slap hitters speed?

[ssarge]

The hip action is much better thought of as "snapping"or thrusting of rear hip or uncocking or pelvic projection as opposed to "rotation".

Call it whatever you want, I guess. Although it is risky to do so. The hips and shoulders clearly rotate based on any standard definition of the English word. And based on what people think / know the word means. Change the meaning of a standard-useage English word with great peril, I think. It will always confuse many, since the word means what it means. And changing will necessitate that the alternative definition always be provided.

Hips rotate. Shoulders rotate. It just is what it is. Saying there are better ways to describe it? OK, but IMO, you haven't presented them so far. The words "thrust" or "snap" could mean a LOT of things, most of which look decidedly different (to most people anyway) than what a hitter does when he TURNS (rotates) his hips. So there is HUGE risk of misunderstanding by readers of your post, and ENORMOUS risk of misunderstanding when a phrase such as "thrust your hips, that's right, just snap them!" is applied to a young hitter.


I also think it is risky to separate "back hip" from "front hip." Anatomically, they are joined by the pelvis, and neither HIP can move without the other moving.

So again, as always, Tom, we get into a discussion of actual anatomy, versus feel. I will continue to maintain that "feel" is individual, which is why SOME cues work for SOME people, and not for others. Instructors need to deal with anatomical reality, then figure out the cues which work for individual hitters. As a physician, it surprises me that you resist this concept as you seem to.

But regardless of who is right in that discussion, it is important for any poster to differentiate. Feel and cues are one thing. Anatomical reality is another. It is important to denote the difference, and make it very clear which you are using. When you use phrases like "rotation of the hips is best described as snapping," I feel you have confused the two.


I would urge everyone to resist inventing a new lexicon, or to apply new definitions to words with very common meanings.



In terms of using the word "rotational" to describe a hitting technique, that has historical meaning, too. And is the antecedent point to which I responded in my post.

 

[Bouldersdad]

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

what i see in the vid is the hips begin to rotate as the heel plants and it is close, I do not have a frame by frame break down, the hip goes into full rotation after the heel is planted, I will stand behind what I think that the heel need be planted to give the hip the axis it needs to rotate on, try it at home and step off and rotate before you plant your heel, If you can do it and teach that way God bless ya Brother....... like i posted earlier, different views different perspectives

 

[Bouldersdad]

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:

YouTube - 2004 Olympic men's diving 3m

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!

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

Its ok realy we do not have to agree or disagree, the forum is here to give different views and thats what we have done, I teach what I teach and am a believer in it. what we teach is a rotational base with a linear beginning,



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 front elbow fireing is nothing more than the hands coming forward from the load, its a cue for the kids to pick up on, the front elbow has to go forward and up in order to bring the back elbow thru the slot, sorry but i work with kids as young as 9 and need word cues that they can grasp at their age level, as much as i like the terminoligy used by slot and the rest of the hitting gurus, a 9 year old could care less so i have to speak to them to get the point across, lol

Tim

 

[ssarge]

Its ok realy we do not have to agree or disagree, the forum is here to give different views and thats what we have done, I teach what I teach and am a believer in it. what we teach is a rotational base with a linear beginning,

So basically RVP terminology. Is that where you got it? v It's fine , actually, now that I know where you are coming from. But probably important for you to note that it may occasionally confuse some folks you are in conversation with. The "linear start" referred to in RVP is the "negative move" (or load), and the stride. Which actually have never been criteria for CLASSIFYING a swing as "linear," even though they are basically linear movements. RVP instruction is "rotational" by ANY historic definition of the term, and it sounds as if you are, too. Good.

The front elbow fireing is nothing more than the hands coming forward from the load, its a cue for the kids to pick up on, the front elbow has to go forward and up in order to bring the back elbow thru the slot, sorry but i work with kids as young as 9 and need word cues that they can grasp at their age level, as much as i like the terminoligy used by slot and the rest of the hitting gurus, a 9 year old could care less so i have to speak to them to get the point across, lol

Well, here we do disagree, as I don't see hands coming forward from the load until well after the hitter is around the corner. I think maintaining that connection (hands proximate to and at about the same heighth as the rear shoulder) until the hitter gets around the corner is absolutely crucial.

Front elbow up as the back elbow goes down - absolutely. That part is right. But I think close examination of video shows that elite hitters DON'T move the hands as they do this.



The clips on the video site provided previously can mostly be "saved as picture." This will put an animated .gif file on your desktop. If you then open QuickTime and load that file into it, it will play as a movie. If you don't have QuickTime, it is a free download at QuickTime.com. Once the movie is loaded in, you can advance / reverse it one frame at a time by using the horizontal arrow keys on the bottom right of your keyboard.

It's one thing to say we don't see the same things, and you're right, it's fine. But you are hampering your ability to really study the swing if you can't look at videos frame-by-frame.

Absolute best regards,

Scott

 

[Mark H]

Scott

what i see in the vid is the hips begin to rotate as the heel plants and it is close, I do not have a frame by frame break down, the hip goes into full rotation after the heel is planted, I will stand behind what I think that the heel need be planted to give the hip the axis it needs to rotate on, try it at home and step off and rotate before you plant your heel, If you can do it and teach that way God bless ya Brother....... like i posted earlier, different views different perspectives

I guess when we can look at the same video and see something completely different we are at an impasse. I clearly see the hip pocket being shown to the pitcher at full load and the front of the pelvis in view of the pitcher at heel plant. Certainly pelvic rotation is ongoing after heel plant if that's what you refer to? Perhaps one of the video whiz's will be kind enough to post the series of stills from this clip.

 

[Bouldersdad]

This is a vid of my dd , 3 slo mo swings, this is what we teach, now disreguard the happy feet as we do not teach that, lol, the pitcher sucked ( dad was pitching from 25 foot from a make shift net and was bailing on every pitch) she has a bat speed of 75 mph with a 26 oz bat, her hand seperation on every pitch varies a bit but as the negative load comes forward into rotation the front elbow fires at close to the same time the back elbow comes thru the slot wich it has to . I think we are trying to get the kids to the same place with different terminoligy

YouTube - Rotational & Linear combined hitting

Tim

 

[SBFAMILY]

Good post Tim. I had 30 kids from 8 to 12 this weekend at a hitting camp. Both Tim and I work with young kids. If you work with young kids, you will understand you must be a teacher first to get your point across. I read some of these posts and wonder how many of you really work with kids, because you may sound great, but try it on a 10 year old. Heck I have high school age kids that I coach and instruct , that I have to keep it simple. The forum is also about teaching someone that asks a Question not blowing them away with facts, Stats. We should have a section for so called hitting guru's to debate all they want. I just feel sorry for the person that asked a ? that wants to teach little Carol how to correct something, without being a hitting expert.

 

[ssarge]

The forum is also about teaching someone that asks a Question not blowing them away with facts, Stats. We should have a section for so called hitting guru's to debate all they want. I just feel sorry for the person that asked a ? that wants to teach little Carol how to correct something, without being a hitting expert.

Seems to me the tone of discussion and level of discourse on this thread has been fine. What comments are you objecting to?

 

[ssarge]

This is a vid of my dd , 3 slo mo swings, this is what we teach, now disreguard the happy feet as we do not teach that, lol, the pitcher sucked ( dad was pitching from 25 foot from a make shift net and was bailing on every pitch) she has a bat speed of 75 mph with a 26 oz bat, her hand seperation on every pitch varies a bit but as the negative load comes forward into rotation the front elbow fires at close to the same time the back elbow comes thru the slot wich it has to . I think we are trying to get the kids to the same place with different terminoligy

Nice swing. She looks strong and athletic.

Regards,

Scott

 

[cshilt]

This...

Torrid start at the plate leads Fairborn phenom to think big

...is her, right Tim?