Overlap talk?

I see a lot of talk about overlap in pitching and I wonder exactly what is overlap. I understand what overlap in hitting is but pitching, not so much.

Thanks

Read the drive mechanics sticky. Essentially it's when your backswing overlaps your forward drive.

Body goes forward while the arm(s) goes back--creates the stretch seen in many athletic motions. Stretch then fire.

Thanks..........

Other sports movements that utilize overlap (stretch to load):





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ_DHAWYea0

jryan15 said:

I have heard and used the term overlap differently between pitching and hitting.

As Ken B stated, in pitching, Java and others have referred to overlap as the arm going back while the body goes forward.

In hitting and overhand throwing, overlap is often referred as the hips turning forward as the upper torso resists turning...

Click to expand...

Hey J,

Hope B is doing well. I don't think I completely agree with the hitting/pitching differences... to me... they are quite similar. Put a little gif together for you:


Delaying the shoulders is a result of teaching positive/negative moves, IMO. Teach a kid to reach their maximum proper load at toe touch... and voila... you've overlap that creates bat speed.

Teach a kid to turn the hips and resisting upper torso turning won't always create the same results... and often creates swings where the batters hips aren't turning into and through contact. The hips turn as a result of good posture and front foot orientation/transfer, IMO.

Point being... positive and negative moves create the stretch that optimizes the work the body performs. Best, ~JS

javasource said:

Hey J,

Teach a kid to turn the hips and resisting upper torso turning won't always create the same results... and often creates swings where the batters hips aren't turning into and through contact. The hips turn as a result of good posture and front foot orientation/transfer, IMO.

Point being... positive and negative moves create the stretch that optimizes the work the body performs. Best, ~JS

Click to expand...

B is doing ok. Still hitting 25 to 26 revs without too much trouble, but mechanical issues leading to control issues... We're working on it though.

Thanks for clarifying on the overlap discussion. For the record on my side, I do think that the bottom 3 clips (hitting, throwing, and pitching) are the same type of overlap. I thought I had also heard overlap used as a term for the back swing, but I was probably mistaken.

Thank you for the clip! Can you tell me again what GIF editor you are using? I see a lot of use for something like that!

I mostly agree with your comments on loading, but with some minor differences in how I teach it. The way I used the word hips in my post was only for discussion purposes. In reality, I never teach to turn the hips. In the model I follow, the hips are turned automatically. I do think that hips are a part of the top and are also resisting, but I didn't want to get into the ding weeds.

I had wanted to show you some of the hitting concepts in our visit, but time got the better of us that day. All the pitching help was phenomenal and too good to stop to talk hitting .

Thanks again for all you do! I'm still up for another visit if we could make the time work .

I use Kinovea to mark up the video, save it as an MP4. From there.. I use Photoshop (CS5) to create the gifs. Handbrake is also used from time to time to reduce the video size, if necessary.

One of the more difficult challenges you have... is that B is so dang flexible... and her joints so lax. I was looking at Lauren Chamberlain hitting the other day... and I thought of B... take a look at her lead elbow... it's wicked:


Anyway...

B has some significant posture issues... quite certain these are the largest inconsistencies for her mastering control. I'll post a still of an old video... I'm really hoping you're cool with that... pretty sure you mentioned before that it's not an issue. If you'd like me to remove them, let me know and I'll remove this post:


What I did was take a posture snapshot of each of the three pitches on the video. As you can see, B severely drops her throwing shoulder... AND... has significant backwards lean. These posture issues create a situation where the femur in her drive thigh cannot align with her torso.

Take a look at a girl with the same body type, Heather Stearns from Baylor. Note that the line created from the kneecap, to the hip, to the shoulder... she's what some people call "stacked". This is a trait you'll find in nearly every high-level pitcher. Also note that her shoulder line is near level:


I'd recommend that you work on getting her throwing shoulder elevated during release, first. From there, move her back posture to upright. From there... work on bringing the knee in line with the hip and shoulder. Three things... and once those are addressed, I believe it's a matter of repetition with the new posture points... and she'll gain the control of the zone she desires, add better kinetic energy to the ball, and be performing a healthier motion with less stress on the lower back and shoulder.

Hope to see you guys this summer! Best, ~JS

Oh yeah... almost forgot... Rich Balswick has some videos on Youtube that you can reference. If you haven't watched them already, I'd recommend taking a look.

My contribution.

Big Arm,

I'll edit this post tomorrow with a video for you and another member... providing I can get a moment away from fixing my wife's car.

Welcome to DFP!

Edit: what started as a simple 5 minute video on posture... turned into an hour of video on a whole bunch of subjects. I'll start cutting that video up tomorrow, and start posting some snippets from it on the Drive Mechanics sticky.