How important is it to lock the front knee on the stride?

[Bobby Shirer]

Thanks for explaining, it's not what I pictured when you said "... So my "fix" is that she get hard into/against the front leg..."

Cheers

Hard against the front leg....That is the movement she's not doing. *KISS*

 

[julray]

Hard against the front leg....That is the movement she's not doing. *KISS*

How do you teach a young hitter/or any hitter for that matter to be "Hard against the front leg" yet " landing on the soft bent knee"? I'm not disagreeing, but I think you can see how this would be interpreted as a contradiction

 

[Bobby Shirer]

How do you teach a young hitter/or any hitter for that matter to be "Hard against the front leg" yet " landing on the soft bent knee"? I'm not disagreeing, but I think you can see how this would be interpreted as a contradiction

I have them sit into a squat and then push hard/lock out with the front leg to initiate the swing. Otherwise it becomes ABAF swing and loses the secondary timing aspect.
The idea is the same as jumping....go down first to load the muscles, then jump when the time is right. Getting hard against the front leg doesn't happen because of the forward move, it is to initiate the swing with a rearward move/push against the front of the rotated pelvis to create the torque.
There's no need to move forward quickly, just deliberately, like all of the good hitters do. They gather and then move into their front side slowly. JD and Bautista talk about being early and slow. Their move into the front leg creates the stretch and the load. Then the front leg drives the pelvis/torso turn.
A major difference is that it isn't load back and then release front. Just like a jump isn't back and then front, it is moving forward into the squat and then jumping. The forward momentum loads into the squat and the two moves load into the muscle of the front leg.