Hey James, i am definitely not an expert at this but believe your assessment is mostly correct based on what i understand as well. When the upper parts are out of sync looks to be when there are problems.Fanboi, this is some interesting information. I am trying to understand the Kvest graphs you posted, and I have perused through some other online Kvest information. I'm not going to pretend to understand it all, but I do have some questions/comments.
In the "efficient" swing, it looks like Kvest shows that the pelvis fires first, and then torso, upper arm and hand fire at roughly the same time. From the graph, I can't tell how much time is supposed to elapse between the pelvis firing and then everything elsefiring. What do the 100, 200, 300 on the graph represent? Depending on the answer to this question, I would be asking about how that time frame affects the mental process of the hitter. For example, I assume we have to be talking about hundreths of a second here. So does it make sense for the hitter to consciously try to start the hips first? Do big leaguers think that way? Or do they think "fire all guns!" and the hips just happen to start 2/100 of a second faster? But again, I can't really tell what the timeframe is from the graphs.
Also, to me it looks like the big difference in the efficient vs. non-efficient swing is the quickness of the launch. The non-efficient swing appears to begin gradually, whereas the efficient swing appears to explode upward immediately.
Depending on the time frame between pelvis firing and everything else firing, I might argue that the Kvest data supports what I'm saying. Except for some slight lead by the pelvis, everything else fires at the same time. It's pretty clear that the segments should stop (or decelerate) in a specific order, but that's another issue altogether. At a minimum, the Kvest data shows that torso, upper arm and hand should all fire at the same time. Those segments do not appear to be waiting for the previous segments to fire before beginning.
One allows for the barrel to flatten while the other chops across.
Bonds leveraged and swinging "down to" against his hips extending.
Bobby swinging "down to" while shifting his weight to the front leg (ABAF).
TDS, I'm pretty sure I agree with what you're saying. One question I have is, what do you mean by "hips extending"? Are you using the word "extending" to differentiate from the word "rotating"?
Jamesd1628, its what helps apply the breaks to the hips vs rotating them to transfer energy. Think of it in terms of the obliques contracting against the hips extending within the sagittal plane. More noticeable on the off-speed pitch.
So you're saying that, rather than rotating, Bonds is performing some variation of this move: