Swing clip...what you like and don't about this swing

[lhowser]

Here is a video of my 15 year old dd from this weekend. Good shot. Hit 155' fence on fly about 20' up. Great results but things look a lot different than she does off the tee. Back foot seems anchored. Hips do not rotate as much and so it has a lot of arms. Good results though. I always say game swings tell the final story...What is your opinion. The good and the bad on this game swing?

 

[cshilt]

I agree with your observations and will add that she is rolling her wrists before contact. This is almost causing her bat to stop when it contacts the ball. You can definitely see it slow down.

Here is a cleaned up and shorter version of your clip...

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[Chris O'Leary]

Here is a video of my 15 year old dd from this weekend. Good shot. Hit 155' fence on fly about 20' up. Great results but things look a lot different than she does off the tee. Back foot seems anchored. Hips do not rotate as much and so it has a lot of arms. Good results though. I always say game swings tell the final story...What is your opinion. The good and the bad on this game swing?

She actually pivots on the heel of her back foot.

A lot of this is due to the down and in location of the pitch.

It doesn't look like her posture is quite right. She's adjust the plane more with her arms than with her torso.

 

[Chris O'Leary]

I agree with your observations and will add that she is rolling her wrists before contact.

IMO this is very minor and is related to other more fundamental things, namely the relative arm-y-ness of her swing.

 

[lhowser]

Yes I see what you mean.

Also the straightening of the front arm on swing initiation is something I see in game footage but never off a tee or front toss. I think it is costing her lots of time as her arm moves for that part of the swing but not the bat for a couple of .01's of a second. I'd like her to maintain the arm angle into rotation?

Fortunately she hit the sweet spot though!

 

[mrslug01]

Good: Stance looks good. She looks comfortable. Movig her hands and staying loose. Short stride good balance. Good negaitve movement at load.
Bad. No hips, all arms, as you said. No tilt. She got to that spot by dropping her hands and was overextended at contact. Her right arm was more like 130 degrees at contact, not 90. If you look when she contacts the ball, she standing almost upright, no bend at all in her back leg on a relatively low pitch.

 

[ifubuildit]

Good Observations

Good observations by all both good and bad. I would add that she is not starting her swing with her hips but with her back elbow as her first move. After she goes negative her first move is to drop the back elbow to the inside. This is going to reduce her power considerably. She needs to work on bringing the elbow around the corner and not down. At the bat Lag position her hand should be directly over her elbow. If this is not corrected your going to see a lot of pop ups in her future. If not already.

Dana.

 

[Mark H]

Yeah, good observations. Interesting contrast. She gets in an excellent position to swing from and then it just all goes bad so quickly. I don't recall seeing a hitter with good posture near heel plant go so far wrong. Good news is, she must be an athlete to do this much wrong and still hit it. She needs to learn to turn from the position she gets to and she needs to learn to connect that rotation to the bat. First you need to see clearly what's wrong and then you need to figure out how to get her to feel it. Let's start with you. What differences do you see between your DD and this hitter starting at heel drop. Photo 10 of 16, Fastpitch

 

[cshilt]

IMO this is very minor and is related to other more fundamental things, namely the relative arm-y-ness of her swing.

Yes. The front arm is locking out and is going down. It is what is causing the early wrist roll. I would isolate the lead arm and rear arm in drills using a PVC bat or a rope bat (WhipHit). For the lead arm, think about "where the elbow is the hands will be" as a mantra while using one arm drills to try and hit tennis balls up the middle.

 

[lhowser]

MarkH says:

Let's start with you. What differences do you see between your DD and this hitter starting at heel drop. Photo 10 of 16, Fastpitch

I see big differences in upper and lower body. Regarding the lower body there is little rotation at the hip or knee with my dd. She starts to rotate and clearly has the weight off of her backfoot, but she makes some sort of adjustment and stops the rotation compared to Caitlyn Benyi. It may be because of the upper body. She seems to be in a very good position to me at heal plant comparing clips. She seems coiled and ready to go. this would be :04 on the edited clip by cshilt post #2. When she starts her move towards the ball at :05 the comparision between the swings ends. My DD's first move is to lose the box by dropping the back elbow and straightening the front arm by pushing back...perhaps to start to turn the bat? Caitlyn has a one piece move driving the hands, shouder and hip in a tight rotation. My dd adjusts to the ball with her hands/arms by lowering them and makes a final (pretty fantastic) adjustment with her hands. Caitlyn seems on plane for a long time by taking her hands in a nice short circular path working the front arm around and up while maintaining it's angle. That is what I see. Obviously the ball Caitlyn is hitting is higher but I don't thing that is a key issue. I tell mine to maintain the handpath as much as possible across the letters and adjust with posture and bat angle. Obviously not what I am seeing here.