A couple of swing videos of my daughter

[Hitter]

I spent a considerable amount of time last night viewing my daughters videos in slow motion. I see three things I want to work on right off the bat )(pardon the pun).

1st of all, she is lifting her front foot and setting it right back down with an almost straightish leg and a flat foot when she starts her swing.

2nd, she isn't loading up good, getting that negative movement. (probably why you all say to lose the towel).

3rd, she is pushing her front hip out of the way and back. I think I can work on the 1st two, but how do I correct the last point? I need to man up and just quit letting her do live swings and start working from the ground up and fix what I can I think. She will hate me for it, but she has too many swing flaws to just try and use constraints to correct while she swings at balls off a Tee.

I work with a lot of LD kids and in their world see it, feel it and fix it is huge. The water shifting in the bottle has really helped us out. Take a half full have half empty bottle your choice, and place it horizontally in the palm of your hand and show her the water moving and that you can control that movement. Then have her put her hand under yours so she can feel it herself. Now point to her hips and say we want you to feel that movement here in your hips. I have them load and get to toe touch with their lead foot shoe off and show them we want them on the inside edge of the foot enough so the baby toe can be moved and that is called eversion. Make sure the lead leg knee is bent or flexed and them gently slap her lead leg thigh and she will feel t wiggle like jello on a plate. Explain this is why the water moves and how we shift our weight. Then have her straighten out her knee and slap her thigh again and it will be very rigid and the water will not move and her weight can not shift forward or be linear.

Thanks Howard

 

[Hitter]

That to me looks like scapular action and adduction of the front upper arm.

I don't see the angle of the front elbow change.

In many cases, when hitters walk away from the hands what you see is more than just scapular action.

Chris I put these terms in from the internet.....the parents at clinics scratch their heads and look like they are lost if you use these terms so I thought it might help clarify and make it simple.

Shoulder joint: The flexible ball-and-socket joint formed by the junction of the humerus and the scapula. This joint is cushioned by cartilage that covers the face of the glenoid socket and head of the humerus. The joint is stabilized by a ring of fibrous cartilage (the labrum) around the glenoid socket. Ligaments connect the bones of the shoulder, and tendons join these bones to surrounding muscles. The biceps tendon attaches the biceps muscle to the shoulder and helps stabilize the joint. Four short muscles that originate on the scapula pass around the shoulder, where their tendons fuse together to form the rotator cuff.

The mobility of the shoulder joint is necessary for placement of the hand to maximize manipulation. The scapula is suspended on the thoracic wall by muscle forming a "functional joint" called the scapulothoracic joint. These muscles act to stabilize and/ or to actively move the scapula. Active movements of the scapula help increase the range of motion of the shoulder joint.
Adduction is a movement which brings a limb — arm or leg — closer to the sagittal plane of the body. It is opposed to abduction.
Abduction, in functional anatomy, is a movement which draws a limb away from the median (Sagittal) plane of the body. It is thus opposed to adduction.
A sagittal plane of the human body is an imaginary plane that travels vertically from the top to the bottom of the body, dividing it into left and right portions.

This is why we use a rope or a WhipHit to get the hitter to feel the bat lag position and then unhinge the wrist to contact. The slight bend in the front arm can be shown and felt as can the back elbow clearing the body verses being in too close. You have less ability to pull on the rope/ WhipHit when the elbow is in too close, this is a big issue with the females because of upper body thickness and breast size.

As to the hands separating, we try to point out by taking a finger and pressing into the shoulder joint at the front of the shoulder where the upper arm starts that you can feel tension. We have the lead elbow in the position prior to separation and then have them move it rearward and they can feel the tension and we say that is far enough. Any more movement causes the shoulders to turn or roll in. They claim more than 12 degrees causes the head to rotate too far causing vision problems. One of our kids parents loaded it into an ergonomics program and estimated the shoulder turn of 12 degrees is 3.65 inches inward or away from the pitcher. He also concluded that an even stance to a 5 degree open stance (back foot 2 inches toward home plate more than the lead foot) worked better for most hitters as to vision. The next issue was how the eyes are actually set in the socket IE bug eyed, eye set further back in the socket, tear drop eyes, verses rounded etc. This is why we put the hitter in front of a mirror to get that good two eyed look without the neck and shoulder strain and then have them look down at their feet and say you picked the stance so now make it repeatable for every at bat!

Thanks Howard