- May 3, 2014
- 2,149
- 83
Maybe I have the terminology wrong. Drive hip is drive foot hip - right hip for RH pitcher
Pitchers hips?
- Thread starter jackstarling
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Actually rereading, I think I just read it wrong the first time.
This is where the magic happens! Love an instructor who can work WITH the student and find the cue that clicks!
I feel your pain! Boardmember, javasource, FrozenRope, Out in Left Field and many others have struggled with my way of learning and describing what I think. I keep at it... I study, I read, I listen and most important, I practically test almost everything to find the feel connection. It makes communicating with my kids move so much faster... I'm far from where I want to be, but really appreciate these conversations that challenge what I think and feel. My kids are the benefactors and I can't begin to express how thankful I am for this site. We've lost SO MANY great contributors and although I understand why they've moved on, I really miss their input and hope they find the time to stop by now and then to share their experience and perspective.
It's good that the board still has lots of great contributors such as yourself! Everday DFP members help advance the pitching careers of youth around the country. You all keep the boards active on what is surely the most popular pitching forum on the net. The mechanics that BM, Java, Rick, and many many others have outlined to the nth degree on this site are nothing short of phenominal. This board truly is the fastpitch bible.
I know that the concepts that I haved posted over the last couple years challenge the norm. I hope that instead of running people off, it insted causes them to pause and consider.
The good Lord has blessed my family in many ways. The athletic struggles that I endured and that DD is working through has challenged us to dig deeper into the most minute details for understanding. God has illuminated our path and given us the fortitude to continue marching ahead, and I look forward to what the future will bring.
God bless y'all!
I enjoy the challenge to my thinking. My hope is that folks (who are able) try this stuff on their own. Feeling what our kids feel is huge and makes communicating cues SO much easier
javasource
6-4-3 = 2
Good lord... this is turning into a confusing subject... I'm having a real hard time trying to connect all these pieces.
I appreciate how you're trying to marry all of these concepts, J... but that, my friend is not overlap.
To be fair, my dumba$$ typed up a response in a grocery store, and mentioned elastic energy. I should not have... should've just bought groceries.
On a sidenote, I really wish we could stop trying to link overhand throwing & hitting to pitching. Although it may feel comfortable... and although there are definitely some similar movement patterns... these topics are fire and ice, relatively speaking.
In hitting, learning to swing a bat... BLATANTLY changes the inertial characteristics of the arm and the hand... comparative to pitching. They are not even close. Same goes with overhand throwing... which tends to follow the kinetic chain principle, accurately... whereas in underhand pitching, the main velocity generator takes place OUTSIDE of the kinetic sequence... or breaks the theory, if you will.
In the three... planar movements are different, activation/deactivation patterns are different, and the timing is completely different... so to try and borrow from one, may explain the difficulty some are experiencing it in creating it firsthand.
I could liken underhand pitching to ballet... or shoveling manure... heck, probably even bartending if I really wanted to, but the more I try and reach for "similarities" the more diluted the context of 'overlap IN SOFTBALL PITCHING' becomes, as this thread is completely highlighting.
Not hating on anyone... so don't get all caught up in those last few lines... but just recognize that what you all are talking about in regards to "the hips" is not overlap.
Overlap IS NOT elastic energy (stretch shortening)... nor is it ballistic energy... nor is it simple sequencing. They can be related and part of... no doubt, but are not the same.
A one-legged golfer... a throw from the outfield... J swinging a bat in his living room (nice place, btw)... are all examples of creating elastic energy via stretch.
OVERLAP IN PITCHING is simply a relationship between the movement of proximal and distal components and the significance of WHEN THAT MOVEMENT OCCURS. When a proximal body part moves in a direction opposite of a distal body part... those movements overlap.
Like... the TORSO (proximal) is moving forward... while the ARM/HAND (distal) is moving backward. - or - The torso & lower extremities are moving downward... while the hand is moving upward. In any of these situations, the timing and organization of the movement is what makes it intelligent... and subsequently, useful to a pitcher...
Although I'm a "walnut-cracker" at heart - and J knows this... the rear is but a piece... not the solution to any of this hip stuff. ABout the same advice I gave my son as he journied off to college.
Anyway... regarding this hip stuff...
One of the age old techniques of avoiding a "style" or fundamental in pitching is to write it off as "dangerous". By labeling it as such, you avoid further discussion... either because the person is 1) unwilling to learn/try something new or 2) feeling challenged by your suggestion.
Amen. Couldn't have said it better.
This guy is a genius... kind of guy I'd want to go into business with...
I disagree. Teaching someone algebra is quite difficult if they haven't mastered addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division... right?
Most look at movement as effort... or activation. Same thing with stabilization. Stability is not just strength... it's about effortless timing & recruitment. DE-activating muscles is a higher order skill than activating... and where true movement mastery takes place.
You see a glute-activated movement. Truth is... you ask most of the people in all these gifs how they learned that move... and they'll not have a clue. Not because they can't participate in the conversation... but because they didn't train to "activate". Instead... at some point... the timing of their pitching movements became so natural for them... that they ADAPTED their movement strategy unconsciously.
If, however... you view turning the foot externally just prior to plant as a non-teach... how is it so easily achieved when teaching someone to throw overhand? Loaded question, btw...
Some of this stuff is not a direct-teach... absolutely. However... proper timing, deactivation, and pitching coordination IS a learned response. Overlap (as I describe it) is very teachable... and as such should be very repeatable... once correct. Some kids, however... don't benefit from it... as their body awareness is so poor, that limiting these movements can be the best interim solution (like a backswing...).
Great information in the wrong hands can be a bad thing... especially when it is not understood. Rick, Rich, and I are joined at the hip... (pun intended)
You're saying that the hip is coiled? What's providing the resistance for the coil... as the athlete is not directly interacting with the ground? Dude... I'm really struggling with this one...
This reminds me of a hitting forum I was on MANY years ago where someone (no names) suggested the scap stays "pinched" through launch. Your one-legged hitter would have a devil of a time coiling his hip if he was floating... and holding a pre-loaded coil without applied resistance (as you said, from the ground up).
You might be willing to try this, J... as I know you do a lot of testing/experimenting...
Hoist yourself off the ground... and while freely suspended, change movement planes (sagittal to lateral)... then coil your right hip...
It ain't happening my good man...
I appreciate how you're trying to marry all of these concepts, J... but that, my friend is not overlap.
To be fair, my dumba$$ typed up a response in a grocery store, and mentioned elastic energy. I should not have... should've just bought groceries.
On a sidenote, I really wish we could stop trying to link overhand throwing & hitting to pitching. Although it may feel comfortable... and although there are definitely some similar movement patterns... these topics are fire and ice, relatively speaking.
In hitting, learning to swing a bat... BLATANTLY changes the inertial characteristics of the arm and the hand... comparative to pitching. They are not even close. Same goes with overhand throwing... which tends to follow the kinetic chain principle, accurately... whereas in underhand pitching, the main velocity generator takes place OUTSIDE of the kinetic sequence... or breaks the theory, if you will.
In the three... planar movements are different, activation/deactivation patterns are different, and the timing is completely different... so to try and borrow from one, may explain the difficulty some are experiencing it in creating it firsthand.
I could liken underhand pitching to ballet... or shoveling manure... heck, probably even bartending if I really wanted to, but the more I try and reach for "similarities" the more diluted the context of 'overlap IN SOFTBALL PITCHING' becomes, as this thread is completely highlighting.
Not hating on anyone... so don't get all caught up in those last few lines... but just recognize that what you all are talking about in regards to "the hips" is not overlap.
Overlap IS NOT elastic energy (stretch shortening)... nor is it ballistic energy... nor is it simple sequencing. They can be related and part of... no doubt, but are not the same.
A one-legged golfer... a throw from the outfield... J swinging a bat in his living room (nice place, btw)... are all examples of creating elastic energy via stretch.
OVERLAP IN PITCHING is simply a relationship between the movement of proximal and distal components and the significance of WHEN THAT MOVEMENT OCCURS. When a proximal body part moves in a direction opposite of a distal body part... those movements overlap.
Like... the TORSO (proximal) is moving forward... while the ARM/HAND (distal) is moving backward. - or - The torso & lower extremities are moving downward... while the hand is moving upward. In any of these situations, the timing and organization of the movement is what makes it intelligent... and subsequently, useful to a pitcher...
Although I'm a "walnut-cracker" at heart - and J knows this... the rear is but a piece... not the solution to any of this hip stuff. ABout the same advice I gave my son as he journied off to college.
Anyway... regarding this hip stuff...
One of the age old techniques of avoiding a "style" or fundamental in pitching is to write it off as "dangerous". By labeling it as such, you avoid further discussion... either because the person is 1) unwilling to learn/try something new or 2) feeling challenged by your suggestion.
Amen. Couldn't have said it better.
This guy is a genius... kind of guy I'd want to go into business with...
Being honest, teaching the overlap in pitching is VERY HARD
I disagree. Teaching someone algebra is quite difficult if they haven't mastered addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division... right?
Most look at movement as effort... or activation. Same thing with stabilization. Stability is not just strength... it's about effortless timing & recruitment. DE-activating muscles is a higher order skill than activating... and where true movement mastery takes place.
You see a glute-activated movement. Truth is... you ask most of the people in all these gifs how they learned that move... and they'll not have a clue. Not because they can't participate in the conversation... but because they didn't train to "activate". Instead... at some point... the timing of their pitching movements became so natural for them... that they ADAPTED their movement strategy unconsciously.
If, however... you view turning the foot externally just prior to plant as a non-teach... how is it so easily achieved when teaching someone to throw overhand? Loaded question, btw...
Some of this stuff is not a direct-teach... absolutely. However... proper timing, deactivation, and pitching coordination IS a learned response. Overlap (as I describe it) is very teachable... and as such should be very repeatable... once correct. Some kids, however... don't benefit from it... as their body awareness is so poor, that limiting these movements can be the best interim solution (like a backswing...).
Great information in the wrong hands can be a bad thing... especially when it is not understood. Rick, Rich, and I are joined at the hip... (pun intended)
I would call that a lead/lag... or chained/sequential movements... they are not opposing/overlapping movements... just sequential.
You're saying that the hip is coiled? What's providing the resistance for the coil... as the athlete is not directly interacting with the ground? Dude... I'm really struggling with this one...
This reminds me of a hitting forum I was on MANY years ago where someone (no names) suggested the scap stays "pinched" through launch. Your one-legged hitter would have a devil of a time coiling his hip if he was floating... and holding a pre-loaded coil without applied resistance (as you said, from the ground up).
You might be willing to try this, J... as I know you do a lot of testing/experimenting...
Hoist yourself off the ground... and while freely suspended, change movement planes (sagittal to lateral)... then coil your right hip...
It ain't happening my good man...
The term overlap has been used extensively as a term to represent this movement pattern in hitting.
I think this specific movement pattern is very similar to this one.
I bring them up because the movement patterns above (pelvic shift and rear leg IR) are very similar, and I believe their origination mechanism to be nearly identical.
Again, I'm not talking about hands and arms. I'm talking about the core movement above.
Classy. If you thought the last few lines would be taken wrong, then why keep them in the post? The hitting community has called the movements above overlap for longer than I've seen it used in this forum.
You might not mean to, but you are completely minimizing the conceptual and physical difficulties that had to be overcome to produce that swing of mine that achieves "overlap". It is a culmination of many years of effort. If it is so easily brushed off as elastic energy from stretch, then by all means recreate it. What I did involved rear leg coil and pulling back throughout the launch. It will not be replicated without doing the same.
Again you are discounting a tremendous amount of research of glute activation. Java, you know I appreciate your workout routines. I have referred countless kids and parents to them.... But I promise you this, all the lateral bounds, vertical jumps, and pistol squats in the world would NEVER make my DD's glute fire correctly. She jumped and ran differently than everyone else when she started and as well as after. She did however develop strong quads while everyone developed their glutes though.
Your research is missing an element of foot strength, and without identifying this, workout routines such as yours will always develop two sub groups of athletes... Those who activate their feet will accel. Those who do not will lag. Chong Xie's research is solid. It will prove that manual dorsiflexion in the sprinter's posture is a fallacy and that it is engaged feet that creates the illusion of dorsiflexion. Once that crumbles, other aspects of modern day sprinting mechanics will follow.
There is nothing easy about doing what Ueno's hips are doing. It is entirely an involuntary mechanical movement, and I'm yet to see a teaching method other than teaching pullbacks that will create it. Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying it can't be enhanced if the girl does it a little to begin with. If a girl does not have it in her biomechanical DNA, none of the current instruction sets will create it.
You want to talk about effortless... In my swing, my hips turned correctly, my rear leg IR'd, my front hip moved the way it should, my rear hip led my upper torso and the barrel, my shoulders were bypassed effectively. The way you are describing would imply that I did lot of separate actions in perfect harmony. Timing things to the hundreth of a second and recruiting different muscles to achieve this "pattern"...
I say again, that I DID NOT DO ANY OF THIS. There was no timing or manual recruitment involved. I turned the barrel and ALL THAT STUFF HAPPENED. It was not muscle memory, practice, or timing. By the nature of pulling back against my coiled rear leg, my body was FORCED to react that way.
Do you understand what I am saying? By doing a few non-dynamic pre-swing things correctly, my body could NOT do it wrong.
That is true effortlessness. That is automatic. And I think that Ueno's hip action has the same level of automation.
This kind of helps make my point. They just did it... And sadly countless others did not. I would like to change the ratio... If they don't understand it and the experts choose not learn it, we are leaving it up to chance that our students will get it.
I'm not sure where you are going with this. I haven't talked about a front side action in this post. I did talk about rear leg IR, and I would love to hear your feedback to what I said.
Exactly what I am saying, some do it, others don't. Avoiding it by limiting movements is a cop out. If it's interim, then what's the plan for a permanent solution? Hope for the best? This thread is about how to learn to fix it, not avoid it.
Re: overlap
I disagree.
Lead/lag and chained/sequential implies the hip turns first and the upper body will turn later. I claim that the upper body does not turn, it gets turned. Does this make sense? The upperbody resists turning, but it will soon be overwhelmed by the turning of the hips. The backwards resistance will be overtaken by the forward rotation of the hips. Hence the term "overlap".
Again I claim these are not sequential movements. If anything, it was a forced kinetic chain, and if people would take time to learn how the rear hip can pivot around the ball of the femur, they'd get it too.
Very good question, it's a tough one.
I don't know for sure, maybe her pullback is so violent that the inertia of the rear leg alone is enough resistance for her to cock her hips. In the gif's below her waist turns significantly while her knee does not appear to match the move. I think it is likely at this point, she has removed slop from her rear hip.
I don't have all the answers, but at least I'm trying. This guy found a way to cock a gun with one hand. He used the weight of the slide in air to resist the forward momentum from his arm movement. A rear leg is heavy. An object with mass inherently resists movement. Maybe a cocked rear hip is an equal and opposite reaction.
- May 3, 2014
- 2,149
- 83
This statement pretty rings true to any elite athlete. No idea or wrong idea on how they move to accomplish whatever movement they are/were great at. Just watched a former D1 pitcher on YT instructing to get the hip out of the way so your arm can have a clear path to throw the ball. How many hitters talk about throwing their hands, or swinging down, or even demonstrate taking their hands down and across their body to swing. Chamberlain is also guilty of this.
What's the difference when they go live? How they activate/use (automatically) their core.
So, then the question is - can we teach players how to use their core? Or at least train in a way to build core stability and dare I say strength? So, that when we ask them to perform a ballistic movement such as throwing or swinging - their core will activate subconsciously?
Last night I showed my 3 pitchers how to hip snap with a core torque (I picked this up in one throw when I saw Rick's video so it rang true immediately). As I suspected the pitcher furthest along in terms of pitching proficiency and work ethic picked it up in her second try - consistent release with brush. My pitcher coming back from an ankle injury took longer. It would come and go (lots of rotation into release as her PC is coaching her to do UGH) until I showed her Rick's glove whirl video (Thanks again Rick) and this had an effect on improving the timing of adduction and helped the hip snap stabilize into stride foot plant. Once she became consistent with the glove path - all of her next 20 pitches were very consistent. She even showed me the redness on her forearm from the brush. Unfortunately, my 3rd pitcher was taught HE and although she is now seeing a new PC to correct this (at least that is my hope) - the whole idea of drive, IR, core torque, brush, etc is completely lost on her.
So, in one 20 minute segment I used a really tough to instruct and implement proximal type mechanic of the core and a much easier distal mechanic of the glove path.
And wrt to teaching hip snap and worrying about excessive rotation - the stride foot lands and locks the hips at 45 or so. You can even see the recoil here.
Does the stride foot landing influence the brush or does the core torque influence the stride foot landing?
The CT (core torque) is the timing in hitting. Pitching the timing is consistent - hitting it has to something that can adjust. There is nothing faster than a CT.
This image is of Pavel Tsatsouline geared up with sensors to measure core activity. It's possible to create two pulses to create powerful movement. Read up on Dr Stuart McGill as well. So maybe there is pulse of the core to start the drive out and another at or near the top of the circle to get the hip snap...
For you Ken - knew I had it somewhere. Check out the glove whirl - like an outrigger
