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

[Bobby Shirer]

Which leg? I see the backwards movement as part of the front foot being picked up. Not a thought to go back and then knee lift. Was just curious of your thoughts. You always seem to have a differing opinion from most on here and I like to hear differing opinions! I pick up stuff from all of y’all

In order to lift the front foot, the weight or COM gets shifted rearward. The forward movement is initiated when the COM moves forward. Otherwise, you can't lift the front leg.
Then try this.....walk forward while keeping your head over your butt.....can't do it! COM stays back and so walking forward isn't possible...you can stick a leg out but then try to lift the rear leg. You can't because the mass is still supported by it.
The dd of the op moves forward some because she un-weights her back leg...not much...but she does.
She keeps her head very much over her back hip joint....some might say she's loaded/coiled, but she never really moves the mass forward with any purpose. So my "fix" is that she get hard into/against the front leg to transfer the stored energy.

 

[Bobby Shirer]

I never look at how far rearward or forward... where’s OP’s DD’s head at heal plant compared to Trout and Wright... what does that tell us?

She keeps her head very much over her back hip joint....some might say she's loaded/coiled, but she never really moves the mass forward with any purpose. So my "fix" is that she get hard into/against the front leg to transfer the stored energy.

 

[Bobby Shirer]

In Trout? I see the the pelvis/hip loading around the back leg. As Wright is showing, it doesn’t matter what the front leg does.

slowed down a little, the front leg doesn’t matter. What the front leg does is style.



View attachment 22262View attachment 22264

Ok, so let's load into or coil into the back leg. ...the knee would turn inward toward the center line. I see that some, but mostly I see Trout's forward move being caused by the rear knee turning outward away from the center line...pushing his torso forward and rotating his pelvis counterclockwise/open.
At foot plant (the video leaves this and the rest of his swing out) Trout's rear leg has completed it's task. It is extended outward and has no more to add to the swing...Trout will allow it to drag behind him so as to not subtract power from his forward move (rear knee bends as hip comes to full extension and knee joint flexes/ foot drags). The next action by the rear leg will be to catch Trout after he pushes rearward with his front leg. Drawing the rear leg inward is a power storing move, pushing it outward releases that power. When's the drawing in happen...when's the push happen...in relation to the bat movement?
The question is, how does the power created by the slow and controlled "timing-move" of the rear leg..... how does the power get transferred to the barrel....what's the sudden movement? You know P=W/t (Power= Work over time) The rear leg moves far too slowly to create much power. All it does is load the muscles of the front leg. The front leg flexes as it stores the forward movement into the muscles. Then it snaps to extension in a nano-second tranferring the power into rapid pelvic turn.

 

[julray]

She keeps her head very much over her back hip joint....some might say she's loaded/coiled, but she never really moves the mass forward with any purpose. So my "fix" is that she get hard into/against the front leg to transfer the stored energy.

Agreed... except my fix is a little different than yours. I want her to get to a balanced position where she can leverage both legs to get the core deeply involved in the process. I feel if she gets too much into her front leg the hitter's swing becomes more of a shift, less dynamic, hard to make adjustments, "all or nothing" sort of speak. Just my two cents

 

[julray]

Just to add on... been watching a lot of Blue Jays this year. Funny enough I see a lot of hitters, Bichette, Vladdy etc absolutely ripping when there are no strikes... sometimes a little off balance . After one/two strikes they make adjustments and get to a more balanced position with a controlled/dynamic swing. With fences only 200 feet way and with todays bat technology, a lot of young ladies will find success with a controlled/balanced dynamic swing. Again, just my two cents

 

[efastball]

Trout does go back, but notice his rear leg does not go back past vertical (see my crooked yellow line) as he begins to pick up the front leg.



Gravity is FREE energy. All hail, Newton.

 

[TDS]

Trout does go back, but notice he does not go back past vertical (see my crooked yellow line) as he begins to pick up the front leg.
View attachment 22321

Including all the planes of motion for reference.

 

[Bobby Shirer]

Agreed... except my fix is a little different than yours. I want her to get to a balanced position where she can leverage both legs to get the core deeply involved in the process. I feel if she gets too much into her front leg the hitter's swing becomes more of a shift, less dynamic, hard to make adjustments, "all or nothing" sort of speak. Just my two cents

That's where landing on the soft bent knee comes in.
In rebounding a basketball, a player loads into a squat, times the ball, and then jumps....using the stretch-shortening cycle to keep the muscles loaded. The SSC is best when perfectly timed, but doesn't diminish very much for nearly a 1/2 second after the initial loading of the muscle.
SSC allows the softball player to time the pitcher with her forward stride and still be able to time the pitch itself once loaded into the front leg.

 

[Bobby Shirer]

Trout does go back, but notice he does not go back past vertical (see my crooked yellow line) as he begins to pick up the front leg.
View attachment 22321

Gravity is FREE energy. All hail, Newton.

I'm using his head and the folks in the crowd behind him to gauge his movement. Trout shifts his COM to his right allowing him to lift the left leg and stay "back." If he stayed balanced and lifted his left leg, he would become unsupported and move to his left.
He also doesn't move his COM beyond his right leg.... that would prevent him from moving forward/leftward at all.
Striding against the front leg with the head back over the back hip allows the COM to move beyond the front foot without the batter falling over, resulting in a much more work being done and P=W/t. Big moves in short time = big power.
Then your mis-hits fly over fences too.

 

[julray]

That's where landing on the soft bent knee comes in.
In rebounding a basketball, a player loads into a squat, times the ball, and then jumps....using the stretch-shortening cycle to keep the muscles loaded. The SSC is best when perfectly timed, but doesn't diminish very much for nearly a 1/2 second after the initial loading of the muscle.
SSC allows the softball player to time the pitcher with her forward stride and still be able to time the pitch itself once loaded into the front leg.

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