critique my 9yo DD swing...

Shawn · Apr 6, 2016

casedawg51 said:
I seriously just watched that GIF repeat for a solid 5 minutes.

I have a folder marked swings to study. I'm going to put this one in that folder. I usually open the clips in quicktime and loop the clips, then check the frame by frame.

One thing is he shifts the weight back into the hip joint with stabilization happening at the same time. The girl shifts back until the joints are stacked and then pauses. She is shifting and swinging at the same time. He is FBC with the joint always out front of the back foot. He is always working forward even though he is also getting the weight back, coiling.

chrispots · Apr 6, 2016

erniekru said:
I've been learning from the site for a while, I feel like I know what to address but wanted to get an idea of what things to work on. Thanks in advance - Ernie

<a onclick="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Outgoing', 'imgflip.com', '/gif/11zwa4']);" href="https://imgflip.com/gif/11zwa4"><img src="https://i.imgflip.com/11zwa4.gif" title="made at imgflip.com"/></a>

I don't disagree with what has been diagnosed here but I'll give you a different perspective on "fixing" her...

Leave her alone. She's 9.

I really like how her hands don't move forward until after her front foot plants...

She will figure some of this stuff on her own...You will not tackle bat drag at 9...this is more of a strength issue than anything at this point IMO...

The tee position need to be moved CLOSER to her. It's "forward" position is fine...the tee position itself is creating issues...

I would look at working 2 other tee positions:

High and in - high meaning arm pit high. If this is a real struggle look at starting this from a 45* SNF position. This will help with sequence and core usage.

Low and out (make the tee middle of the stance deep). She should hit the ball almost sideways from here. This will stop some of the movement in the frontal plane.

Show her the Cabrera clip but tell her to ONLY focus on the front shoulder driving down and then compare it to her shoulder position...

Don't get complicated...let her learn for herself...CP

FiveFrameSwing · Apr 6, 2016

IMO bat drag is not a strength issue.

chrispots · Apr 7, 2016

FiveFrameSwing said:
IMO bat drag is not a strength issue.

I spent a whole weekend a few weeks ago with 10U and under students (all TB players) and saw the same pattern over and over...low and behold when the 14U players came for the afternoon clinic, the same symptom was non-existent....hmmm... I was just an observer...I was there as a "student" and saw no magic bullet to fix this issue from any of the coaches teaching\presenting.

If you have a fix...then post it...in other words, defend your opinion that bat drag is not a strength issue for a 9 year old. Maybe post one of your 9YO students?

Here's your chance to post "content"

I'm sure insults and sarcasm with no content will follow...CP

FiveFrameSwing · Apr 7, 2016

Have seen several 14yo players with 'bat drag'. The issue doesn't simply go away as one ages and strengthens. If not corrected the swing issue will weed a player from the game ... sort of a natural selection type process.

SoGASoftball · Apr 7, 2016

Anyone care to share how they stopped bat drag? It's as prevalent as DBSF...

FiveFrameSwing · Apr 7, 2016

A player with 'bat drag' tends to create a fulcrum with their rear elbow. Their rear elbow leads the swing and serves as a pivot point. This supports a fairly powerful leveraged swing. In a sense you have two fulcrums in such a swing … the rear elbow and then the hands … both serving as pivot points in a chained 'fling' of the barrel. You basically have a double pendulum. The second pendulum action in such a swing has the hands being the second fulcrum, and due to the use of the first fulcrum (the elbow), the bat dragger ends up with their hands (the second pivot point) catapulted far out front.

The result can be a fairly powerful swing … yet a ‘long’ swing, and a swing that requires that the application of force be committed much earlier than need be the case. At the lower levels such a swing can make a kid appear to be a stud. What you have is a powerful swing that is often inaccurate and will not scale as the pitching gets better … i.e., as the pitching becomes faster and moves more.

Hitters that have a sense of 'the hands being along for the ride' can fall into this trap of what is being termed ‘bat drag’. They in a sense allow their top-hand and rear-forearm to ‘go to sleep’ … to be ‘inactivated’. These hitters understand that their hands are the last to go forward, yet they don’t understand the concept of ‘live hands’ … they instead have ‘dead hands’ … hands/rear-forearm that have yet to ‘connect’ to their swing, that are semi-floppy, that lack ‘structure’, and are in a sense ‘along for the ride’. As their rear elbow ‘slots’, their top-hand over does things and the top-hand palm will orientate skyward. They don’t have a sense of what it means to ‘work the barrel’ so as to avoid this issue … and that there … 'waking up the hands' to activate the rear forearm … to install the ‘around’ / ‘short-to’ … is where the solution resides for many.

chrispots · Apr 7, 2016

FiveFrameSwing said:
A player with 'bat drag' tends to create a fulcrum with their rear elbow. Their rear elbow leads the swing and serves as a pivot point. This supports a fairly powerful leveraged swing. In a sense you have two fulcrums in such a swing … the rear elbow and then the hands … both serving as pivot points in a chained 'fling' of the barrel. You basically have a double pendulum. The second pendulum action in such a swing has the hands being the second fulcrum, and due to the use of the first fulcrum (the elbow), the bat dragger ends up with their hands (the second pivot point) catapulted far out front.

The result can be a fairly powerful swing … yet a ‘long’ swing, and a swing that requires that the application of force be committed much earlier than need be the case. At the lower levels such a swing can make a kid appear to be a stud. What you have is a powerful swing that is often inaccurate and will not scale as the pitching gets better … i.e., as the pitching becomes faster and moves more.

Hitters that have a sense of 'the hands being along for the ride' can fall into this trap of what is being termed ‘bat drag’. They in a sense allow their top-hand and rear-forearm to ‘go to sleep’ … to be ‘inactivated’. These hitters understand that their hands are the last to go forward, yet they don’t understand the concept of ‘live hands’ … they instead have ‘dead hands’ … hands/rear-forearm that have yet to ‘connect’ to their swing, that are semi-floppy, that lack ‘structure’, and are in a sense ‘along for the ride’. As their rear elbow ‘slots’, their top-hand over does things and the top-hand palm will orientate skyward. They don’t have a sense of what it means to ‘work the barrel’ so as to avoid this issue … and that there … 'waking up the hands' to activate the rear forearm … to install the ‘around’ / ‘short-to’ … is where the solution resides for many.

I have to hand it to you Five...I asked for content and you provided it...

IMO This is flat out the single best post on the topic. You should know by now I'm not here to massage anyone's ego. This is an excellent explanation. The gifs are perfect.

In the interest of having a civil discussion and based on your post, I will still hypothesize that strength is a factor here...

In the top gif, the fulcrum point is close to her body...a young hitter feels strong in this position and as you noted, this is a powerful but long swing. In the second gif, the fulcrum point moves away from the body and requires some level of strength to turn the barrel\create "the around"...my contention is that most 9 YO's don't have the strength to perform the move demonstrated in the 2nd gif...I'm not disagreeing with your assertion but I just don't see 10U players who have that kind of hand\forearm strength demonstrated in the 2nd gif.

I have no evidence to back my statement up...the closest I can offer for evidence is me seeing bat drag reduces as they get stronger. The smallest player on my team went through a 12 week boot camp program for travel hockey and her droppy\flingy swing improved immensely...coincidence? I didn't change anything with her...but her being stronger made things start to fall into place within a pretty short period of time...CP

SoGASoftball · Apr 8, 2016

Could using the cue... Race the top hand past the bottom hand give a youngster the idea?

inde53546 · Apr 8, 2016

Would utilizing the lower half more "powerfully" and getting the sequence correct assist. I think using the lower half would give more power/strength to the swing? In both the OP and the example above neither girl is in sequence and neither appear very powerful with their lower half.

critique my 9yo DD swing...

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