DD Bat Drag ?

[FiveFrameSwing]

Now with over 400 posts is any of this intended to help the OP or is just a pissing contest at this point?

Some hand/wrist based cues that some find helpful .....

Ted Williams: I don’t try to set any records with the swing of my arms and shoulders. It’s the hands and wrists to go all the way with.

Ted Williams: The power is applied before the wrists break.

Ted Williams: My hands and forearms supply bat direction.

Barry Bonds: Get the top hand through.

Barry Bonds: It’s easy, all you have to do is throw the bat head.

Chris Yeager: Finish the top hand.

HYP: The top hand should chase the flight of the ball.

Martin Chuck: Get your swingers working properly. [in reference to the process of the wrists hinging and unhinging.]

A few other quotes that I forget the source of ...

Feeling of snapping the bat once the hands get past the lead shoulder.

Unhinge to extension.

Feeling of snapping the top hand wrist and elbow at the same time.

Your hips rotate, but your swing goes straight out in a linear direction.

Feeling of whipping it through and not forcing it through. [in reference to the wrists.]

 

[tom.guerry]

Some are "disagreed with", not attacked, because their ideas and recommendations force a draggy long swing.

"you are only capable of seeing what you are capable of seeing."

and you are only capable of seeing what you have consciously felt.

 

[Cannonball]

Tom, I don't discount the need to swing the bat. In fact, I do so often. What you can't say accurately is that any of us can "feel" the same thing. I once posted a few throughts on that from a Doctor and you being a Doctor should know that. "Feel" is as vague as you can get. Of course there are those who want to stick their chests out and brag that they feel the same thing as Bonds does when he swung a bat. Ludacris at best! Since you know that PaulN's definition when he began promoting his philosophy was reproducing the MLB swing as best possible, it is then possible that those who bought into his ideas were trying to "feel" exactly that. Do you know of any player/coach attempting to improve their game wanting to "feel" a crappy swing?

There are great tidbits throughout this thread. Certainly one can not discount anything Ted Williams said. Also, the videos provided tell a story. Whether your child is able to reproduce those swings is a multifaceted question. There are outstanding travel programs that produce outstanding teams year in and year out. Since college softball is the goal of many of us, it might be worth your time checking out what the best do. JMHO!

 

[batdragon]

Moved from tee work to (deep) soft toss today. Worked on tossing the ball deep and having her hit to opposite field. Also, placed a punching back behind the plate to help her concentrate on a shorter bat path.

Jayla 11-25 Soft Toss - YouTube

Doesn't appear to be dragging...

 

[softballphreak]

Moved from tee work to (deep) soft toss today. Worked on tossing the ball deep and having her hit to opposite field. Also, placed a punching back behind the plate to help her concentrate on a shorter bat path.

Jayla 11-25 Soft Toss - YouTube

Doesn't appear to be dragging...

Lead with the hips instead of the hands/shoulders and that will help also. When the hips clear the hands can come through instead of around.

 

[PaulN]

Bat drag is "insideous".....

Some progress but.....

The seven deadly sins of the flesh are:

Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of reality that surrounds them. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.

Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.

Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.

Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.

Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.

Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.

Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work

To which I then posted my seven deadly sins with respect to the swing of a bat:


"My" seven deadly sins with respect to swinging a bat.

1. BAT DRAG. Bat drag is the equivalent of pride with respect to its negative effect on the entire swing population. Bat drag is a result of how the body naturally tries to deal with moving something such as a bat through space with the requirement of putting that bat in the same location at a specific time as a moving ball. Bat drag is responsible for other sins such as casting, failure to stay inside the ball and long looping swings. And for those who continue to attempt to come up with elaborate speculations as to what causes bat drag all I can say is good luck. As far as I can tell bat drag is nothing more than a natural consequence of how the body deals with the movement problem trying to move a bat in a fashion that is most efficient for the body to do so, i.e. moving the mass of the bat to achieve an "acceptable" result . But moving the mass of the bat is not necessarily the most effective way to make contact with a moving ball. And what is a reasonable result at one level is not necessarily a reasonable result at a higher level. This (my) explanation is consistent with the fact that most young hitters never progress because of bat drag. And the only explantion for such a common and wide spread problem such as this is that it is a NATURAL consequnce of the body attempting to swing a bat to hit a moving ball. Hence the logic/rationale of a good hitter be an UNNATURAL hitter. It's as simple/complicated as that.

These next sins are all associated with the inability to initiate and carry out (get it to the bat) proper rotation.

2. HIP SLIDE. Hip slide is a consequence of how the body naturally wants to move and position itself to deliver the bat at a specific point in space and time such that the bat will intercept a moving ball. To me, the more I think I understand the swing process, the more that hip slide becomes second only to bat drag in terms of its destructive effect on preventing hitters from achieving a high level of performance. Hip slide contributes two loss of power and a long swing (time wise). Hip slide is usually a result of failure to properly initiate the rotational sequence. Hip slide is very much aggravated by striding and hence the reason why no stride swing training is so important.

3. DISCONNECTION. Disconnection is what prevents players from reaching the highest levels and could be rated number two with respect to deadly sins for high-level players. Disconnection is the result of the hands losing their connection to the rotation of the body and is also associated with/caused by problems such as hands to the ball and chicken winging.

4. PULLING OFF THE BALL. Also can be described as flying open, stepping in the bucket. All are due to the players inability to initiate rotation properly i.e. from the middle part of the body as opposed to trying to rotate the whole body or initiating the swing itself using the feet as a starting point.

These next sins are all fundamental to the physics and biomechanics of effective swing.

5. RHYTHM & TEMMPO. Rhythm is a loss of or improper coordination of the body parts during the swing process. Rhythm is not the same as tempo. Typical rhythm problems are the sequence between leadfoot contact an initiation of the actual swing such as step AND swing. Or weight shift and THEN initiation of the actual swing as opposed to rotating into foot plant, i.e. efficient sequencing of muscles and posture.

TEMPO. Tempo is the overall timing of the sequencing of the body parts. Teaching a swing using the 1-2-3 sequence where there is significant time delays between each action. No matter what goal directed movement we perform there is an optimum tempo that maximizes power. There is an optimum tempo that maximizes accuracy. There is an optimum tempo that maximizes power and accuracy.

6. POSTURE, SWING PLANE AND SWING INITIATION. Trying to prioritoize swing sins is arbitrary at best. Posture and swing plane could just as well be number one as 90% of power and much of the quickness of a GOOD SWING is developed by the rotational activity of the torso. But in order to deliver this power to the bat not only does one need to maintain connection but also to match the direction of rotational power to the path of the bat i.e. momentum transfer, double pendulum action. The primary requirement for doing this is establishing and initiating proper and effective posture. Disconnect problems are often result of improper posture prior to swing initiation. The starting action of the hands is hugely important. Improper starting point of the hands will doom your swing to failure no matter what else to do with your body. Becuase improper starting position of the hands will create problems through the entire swing (butterfly effect). I learned this lesson 5 years ago working with Mark Johnson (former Pirate, MET, Hanshin Tigers, Japanese League). No matter what he did after his swing began, how he initiated his swing (starting point of his hands) doomed his swing and caused many other problems. Do not mistake starting position of hands with such fallacies as THT or whatever. Starting position of hands is just that. It's the location of the hands that allows the bat to find the rotational swing plane of the body.

7. Pushing the Bat. Swing initiation occurs when the decision is made to move the barrel of the bat out of the rotational path of the upper torso (shoulders). Initiation can be be either a passive or active event. Passive initiation is simply allowing the bat head to move out due to the centripetal acceleration of rotation. Active initiation is a result of wrist action; wrist applying force resulting in torque torque on the handle of the bat to move it out. Most hitters lose connection and allow the hands to go flat i.e. push the bat out as opposed to maintaining rotational connection to the lead shoulder i.e. turning the knob of the bat (whipping). Allowing the hands to go flat significantly reduces bat speed and promotes a long swing i.e. the head of the bat takes a longer time to come around.

Again I take my hat off to those who who had the courage, energy and willingness to offer their opinions and views on this matter. This is really an exercise in how well you understand the difference between cause-and-effect or treating a symptom versus dealing with the fundamental problem. I can only assume that the rest either had no opinions (no knowledge of the subject/issues) or fell victim to one or more of the seven deadly sins that we humans are so susceptible to.

 

[RayR]

Cannonball - I hope you know that I have nothing but respect for you and how you have been a gentleman through all of this "internet BS"

So - I hope you can appreciate/understand this: I am tired of the so called experts claiming to have all the answers when there is no pedigree.....as an example - Bill Parcells and Bill Walsh can point to all of the coaches and players that have succeeded them. Or John Wooden's legacy. Or Sue Enquist. Or - well you get the idea....

And what I am most tired of is when some of these guys constantly interject themselves into threads or post asinine things on their own website that put other people down that is nothing more than a thinly veiled pseudo intellectual disguise to either sell something of fulfill a need to stroke their own ego....

As Rod Tidwell proclaimed to Jerry McGuire, "Show me the money!"

 

[batdragon]

Some progress but.....

ugh....really ??? ... confused and frustrated... back to the tee... I guess..

 

[Cannonball]

MTS, and I feel the same way about you. I did want to post that some have had success with a different approach/perspective. It doesn't make any of us right or wrong. Heck, I know you have had much success and so, to me, that speaks volumes. BTW, I'd love to see your facilities sometime. I think, in general, when it gets personal no one learns and the majority of viewers are simply turned off.

batdragon, yes, progress is noticable. You can't expect that any student will "get it" with a lesson or two. Improvement is a journey. True improvement will result when you take good information and pair that with concepts like, "Repetition is no fun but its the reason we have won." I would say that I wish I was back on this journey again. We only have one and so, I miss all of the father daughter training.

Take care!

 

[RayR]

Side toss is a really hard drill for a player to excel at with a history of leading with the elbow....trying to hit a ball that is dropping rapidly from a side tossed position will make the player think she needs to drop the barrel quickly to make contact...

ugh....really ??? ... confused and frustrated... back to the tee... I guess..