Fish Hook hand Path

[ssarge]

Let me add one other observation. I have almost never spoken to a hitter - male or female - who has commented on a purposeful action to either loading / unloading the scapula. And yet, to some extent, all elite hitters do it, and the video demonstrates it. Obviously, it is intuitive rather than deliberate. I'm not sure of the explanation. MY GUESS would be that the great athlete - the person who is almost a savant with his / her motor skills - has just figured out better than most of us how to tap into the body's power sources. Which obviously are the big muscles, not the small ones. This is NOT intuitive for most of us. The good news is that it IS learnable.

Best,

Scott

 

[Chris O'Leary]

Nyman concluded that maintaining the hinge angle until late in the swing, combined with tightening the swing radius, produced enormous whip and force. And the sophisticated engineering software seems to back him up.

The Rod Cross paper that Tom linked to above, because he thought it backed up his point regarding THT, actually refutes THT and instead backs up Nyman's ideas. Some of the more relevant quotes...

A surprising result is that a large negative couple is required late in the swing to prevent the bat from rotating through an excessive angle before it impacts with the ball.

The torque component is negative throughout the swing, meaning that on its own it would cause the bat to rotate in the wrong direction.

By locking the wrists in this manner, the batter was able to apply a positive couple to the bat early in the swing, and a negative couple later in the swing to delay the rapid rotation of the bat until just before impact.

A bat requires a large negative couple near the end of the swing so that the bat lines up correctly on impact with the ball. The latter feature has been noted by Vaughan in relation to the measured swing of a golf club, but it has not received the attention it deserves. Instead, most authors concentrate on the effect of varying the wrist torque, thereby giving a misleading picture of the torque required to swing a bat. For example, Jorgensen found that a slightly increased club head speed results if the wrists apply a negative torque of 2.8 Nm for 0.1 s to hinder the uncocking process.

There are many problems with the underlying design of this paper, but I always find it interesting when people set out to prove one thing and end up proving the opposite thing.

 

[tom.guerry]

the Nyman model and Cross's paper both show early "positive couple" and Nyman's model shows how this torque depends on top hand attachment of rear arm mass to bat and significantly quickens the swing.

if you can't see this, keep looking at and listening to the model video and reading the paper.

this quickening action is why good swings begin with rearward arc

 

[Chris O'Leary]

the Nyman model and Cross's paper both show early "positive couple" and Nyman's model shows how this torque depends on top hand attachment of rear arm mass to bat and significantly quickens the swing.

if you can't see this, keep looking at and listening to the model video and reading the paper.

this quickening action is why good swings begin with rearward arc

All the early positive couple does is it holds the hinge angle and keeps the bat from wrapping and hitting the neck as the shoulders start to rotate underneath it.

 

[tom.guerry]

that may be "all it does" in some swings.

look at the Nyman model closely. he runs 2 comparison trials, one with a nearly massless back arm, 1 with real world rear arm type mass.

when the torso flywheel starts to turn, the bat goes the other way/lags initially, less so in the higher back arm mass trial and the bat swings out much more quickly in the high mass trial.

fighting this drag/inertia is certainly necessary to quicken a swing and there are many ways to do it such as "holding the hinge".

But there is only one basic way to do it seen in productive MLB hitters and it involves the swivel applied in such a way that "resistance" and torso loading are prolonged and optimized. timing of torso unloading with handle force torquing bathead out is alos optimized to max out swing quickness (this is a requirement Nyman explains in his ebook as well)

This is what has to be learned if you want to swing in the MLB/Pujols etc pattern.

no early disconnection. no barrel dumping. no premature lead wrist ADduction/unhinging. no premature unclamping/protraction of rear scap. no premature EXternal rotation chicken winging of lead arm. no turning back hip into front. no keeping front foot closed. no bending over at waist and trying to adjust plane by degree of anterioir tilt,etc., etc. all those things will kill the MLB pattern.

 

[ssarge]

The Rod Cross paper that Tom linked to above, because he thought it backed up his point regarding THT, actually refutes THT and instead backs up Nyman's ideas. Some of the more relevant quotes...

Chris:

I agree, and am not surprised. The forces of the universe are the forces. I don't always understand them, but I don't try to explain them away, and from my perspective, it's expected that engineers / scientists would attain the same results.


These quotes are especially illustrative to me:

By locking the wrists in this manner, the batter was able to apply a positive couple to the bat early in the swing, and a negative couple later in the swing to delay the rapid rotation of the bat until just before impact.

For example, Jorgensen found that a slightly increased club head speed results if the wrists apply a negative torque of 2.8 Nm for 0.1 s to hinder the uncocking process.

. . . .hold the hinge angle. Almost no younger hitter does this without instruction. Anyone who has \worked in person with hitters has seen an enormous increase in force within a swing or two after asking a hitter to do this.

Thanks and regards,

Scott

 

[Hitter]

Chris:

I agree, and am not surprised. The forces of the universe are the forces. I don't always understand them, but I don't try to explain them away, and from my perspective, it's expected that engineers / scientists would attain the same results.


These quotes are especially illustrative to me:





. . . .hold the hinge angle. Almost no younger hitter does this without instruction. Anyone who has \worked in person with hitters has seen an enormous increase in force within a swing or two after asking a hitter to do this.

Thanks and regards,

Scott

Scott

We worked with a group of coaches and two girls whom we have never worked with before and have never been to our clinic. SBfamily was here also.

Because the dads are so determined not to teach the girls neuro muscular skills like balance, eye hand coordination, leverage and how to use a hammer I have started incorporating it in my lessons.

Maybe some of this will help you...I ask them if they think I can lift them with one hand? No way coach I weigh 150 pounds! I suggest to them they have a paradigm or a mental model of how they think something works and it limits them to learning and understanding more than they could. A great example was Dick Fosbury the high jumper who shocked the world when he went over the high jump bar backwards and set a new standard and technique for the sport. These kids have never even heard of him so I explain his technique is now an accepted method however it took him thinking out of the box of what he could do and he did it!

Then I get a 2x4 and a block of wood and have them stand on it and up they go with one hand. We talk about leverage and fulcrum and I point to their bat and say what is that and they say bat and I say lever! I explain how they hold the lever or grip it can make a big difference in the force applied to the hitting of the ball. we then show them how to use the hammer and that we grip the bottom hand differently than the top hand. Using these types of explanations seems to help the girls learn faster. We then do a drill we call Matrix as we do it in super slow motion....bend at the waist and soften knees and get a good two eyed look. Load, toe touch, separate and we emphasize the elbows work as unit and the knob leads the elbows and just flip the ball off the tee into the net. We talk about how it felt to release the hammer head to the nail and that the elbow is a hinge and so is the wrist and releasing the bat head to the ball is just like nailing the ball only we are horizontal with the hammer blows. Then they start to swing harder. They seem to grasp it a little faster especially when you explain the lever between the elbow and wrist is moved a little and the wrist moves a lot to direct the force of the hammer head with a flexed lead elbow.

Hope this helps.

Howard

 

[RayR]

Howard,

Just to be clear because I have been seeing the same thing wrt to the wrists and how the hands grip the bat.

Would I be accurate to say that you tell a hitter to grip the bat with both hands as you would correctly hold a hammer? Even though the wrists function differently they hold the bat the same way?

BTW, I just came across a great quote concerning the game of chess but I thought it applied to swinging a bat

Chess is about controlling the application of force...

Made me thing about control of the bat head.

Ray

 

[ifubuildit]

Mts

The key principle of what I teach is just what I think your thinking about. Development of control of the bat. A consistent swing plane to the ball. It is IMO the single most important aspect in the development of a young hitter.

There may be others on here who will disagree and that is fine with me but if the swing plane is consistent the hitter will be making much better contact with the ball when they get on plane with the pitch.

There are of course a lot of elements that must be developed in a hitter to get to that consistency but for me that is the goal.

Dana

 

[RayR]

The key principle of what I teach is just what I think your thinking about. Development of control of the bat. A consistent swing plane to the ball. It is IMO the single most important aspect in the development of a young hitter.

There may be others on here who will disagree and that is fine with me but if the swing plane is consistent the hitter will be making much better contact with the ball when they get on plane with the pitch.

There are of course a lot of elements that must be developed in a hitter to get to that consistency but for me that is the goal.

Dana

Exactly. Thanks.