Back elbow initiates the swing?

[Shawn]

Ken, Hitter, and everyone

his is a short part of a sequence/swing. There are other things to consider and many may have this swing and can look at the front and back view together. For right now, I just wanted to post a little footage to what I said and some things hitter touched on.

Good top views are very good to look at in discussing what I mentioned. True 3 dimensional swings would answer many of our questions.

Back to Ken's statement, "The back elbow comes forward, because somewhere deep down they know something should be coming forward, and before you know it they're in severe bat drag."

Yes, something should be working forward. Regardless of what hitters say about staying back you have to have some sense or feeling of swinging/working forward. You just can't think about working away from the target to a degree you lose a connection with the pitch or pitcher (I'm using connection in a different sense in the last sentence).

 

[Shawn]

Ken,

What many call bat tipping now, I first saw as being related to everything working forward. In this short sequence the barrel is moving forward, which gives you a feel that your not just moving things away from the target. It gives you the sensation of working forward, or even swinging forward.

I didn't understand Mankin when he first began, because he said the barrel moves backwards in pre-launch and THT. In most hitters the opposite was happening, the barrel was working forward. I now understand that he doesn't refer to rotation until happening until after foot plant. So anything he see's prior to foot plant at the time was caused by the hands, and he only referred to the hands or hand torque. He has change things to the forearms since when he first started.

 

[RayR]

I have been stealing a cue from a frozen ropes clip of Manny - Back stetch.

You should feel a stretch across your back as you load the upper body(the scapular complex) - how you get this stretch is individual as referenced by hitters that have a low back elbow (Jeff Kent) or a higher back elbow (Arod). Unstretching the back is like a sling shot. The moment the decision is made to swing (release the back stretch) the hips will also release forward followed quickly by the upper body. That, to me, is the advantage of the X factor stretch.

And I agree that most parts are moving forward even as you are staying back during the stride. The hands stay back as they move forward.

 

[Hitter]

Ken, Hitter, and everyone

his is a short part of a sequence/swing. There are other things to consider and many may have this swing and can look at the front and back view together. For right now, I just wanted to post a little footage to what I said and some things hitter touched on.

Good top views are very good to look at in discussing what I mentioned. True 3 dimensional swings would answer many of our questions.

Back to Ken's statement, "The back elbow comes forward, because somewhere deep down they know something should be coming forward, and before you know it they're in severe bat drag."

Yes, something should be working forward. Regardless of what hitters say about staying back you have to have some sense or feeling of swinging/working forward. You just can't think about working away from the target to a degree you lose a connection with the pitch or pitcher (I'm using connection in a different sense in the last sentence).

Shawn

Could you allow a few more frames please at the current speed.

The red dots I term as tagging the positions and I especially like the one you have as it looks to me as he gets to toe touch the back elbow is coming down.

What I like about from behind is the flexed knee allowing the hips to move and then at a point you will see the head stop its forward movement and the heel plant starts.

I had posted about why MLB stats have not really improved over the years as an average and that 47% is attributed to vision. I feel the stance, load and stride and flexed knee or the landing and shifting of the weight affect the vision and much is attributed to style up to toe touch.

I would like to see what affects improvements in the stance to load ,to toe touch and of course how they track the ball and see what people think would contribute to raising the averages.

Thanking you in advance if you can add more frames to the clip.

Howard

 

[Wellphyt]

I just came across this cue again today. I'm pretty sure it comes out of RVP, and it's part of the NFCA's canon. Maybe it's me, but I think this is a terrible cue.

I think about all the hitters I've worked with who can't help but push their hands way back when they load, and then leave them there as they begin rotation. What happens? The back elbow comes forward, because somewhere deep down they know something should be coming forward, and before you know it they're in severe bat drag.

Seems to me that saying the back elbow initiates the swing will just encourage this situation even more. I can easily see a young girl hearing "the back elbow initiates the swing" and then pulling her back elbow as far forward as she can get. Most young girls are far more flexible than us old guys, too, so they can get into a bad situation a lot more easily. When I try to imitate what they're doing I can't even get my arms this way. No doubt this is one of those physical differences between males and females that Howard likes to point out.

Honestly, when I think about my swing the back elbow is the last thing I think about. I am much more focused on what my hips/core, shoulders and hands are doing.

So am I missing something here? Have any of you had success teaching this cue? And if so, how did you prevent it from going into bat drag?

Ken, I agree that saying the back elbow initiates the swing is a terrible cue. Last year I removed the phrase "slot the rear elbow" from my vocabulary. I have also tried to imitate the girl's arm and elbow position when they bat drag. I can get close, but it is very unnatural to me.

What I have learned is that the girls do very well if they are taught how to correctly work the arms to get the bat started. When the girls apply torque to the bat handle to start their swing, if the direction of torque is parallel to the pitch, they will most likely get bat drag and possibly dump the barrel. If the direction of torque is perpendicular to the pitch, their hands and arms will be in a very strong hitting position.

The difference is in how the elbows work. Once the girls understand that the elbows work independently, they will be well on their way to eliminating bat drag. They will also be able to consistently get their hands and arms properly positioned at the bat lag position as their hands turn the corner. Any girl can learn to work the elbows independently in a matter of minutes. It is very easy to teach. I have them do it in slow motion first and then gradually speed it up as they get more comfortable. Any player who performs this move 1500 times using dry swings, over a 7 to 10 day period, should have it internalized enough for it to show up in live swings. First against wiffle balls thrown from 20 feet and then against real balls doing front toss.

When teaching how to work the elbows independently, I focus a lot on WAKING up the top hand and getting the top hand working from the start of handle torque, as I have found that most girls have SLEEPY wrist/hands.

 

[Hitter]

Ken, I agree that saying the back elbow initiates the swing is a terrible cue. Last year I removed the phrase "slot the rear elbow" from my vocabulary. I have also tried to imitate the girl's arm and elbow position when they bat drag. I can get close, but it is very unnatural to me.

What I have learned is that the girls do very well if they are taught how to correctly work the arms to get the bat started. When the girls apply torque to the bat handle to start their swing, if the direction of torque is parallel to the pitch, they will most likely get bat drag and possibly dump the barrel. If the direction of torque is perpendicular to the pitch, their hands and arms will be in a very strong hitting position.

The difference is in how the elbows work. Once the girls understand that the elbows work independently, they will be well on their way to eliminating bat drag. They will also be able to consistently get their hands and arms properly positioned at the bat lag position as their hands turn the corner. Any girl can learn to work the elbows independently in a matter of minutes. It is very easy to teach. I have them do it in slow motion first and then gradually speed it up as they get more comfortable. Any player who performs this move 1500 times using dry swings, over a 7 to 10 day period, should have it internalized enough for it to show up in live swings. First against wiffle balls thrown from 20 feet and then against real balls doing front toss.

When teaching how to work the elbows independently, I focus a lot on WAKING up the top hand and getting the top hand working from the start of handle torque, as I have found that most girls have SLEEPY wrist/hands.

I think the back elbow starting the swing is not a bad cue in and of itself when talking hitting however not for instructing in my opinion.

To Wellphyt point of what do the elbows actually do independently has been our success.

Allowing them to use a hammer and hitting a car shock that is mounted horizontally into an adjustable slot for height of the pitch works very well for me.

The grip is different in the bottom hand verses the top and they feel the action independently using a small ball peen hammer.

Then we use a 24 mallet and there is a memory stick under the grip so it lines up the mallet face.

Then we step up to the longer one that is made in 27, 28 and 29 inches lengths as that represents the sweet spot for the 34, 33, and 32 bats.

With a little explanation they pretty much figure out on their own how to direct the bats sweet spot to the car shock stem.

I will also have them make a fist and have them lower the back elbow and help them turn the shoulder open using the clavicle notch as reference point. This is the V shaped area where the neck comes out of the front of the shoulders. I will assist them in turning as the elbow comes down ward and as mentioned before then we teach the lead elbow.

The matrix drill sounds similar as we go in super slow motion using the cues, ready, set, separate to toe touch, elbows (they do the load without thinking about it) and they stop just as the back elbow and back start to turn the proverbial corner, knob parallel to contact and the hands are inside the path of the ball. Some times this is where the rope comes in handy or I use a WhipHit and I hold the ball and they pull the knob forward and we say release to contact and as they unhinge the wrist I walk the ball around. Then we pick up the drill again using their bat and start over smoothing out the rough spots and just tap the ball off the tee and say contact though extension and finish.

We actually do the matrix drill as a warm up doing 25 and try to put it in our target area in the net. Without everything being correct it will not go into the target area.

Thanks Howard

 

[PEPPERS]

PEPPERS why are you blaming me? LOL!

Try this for me please! Take her to a field and place a tee 2 to 3 inches forward of home plate and centered so the ball should go up the middle if she measures off from the back corner of home plate.

Hit ten balls and see where the balls land and how far the balls were hit.

Now explain to her how we think the elbow works in my world and that does not mean it agrees with anyone elses opinion of how it works.

We explain we want the elbows to work together as a unit and stay connected however as the back elbow lowers, how do you explain what the lead arm elbow does or feels like.

This is where the rope comes into teaching the feel of getting to connection and bat lag.

The lead elbow is explained as making a good first move and that is by moving forward and up a ramp verses just forward ( ground balls) or up (probably high fly balls or over the back stop foul balls) .

We have them take the top hand and turn it palm down and place our lead elbow on top of the back of the top hand and rest it there. We are wanting to show them the motion of the lead elbow. We say were the elbow was the hand will now be and they move the lead elbow forward and do not not loose contact with the back of the hand the elbow was resting on and keep moving it forward while the forearm will stay in contact and finally the lead hand will be where the elbow was. We point out the elbow is now at about the top of the shoulder and during the swing the tilt and turn of the shoulders will be adjusting.

The lead elbow will be above the plane of the pitch and the hands will be above the ball and the bat head will be below the hands or elbow, hands and bat head a slight angle depending on the pitch.

After that let her pull on a rope and stage her at bat lag so she can feel it and make sure the lead elbow is up a little so you create the angle of lead elbow above the ball, hands above the ball and below the elbow and bat head below the hands.

Put a visual in her mind of the back hand being stacked over the elbow as the lead elbow is moving forward and up please.

I would like some feed back from you after you try it.

Thanks Howard

The weather in North Georgia is bad so it maybe a few days before we are able to get on a field and try this out, but we are looking forward to seeing how it works.

Thanks for your suggestion Howard!!!!

 

[tom.guerry]

aim -

I think more important than sleepy or awake is how the wrists need to work.

Charley Lau Jr focusses on fixing 2 primary flaws in the swing, the one most related to this discussion is eliminating/preventing "top hand dominance" (the other big flaw is preventing "swinging while striding" which is a differnt subject).

Top hand dominance is the natural tendency to want to load up and push with the back (usually dominant) arm. The Lau system tries to fix this more passively than the Mankin system by emphasizing what the top hand back arm should NOT do as opposed to the more active Mankin approach of learning positively how to apply THT.

Lau drills include one armed drills, lead arm emphasis, pulling knob with lead arm not shoulder and open top hand drills for example.

Another important point stressed by Nyman more than most is the "backward chaining" which organizes drill work by starting with the end of the motion and then adding earlier pieces of the motion as you progress. This teaches getting the later parts of the motion right based on the idea that the closer a part of the motion is to impact (release in case of throwing) the more important it is to get it right.

This would suggest that getting wrist action right is crucial which is what is addressed in "hammer" drills.

Williams' descriptions include power vs tackhammer type action as well as hitting with top hand wrist unbroken or at leas no wrist roll before contact.

rather than have a sleepy hand and a more active one, I think in hitting you need to focus on 2 active hands which requires careful attention to grip and the necessary wrist action for torquing the handle early.

Mankin is best at describing a nonbinding grip which fits with both a wide angle between the forearms early (mechanically advantageous at applying early torque) and a narrowing angle approaching contact. This is typicall accomplished either by a relaxed top hand grip permitting some slippage or a non door knocker lined up grip so there can be a wider forearm angle early.

Next, you must get the wrist action right which is best described in golf as a vertical cocking/uncocking (ADduction/ABduction) of the lead/bottom wrist and a "setting" (dorsiflexing and staying dorsiflexed in plane of action "horizontal"/at 90 degrees from kinesiological motion of top hand wrist) of the top hand wrist which stays "set" until contact.

Here are a couple of golf demos which illustrate these principles including keeping a horizontally flat left wrist (lead wrist can be flat or bowed/arched, but never break down by cupping/dorsiflexing) that cocks and uncocks (hammers) in a vertical plane and a bent (dorsiflexed) lead/bottom wrist that stays bent at contact.

This same dorsiflexion of the top hand wrist, then keeping it set like this as you turn the corner is necessary for the application of torque by rolling (supination) of the back forearm (active shoulder tilt and forearm twist actions are discouraged in golf but essential in the HLBB swing).

So rather than sleepy vs awake or one arm/hand passive, I woud recommend working toward both hands/arms being active/working together in the right way which requires teaching the details of grip and wrist action to permite the forearms etc from working right.

"hammering" is a great drill for vertical lead wrist cocking/uncocking.

Not good for top hand action where getting top hand wrist set (Williams -"cocked") and keeping it cocked until contact is necessary.


Golf examples of botom wrist hammer and address vs impact wrist positions:


YouTube - Left Wrist Uncock Drill by Lynn Blake

YouTube - Lynn Blake Golf at The Barclays 2008 - Day 2

 

[Ken Krause]

Thanks, everyone, for the answers. Interesting discussion.

One of the key things when we think about teaching hitting (versus analyzing hitting) is the difference between what causes things to happen in the swing and what just happens as a result of other things. We may observe that the back elbow lowers at the start of the swing, but is it something you teach or something that just happens? Sounds like the folks who have answered so far wouldn't teach it -- or at least don't so far.

This is one of those things I'm open to, so if someone can explain how they do teach it, and how it's an improvement over what they taught before I'm interested. Always looking for new ideas. You never know what's going to resonate with a particular player or student.

 

[ifubuildit]

Guilty as Charged!

YouTube - Elbow to Elbow Drill.MPG

I guess I would say I teach it.



Dana