What Causes the Hips to Rotate in a HL Swing?

[Bobby Shirer]

what part of "as I start swinging my weight shifts to my right (lead) foot did you not understand????
He didn't say "at contact my weight shifts to my right (lead) foot"....

I didn't understand the part that says, "My weight is my left (rear) foot, as I start swinging,
the comma here is a grammatical thingy that divides the sentence into two separate ideas.

This might be the part that I understand:
my weight shifts to my right (lead) foot at the time of contact with the ball."
....when clearly, the video shows his rear foot off the ground before contact. He's not keeping his weight back. This it a guy who stood with his feet together. He's nothing but weight shift to the front leg! Lots of forward momentum!!!
It's the old, "believe none of what you hear and half of what you see."

 

[4 girl's dad]

ruth appears to have been fooled on a change up.

 

[_MIA_]

I didn't understand the part that says, "My weight is my left (rear) foot, as I start swinging,
the comma here is a grammatical thingy that divides the sentence into two separate ideas.

This might be the part that I understand:
my weight shifts to my right (lead) foot at the time of contact with the ball."
....when clearly, the video shows his rear foot off the ground before contact. He's not keeping his weight back. This it a guy who stood with his feet together. He's nothing but weight shift to the front leg! Lots of forward momentum!!!
It's the old, "believe none of what you hear and half of what you see."

Ruth strides out, lands with maybe 60% of his "weight" on his rear foot and 40% (just an estimate) on his front foot. As he initiates his swing, the force of the swing causes the "weight" distribution (it really should be called pressure distribution hence my use of quotes..but I digress..) to be shifted to be such that a majority is on his front foot to the point where, as you noted, at some before contact, but after swing initiation, the back foot is "unweighted". That force of the swing also takes his front leg from being soft (bent) at foot strike to extended as the force is distributed through the body,through the leg into the ground and then front leg reacts to that ground force (Newton's third law).

 

[Bobby Shirer]

So when do you actively push? Before/during swing launch or after? If it was before/during I would think the leg extension would occur much closer to launch in a HL swing (e.g. Trout's or Cabrera's) than what I am seeing
FYI, my swing launch is defined as when the barrel starts to arc towards the ball (to answer your previous question regarding swing launch).

So when I tip my bat toward the pitcher and start the rearward acceleration away from the ball, you still don't see this as (in your words) "the arc toward the ball" or swing?
Of course it's all part of the swing but I define the swing as the actual bat going to the ball and not all the things we to to create power. Agree?

The active push on the front leg is what I think differentiates the high level swing. It's the fastest big muscle move and once initiated becomes hard to stop. I think this is the start of the swing. Look at where the bat is when this move starts and how much it accelerates during this move.

 

[_MIA_]

So when I tip my bat toward the pitcher and start the rearward acceleration away from the ball, you still don't see this as (in your words) "the arc toward the ball" or swing?
Of course it's all part of the swing but I define the swing as the actual bat going to the ball and not all the things we to to create power. Agree?

The active push on the front leg is what I think differentiates the high level swing. It's the fastest big muscle move and once initiated becomes hard to stop. I think this is the start of the swing. Look at where the bat is when this move starts and how much it accelerates during this move.

The bolded describes the same two things so yes that is what I am using to define launch e.g. the start of the swing. When done correctly, the whole body is used to initiate this action in the most explosive manner possible. I think it actually has been shown that near contact, e.g. right about when Trout's front leg extends, the bat actually stops accelerating which is fine since the forces produced by the acceleration of the bat on the ball at time of contact are minuscule compared to ball-bat collision impact forces and can be ignored in the analysis (making the conservation of linear momentum the only necessary principle needed to estimate ball exit velocity):

Forces between Bat and Ball

 

[Bobby Shirer]

Ruth strides out, lands with maybe 60% of his "weight" on his rear foot and 40% (just an estimate) on his front foot. As he initiates his swing, the force of the swing causes the "weight" distribution (it really should be called pressure distribution hence my use of quotes..but I digress..) to be shifted to be such that a majority is on his front foot to the point where, as you noted, at some before contact, but after swing initiation, the back foot is "unweighted". That force of the swing also takes his front leg from being soft (bent) at foot strike to extended as the force is distributed through the body,through the leg into the ground and then front leg reacts to that ground force (Newton's third law).

We agree on most. I see Ruth moving forward from one foot to the other. Not really a 60-40 thing, he shifts to his front side 100%. Easier to see in real time that he's not holding back or staying back. He times the pitch during his move and extends the front leg to create the aggressive move to the ball ....launch the swing.
I think the high level swing is just that.... a forward move to 100% on the front leg that gets loaded, the timing is created there, and extended to swing the bat. The move onto the front leg is the load!

 

[rdbass]

Are you a Yeager follower?

 

[rdbass]

You can literally 'see'....and 'feel'.....the power in the rear leg of the golfer on the left....and the lack of power in the front leg of the golfer on the right.

The rear leg offers CONSIDERABLE more power than the left. Fact.
Harper spends his rear leg power....to simply get to.....the front leg.....which is very weak. His rear leg power IS NOT part of his swing. It powers his shift....not his swing. His swing occurs AS the shift hits the lead leg.

Now....he shifts pretty darn fast. That rear leg provides very strong momentum. That creates power when it hits the lead leg.

But not until.

And therein lies the problem.

You don't have time for that against 95.
You have no adustability mechanism when you see 75 or moving 88.

Bonds and the other greats.....their rear leg is a drivetrain. An engaged driver....turning the resistance. NOW. It turns the system BEFORE weight shifts. The turning shifts the weight. The weight shifts BECAUSE OF the swing....not before it.

 

[Bobby Shirer]

The bolded describes the same two things so yes that is what I am using to define launch e.g. the start of the swing. When done correctly, the whole body is used to initiate this action in the most explosive manner possible. I think it actually has been shown that near contact, e.g. right about when Trout's front leg extends, the bat actually stops accelerating which is fine since the forces produced by the acceleration of the bat on the ball at time of contact are minuscule compared to ball-bat collision impact forces:

Forces between Bat and Ball

Yes, ideally the bat should be accelerated to 100% speed before contact. But I don't think the bat slows before contact, just the rate of acceleration. We should aim to get the bat to top speed before contact.
The acceleration of the bat isn't what transfers the energy, only the speed and the mass.

 

[Bobby Shirer]

BUt the rear leg golfer doesn't use any of the moves described by anyone here to generate force. Where's his coil and uncoil? Where's he drive the rear knee forward to create power?