Thank you SBFamily - it is difficult to put all this into a narrative description. However, I am confused by what I perceive as conflicting treatment of the "toe touch" position. What I think I read is that you teach TT at the K position, with weight transfer at 50-50 at that time - but then I find your statement about "more weight" being shifted into the inside of the back leg at TT to be confusing, given the first two statements. Can you please clarify? BTW, I'm not trying to pick a fight here - just trying to get clarification of your narrative. Thanks.
slap hitters speed?
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Thank you SBFamily - it is difficult to put all this into a narrative description. However, I am confused by what I perceive as conflicting treatment of the "toe touch" position. What I think I read is that you teach TT at the K position, with weight transfer at 50-50 at that time - but then I find your statement about "more weight" being shifted into the inside of the back leg at TT to be confusing, given the first two statements. Can you please clarify? BTW, I'm not trying to pick a fight here - just trying to get clarification of your narrative. Thanks.
Insider: Manny Ramirez Swing Analysis - ESPN Video - ESPN I may not be putting it into words, that get my point across. Don does a better job and this is the swing we teach.
- Oct 14, 2008
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The arguments about what is Linear, rotational or a combination is mere samantics, the amount of time between heel plant front elbow fireing and the start of hip rotation is so close on elite hitters to include bustos that no one will ever win the argument, everyone sees it a little different with a different perspective, but guess what ........... its the same thing.
Bustos does hit the way she teaches ..........after doing clinics with her for close to 5 years and teaching the system to kids over and over again some fire the elbow a little faster than others or have more hand seperation or rotate faster at the hip, all this argument about who came first the chicken or the egg is comical to say the least.
We do teach the load to begin when the pitcher in in the 12 or K position, but that is only the beginning and not an absolute, the seperation, stride on a flexed knee and toe touch are timed to the pitcher you are faceing, thats the reason for the barry bonds drills, and why its so important to time the pitcher in the warm up circle before they go to the plate.
SBFamily is correct in his posts about how we teach beginners to load seperate and attack the ball, no matter the speed or plane of pitch. It is up to the hitters after having the proper education in hitting to know and apply what is taught by people like SBFamily and myself to get it done.
The attack mode or pre load is a different animal all together and is taught to be used on a 2 strike count, it comes from hearing countless coaches thru the years telling their kids to protect the plate and putting them in a defensive posture, we actualy teach the kids to attack anythnig close rather than protect the plate from anything close, again different terminoligy, different perspective.
Its extremely difficult for anyone on these forums to put down their thoughts and describe everything in the detail it needs. But as with instructing SBFAMILY does a realy good job of it, nice job Dan
Tim
Bustos does hit the way she teaches ..........after doing clinics with her for close to 5 years and teaching the system to kids over and over again some fire the elbow a little faster than others or have more hand seperation or rotate faster at the hip, all this argument about who came first the chicken or the egg is comical to say the least.
We do teach the load to begin when the pitcher in in the 12 or K position, but that is only the beginning and not an absolute, the seperation, stride on a flexed knee and toe touch are timed to the pitcher you are faceing, thats the reason for the barry bonds drills, and why its so important to time the pitcher in the warm up circle before they go to the plate.
SBFamily is correct in his posts about how we teach beginners to load seperate and attack the ball, no matter the speed or plane of pitch. It is up to the hitters after having the proper education in hitting to know and apply what is taught by people like SBFamily and myself to get it done.
The attack mode or pre load is a different animal all together and is taught to be used on a 2 strike count, it comes from hearing countless coaches thru the years telling their kids to protect the plate and putting them in a defensive posture, we actualy teach the kids to attack anythnig close rather than protect the plate from anything close, again different terminoligy, different perspective.
Its extremely difficult for anyone on these forums to put down their thoughts and describe everything in the detail it needs. But as with instructing SBFAMILY does a realy good job of it, nice job Dan
Tim
When does hip rotation start relative to heel plant on this hitter? Photo 11 of 31, Analysis
I would contend hip rotation is part of the shift well before heel plant as described many years ago by Jim Dixon commonly called "forward by turning".
- Oct 14, 2008
- 666
- 16
The way it looks to me is that the hip rotation starts almost at the same time as heel plant, I cant honestly see how the hip can rotate without having the axis planted to rotate around, but that is just my opinion,
Tim
I'm not sure I can accept that in all cases. There are historical definitions of the terms which describe two different mechanical approaches to hitting. The linear hitter shifts weight forward, retards hip andf shoulder rotation, and moves the arms in a straight line towards the ball. The rotatioinal hitter creates forward momentum and shifts mass to the front side. The hips rotate 90 degrees (or so), and the shoulders rotate 75 - 115 degrees. The hand path is basically circular (a fish-hook shape is a more accurate description, probably), and the hands don't start to move forward until well after the hips have begun to rotate. The FP swing taught at the elite level today is absolutely rotational. Ten years ago, the linear concepts were more prevalent. maybe even 5 years ago. Guys like Mark were at the forefront of that happening, through their influence on the webn. Slaught's introduction of RVP and the introduction of that tape - where Candrea / Enquist acknowledged that the FP swing and the MLB swing should be the same - was seminal.
Those doubting the above should go back 5 years ago on eTeamz (for example), and review hitting posts. The conventional wisom was ABSOLUTELY that the "baseball swing could never work in softball." Might be illustrative to review Candrea's older hitting instructional materials, too. BIG change, there.
Mark's point is important, and this point is DEFINITELY not semantics.
The world's best hitters begin to rotate their hips WHILE the stride foot is in the air. (Some of the REALLY elite hitters - Pujols comes to mind - both cock / load / inward turn their hips AND begin to rotate them as the stride foot is in the air.) Why hitters (stride OR no-stride) rotate their hips into heel plant - and how they can - is absolutely vital to understand as a foundation for preparing hitters.
How does a diver or trampolinist complete a sommersault, and THEN do a couple of twists?
Check out the 30 second mark of this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fhpx2I98o_Q&feature=PlayList&p=F48DFA7A8C6CE4AA&index=4
The core of the body can do some amazing things. Hitters should let it.
Regards,
Scott
PS: I don't understand what you mean by "front elbow firing." I am familiar with the RVP instruction, which states that the rear elbow moving downward is the trigger for rotation. I have never heard anyone reference the front elbow before.
The RVP instruction may be a good CUE, though it doesn't describe reality. IN actuality, the elbow can't move without the involvement of shoulder muscles. That's just how the kinetic chain works, and how the body is put together.
But you have me puzzled with the front elbow "firing" reference. I actually see virtually NO movement of the front elbow until well after swing launch. Certainly it rotates, but as it does so, it absolutely maintains the aspect ratio with the front shoulder. Measurement of the actual degrees of elbow flexion on RVP or Motionpro shows that the angle normally does not change for elite hitters until later in the swing. If at all.
Here are some videos for discussion purposes. Always good to download and convert those files which aren't already QuickTime compatible to .mov format so that they can be easily viewed frame-by-frame):
Fastpitch
Enjoying the discussion, thanks!
Just looked at the Soriano video Mark provided. The hip rotation looks concomitant with heel plant to you? Seriously? My goodness, what I am seeing is not even close.
When I view the video frame-by-frame, I see the hips rotating between 2 and 3 frames before heel plant. Conservatively, that is 0.06 seconds, or 2/5 of the entire swing (which takes 0.15 seconds).
This is REALLY important to understand, IMO.
Regards,
Scott
Manny certainly is a good model.
And Don does a good job of analysis in this case.
I would quibble that Manny's rear elbow DOES NOT key or trigger his rotation - in fact I think this is among the worst videos I have seen for Slaught to make this point - but this IS relatively a quibble. That said, one issue I have with RVP is rooted here. I believe that without VERY carefull supervision, the unvarnished RVP instructo]ion and drills around the back arm and elbow can lead to bat drag (hands trailing the rear elbow. I have discussed this with Slaught, who assures me - didactically - that I am wrong. Of course, Slaught works with supremely gifted MLB hitters. Bat drag is not an issue for them. It IS an issue with kids though, and probably half the young female hitters I see have bat drag. It can be hard to address, and the RVP material doesn't necessarily help. This is a first hand account from the trenches, not a mere opinion.
Still a good analysis, though.
If a hitter really sets up with the same posture as Manny displays, then leads with the hips, she will be well on her way to a solid swing.
MINOR differences in the posture can make a huge difference though. POSTURE at LAUNCH is NOT style. It is mechanics, and often unmder-emphasized by instructors. "It's OK if the posture is a little differnt." I disagree. Manny's posture is near perfect, and any hitter would do well to attain the same postural position at launch.
Hitters whose posture is slightly less perfect may still be good hitters, but they are compounding their challenge. As Paul Nyman once said, "two snowballs dropped 6" apart at the top of the mountain might end up a mile apart at the base." Pretty apt analogy.
The analysis about Manny waiting to engage his hips, and basically sitting on the pitch is certainly sound. One of the MOST difficult aspects of hitting.
Regards,
Scott
Good discussion.
Slaught's system is a good one. For definition of phases, see:
RightView Pro Baseball & Softball Training Software
The Manny analysis is somewhat misleading with regard to hips opening because it is somewhat of an offspeed pitch where he has to wait on the ball as Slaught says.
Part of the linear rotational confusion is that linear motions of body parts is combined to produce rotation and the motion of the indivuidual/most active part is often linear and feels linear.
As decribed better in golf, "rotation" is a VERY poor way to describe/teach hip action. Hips rarely rotate given their structure and support. Hogan for example desribed what the front and back hips are doing "at one and the same time" and Hardy uses this approach to describe the very different hip actions of the 1 v 2 plane golf swing.
At a "scientific" level, rotation is a useful way of decribing/measuring the principal of addition/summation/kinetic chain/kinetc link. Using the "kinematic approach", it can be shown that regardless of the particular linear and/or rotational muscle/joint actions that produce the action, the body parts ideally reach peak rotational velocity (and momentum) in the same sequence, AND the amount of addition/speed gain from link to link need to be in a certain range with each more distal link showing more gain.
Sequence is hips to torso to hands to bathead and it is important not to "over-rotate" the early hip link.
For Kinematic sequence, see (Cheetham has studied both golf and hitting):
For typical ranges of "speed gains"/addition/summation in hitting, Zig Zigler reports motionanalysis shows:
"During this first phase of the swing the forward swing there is an expected angular speed gain (progressive speed gain) of approximately 200 degrees per second from the hips to the upper torso, as the hips rotate and peak to a speed of 550 d/sec, and upper torso rotates and peaks milliseconds later at a speed of 750 d/sec. There is an additional speed gain of approximately 250 d/sec from the upper torso to the arms (which reach a speed of 1000 d/sec milliseconds after the upper torso). This is followed by a significantly higher gain of 1000 d/sec from the arms to the bat as the bat releases at a speed of over 2000 degrees per second. Good athlete = 550>750>1000=2000 degrees per second (rotational bat speed)".
This addition of segments is what Slaught is roughly describing by getting ready (toe touch),then:
1-'heel plant' - hip rotation maxes out
2-'connection' -torso rotation maxes out
3-'lag' - hand link maxes out
4-'contact' -bathead velocity maxes out.
One further thing to understand is the mechanics of the flail/double pendulum which in simplest/oversimplified form shows how the unloading of the torso drives the swing of the bat like a fused torso/lead arm attached to the bat by a hinge at the wrists. The bat/second pendulum starts to swing out as the torso/first pendulum slows. Before this, when the torso is accelerating, the hinge angle narrows. This narrowing creates "drag" when it is time for the second pendulum to accelerated.Second pendulum velocity maxes out when it lines up with first. In the hitting swing, the arm is segmented which creates a more complex "compound pendulum" where batspeed maxes out when the bat lines up with the lead forearm, see previous release sequence details in "when does full arm extension occur" thread. The way this combination of hinge inertia and acceleration can affect the path of the tip of the second pendulum (bathead) can be seen practically in this demo where you can fool around with the mass of each pendulum and trace the path of the bat tip and see the effect of various "running starts" as the motion continues:
Double Pendulum
All of this needs to be taken into account to understand what you see and feel in the MLB pattern.
The hip action is much better thought of as "snapping"or thrusting of rear hip or uncocking or pelvic projection as opposed to "rotation".
These terms like snapping capture the separate feel of the hips and the fact that the hips are accelerating and decelerating, and to to this right, the "load" needs to stay in the back hip joint until snapping puts the heel down.
Hip "rotation" resembles the coil/load action which is underway BEFORE toe touch while all weight is on back foot. Hip uncocks/snaps to put the heel down, Then the hip decelerates.
Trying to "rotate" the hip after the heel is down will interfere with deceleration/kinetic link by OVERrotating the hip.
TRying to get to toe touch EARLY (notice in Slaught's videos, the toe does not touch until ball is more than halfway home) will UNload the back hip joint early and prevent good hip snap.
"rotation" is not such a good thing to describe how the body does this, see again:
Baseball Debate - Rotation.....
Slaught's system is a good one. For definition of phases, see:
RightView Pro Baseball & Softball Training Software
The Manny analysis is somewhat misleading with regard to hips opening because it is somewhat of an offspeed pitch where he has to wait on the ball as Slaught says.
Part of the linear rotational confusion is that linear motions of body parts is combined to produce rotation and the motion of the indivuidual/most active part is often linear and feels linear.
As decribed better in golf, "rotation" is a VERY poor way to describe/teach hip action. Hips rarely rotate given their structure and support. Hogan for example desribed what the front and back hips are doing "at one and the same time" and Hardy uses this approach to describe the very different hip actions of the 1 v 2 plane golf swing.
At a "scientific" level, rotation is a useful way of decribing/measuring the principal of addition/summation/kinetic chain/kinetc link. Using the "kinematic approach", it can be shown that regardless of the particular linear and/or rotational muscle/joint actions that produce the action, the body parts ideally reach peak rotational velocity (and momentum) in the same sequence, AND the amount of addition/speed gain from link to link need to be in a certain range with each more distal link showing more gain.
Sequence is hips to torso to hands to bathead and it is important not to "over-rotate" the early hip link.
For Kinematic sequence, see (Cheetham has studied both golf and hitting):
For typical ranges of "speed gains"/addition/summation in hitting, Zig Zigler reports motionanalysis shows:
"During this first phase of the swing the forward swing there is an expected angular speed gain (progressive speed gain) of approximately 200 degrees per second from the hips to the upper torso, as the hips rotate and peak to a speed of 550 d/sec, and upper torso rotates and peaks milliseconds later at a speed of 750 d/sec. There is an additional speed gain of approximately 250 d/sec from the upper torso to the arms (which reach a speed of 1000 d/sec milliseconds after the upper torso). This is followed by a significantly higher gain of 1000 d/sec from the arms to the bat as the bat releases at a speed of over 2000 degrees per second. Good athlete = 550>750>1000=2000 degrees per second (rotational bat speed)".
This addition of segments is what Slaught is roughly describing by getting ready (toe touch),then:
1-'heel plant' - hip rotation maxes out
2-'connection' -torso rotation maxes out
3-'lag' - hand link maxes out
4-'contact' -bathead velocity maxes out.
One further thing to understand is the mechanics of the flail/double pendulum which in simplest/oversimplified form shows how the unloading of the torso drives the swing of the bat like a fused torso/lead arm attached to the bat by a hinge at the wrists. The bat/second pendulum starts to swing out as the torso/first pendulum slows. Before this, when the torso is accelerating, the hinge angle narrows. This narrowing creates "drag" when it is time for the second pendulum to accelerated.Second pendulum velocity maxes out when it lines up with first. In the hitting swing, the arm is segmented which creates a more complex "compound pendulum" where batspeed maxes out when the bat lines up with the lead forearm, see previous release sequence details in "when does full arm extension occur" thread. The way this combination of hinge inertia and acceleration can affect the path of the tip of the second pendulum (bathead) can be seen practically in this demo where you can fool around with the mass of each pendulum and trace the path of the bat tip and see the effect of various "running starts" as the motion continues:
Double Pendulum
All of this needs to be taken into account to understand what you see and feel in the MLB pattern.
The hip action is much better thought of as "snapping"or thrusting of rear hip or uncocking or pelvic projection as opposed to "rotation".
These terms like snapping capture the separate feel of the hips and the fact that the hips are accelerating and decelerating, and to to this right, the "load" needs to stay in the back hip joint until snapping puts the heel down.
Hip "rotation" resembles the coil/load action which is underway BEFORE toe touch while all weight is on back foot. Hip uncocks/snaps to put the heel down, Then the hip decelerates.
Trying to "rotate" the hip after the heel is down will interfere with deceleration/kinetic link by OVERrotating the hip.
TRying to get to toe touch EARLY (notice in Slaught's videos, the toe does not touch until ball is more than halfway home) will UNload the back hip joint early and prevent good hip snap.
"rotation" is not such a good thing to describe how the body does this, see again:
Baseball Debate - Rotation.....
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