IR of Rear Leg Exposed

[Wellphyt]

My dd is the poster child for why hitters don't want to internally rotate their rear leg to generate force to weight shift. Here's my dd demonstrating what I teach. Beside her is Utley for comparison:

In the above clip of my dd, you are looking at a girl who starts off with her femur internally rotated in her hip socket 32 degrees...normal is about 12 degrees. In addition, her tibia is externally rotated 60 degrees....normal is 15 to 20 degrees. These are exact measurements from her CAT scan. Given these measurements, when she is in her batting stance she starts off with her femur internally rotated 32 degrees, and then has to internally rotate an additional significant amount to offset the external rotation of her tibia...so that her back foot will be square to the plate.

Let me give you a visual of how much her femur is internally rotated in the hip socket in her batting stance. She had surgery in October to fix her leg. The surgery involved sawing her femur, tibia and fibula in half and lining everything up. The surgeon did her femur first. He said that when he aligned her femur her foot was externally rotated so much that it was almost touching the operating table.

In the clip of my dd you'll notice that her thigh turns inwards briefly when she first lifts her front foot. You will see no such action in Utley.....Utley's thigh turns back with his hips when he lifts his front foot to coil. The inward turn of my dd's thigh is actually her leg "buckling" from the excessive internal rotation of her femur in the hip socket.....which causes her knee to want to move down-and-in. NoonTime sees that action and likes it....He likes it so much he doesn't want her to give it up. He actually thinks she gives it up as she turns her hips back, but she doesn't give it up, because she "CAN"T GIVE IT UP"....Her femur is internally rotated in her hip socket by default. As long as she keeps her back foot square to the plate, her femur is internally rotated in her hip socket a ridiculous amount.

The SPIN that NoonTime thinks he sees, is due to the excessive internal rotation of her femur in her hip socket. So the SPIN LOOK that NoonTime sees and doesn't like...is caused by her femur being in a constant state of internal rotation. His solution to get rid of the spin that he sees, is to internally rotate her femur....Which she already excessively does by default. IOW, his prescription to fix the spin that he sees, is to do more of what is causing her to have the look of spin to begin with.

The fact that my dd doesn't spin....and manages to weight shift as good as she does....is a testament to what Ted taught and proof that maintaining pressure at the back foot during transition WORKS. The LOOK of a hint of spin in her swing that I have always seen; is due to the amount of preset internal rotation of her femur in her hip socket. IMO the LOOK of spin that my dd has in her swing is a pretty good argument AGAINST internally rotating the rear leg to weight shift.

I don't now why any coach/instructor would teach a kid with normally aligned legs, to do what my dd does by default....and actually has to try and overcome to get a decent weight shift.

My dd's excessive preset internal rotation of her femur is why I know that the "Internally Rotate to Shift" theory leaks power and is a big dead end.

 

[pstein]

I'll say one thing, and then I'm going to prevent myself from going any further. The femur is internally rotated as soon as someone coils. It isn't internally rotated to weight shift, it stays internally rotated to allow the leg to become the driver.

 

[NoonTime]

Best wishes for her recovery! And yours!

Cheers,
NoonTime

 

[HYP]

My dd is the poster child for why hitters don't want to internally rotate their rear leg to generate force to weight shift. Here's my dd demonstrating what I teach. Beside her is Utley for comparison:

In the above clip of my dd, you are looking at a girl who starts off with her femur internally rotated in her hip socket 32 degrees...normal is about 12 degrees. In addition, her tibia is externally rotated 60 degrees....normal is 15 to 20 degrees. These are exact measurements from her CAT scan. Given these measurements, when she is in her batting stance she starts off with her femur internally rotated 32 degrees, and then has to internally rotate an additional significant amount to offset the external rotation of her tibia...so that her back foot will be square to the plate.

Let me give you a visual of how much her femur is internally rotated in the hip socket in her batting stance. She had surgery in October to fix her leg. The surgery involved sawing her femur, tibia and fibula in half and lining everything up. The surgeon did her femur first. He said that when he aligned her femur her foot was externally rotated so much that it was almost touching the operating table.

In the clip of my dd you'll notice that her thigh turns inwards briefly when she first lifts her front foot. You will see no such action in Utley.....Utley's thigh turns back with his hips when he lifts his front foot to coil. The inward turn of my dd's thigh is actually her leg "buckling" from the excessive internal rotation of her femur in the hip socket.....which causes her knee to want to move down-and-in. NoonTime sees that action and likes it....He likes it so much he doesn't want her to give it up. He actually thinks she gives it up as she turns her hips back, but she doesn't give it up, because she "CAN"T GIVE IT UP"....Her femur is internally rotated in her hip socket by default. As long as she keeps her back foot square to the plate, her femur is internally rotated in her hip socket a ridiculous amount.

The SPIN that NoonTime thinks he sees, is due to the excessive internal rotation of her femur in her hip socket. So the SPIN LOOK that NoonTime sees and doesn't like...is caused by her femur being in a constant state of internal rotation. His solution to get rid of the spin that he sees, is to internally rotate her femur....Which she already excessively does by default. IOW, his prescription to fix the spin that he sees, is to do more of what is causing her to have the look of spin to begin with.

The fact that my dd doesn't spin....and manages to weight shift as good as she does....is a testament to what Ted taught and proof that maintaining pressure at the back foot during transition WORKS. The LOOK of a hint of spin in her swing that I have always seen; is due to the amount of preset internal rotation of her femur in her hip socket. IMO the LOOK of spin that my dd has in her swing is a pretty good argument AGAINST internally rotating the rear leg to weight shift.

I don't now why any coach/instructor would teach a kid with normally aligned legs, to do what my dd does by default....and actually has to try and overcome to get a decent weight shift.

My dd's excessive preset internal rotation of her femur is why I know that the "Internally Rotate to Shift" theory leaks power and is a big dead end.

Utley is IRing. His rear hip coiling will ER the rear leg. That does not mean that he is not IRing the rear leg. If he was to be ERing the rear leg while coiling. There would be no tightness in the coil. There would be slop/slack that would need to be taken out. In Utley, the upper thigh is being pressed towards his junk. The rear hip coils turning the whole leg in an ER fashion but the leg is maintaining the pressure as to hold the thigh against his junk.

Just becasue you see the leg turn back doesn't mean he is ERing the leg. The leg is being made to turn back because it is in a tight state of IRing.

 

[redhotcoach]

My dd is the poster child for why hitters don't want to internally rotate their rear leg to generate force to weight shift. Here's my dd demonstrating what I teach. Beside her is Utley for comparison:

In the above clip of my dd, you are looking at a girl who starts off with her femur internally rotated in her hip socket 32 degrees...normal is about 12 degrees. In addition, her tibia is externally rotated 60 degrees....normal is 15 to 20 degrees. These are exact measurements from her CAT scan. Given these measurements, when she is in her batting stance she starts off with her femur internally rotated 32 degrees, and then has to internally rotate an additional significant amount to offset the external rotation of her tibia...so that her back foot will be square to the plate.

Let me give you a visual of how much her femur is internally rotated in the hip socket in her batting stance. She had surgery in October to fix her leg. The surgery involved sawing her femur, tibia and fibula in half and lining everything up. The surgeon did her femur first. He said that when he aligned her femur her foot was externally rotated so much that it was almost touching the operating table.

In the clip of my dd you'll notice that her thigh turns inwards briefly when she first lifts her front foot. You will see no such action in Utley.....Utley's thigh turns back with his hips when he lifts his front foot to coil. The inward turn of my dd's thigh is actually her leg "buckling" from the excessive internal rotation of her femur in the hip socket.....which causes her knee to want to move down-and-in. NoonTime sees that action and likes it....He likes it so much he doesn't want her to give it up. He actually thinks she gives it up as she turns her hips back, but she doesn't give it up, because she "CAN"T GIVE IT UP"....Her femur is internally rotated in her hip socket by default. As long as she keeps her back foot square to the plate, her femur is internally rotated in her hip socket a ridiculous amount.

The SPIN that NoonTime thinks he sees, is due to the excessive internal rotation of her femur in her hip socket. So the SPIN LOOK that NoonTime sees and doesn't like...is caused by her femur being in a constant state of internal rotation. His solution to get rid of the spin that he sees, is to internally rotate her femur....Which she already excessively does by default. IOW, his prescription to fix the spin that he sees, is to do more of what is causing her to have the look of spin to begin with.

The fact that my dd doesn't spin....and manages to weight shift as good as she does....is a testament to what Ted taught and proof that maintaining pressure at the back foot during transition WORKS. The LOOK of a hint of spin in her swing that I have always seen; is due to the amount of preset internal rotation of her femur in her hip socket. IMO the LOOK of spin that my dd has in her swing is a pretty good argument AGAINST internally rotating the rear leg to weight shift.

I don't now why any coach/instructor would teach a kid with normally aligned legs, to do what my dd does by default....and actually has to try and overcome to get a decent weight shift.

My dd's excessive preset internal rotation of her femur is why I know that the "Internally Rotate to Shift" theory leaks power and is a big dead end.

 

[Wellphyt]

If you dangle from a tree branch and you turn your leg inwards, you have internally rotated your leg. If you are standing on the ground and turn your pelvis backwards around a firm rear leg, that action puts the rear leg in a position of internal rotation.....same as when dangling from the tree. I think everyone agrees that when a hitter coils, their rear leg is considered to be internally rotated.

So my dd and Utley have coiled, their head/torso moving forward slightly so they can maintain balance.

Their hips and hands are cocked as they approach toe touch, their whole body more or less coiled for the opposite and equal application of power - the swivel or pivot, the opening of the hips.

The GIFs above show how the legs work if you were dangling from a tree branch. If you are standing on the ground and the leg shown in the GIFs is weighted, the foot doesn't move....the TORSO MOVES. From a hitting perspective, I never teach a kid to try and turn their back foot backwards to turn their hips forward; anymore than I would tell a kid to try and turn their back foot inwards to turn their hips backwards. The main thing I tell the kids to do with the back leg during the coil to transition phase; is to keep it firm. I want them to have a goal of creating a stable platform for the pelvis/torso to work against. The firm rear leg is the platform.

I get the kids to focus on turning their pelvis back and then forward using their butt muscles, because those are the muscles that do the work. If you just tell the kids to turn their hips back and forth as described by Ted, they will instinctively know what muscles to recruit to perform that action. The challenge is to get them to perform the back and forth hip action from a balanced position and within a proper sequence. I have found that small adjustments in the balance/sequence area can lead to big improvements.

 

[theaddition]

I'll say one thing, and then I'm going to prevent myself from going any further.

I hope you don't mind, but I must use these words in my avatar.

 

[pstein]

I hope you don't mind, but I must use these words in my avatar.

Use them all you want.

 

[Wellphyt]

Utley is IRing. His rear hip coiling will ER the rear leg. That does not mean that he is not IRing the rear leg. If he was to be ERing the rear leg while coiling. There would be no tightness in the coil. There would be slop/slack that would need to be taken out. In Utley, the upper thigh is being pressed towards his junk. The rear hip coils turning the whole leg in an ER fashion but the leg is maintaining the pressure as to hold the thigh against his junk.

Just becasue you see the leg turn back doesn't mean he is ERing the leg. The leg is being made to turn back because it is in a tight state of IRing.

ER of the rear leg during the coil is not something I teach. I'm not aware of anyone who teaches that. I don't feel any sensation that my rear leg is trying to ER during the coil phase. I feel a clockwise (RH) pressure at the back foot, but I attribute that to the hips being turned back into a firm rear leg.

Agree that the upper thigh can be described as pressing inwards some to create a stable back leg during the coil; although that will vary between hitters. If you don't have some thigh resistance in the back leg during the coil phase, your torso will turn backwards and your chest will face the catcher; kind of like how Luis Tiant faced center field during his windup.

When the hips are coiled, I consider the back leg to be in a position of IR not ER.

Now if we could only agree on the force that is used to drive the pelvis out of the loaded/coiled position.....

 

[jbooth]

Utley is IRing. His rear hip coiling will ER the rear leg. That does not mean that he is not IRing the rear leg. If he was to be ERing the rear leg while coiling. There would be no tightness in the coil. There would be slop/slack that would need to be taken out. In Utley, the upper thigh is being pressed towards his junk. The rear hip coils turning the whole leg in an ER fashion but the leg is maintaining the pressure as to hold the thigh against his junk.

Just becasue you see the leg turn back doesn't mean he is ERing the leg. The leg is being made to turn back because it is in a tight state of IRing.

Just because you think you see the back leg IR'ing doesn't mean that it is, or that he is maintaining the pressure toward his junk.

The leg coils into an IR position, but they (MLB hitters) don’t consciously try to maintain that. They simply try not to fly open too soon. They think about the front hip, not the top of the back leg.

The back leg starts in an IR position then, as the abduction takes place, ER force is applied and very quickly the IR starts to come undone. The femur moves to neutral by toe touch, and by heel plant it has moved to a slight ER position. After the front foot receives all of the force and weight, the front hip is being pushed back, and now the weight is coming off of the back foot. The back leg then IR’s back to neutral and pretty much stays in neutral as the femur is pulled forward. You see what appears to be IR when it is actually the femur staying in neutral as the pelvis turns and the belly-button turns to face the pitcher.

To understand this; Stand on your front leg, with your back foot off of the ground and the knee bent. Put the rear femur in neutral. Now, pivot on your front leg and turn your belly-button toward the pitcher. Don’t do anything with your back leg. Leave it neutral.

When you turn your pelvis, the back thigh turns to face forward, even though you didn’t make it IR. That’s pretty much what happens when you swing.

The rear femur initially pushes into the pelvis at the hip socket, then at a certain point it ceases to push, but gets pulled. It’s during the pull that the rear leg appears to IR, but it really doesn't.

Bio-mechanically; the muscles that would IR a free leg, do not contribute in any way, with a weighted leg, to getting the shift into the front leg going. Trying to maintain the IR is good in the sense that it keeps you from flying the hips open too soon. It keeps you shifting while staying in-line, but it doesn't provide a power source to make you shift or rotate. The power comes mainly from abduction, and then ER at approximately toe touch/heel plant. A bit after heel plant, the back leg is pretty much done supplying power. The front leg is taking over. There is a transition from back leg force, to front leg force. What you see as IR around the time of heel plant is actually the back leg being pulled while in a neutral bone alignment.

The back leg gets you going. After the block of forward momentum, the front leg is mainly what rotates the pelvis, and the rotating pelvis pulls the mostly un-weighted back leg, forward.

Watch how his back knee and back heel move in synch with his hip turning forward from the red line to the green line. His weight is already on the front foot during this phase of the swing. The back leg has already pushed, and is now being pulled. There is no IR of the leg going on, and there is little force coming from the back leg at this phase (red line to green line.) I can't point out exactly where the transition is; but there is one. And, using muscles that try to IR the leg, do nothing to contribute force to the shift and rotation. Those muscles simply keep you in a good position from which to fire at toe touch.