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What I have noticed about HL softball is that an athletic kid can get away with a lot due to the hot bats and short fences. I'd probably see if changing her handset worked for her and go from there...
Turning the barrel, direction?
- Thread starter Shawn
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What I have noticed about HL softball is that an athletic kid can get away with a lot due to the hot bats and short fences. I'd probably see if changing her handset worked for her and go from there...
We don't study college baseball hitters and say their the best in the world. Even if a fastpitch college hitter is successful, doesn't mean they have a great swing/approach. The field is very small for example.
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Cannonball
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Shawn, I disagree if you mean "we" to include those who are coaching fast-pitch in HS and TB. I use college players all of the time. I got a lot of the video off of this site. In our dugout, I had pictures posted of several college players in various stages of the swing. My dd worked with a young lady who was named and All American this year. I put stills of her and my dd up at similar points in the swing after marking those photos. In the gym balcony, I do the same and have a gallery up displaying various parts of the swing. Then, when we are hitting, I reference those photos for drill work. We also show the video in the classroom on rain days when we have to rotate into the cages since we have to share the same cage with baseball. I can't speak for others but my players don't want to see MLB players. Do I use a few? Sure. Still, they want to see the girls that they have seen on TV.
Some subjects are touchy for me to respond to. BB was attacked by ... (Insert many during hitting wars) for not having a HL swing followed by remarks that she would never hit good pitching. Regardless of competition she played, she was successful. When she had a couple of hits, including a home run, against the Chicago Bandits, she was just lucky. So many times on this site, the discussion has been about a MLB swing as opposed to an HL swing only to have that discussion evolve into statements that most of the players on MLB rosters don't have elite MLB swings. For those dads out there, learn the swing and then do your best to help your dd. What works for one player/dad may not work for you and your dd. I've seen failures which could be attributed to every guru's camp and at the highest level of collegiate softball. I'll say this again. What every philosophy you like and which you think help produce a swing that you regard as HL has to make sense to you but then, it has to be something you can coach and pass on to your dd. Believe me, often something gets lost in the translation between the intent and what the hitter (your dd) does. Keep working with a HL swing your goal and be honest with yourself if it isn't working.
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To be fair, I tend to agree with Shawn that if one is going to go searching for baseball players to try and emulate, it makes sense to look at MLB swings vs. college players since theirs has succeeded at the highest level with equipment which is limiting (e.g. wood bats). The difference in difficulty between college softball and professional/international softball is probably not as large as college baseball/MLB so if a young lady wants to see a female she can emulate you would probably be pretty safe in choosing a collegiate swing which has been successful and which possesses the attributes which you as the parent/instructor think are important. I personally think the fences are too close in fastpitch softball and the bats are too hot. I wanted to try out my DD's new bat so I had her throw 2 front toss pitches to me after we were done hitting a few weeks ago. I had her throw the 12" balls we have (she still uses 11") and with my old man swing, and 31" 20 oz bat, I one-hopped the first pitch to the fence and the second I hit out, on a slow pitch field. That said, I understand why they are that way. People like to see HR and fastpitch has a hard enough time drawing eyeballs as it is.
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FiveFrameSwing
Banned
Don't know if you saw the recent USA vs Japan game. Japan looked awesome fielding wise. Pretty strong base-running as well. Hitting didn't look overly advanced or MLBish. Now ... it isn't as if Japan is stupid or ignorant of the game ... many elements of their game are highly polished ... so you have to sort of scratch your head and wonder if they have purposely decided to travel a different road in terms of hitting.
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I didn't see it. Maybe they have decided that based on the physical attributes of their players, going small ball (if that is the road you meant) is the best way for them to win. It really isn't much different than somebody deciding
that a fast RH fastpitch hitter would be better off moving to the left hand side and slapping. My kid can run, so my goal is to make sure she hits well enough such that she doesn't have that decision made for her at some point
FiveFrameSwing
Banned
Going to nitpick with the parenthetical comment...sorry
e.g. in the equation you gave L is a constant. Reducing moment of inertia (I) by bringing your hands closer to
your center of mass means, since L is constant, rotational velocity (omega) has to go up to compensate.
The improvement in rotational velocity one would get from bringing your hands closer in a swing
would be a good deal less I would assume then the improvement the figure skater would get since
their leg position with respect to the center of mass also is changed which isn't true in a swing.
I would think there are probably other biomechanical advantages one gets from keeping their
hands closer to their body which would be more important than the increase in rotational velocity one gets due
to conservation of angular momentum.
Having the hands in close gives the advantage of developing greater rotational speed and control.
Control is an important criteria ... i.e., you don't want to lose the barrel.
Once the hands release away from the body, the body's rotational velocity is reduced ... not the velocity of the barrel, but the rotational velocity of the body.
As for being 'short' ... perhaps think in terms of trying to stay behind the ball in a turn.
One of Bonds' top swing thoughts was on staying short .....
Cannonball
Ex "Expert"
- Feb 25, 2009
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As many know, I used Albert Pujols as the model for my dd's swing. Still, and again where you are might be totally different, my players don't want to see MLB player's swings. In a way, it turns them off. They love watching some of the clips of college players I show. I'll stand by my previous post.
I got the same impression. Overall, it looked like the Japanese hitters had a goal of hitting singles, and the US players had a goal of yanking it out of the yard. During the broadcast of one of the earlier Japan vs. USA games, there was commentary about someone on the Japanese team (not sure if it was a player or coach) starting to adopt a more American approach of trying to hit HRs as if that concept was new for them.
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