Weight Transfer

[mkral]

What is the best way to work on weight transfer? We are at the point where the basics are pretty good but we are still lacking what I would like to see in terms of weight transfer. My one DD still keeps to much weight on her back leg. She actually rotates well buts does not transfer her weight like I would like her to.
Thanks
Mike

 

[RayR]

mkral - the good rotation you see is probably the front hip driving back without any rear knee drive forward. More of a spinning of the hips...

Good lower body rotation requires the rear upper leg and hip complex to rotate forward together. If the rear upper leg (knee cap used as a visual marker) does not turn with the hips or if the hips do not turn with the upper leg - weight transfer will not happen.

I am stealing this clip made by boardmember to show Arod. His rear upper leg and hip complex turn together.

I don't presume to know the actual queues used by BM to teach this his way.

In my case - I talk about the rear upper leg turning forward - like the elvis move - so the upper leg is not just spinning (like squishing the bug). This will connect the upper leg to the hip complex. This will result in weight shift.

Below is a clip of one of my players working on just unloading from an offset position (hips open and shoulders closed)

If you watch the back foot - it starts turned in and you can see the heel being pulled forward before it releases. IMO - this is happening because the rear upper leg and hip complex are turning together.

 

[Wellphyt]

IMO the weight shift is done with the hips. Teach her how to hip cock/coil and uncoil. The correct movement is like a pendulum. It's a move - countermove. If you played ball growing up, you likely cock your hips when you throw overhand. The hip cock in hitting is the same.

I'm using the overhand throw model as the basis to teach hip cock/coil. The uncoil is more like a side arm throw (middle infielder turning a double play) or skipping a rock. IMO it is helpful to clear your mind and get rid of any mental filters you may have regarding weight shift; and sell out to the idea that the weight shift is done with the hips by coiling-uncoiling. The weight shift is not a linear movement done by shifting weight first onto the back foot and then shifting weight forward onto the front foot.

One experiement you can do at home that may help, is to get in your stance and try to not sway back when you pick up your front foot to stride. IOW, as soon as you pick up your front foot to stride, coil and uncoil immediately. It will feel like a spinning action of your hips. Initially it helps to stand up straight. Pretending that you are going to hit a pitch at the shoulders will help get you to stand up straight and better feel the spinning action. Just focus on performing a quick move-countermove with the hips.

 

[Wellphyt]

One more point. The quickest way to kill a good weight shift is to purposely try and internally rotate the back leg. This is why I now stay away from cues dealing with turning the back knee down and in. When I used those type cues I ended up with hitters that spun the back leg or foot. If you coil and don't give up the external pressure against the ground with the back foot, the internal rotation of the back leg happens automatically. It's a no-teach.

One reason I like the idea of "The Move" is because it creates a "no-teach". I love actions that create "no-teaches". Give me a movement that I can teach which eliminates me having to teach some other movement, and I'm in.

Also IMHO, the best way to teach weight shift is through dynamic drills where the player has to do the entire hip cock/coil - uncoil action. In the past I have been unsuccessful teaching weight shift by leaving out the hip cock.

Ted Williams said that the most important move of the hitter is the hip cock.

 

[RayR]

Well - I agree. Internally rotating the back leg is not connecting the rear leg and hips together. You get squish the bug internally rotating the back leg.

 

[Jeff Kneiert]

IMO the weight shift is done with the hips. Teach her how to hip cock/coil and uncoil. The correct movement is like a pendulum. It's a move - countermove. If you played ball growing up, you likely cock your hips when you throw overhand. The hip cock in hitting is the same.

I'm using the overhand throw model as the basis to teach hip cock/coil. The uncoil is more like a side arm throw (middle infielder turning a double play) or skipping a rock. IMO it is helpful to clear your mind and get rid of any mental filters you may have regarding weight shift; and sell out to the idea that the weight shift is done with the hips by coiling-uncoiling. The weight shift is not a linear movement done by shifting weight first onto the back foot and then shifting weight forward onto the front foot.

One experiement you can do at home that may help, is to get in your stance and try to not sway back when you pick up your front foot to stride. IOW, as soon as you pick up your front foot to stride, coil and uncoil immediately. It will feel like a spinning action of your hips. Initially it helps to stand up straight. Pretending that you are going to hit a pitch at the shoulders will help get you to stand up straight and better feel the spinning action. Just focus on performing a quick move-countermove with the hips.

Wellphyt-
If you perform a quick coil/uncoil do you find that the hips, in the young hitter, are opening prematurely and leaking the front knee at toe touch? In other words, do we need to tell the young hitters to hold the coil until toe touch?

 

[SBFAMILY]

Don Slaught was recently at a clinic and he used a platform about 6 to 8 inches high and had the hitters put their back foot up on it and hop step with the lead foot to the toe touch position. We had them on the inside edge of the lead foot with there heel off the ground slightly, on a flexed knee and then they performed the Elvis move by planting the front foot heel and lifting the back foot heel up allowing the weight to be on the inside of the big toe and toe next to it. The Elvis move drives the shoulders and Don termed this as an attacking posture as it puts a little more weight on the lead foot knee for weight shift because the back foot is elevated slightly. They hit a ball off a tee while doing this.
As someone posted above, this is why we teach kids to throw first. If Candrea takes every new Freshman and teaches them to throw , so they learn weight transfer, then this is a common problem.

 

[RichK]

Just some feedback from our first indoor session (in Midwest) with my 12U team last night. They are starting at a point where they are a bit of a mess, particularly lower half and sequence-wise.....

So started them from ground up. Asked them to go through throwing motion (from an open position to start) and start to feel what they were doing. They all coiled naturally (and had a decent sequence and finish, some better than others). I talked to them about the flow of it and one of them even brought up how a baseball pitchers throw and we played with that (I didn't want to start girls with an unfamiliar full wind-up).

Then I showed them what part of the throw was the hip coil and how that applied to hitting and got a lot of confused looks : >

We spent some more time on dynamic balance, feeling the ground, and exaggerating the coil to begin to understand it (coiling against a block at rear foot to accentuate solid rear leg, coiling against a chair to avoid sway, throwing medicine ball).

It was all very odd for girls who hadn't done it before. But a good start I think. They liked throwing the medicine ball and sort of got what it meant to use your hips and the ground to do it....

All in all, an interesting first session (two groups of 5 girls, 25 minutes each).....

I want to thank everyone here for all the ideas and tools...

 

[Wellphyt]

Wellphyt-
If you perform a quick coil/uncoil do you find that the hips, in the young hitter, are opening prematurely and leaking the front knee at toe touch? In other words, do we need to tell the young hitters to hold the coil until toe touch?

This is a good question. Let me answer your question with a question to get you thinking outside the box. If the uncoil is the forward weight shift, is there any possibility of opening the hips prematurely? As you're thinking about that answer consider this quote from Ted:

"The way you bring your hips into the swing is directly proportionate to the power you generate."

Ted Williams

If we teach young hitters to turn in their lead knee/leg to coil and say nothing further about the lead leg, will the lead knee or foot fan out and leak prematurely? If we teach the hip action as a move and counter move, using an internally rotated front leg during the coil phase, isn't there a good possibility that the front foot will do whatever it has to do naturally to support the uncoil or forward weight shift?

A good analogy can be found in the overhand throw. Everybody on here who has played ball growing up externally rotates their lead leg just before their lead foot hits the ground. It's automatic. It's a no teach. For fun, I checked this out with every dad on my team and every single one of them do it. Yet not one of them knew they did it.

IMO, it's the same in hitting. The front foot will do what it needs to do to maintain balance during a weight shift done with the hips. To answer your question more directly; yes I believe it's important to hold the coil until toe touch. Keeping that answer in mind, consider how much time there is from the point when a no-strider picks up their front foot to when they put it back down? Compare Pujols to a hitter like Babe Ruth. Don't let the stride length throw you off track. The basic coil-uncoil movement is the same.

 

[SBFAMILY]

Wellphyt. Talking to Don and other coaches I might tend to disagree with the no teach on girls. . The male knee works more as a hinge and the glutes fire the knee. With females the glutes do not fire the knees and the knee works more like a ball joint. However they can be taught how to do it correctly.
This is why Coach Candrea teaches every new Freshman how to throw. Teaching females how to feel correct weight shift is tougher. I willing to state that 90% of the girls we get in clinics to not know how to throw correctly. Why Don was using a box and Howard/hitter is now using a new 5" box for girls to feel weight shift.