Langenfeld as a protype softball swing

[druer]

Tom /SB- Thank you ... thank you .. thank you. Finally got an understanding of what others consider it to be. So when others are thinking of 'squishing the bug' they don't have a problem with the ball of the foot doing what I/Amy consider to be squishing rather than pointing, it's really more the problem with how the foot gets to that position specifically the heel.

How would you describe what her foot does in your terminology? Dragoncoach suggested he'd call it Toe Push. Is that a common way to refer to that? I've had a lot of problems with some players parents when they hear the term, so I'm happy to use whatever terminology is current for what her rear foot is doing.

I teach trigger with negative weight shift to rear, stride and load of the hands the way a boxer would, firm front leg planted on big toe (like Jen keeps straight to plate then rotate on swing to natural 45, not what Megan did with planting at 45 then rotating to 90 and rolling), back foot "fill in the term for me" seam in pants of back leg is straight up and down. (Disclaimer: Not suggesting for a second that my girls have had Jen's success.)

 

[tom.guerry]

the key is upper body resistance that lets the rear leg turn ahead of the rear hip and hands, starting similar to throwing.

 

[Wellphyt]

Langenfeld does the three basic things that virtually all successful MLB hitters do. She stays back (doesn't lunge), she generates torque (hips lead the hands), and she stays inside the ball (back elbow tucks correctly).

Does she do it as good as Ted Williams or Pujols? No. They were/are professionals who did/do it for a living. She is a female college student. None of us offering opinions here or any other discussion board can do it like Williams or Pujols. Probably not even as good as Langenfeld as some of us are old

I do not see a hybrid swing with Langerfeld. Instead I see a hitter who is following the HLBB swing blueprint; but not as efficiently as the pros. However I don't think any of us expect her to be as fluid as the pros. I would say Jen Yee is more fluid, altough her game swing clip posted here is not as good as her batting practice swings I've seen.

IMO the girls are clearly starting to figure out the basic components of the HLBB swing. Check out Langenfeld's hand flattening move (how she tucks the back elbow and gets the front forearm up early before her hands turn the corner) compared to Sosa in this clip. This move is a common component in the HLBB swing. Not all college FP players do it this way yet, but more and more are starting to figure it out.
[video]http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=MrBatSpeed#p/u/29/657y3THYbBo[/video]

Personally I think many of the players understand the benefits of the HLBB swing more than the coaches because the players are the ones in the batters box under the gun having to hit the pitchers.

 

[Ken Krause]

I wouldn't expect these college players to do it as well as the MLB pros. Nor would I expect to see those MLB pros doing it as well as they do now if we could see video of them from their college days. You can learn an awful lot by taking 400 to 500 game at bats over six to 10 years. A perspective we always need to maintain when comparing fastpitch players to MLB players.

Druer, I don't place any real emphasis on the back foot at all, other than to see it moved. In my opinion, what the back foot does is a reaction to what other parts of the body do, not something that initiates anything. When I watch a hitter I want to see that her back foot rotated and that her heel came up toward the sky, because it tells me she rotated her hips and torso and drove her weight into her front leg. Bug squishing is the conscious effort to turn the back foot so the toes point forward. Even at my advanced age and lack of flexibility I can turn my back foot so the toes point forward without creating any power or even moving the rest of my body. But if I'm trying to hit a ball, why would I?

 

[druer]

Ken - Just for fun give it a try. Try and turn your back foot so that it points to the pitcher without moving your thigh or hip. Because I sure can't. However, I can certainly turn my hip without my foot moving at all. Reason I can turn my hip but not my foot is that with weight down on my foot and gravity still in place there is a lot of friction which leads to resistance. So my foot can cause enough resistance to slow my hips down, while your hips offers a lot less resistance when your foot moves. I like both exploding together. (I guess it could be the chicken or the egg syndrome.)

I've been under the impression for lack of a higher caliber player that demonstrated it, that folks were against the "Squishing the Bug" whether it was intentional or accidental. Other examples that were showcased of what is a good swing all had the players shifting more weight forward and shifting past the mid point so that back leg extended and toes were just barely touching the ground. So my assumption was that the problem was with the appearance that the ball of the foot was on the ground with the knee over it putting weight down on it to "squish a bug" if it was there. Of course we all know what happens with assumptions. I should have asked more questions, and produced some example video.

WellPhyt - Michele Smilth said something similar last night and I'd like to hear your thoughts as I'm not much a history buff regarding swings. She feels that the two types of swings were melding into one. That softball players were starting to go to a more long follow through after a short to (opposed to what it used to be with a quick to, roll, and then quick wrap). While the baseball swing has also been melding to a quicker to though. Her points were regarding more and more athletes that are keeping their hands in and going opposite filed more like softball players have done for so long.

 

[Ken Krause]

Ken - Just for fun give it a try. Try and turn your back foot so that it points to the pitcher without moving your thigh or hip. Because I sure can't. However, I can certainly turn my hip without my foot moving at all. Reason I can turn my hip but not my foot is that with weight down on my foot and gravity still in place there is a lot of friction which leads to resistance. So my foot can cause enough resistance to slow my hips down, while your hips offers a lot less resistance when your foot moves. I like both exploding together. (I guess it could be the chicken or the egg syndrome.)

Oh, I've done it plenty. Just did it again. You can move the foot without moving the hips, or more accurately without generating power from the hips. I see a lot of hitters do that.

When I think of turning the hips, I mean pulling the back up forward so that both hips wind up facing/squared up to the pitcher. You can't do that without releasing your back foot -- at least not without hurting yourself. You can slide the hips forward and not turn the foot, but you can't rotate the hips.

 

[druer]

Thank you for trying. We are on the same page with the foot and hips. What I meant by try it was that you can turn the hips and the foot stays completely still due to the resistance. But if you turn the foot 90 degrees the hip has to move (doesn't completely rotate for sure) but it has to move unless you dislocate something. No doubt we don't want to do either in a rapid/powerful way or something will get hurt. Obviously then we can't literally ignore that back foot. And that's all I've ever tried to do with my terminology.

That aside I think we are getting close to a definition and that's all I'm after. Is it safe to say that your definition of "Squishing the Bug" (in the bad sense of the phrase) would be that the foot rotates and leaves the hips behind to where they remain open and don't close in a powerful way? Or the emphasis has been placed on the foot and the rest of the body forgotten.

Is it then safe to say that providing that the hips get rotated powerfully you don't really care that the back foot appears to be "in an L shape with ball of her toes firmly in the ground and heel nearly straight up in the air" whether intentionally to work together with the hip or accidentally if the mental focus was just on the hip?

This is the closest I've ever been to understanding where the break down is over the phrase. And you've articulated it really well. Just want to get it nailed down so that I understand.

 

[Ken Krause]

I would agree on the definition of "squishing the bug." The foot twists but doesn't do anything to rotate the body or generate power.

I'd still use the position of the back foot as an indicator of what happened. I'd want to see the laces toward the pitcher, heel up in the air versus the instep being buried into the ground or the back foot only partially rotated. I suppose a part of that, though, is also making sure the weight got off the back side. Driving the weight into the front leg will help develop power. If the weight is off the back leg, the foot is more likely to come up into that position in my experience.