Tom, where can I learn more about this degrees per second stuff? I usually won't get into this type of detail with players, but I'd really like to learn more on this topic.
Deltoid / Rear Hip Iso Drill Revisited
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Zig Zigler measured a lot of the MLB hitters for Phil Cheetham about 10 years ago for skilltechnologies (now out of business). Cheetham concentrates mainly on golf now and can be contacted through TPI, the titleist performance institute. He uses a motionanalysis technique that works for both golf and baseball called "kinematics" which measures acceleration of each link using markers on video. Try Googling Cheetham and "x-factor stretch" and checking out the TPI can give you some info.
- Feb 18, 2010
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To clarify I didn't mention anything about his statement being cute, I said I couldn't tell if he was trying to be funny or serious because I have read posts made by Chris for over 4 years now and only in the last year or so have they been one liners like this. As to your questions, when properly loaded in the rear hip one should feel tightness in the upper quad, hamstring, butt cheek, stomach, and back (opposite side of rear hip). When unloading these are the muscles used.
I prefer the term thrust. One of the keys to helping me understand that was an analogy a friend made to "throwing a hay bale". If you have ever tried to throw a hay bale up onto a flat bed truck or something similar to this motion you know that the weight coils into the hip and thrusts up and out as you uncoil. As far as bending goes, I am not sure I see where you are going. If you are bending at the waist or hip joint, you are tilting the body in an anterior fashion over the plate. Some see this as a good way to adjust to pitches. I prefer as Tewks noted in the beginning of his Knob to the Ball or Barrel to the Ball Demo lateral tilt of the shoulders to help adjust to the plane of the pitch.
I hope this was more helpful to you. My initial response to Chris was meant as a clarification in terms that he usually uses to help describe to hip why the rear hip was more than a "hunk of bone" it was not personal by any means, just an attempt at something he might better understand.
catersball,
You didn't write cute, I think that post got deleted.
Me to, much more helpful. My first thought was oh no, another doctor.
I wasn't going anywhere with it. Sorry. It was somthing somebody posted on sequentilal core loading, rather than tell them to bend at their waist (some kids bend at the waist and get that hump in their back), explain that we actually bend at our hip joint. I was just looking for a better way to explain hip thrust, maybe if I can explain how we thrust our hips I might get through to some kids easier.
How about my first question, knob to the ball is bad, right?
Thanks
You didn't write cute, I think that post got deleted.
Me to, much more helpful. My first thought was oh no, another doctor.
I wasn't going anywhere with it. Sorry. It was somthing somebody posted on sequentilal core loading, rather than tell them to bend at their waist (some kids bend at the waist and get that hump in their back), explain that we actually bend at our hip joint. I was just looking for a better way to explain hip thrust, maybe if I can explain how we thrust our hips I might get through to some kids easier.
How about my first question, knob to the ball is bad, right?
Thanks
- Feb 18, 2010
- 38
- 0
Yes knob to the ball is bad for many reasons. I will try to come up with some good hip thrust clips give me a few minutes.
If the hay bale analogy was lost on you, consider this:
You are standing outside of a house looking into an window that is at head height. You smell smoke and can clearly see a trash can on fire about three feet from the window. At your feet is a bucket of water. What would you have to do to throw that water through the window and onto the fire to put it out?
If the hay bale analogy was lost on you, consider this:
You are standing outside of a house looking into an window that is at head height. You smell smoke and can clearly see a trash can on fire about three feet from the window. At your feet is a bucket of water. What would you have to do to throw that water through the window and onto the fire to put it out?
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- May 11, 2009
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It has been fun using these drills on my 2 DD's. They both have taken to them well. My youngest really looks good as she did not use her hips much at all before she was very armey. What I see now is that their timing is off because it is a much faster swing. These 2 girls are young and what use to trigger them to get the bat on the ball does not work now so they are going to have to get their timing down again from scratch. I guess that is one way to tell it is actually working.
Thanks for what you guys are doing. It is a lot of fun seeing the transformation.
Mike
Thanks for what you guys are doing. It is a lot of fun seeing the transformation.
Mike
Good observation. Anytime a player makes a change to their swing that improves efficiency, it will throw off their timing for a while. My DD is going through that now with the recent change she implemented. She has always been a little early, but now she is really early. Her brain hasn't caught up to her new mechanics. We started getting in the cage last week and will likely hit every night this week in preparation for our first tournament this weekend.
Mike
Tracking,timing and rhythm starts at the tee in my opinion. I would look closely at what they are doing as to practice and try to get them to think in game mode.
For example I have my kids look through the net and track the ball to the tee and not just look at the ball on the tee as they would never do that in a game either.
I have white rag glue inside the tube on the tee also and when the ball is on the tee they can not see it and after they hit the ball we want them to see it.
Many coaches force a stance of the kids without allowing the hitter to find the stance that they can actually see the ball with both eyes.
Stand your daughter facing the mirror like they are looking at a pitcher.
Is she using an even stance, slightly open stance or closed stance?
In most cases this is over looked completely!
We want them to get a good two eyed look at the ball and that means turning their neck and shoulders enough towards the pitcher to be able to do it without causing any discomfort in the neck or shoulder muscles while doing it.
I ask them to use their stance they have been using first and then ask them to turn their head towards the pitcher so I can see the white area around the eye on the lead eye.
Think of using a pair of binoculars and could you see well enough if you allowed the right eye to be off the binoculars? Probably not.
Each hitter is unique as to eyes being bug eyed, tear dropped as to shape etc so we all see the ball out of the window, eyes lashes, how the eye lids are cut or shaped so I let them pick the stance that allows them the good two eyed look.
Then we start by getting the stance even and say how does the feel and if I can see the white area they look further towards the pitcher and then I move their back foot towards home plate in one inch increments until it is comfortable to them.
TSW used two to four inches and each two inches is considered five degrees.
I only have three girls who use a closed stance and all three have had lazy left eye surgery and see the ball better because the left eye muscles being weaker.
We also teach to give our hitter heads a head start as the head moves slower than the eyes.
In doors even in a garage we work on tracking and timing by putting a ball on the tee and I get behind the net and go through a pitchers motion and they are timing it to load at my K position and stride when it hits the net and then swing.
I use a tennis ball or whiffle ball as every once in a while they hit the ball I am throwing with the ball off the tee and you do not want a soft ball coming back at you!
The next thing we do I picked up while working with the Chinese National Softball Team. The say one as E and two as R or E, R or one two.
I tried to get my interpreter to get my voice inflection into the translation and it was not working so I tried dragging out the E to load as EEEEEEEE and then said R! to actually stride and swing. I explained the pitcher never stops her motion once started and as a hitter we need to learn how to dance with the pitcher and not stop and start our motion.
I do this with soft toss and as I lower my hand I say EEEEE and then as I throw say R!
After a few tries they do it on their own and then I do a timing drop drill by holding the ball shoulder level high with my palm facing down and the key is for them to lstart their load is when I flex my wrist and then I drop the ball and move my hand upward to clear the hitting zone. Again we use EEEEE, R!
This seems to give them a jump start when going to the field as we point out as the pitcher is going to the K position we say EEEEE and at the pitchers window of release R! and stride and then judge when to swing.
Thanks Howard
Tracking,timing and rhythm starts at the tee in my opinion. I would look closely at what they are doing as to practice and try to get them to think in game mode.
For example I have my kids look through the net and track the ball to the tee and not just look at the ball on the tee as they would never do that in a game either.
I have white rag glue inside the tube on the tee also and when the ball is on the tee they can not see it and after they hit the ball we want them to see it.
Many coaches force a stance of the kids without allowing the hitter to find the stance that they can actually see the ball with both eyes.
Stand your daughter facing the mirror like they are looking at a pitcher.
Is she using an even stance, slightly open stance or closed stance?
In most cases this is over looked completely!
We want them to get a good two eyed look at the ball and that means turning their neck and shoulders enough towards the pitcher to be able to do it without causing any discomfort in the neck or shoulder muscles while doing it.
I ask them to use their stance they have been using first and then ask them to turn their head towards the pitcher so I can see the white area around the eye on the lead eye.
Think of using a pair of binoculars and could you see well enough if you allowed the right eye to be off the binoculars? Probably not.
Each hitter is unique as to eyes being bug eyed, tear dropped as to shape etc so we all see the ball out of the window, eyes lashes, how the eye lids are cut or shaped so I let them pick the stance that allows them the good two eyed look.
Then we start by getting the stance even and say how does the feel and if I can see the white area they look further towards the pitcher and then I move their back foot towards home plate in one inch increments until it is comfortable to them.
TSW used two to four inches and each two inches is considered five degrees.
I only have three girls who use a closed stance and all three have had lazy left eye surgery and see the ball better because the left eye muscles being weaker.
We also teach to give our hitter heads a head start as the head moves slower than the eyes.
In doors even in a garage we work on tracking and timing by putting a ball on the tee and I get behind the net and go through a pitchers motion and they are timing it to load at my K position and stride when it hits the net and then swing.
I use a tennis ball or whiffle ball as every once in a while they hit the ball I am throwing with the ball off the tee and you do not want a soft ball coming back at you!
The next thing we do I picked up while working with the Chinese National Softball Team. The say one as E and two as R or E, R or one two.
I tried to get my interpreter to get my voice inflection into the translation and it was not working so I tried dragging out the E to load as EEEEEEEE and then said R! to actually stride and swing. I explained the pitcher never stops her motion once started and as a hitter we need to learn how to dance with the pitcher and not stop and start our motion.
I do this with soft toss and as I lower my hand I say EEEEE and then as I throw say R!
After a few tries they do it on their own and then I do a timing drop drill by holding the ball shoulder level high with my palm facing down and the key is for them to lstart their load is when I flex my wrist and then I drop the ball and move my hand upward to clear the hitting zone. Again we use EEEEE, R!
This seems to give them a jump start when going to the field as we point out as the pitcher is going to the K position we say EEEEE and at the pitchers window of release R! and stride and then judge when to swing.
Thanks Howard
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- May 11, 2009
- 279
- 0
Howard, thank you! I have not had time to get her on a tee yet with what we have incorporated. We were just getting started and we finally got a nice night that we could go outside. I will get her on the tee tonight at practice and will make sure she is tracking the ball. I did make her open her stance last night as I was remembering your belief on the two eyed look and I noticed while I was pitching to her that I could not see all of her right eye. She said if felt better to be open.
I am sorry but you lost me on the "E's" & "R's". I think I got it but I am not sure. Load at K and start to stride at release?
Wellphyt,
She asked if I would get her in the cage this week and throw to her a lot. She loves the feel of this swing but she got frustrated being ahead of it so much. She will get it back. She is a really good hitter so I hope she gets it back. If not her mother is going to kill me.
Thanks
Mike
I am sorry but you lost me on the "E's" & "R's". I think I got it but I am not sure. Load at K and start to stride at release?
Wellphyt,
She asked if I would get her in the cage this week and throw to her a lot. She loves the feel of this swing but she got frustrated being ahead of it so much. She will get it back. She is a really good hitter so I hope she gets it back. If not her mother is going to kill me.
Thanks
Mike
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