FiveFrameSwing
Banned
The way I teach it, the glutes are involved with the core action.
Snap and Hips
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The way I teach it, the glutes are involved with the core action.
Regarding hand set... Finding the right hand position to be able to turn the barrel is a lot trickier than one would think. Most of us always tend to think mostly of arm movements, but the reality is you can move your hand location back several ways. Arm movement, scap movement, upper torso movement, coiling movement.
Arm movements don't really have any linkage through to the core so I am always really cautious about how a player moves their hands back. You definitely want to take some slack out, but it's easy to kind of bottom out the ROM in the shoulder and then you basically push the shoulder complex back with your arms. This is bad in that the linkage to the traps and the lats down through to the glutes will have a bunch of slop as opposed to when you actively engage those muscles.
While moving the hands back using coil doesn't change the relative position of the hands to the chest, it definitely moves them back in space. If you get good hip hinge and then coil your rear hip, you'll get that nice front shoulder down & in movement and the hands will rotate back all without actually moving the arms or the shoulders. <--- This is kind of a big deal because everyday kids and well-meaning parents or coaches try to mimic the front shoulder down and in by generating counterproductive arm and shoulder movements.
An excellent supplement to this and a topic that is rarely discussed it keeping the hands out from the chest. With the hands way off the chest and the batter coiling, the hands move back with nice depth. If the hands stay tight to the chest, it is much easier to use the arms/shoulders to pull the bat. to me, keeping the hands farther off the chest makes it easier to turn the barrel without jacking things up with arm movements.
Arm movements don't really have any linkage through to the core so I am always really cautious about how a player moves their hands back. You definitely want to take some slack out, but it's easy to kind of bottom out the ROM in the shoulder and then you basically push the shoulder complex back with your arms. This is bad in that the linkage to the traps and the lats down through to the glutes will have a bunch of slop as opposed to when you actively engage those muscles.
While moving the hands back using coil doesn't change the relative position of the hands to the chest, it definitely moves them back in space. If you get good hip hinge and then coil your rear hip, you'll get that nice front shoulder down & in movement and the hands will rotate back all without actually moving the arms or the shoulders. <--- This is kind of a big deal because everyday kids and well-meaning parents or coaches try to mimic the front shoulder down and in by generating counterproductive arm and shoulder movements.
An excellent supplement to this and a topic that is rarely discussed it keeping the hands out from the chest. With the hands way off the chest and the batter coiling, the hands move back with nice depth. If the hands stay tight to the chest, it is much easier to use the arms/shoulders to pull the bat. to me, keeping the hands farther off the chest makes it easier to turn the barrel without jacking things up with arm movements.
Like all of this^^^^^^
Especially:
While moving the hands back using coil doesn't change the relative position of the hands to the chest, it definitely moves them back in space. If you get good hip hinge and then coil your rear hip, you'll get that nice front shoulder down & in movement and the hands will rotate back all without actually moving the arms or the shoulders.
But can the hands be too far off the chest?
Especially:
While moving the hands back using coil doesn't change the relative position of the hands to the chest, it definitely moves them back in space. If you get good hip hinge and then coil your rear hip, you'll get that nice front shoulder down & in movement and the hands will rotate back all without actually moving the arms or the shoulders.
But can the hands be too far off the chest?
Thanks RH. There are extremes to everything that are trouble, but I was surprised at how far off you can be and still have a good barrel turn. Definitely worth getting uncomfortably off the chest and play around with it. The same goes with the height of the handset. Really high hands are common in softball not sure if it's a derivative of high elbows or what, but my general observation is that low handsets are rare. In MLB, there are lots of handsets that are much lower.
So I recommend if a player is struggling to turn the barrel because of too much arm recruitment, to try lowering the hands and keep them off the chest.
Like Butter mentioned, there is a lot of "individual user" feels to work out a good handset. The hard part is that there are lots of handsets that feel really strong, but stink for turning the barrel.
So I recommend if a player is struggling to turn the barrel because of too much arm recruitment, to try lowering the hands and keep them off the chest.
Like Butter mentioned, there is a lot of "individual user" feels to work out a good handset. The hard part is that there are lots of handsets that feel really strong, but stink for turning the barrel.
Last edited:
- May 3, 2014
- 2,149
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Just going by that the rear leg is the lower body and the hip joint is the middle. IMO the rear glute muscles are what provides the resistance against the rear leg so I like the idea that the glutes are part of the upper body.
I know you knew
. Just trying to continue to draw distinction to how special the glutes are in a swing and how they aren't really upper or lower torso. Middle is a good choice so long as people don't equate them one for one to the core.Most advanced students know that the glutes are hip extenders, but very few people understand that when the glutes try to extend a coiled rear hip, it forces the awesome turning rear leg action we all want to see. The coiled rear hip must be rectified as the rear hip extends.
Basically if the hips are bent and the glutes go to work, they will explosively extend like a broad or vertical jump. However when the rear hip is mis-aligned via coil, the glutes will re-align the rear hip as they continue to contract all the way into thoracic extension.
Same back-end movement pattern as the over hand throw.
FiveFrameSwing
Banned
Instead of taking the arms across your chest during the 'take away', think about using/winding your torso to move the arms back. The core 'winds' to "walk-away-from-the-hands" ... as opposed to pushing the hands rearward.
Train your body to shift your weight, rotate your core, and have that move your arms.
Get the core primary movements to be a big part of the takeaway and move the barrel and arms first.
