 3 years before he really "got it". And that's a person who took 200-300 swings a day six days a week.

And what you do on a tee does not readily transfer to moving ball.

You must develop a regimen, tee-side toss-front toss-pitching machine-live arm-batting practice-practice games-real games.

And you must always repeat this sequence.

Once ingrained, bat lag/bat drag is like any other bad habit. It's always there and requires little or no encouragement to take over in a heartbeat...


Teacherman 06-16-2005, 02:25 PM #3


The more we concentrated on what the hands were doing the worse we got.

The more we concentrated on quality rotation the better the hands got.

I've always believed you don't really change bad habits. Instead, you create new ones.

That being said, in our most recent clip...........there it is again.

Problem is it's a long process searching for the right combination of setup, posture, connection and rotation. A lot of variables to mess with. 1000's of different permutations (sp). You think you've worked it out. Have a game. Sh*t. Looks like the old swing again. Back to work. Over and over and over. Nothing like the stress of a game at bat to break you down.

Start working and eliminate as you go. Experiment with the speed and explosiveness of your hip rotation. Don't let your hands have any time.

See you in 6 weeks.


padfoot87 06-16-2005, 03:37 PM #4

Doug,

One other thing you could try is something Gregg (g.stock) first suggested that i find very helpful. Ask your daughter to form the box with her hands and then lock her arms in place by contracting (flexing) her biceps. When i use the cue, i just flex the bottom hand but you could try both hands. Then forget about the arms and work on rotating well. If you do keep the biceps flexed through the first part of the swing and just rotate, you should maintain the box and bat drag shouldn't happen.

Sriram


siggy 06-16-2005, 07:41 PM #5


Doug,

I have seen some improvement in my daughter by doing basically what Sriram mentions: flex/tighten the front arm while turning. Actually we start with a back hand "open but supporting" style of swing (as Paul showed in his medicus demos I think) and add in the rear hand after 1/2 a bucket or so of whatever the drill. Bat drag has decreased but still shows up at times.

You mention needing to have a conscious awareness. I wonder if having her think of Jeff's weight stack idea might be useful for this?

john

In all seriousness ... Teacherman may have had to learn how to address ‘bat drag’ issues at one point, but it is not an issue that he has had difficulty addressing recently. I spent enough time at HI to tell you that the general hitting population there didn’t suffer from that particular disease. The attitude was more along the line of “teach the swing, and issues like ‘bat drag’ will disappear”.

 

[jbooth]

Let's not forget the reason for this thread

I don't find it difficult to fix bat drag, or the elbow leading the way.

I simply tell them, not to pull the bat. To keep the hands back as long as possible and throw the barrel while trying to keep the hands back.

Or, keep the hands back and keep the shaft of the bat close to the back shoulder and then throw the barrel so that the shaft comes away from the shoulder.

You have to use a lot of different phrases, but mostly they have to understand that the hands stay back as the barrel is thrown. The throwing action does not have any pull of the knob involved with it.

Push with the back leg, and throw with the top hand.

It's hard to let the back elbow lead the way, if your thought process is to keep the hands back. Telling them to keep the barrel up longer, also helps. It's hard to get the back elbow in front if the barrel is up.

P.S.

You also need to tell them that the shoulders make the hands move; otherwise, they will still pull or push the bat to contact.

 

[00fpdaddy]

A father wanted help with his dd's bat drag issue. Issue handled and major improvement shown on page 6 thanks to members who spoke plain English that a little girl could understand. Then there is 34 pages of enjoyable content while eating popcorn. A lot of posts to confuse the regular mom and dad. Tread carefully.

 

[HYP]

The point that's being missed in all of this discussion is the cause of bat drag.

The specific terminology bat drag as far as I know originated on the SETPRO forums. That's where the bottom hand elbow leading the knob of the bat was identified as a significant problem.

One of the primary root causes of this problem is focusing on the hands to swing the bat. I try to explain this in a previous post that young players a very "hands centric", i.e. they control the plane of the swing by adjusting their hand path.

The typical bat drag swing is one where the player stands very erect and then lowers the bat to meet the oncoming pitch. In our to lower the bat they dropped the back elbow which then leads the knob the bat. And as I said previously one of the classic symptoms i.e. casting results.

High-level players do something that is not natural i.e. they learn how to initiate the swing not with the hands but by turning the shoulders and caring hands along with the turn.

Also high-level players have learned how to initiate the swing such that the swing path will intercept the pitch with minimal adjustments, i.e. they maintain that path of the head of the bat in the plane of rotation.

The hand centric school of thought believes that everything is done with the hands where in fact anyone who has even the most rudimentary understanding of motor learning i.e. how the body acquires movement skills.



In the case of hitting a moving object such as a softball/baseball, the endpoint is the sweet spot of the bat intercepting the moving ball. There are literally an infinite number of ways that the body can be used (the 650+ muscle groups) to achieve this task. And I will repeat again that for young players the "hand centric" approach more often than not leads to bat drag and is the reason why "hand centric" teaching may cause more problems than it solves.

Once the player has a rudimentary understanding of how to initiate the swing without using the hands i.e. dropping the bat to intercept the ball, then it's possible to start using cues which relate to the hands.

I will repeat again that the actual swing process self from a physics standpoint is very simple. What screws it up is the human body ( or should I say mind).......

YOU are WRONG!

When the hands are used you do not get the barrel drop and drag. That is what you get when you maintain a box and turn. If you do not use the hands you get, shoulders trying to find plane, bat dropping into the plane of the shoulders and then turn like a mother. Can I generate a ton of bat speed that way? YEP, but is it adjustable and quick? NOPE

What screws up the swing is sucking the athleticism out of a kid and telling them to hang on and turn.