Hitting Mechanics vs. Hitting

[Mark H]

That may work for those hitters, but they're not the average. They are well above that level, which is why we're looking at them.

Hitting is about timing. Many girls don't put in the kind of work to get that four or five frame swing you keep talking about. Or they don't have the athleticism. But that doesn't mean they'll never hit. They have to adjust to what they can do.

Getting the toe down earlier puts them in a position to be able to swing on time, whereas maybe they couldn't otherwise.

In a perfect world you can follow what you see on video to the letter. In the real world, maybe not, especially when it comes to timing issues. Just as in a perfect world every player would be able to run to first in 2.7. But they can't.

Average hitters aren't facing Pac 10 pitching either. If you have to get your foot down while the pitcher is holding the ball, either you have a really long swing or you are a no stride hitter who takes a meaningless step before the pitch that makes you feel comfortable. Which would be fine by me. Just don't take a kid who is hitting like the clip and tell her she needs to get her foot down earlier. She doesn't. She shouldn't.

 

[ifubuildit]

A matter of Milliseconds

That is what we are talking about here guys. When I look at the clip of Rivera she is at toe touch when she starts hip rotation. Some hitters like Mike Young and Josh Hamilton do a toe tap back and then forward for the purpose of timing. This helps initiate the hips to get a running start on rotation. They rotate them back to load them then forward to unload them.

One guy up in Minnesota (Cant recall his name) never strides period and hits the crap out of the ball. All he does is turns on it but when he does its hard. Both his feet are planted into the ground until he swings. Then the back foot comes up on its toe. The front foot never moves. This would be the fall back position as defined by our good friend Mr Sargenson. Its working for him in MLB. Based on what I saw him do against the Rangers a couple of weeks ago.

If your talking about optimal swing efficiency I dont know that there is a pure formula for that. I think it becomes an individual thing as a hitter develops. We all have a conceptual idea of what we want our hitters to look like based on our experience and what we have been exposed to during play or watching elite players.

That early turn may not work for the average kid who would just like to hit the ball and feel like they are giving a contribution to their team. Very age dependent is my point. The kids need to learn how to feel that turning before they can accomplish it in the manner your discussing Mark. I think the line is somewhere between your point and Ken's.

Dana.

 

[go4fpsb]

I keep hearing this but it's not what I see. Is this an RVP thing? MPEG4 7 of 16, Fastpitch You can use the arrow keys to toggle back and forth. I see the ball well in flight and the toe still in the air.

I don't know what level of player you are working with but I am in a school district that can't afford to keep their park and rec dept funded so there is nothing for the younger girls starting out at the younger levels. So when most of the girls get to MS and the 12U and 14U level I coach I am working with very basic swings, certainly ones that can't get the 5 frame swing that is from what I've read is the Englishby ideal, so these girls need to get it started real early. As their swing becomes more refined and efficient then they can get to toe touch when the ball is half way to the plate and pull the trigger so they can hit the ball in the quarter of a second they have with the ball half way to the plate. Timing is something each player has to learn for themselves given their skill level. This isn't a RVP thing it is more of a me thing trying to help the players I work with.


Quote MarkH:You should probably define that term for everyone for clarity since it's one of those terms that Right View redefined for the hitting world.

Connection as I see it is when the elbow, hands, shoulder and knee line up with the seam of the pant as the hands pass the rear shoulder.

 

[Mark H]

I keep hearing this but it's not what I see. Is this an RVP thing? MPEG4 7 of 16, Fastpitch You can use the arrow keys to toggle back and forth. I see the ball well in flight and the toe still in the air.

I don't know what level of player you are working with but I am in a school district that can't afford to keep their park and rec dept funded so there is nothing for the younger girls starting out at the younger levels. So when most of the girls get to MS and the 12U and 14U level I coach I am working with very basic swings, certainly ones that can't get the 5 frame swing that is from what I've read is the Englishby ideal, so these girls need to get it started real early. As their swing becomes more refined and efficient then they can get to toe touch when the ball is half way to the plate and pull the trigger so they can hit the ball in the quarter of a second they have with the ball half way to the plate. Timing is something each player has to learn for themselves given their skill level. This isn't a RVP thing it is more of a me thing trying to help the players I work with.

I understand. I teach those kids using no stride hitting. Just drop the heel and turn or some such. Later we can add the stride if desired. See my answer earlier.

Quote MarkH:You should probably define that term for everyone for clarity since it's one of those terms that Right View redefined for the hitting world.

Connection as I see it is when the elbow, hands, shoulder and knee line up with the seam of the pant as the hands pass the rear shoulder.

I believe that's the Right View term? Thanks for adding the definition. Right View redefined at least a couple of terms adding confusion. For others reading, connection, the C in PCR/W, originally meant the act of doing a good job of connecting the rotating torso to the hands and bat as opposed leaving the hands behind, pushing them ahead among other types of disconnection. Certainly any new hitting guru can use whatever terms they wish. My concern is to avoid confusion.

 

[Mark H]

That is what we are talking about here guys. When I look at the clip of Rivera she is at toe touch when she starts hip rotation. Some hitters like Mike Young and Josh Hamilton do a toe tap back and then forward for the purpose of timing. This helps initiate the hips to get a running start on rotation. They rotate them back to load them then forward to unload them.

One guy up in Minnesota (Cant recall his name) never strides period and hits the crap out of the ball. All he does is turns on it but when he does its hard. Both his feet are planted into the ground until he swings. Then the back foot comes up on its toe. The front foot never moves. This would be the fall back position as defined by our good friend Mr Sargenson. Its working for him in MLB. Based on what I saw him do against the Rangers a couple of weeks ago.

If your talking about optimal swing efficiency I dont know that there is a pure formula for that. I think it becomes an individual thing as a hitter develops. We all have a conceptual idea of what we want our hitters to look like based on our experience and what we have been exposed to during play or watching elite players.

That early turn may not work for the average kid who would just like to hit the ball and feel like they are giving a contribution to their team. Very age dependent is my point. The kids need to learn how to feel that turning before they can accomplish it in the manner your discussing Mark. I think the line is somewhere between your point and Ken's.

Dana.

I pretty much agree with all that. My point is, what they are doing is really no stride hitting since any momentum will be killed before swinging with that early of a step. Which I don't have any heartburn with. My heartburn would be someone applying the rule to a good hitter with a good stride/momentum development/shift into rotation.

Relative to your first sentence, I should add, look for pelvic rotation into toe touch in many great hitters. I'm sure you know that but I'm posting for others.

 

[Mark H]

High level no stride hitting example.

http://www.englishbeyhitting.com/videoclips/pujolssept09.gif

 

[go4fpsb]

I believe that's the Right View term? Thanks for adding the definition. Right View redefined at least a couple of terms adding confusion. For others reading, connection, the C in PCR/W, originally meant the act of doing a good job of connecting the rotating torso to the hands and bat as opposed leaving the hands behind, pushing them ahead among other types of disconnection. Certainly any new hitting guru can use whatever terms they wish. My concern is to avoid confusion.

MarkH, I think it is pretty hard to avoid confusion when it comes to different hitting gurus. I just started reading Englishby's forum last month and his connection is different in that it seems he doesn't teach the "walking away from the hands" during stride to toe touch as Candrea and RVP does. From what I take from reading his posts the hands stay locked or connected to the torso and turn as one. I think Epstein is more like Englishby as compared to RVP. IOW the hands don't "stay back" as they do in RVP and when I mean stay back I mean there is a very, very, very small time that the torso starts the rotation before the hands go. Is this an accurate take? How do you see the difference? Also, I know PCR = posture, connection, rotation but what is the /w?

 

[Mark H]

MarkH, I think it is pretty hard to avoid confusion when it comes to different hitting gurus. .

Indeed. If there was a common language that would help but every guru invents new terms. Englishbey tries to use a lot of accepted biomechanical terms to avoid this but those are new to most people too.

I just started reading Englishby's forum last month and his connection is different in that it seems he doesn't teach the "walking away from the hands" during stride to toe touch as Candrea and RVP does. From what I take from reading his posts the hands stay locked or connected to the torso and turn as one.

Well apparently he needs to address that because you are the second person I've talked to with that impression. He goes farther than loading the hands back/walking away from the hands. When the scaps get loaded the hands load back. When the upper torso starts rotating, connection means connecting the rotating torso effectively to the bat. Do a search on his site for "stretch the box".

I think Epstein is more like Englishby as compared to RVP. .

No, Epstein is very very different than either Englishbey or RVP.

IOW the hands don't "stay back" as they do in RVP and when I mean stay back I mean there is a very, very, very small time that the torso starts the rotation before the hands go. Is this an accurate take? How do you see the difference? Also, I know PCR = posture, connection, rotation but what is the /w?

W is for whip. The hinge angle (the roughly 90 degree angle between the lead arm forearm and the bat) is held till late in the swing when the bat head whips out. As to the hands staying back, sequential rotation is the end goal but considering the swing needs to happen, from first movement of the bathead till contact, in about .16 seconds much of the "separation" people talk about happens during the stride/load/momentum development. Once the shoulders go, the bat needs to be connected to them. Disconnection could be leaving the hands behind, pushing them ahead (as in the old hands to the ball instruction), getting the lead arm, hands and or bat out of plane after it gets quickly sucked in the momentum path/plane early in the swing etc. I know others eyes are glazing over about right now but I hope I'm communicating effectively for you.

To understand whip better, research double pendulum.

 

[ifubuildit]

Mark

I would agree with you that he does need to address it. I think that impression is coming from Steve puttng too much empahsis on connection of the shoulders to rotation on his site and him talking about its importance for over a year now while working on his swing and sharing his thoughts about what he is trying to accomplish with that process.

I agree its very important but at some point it leaves the impression much like Go4 has that all you have to do is keep the shoulders turning with rotation and hold the arms still. Which we both know isnt what Steve is about at all. Its just that there is so much discussion and information reated to that subject on his site now that it may give the impression Go4 has about Steves stuff.

Dana

 

[go4fpsb]

Indeed. If there was a common language that would help but every guru invents new terms. Englishbey tries to use a lot of accepted biomechanical terms to avoid this but those are new to most people too.





Well apparently he needs to address that because you are the second person I've talked to with that impression. He goes farther than loading the hands back/walking away from the hands. When the scaps get loaded the hands load back. When the upper torso starts rotating, connection means connecting the rotating torso effectively to the bat. Do a search on his site for "stretch the box".



No, Epstein is very very different than either Englishbey or RVP.




W is for whip. The hinge angle (the roughly 90 degree angle between the lead arm forearm and the bat) is held till late in the swing when the bat head whips out. As to the hands staying back, sequential rotation is the end goal but considering the swing needs to happen, from first movement of the bathead till contact, in about .16 seconds much of the "separation" people talk about happens during the stride/load/momentum development. Once the shoulders go, the bat needs to be connected to them. Disconnection could be leaving the hands behind, pushing them ahead (as in the old hands to the ball instruction), getting the lead arm, hands and or bat out of plane after it gets quickly sucked in the momentum path/plane early in the swing etc. I know others eyes are glazing over about right now but I hope I'm communicating effectively for you.

To understand whip better, research double pendulum.

I am glad to read the sequential rotation statement in your post because that is what I feel and try to teach in the swing. I am trying to get an understanding of what Steve's fundamentals are and I definitely was getting the impression from Steve's site that there was no separation of the hands during the stride, that all the parts rotated together something like what happens with a drill Epstein has where the bat is held against the outside of the back shoulder and the players rotates with the bat held there until connection. I have been debating on buying the DVDs from Steve but like most we are watching our spending right now. Thx for the clarification.